Community members met with representatives from the Seattle Parks and Recreation Department to discuss community needs at the High Point Community Center Oct. 1, where about 50 people showed up to voice concerns about youth, seniors and budgetary issues.

Timothy Gallagher, the parks superintendent, reminded the community members that it takes outreach for a neighborhood to meet its goals.

Gosay Mohammed, 14, raised his hand at last night’s meeting to ask city officials more than twice his age about why the High Point Community Center can’t have more hours during the weekends.

“That’s the amount of hours we have to work with,” said Gallagher. “We’ve never really been fully funded for the hours that are necessary for community centers.”

Mohammed and several other teens attended the meeting along with about 45 other community members, in part to congratulate Gallagher for the work he has already done; work that helped the teens go to Wild Waves and a Sounders FC game during the summer.

The teens also received Subway sandwiches for participating in their local government.

“This group of kids, they fight for anything they want,” said Kourtney Scipio, the center’s 21-year-old teen development leader. “They tell us what they want to do. We figure out how we’re going to do it.”

Approximately 60 to 70 youth participated in High Point Community Center activities this summer, but it came with civic obligations attached. Their trade for the Wild Waves trip: This Saturday they are obligated to participate in the Heartwalk, a 3.2 mile charity walk for the American Heart Association.

The center’s youth program grew throughout the summer after starting with about 20 teens, Scipio said. Much of the growth involved going out onto the streets and talking with community members; it’s a tactic the city hopes to pick up on as well.

“We have some great programs here, but we have to go out into the community to let you know what they are,” Gallagher said.

He suggested tailoring each of the city’s 27 community centers to meet the needs of their specific populations, perhaps adjusting services and center hours as the city delved through demographic data and attended community meetings.

“What may work at High Point might not work at Montlake,” he said.

Many community members, however, asked the superintendent whether or not there might be some more immediate change. Community members—young and old, Vietnamese and Somali—asked Gallagher how the center might become more involved with seniors, youth and with citizens who do not speak English as their first language.

But because this is a recession year and budgets are tight across the state, somebody had to call attention to the financial city’s financial realities.

“I'll be blunt with you: the point of the meeting is not to give you the JC Penny's catalog and ask you to circle what you want for Christmas,” Gallagher said. “Unless the city council materializes and gives us some money, it doesn't happen.”

While the city does have a deficit, Gallagher said the parks department will not be affected and he does not expect to have to manage the types of park closures King County officials announced last month. Gallagher’s staff, however, plans to take unpaid furloughs next year to help cut costs.

Gallagher suggested community members apply for their projects through a $15 million opportunity fund set aside in the newest parks levy. He floated the idea as a way community members might get the gym, pool or new soccer field which were discussed at various times throughout the evening.

“Whatever you want to have, you can have,” said David Stubblefield, president of the High Point Advisory Council, a group which relays citizens’ interests to the city. “We need people on advisory council to fight for these things.”

When a woman asked whether a fitness center might be in the budget relatively soon, Stubblefield said, “If you want one, you can get one," pausing and adding, “But it does take work.”