The Seattle City Council Budget Committee (essentially the entire council) is about to launch into another round of votes on changes to the mayor’s budget proposal, leading up to a final vote that’s a little more than a week away. Among them, the issues that many West Seattleites have watched closely (mentioned again last night in our coverage of what Councilmember Sally Clark told the 34th District Democrats) – including canceling the closure of the Neighborhood Service Center in The Junction (budget doc here) and adding 15 more weekly drop-in hours back to Alki Community Center, explained here (for Alki and others) in an excerpt from that budget doc:

The increased Community Center drop in hours shall be in addition to the 15 – 20 hours of drop-in time included in the Mayor’s proposed 2011 and 2012 budget. Council intends that this additional funding will be supplemented by drop- in fees and class surcharges, in order to maximize the additional drop-in hours at these five Limited-Use Community Centers. These additional hours will permit these five Community Centers to be open for public use that includes access to gyms, classrooms, and other appropriate spaces at these centers.

Staffing effects of the Neighborhoods and Parks changes are not yet clear. You can follow along live in the video stream above (click “play”); the full agenda, with document links, is online here. We’ll add notes here as the morning goes on.

10:34 AM UPDATE: The community-center item has just passed – 8-1 with West Seattle-residing Councilmember Tom Rasmussen opposed, stopping the otherwise-fast-moving proceedings to express concern that the Parks Department did not work closely enough with communities and staffers before these changes were proposed – he expressed particular concern about a since-amended plan to move office workers into some non-WS facilities.

10:39 AM UPDATE: They have just voted to cancel the proposed closure of the Junction NSC, to only cut 3 Neighborhood District Coordinators instead of 7, and to restore $300,000 to the Neighborhood Matching Fund. Those were the last of the items we were closely watching, but the votes continue – then the council plans to meet the media at 1 this afternoon, with the mayor doing the same at 3.

10:56 AM UPDATE: West Seattle isn’t directly affected by this, but of note – the council has also just voted to cancel the mayor’s proposal for paid parking on Sundays (where it’s pay-station or meter-controlled).