Town halls set in Atwater, Merced

Elected officials in Merced and Atwater each plan town hall-style meetings on Thursday.

The meeting this week in Atwater will be the city’s first of the year, while Merced’s will be its second.

A town hall last summer in Atwater focused on ways to buck up the economy, including efforts at Castle Commerce Center and support for a commuter train headed west. The crowd last year also expressed distress over water wasters.

Merced’s first town hall of the year was held last week in South Merced, where the meetings are typically better attended and can sometimes get tense. The group in South Merced brought up familiar concerns with improvements to the area south of Highway 99, including economic development, feelings of safety, and funding to start programs to keep children from gangs.

Atwater’s town hall will start at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Atwater Community Center, 760 E. Bellevue Road. The council canceled its regular meeting earlier this week.

Merced still has two meetings scheduled in the near future. The north Merced meeting will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday at Rudolph Rivera Middle School, 945 Buena Vista Drive.

The third town hall this year, in central Merced, will be held at 6 p.m. March 3 at the Merced Multicultural Arts Center, 645 W. Main St. The council decided to schedule three meetings this year because the city moved to having six districts for local elections.

Interpreter services are available for Hmong and Spanish speakers at the Merced meetings. A Facebook page called “Merced Town Halls” has been taking questions and continuing the conversations online. Questions can also be submitted on Twitter with “#MercedTownHalls.”

The Merced meetings will be streamed live on the Internet. A link to the meetings is on the city’s website, www.cityofmerced.org; they will be shown on Channel 96 on Comcast as well.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 5:59 PM with the headline "Town halls set in Atwater, Merced."