Gilmore Tells Council that She May Amend Mayor's Capital Improvement Plan

A few of us who could make time showed up last minute at last night's council meeting to oppose the Mayor's plan to commit $2.1 million to a Head Start kitchen that a Metro Action exec suggested could be added to a Salemtown school building. In my remarks during a public hearing on the bill I told council members that we were confused by mixed messages that the kitchen could go anywhere and that the kitchen would expand MAC's facility in Salemtown, which has already been the source of neighborhood problems. I also pointed to the small facility's civil rights history as a center of local school desegregation. Many here believe that neighbors should be consulted before granting what would essentially be a zoning variance for altering an old building that cannot not effectively handle the high volume of social service clients who drive in from other parts of the county for utility bill assistance.

I gathered from the council action on the bill after the public hearing that it is headed back to committee for more work. CM Erica Gilmore, who received e-mail from several Salemtown residents on the Mayor's Plan, told the Council that she may bring an amendment on the Head Start kitchen provision.