On the road: Erie City Council to host meetings at neighborhood centers this summer

Kevin Flowers, Erie Times-News
·2 min read

Erie City Council is about to hit the road this summer.

Council, at its regular meeting on Wednesday evening, approved a resolution that will move three council meetings to city neighborhood centers this summer.

The Booker T. Washington Center, 1720 Holland St., is one of three neighborhood centers that will host a regular meeting of Erie City Council this summer.
The Booker T. Washington Center, 1720 Holland St., is one of three neighborhood centers that will host a regular meeting of Erie City Council this summer.

City Council meetings are usually held in the Bagnoni Council Chambers at City Hall, 626 State St., on the first and third Wednesdays of each month. The first is a morning meeting that begins at 9 a.m.; the second is an evening meeting that starts at 6:30 p.m.

Here are more details about City Council's summer meeting plans.

What neighborhood centers will host meetings?

The meeting locations and dates are:

  • The Booker T. Washington Center, 1720 Holland St., on June 19;

  • The Martin Luther King Center, 312 Chestnut St., on July 17;

  • The John F. Kennedy Center, 2021 E. 20th St., on Aug. 21.

Shantel Hilliard, the Booker T. Washington Center's executive director, said he welcomes the June 19 meeting, as well as the City Council sessions scheduled for the other neighborhood centers.

"It's a fabulous idea," Hilliard told council members during the public comment portion of Wednesday's meeting. "We need to meet people where they're at. And it's important not only that the community and the residents see our leaders who are making these decisions, but also our youth."

Why the move?

The resolution was sponsored by Councilman Chuck Nelson and passed unanimously by the seven-member council. The resolution states "the summer evening meetings will be moved out into the community to make ourselves more accessible to the public."

That means those meetings will begin at 6:30 p.m.

During Wednesday's meeting, Nelson said the move was first discussed by council members in December.

"I hope that this is so successful that we do this every year with different groups," Nelson said. "The community centers have a lot of experience doing stuff like this already."

Contact Kevin Flowers at kflowers@timesnews.com. Follow him on X at @ETNflowers.

This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Why will Erie City Council meet at neighborhood centers this summer?