Latest southern Colorado news, weather and sports from FOX21 News

COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- An overflow crowd piled in to city council chambers Thursday night to talk about severe budget cuts.

The city of Colorado Springs says falling sales tax revenues have forced them to make deep cuts in the budget for 2010.

Among the proposed cuts: 53 police officers and 34 firefighters. There would also be no city bus service on weekends or after 6:45 at night. And 128 city parks would no longer be maintained.

So many people wanted to talk to city council about the proposed cuts that there wasn’t enough room for everyone. There were so many people, in fact, that at one point it was unsafe.

The law requires that the city budget be balanced. So if the money isn’t there, council has little choice but to start making cuts.

"I'm here to represent for transit. I'm an avid transit user and I feel like it's a valuable service to a lot of people,” said Springs resident Rochelle Bridges.

Crowded stuffy conditions didn’t matter to the people who filled council chambers. Some showed up two and half hours before the start of the meeting to get a seat.

Many of them will be directly and dramatically affected by the proposed cuts.

"I wouldn’t be able to go to the grocery store without taking a day off work because I could only go between the hours of 6 and 5:45," said Bridges.

So many people were crammed into the 100-year old building that carbon dioxide levels approached unsafe levels.

Although there were plenty of off-duty firefighters in attendance, the fire department was brought in to ventilate the building.

But even that didn’t discourage people from filling every nook and cranny of the building. Some even piled into city workers offices to watch the meeting on TV.

“We learned very early that you need to get down here early to get your space to talk to council," said Springs resident Fred Adams.

No decisions were made Thursday night.

Council will start making those hard decisions in November and the final 2010 budget will be approved in early December.