Attendees spill out of the Performing Arts Community Center’s Community room, crowding around doors to hear the first Light on the Legislature session.
Around the room, local politicians, healthcare leaders, parents, teachers and church goers steal any seat they can, even if that means sharing an oversized bean bag chair.
Each week, a new speaker will visit the group to discuss a local issue that might pop up in the Texas legislative session that kicked off this week.
At the center of the room, this week’s speaker, Kimberly Gamez, shares a brief history of Waco’s water quality issues. Gamez is the new Source Watershed Protection Manager for the City of Waco. In short, she explained, many of the water quality issues Waco previously had stemmed from up-stream dairy farms.
"I’ve heard it compared to having the city of San Antonio 100 miles upstream without any waste water treatment," Gamez said.
To fix this, Waco worked with upstream dairies, built a more advanced filtration system and lobbied for improved regulation on dairy farms.
But last legislative session, a bill passed the Texas House which would have eased restrictions on those up-stream dairies.
"The way they sold it, my understanding is, taking restrictions off small businesses so they can blossom," Gamez said.
The bill died in the Senate, but many experts and residents worry this bill could make a comeback as the new session kicks off.
After the history lesson and overview of current issues, attendees were asked to pair up with those around them and discuss what they had learned and what they still had questions about.
As the groups discuss their concerns, discussion organizer Ashley Bean Thornton surveys the room. She says the idea for this discussion series grew out of a desire to increase civic engagement in McLennan County.
"We can’t have democracy without public conversation," Thornton said. "I mean, we’re not going to agree on everything so we have to figure out how to disagree."
The discussion series is hosted by McLennan County Talks, a new grassroots organization founded by Thornton and other residents. But Thornton said they didn’t want the sessions to follow the typical format of speaker events.
"It’s not going to be just like a sage on the stage," she said.
As the groups wrap up discussions, they have a chance to ask questions to both the speaker, Kymberly Gamez and the other attendees.
Questions included "is there any technology out there available to [the dairy farms] that they could use to process any of their manure out?"
Attendees also asked how to keep track on upcoming legislation and even "where can we continue this conversation?"
Thornton says this is the exact type of conversation she and McLennan County Talks organized these discussions for.
"What we're really hoping to do is inspire conversations between people and have it be an opportunity to get to know your neighbors, get to know people who think differently from you," she said.
The discussion series will continue every Tuesday through the end of February and include topics like public education, healthcare, and housing.
To find the full list of topics and meeting details, visit the Light on the Legislature tab on the KWBU website.
