Spanish voices heard in Weekly’s town meeting

Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2001 | 8:49 a.m.

Some residents put on or took off headsets through which a translator spoke, depending on who had the microphone. But the 30 people present at Councilman Lawrence Weekly's Town Hall Meeting in Spanish Monday night seemed to come away understanding what public officials had to say.

For the second time in two years, Weekly crossed language barriers in his ward by inviting Spanish-speaking officials from different city agencies to offer information to the public. His Hispanic liaison, Maria Marinch, acted as an interpreter for English-speaking officials.

The meeting was held at Twin Lakes Elementary School. Subjects discussed included the city's four weekly hours of government access TV programming in Spanish, swimming classes for children and continuing education.

Interests expressed by community members ranged from opening public pools during the evening to whether immigrants can obtain business licenses.

"The idea for these meetings came to me when I noticed that the Hispanic community wasn't giving much input, despite being 20 percent of the population in my ward," Weekly said.

Weekly is the only council member to hold meetings in Spanish.

"I don't know why my colleagues don't do the same thing," Weekly said. "They have the same resources I do."

The first round of bilingual meetings was held May 11 and 18 and June 8 of last year. Since then, calls by Spanish-speaking members of the public seeking information have increased from about 8 to 14 percent, Marinch said. The liaison gets an average of 83 calls a month.

Weekly said a resident at the first meetings said he thought the idea was a waste of public money and that the Hispanic constituents should learn English.

"But I have zero tolerance for this attitude." Weekly said. "We have to learn to be more tolerant in our diverse city. I mean, my Hispanic constituents pay taxes, too."

A second Spanish Town Hall meeting will be held tonight at 6:30 at the Arturo Cambeiro Center, 323 N. Maryland Parkway.