NEWARK, Calif. -- Newark's decision to halt the upkeep of some of its parks came to a head on Thursday night at a city council meeting. A standing room only crowd showed up to let city leaders know what they think.

The parks not being maintained are in the northwest part of the city. Residents in those neighborhoods said they felt like they were singled out. The grass has not been cut, so some people are taking things into their own hands.

"I'm upset. I'm tired of looking at this lawn overgrown," said Herb Borrego, who lives close to the park and decided to mow the grass at Bridgepointe Park on Thursday afternoon.

The grass is also no longer mowed or watered at Mayhews Landing and Mirabeau Parks.

"It sucks. It's horrible. The grass it's already ankle deep," said Lisa Brigman.

"It's starting to become a swamp. I mean there are a lot of potholes and, as it gets high, it's pretty dangerous. When you get in here, it just looks terrible," said area resident Jerry Plomo.

Newark's city manager said the decision to cut maintenance at three of the city's 14 parks wasn't it easy, but it needed to find a way to close a $3.5M budget hole.

"We reduced police services. We basically contracted out our fire services," said John Becker. "Street maintenance has been reduced. We closed our senior center. We closed our community center. We reduced maintenance city wide."

Some of the residents attending the meeting made suggestions Thursday night to save funds such as getting businesses to adopt a park or have jail inmates do the maintenance.

"We're very open to suggestions by folks that can help mitigate situations that might exist," said Newark Mayor Dave Smith.

The mayor said he is willing to meet again with people to discuss the possibilities in depth.