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Sacramento residents meeting at the second session of Community Conversations Tuesday night gave their suggestions for dealing with the current Sacramento budget crisis, with ideas ranging from eliminating parks and recreation programs to more spending on prisons and education.

“Budget Cuts: What are we willing to do without and what are we willing to do about the rest?” was the question posed for the second of eight Community Conversations - one in each City Council district - sponsored by The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento Region Community Foundation and Capital Public Radio. It was a striking question that produced several different thoughts from members of the Sacramento community.

Ten Sacramento residents joined in this week’s conversation, held at the Starbucks on 6013 Florin Road.

Under the direction of Oak Park resident Brian Fischer, the conversation about budget cuts led to talk of more being spent on education and prisons, with less money spent elsewhere.

Activities in the parks department could be cut, said Oak Park resident Amy Byerhoff, adding that volunteers could possibly replace those who would be laid off.

Some residents participating in the conversation disagreed, insisting on keeping certain activities alive to keep children out of trouble as well as hiring more police officers.

“If there is nothing else to do but get into trouble, then young people are going to get into trouble,” said Josh Francois, an Elk Grove resident.

Several attendees agreed.

“There’s a lot of young people who counted on the pool, and now it’s gone,” said Ron Cooper of Access Sacramento. “We created a storm for them to get into trouble. And where do they go? Prison.”

Discussing the budget and where its primary focus should go is a difficult topic, said Fischer, but with help from those who are directly affected by the budget cuts, citizens become more informed about the issues their community face.

Lasting about an hour and a half, the residents participating in the conversation provided personal opinions and insight of how residents of different communities in Sacramento feel about the new budget cuts and the affects they are having, including the loss of activities in K-12 schools and the possibility of more layoffs.

Community Conversations meetings are held every two months. The date for the next meeting is not set yet, but more information can be found here.