By Carla Zanoni
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
INWOOD — More drugs. More crime. Fewer jobs.
These were just some of the fears expressed by the hundreds of parents, children and area residents from Inwood to Harlem who showed up at a rally this weekend to sound off on the city’s looming budget cuts.
High school senior Amy Ramirez, 18, was planning to apply for one of the city’s summer youth jobs this year, but now she fears the positions will have all disappeared.
“I was going to apply for one of those jobs this summer,” said Ramirez, who lives in Washington Heights. “Now it will be another summer without a job.”
Ramirez and her family crowded into Saturday’s rally at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights.
Her mom, Evelyn Suero, said she worried that budget cuts could mean, "we are going to see more drugs, more crime in the neighborhood.”
The two hour public forum was organized by City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, who said he would fight to minimize the effects of budget cuts on his district, one of the poorest in the city. The mayor's office and the City Council are currently working towards an agreement on the budget for Fiscal Year 2011-2011.
The city's budget proposal includes cuts to health care programs, the NYPD, the FDNY and the sanitation department, officials at the rally said.
“There are going to be some cuts,” Rodriguez said, “But we have to lower them as much as possible. We have to be coordinated if we are going to raise the wealth of the community.”
