More Council Members Participate
Several Queens City Council Members will engage residents of their districts, some for the first time, in the participatory budgeting process, it was announced last Wednesday, July 23.
Twenty-two City Council members now use participatory budgeting to allocate over $25 million toward projects the community wants funded, according to a release from City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito.
Several Queens’ lawmakers, including City Council Majority Leader Jimmy Van Bramer and City Council Member Eric Ulrich, have already begun the process. They are joined by City Council Members Antonio Reynoso and Karen Koslowitz.
“The expansion of participatory budgeting to 22 districts in the city is a testament to the council’s commitment to empowering New Yorkers and giving them ability to decide where their tax dollars are spent,” Van Bramer said. “For the first time in western Queens we will give the residents of the 26th District the ability to fund projects that are meaningful to their communities.”
Participatory budgeting began in cities in Brazil and has spread around the globe. The process allows residents of a neighborhood, district or area, an opportunity to vote for capital projects in the community.
Council members allocate minimum $1 million in discretionary funds to the process in New York City, though have the ability to designate more, it was noted.
Capital projects are infrastructure improvements that will last at least five years. Anyone living in the district 16 years or older is eligible to vote on projects.
Reynoso and Koslowitz are bringing participatory budgeting to their district’s for the first time. Both have designated $1 million in capital funds to the process, aides to the lawmakers said.
After a lawmaker has decided to use participatory budgeting, info sessions to engage the community and educate resident’s on the process are held. The next step is to collect ideas on projects people want funded, then budget delegates are chosen to lead committees tied to committees, like parks or transportation. The delegates then trim the list of projects with the help of other volunteers, and people living in the district vote on the projects they want funded.
Koslowitz has held four info sessions at her district office and the Forest Hills Library, Director of Community Affairs Christina Prince said.
Reynoso’s office has held informational sessions around the district and will finalize a district committee this summer. Neighborhood assemblies will be organized in the fall, Legislative and Communications Director Lacey Tauber said.
“I am excited to bring PB to the 34th District this year,” Reynoso said. “My community is very creative, and I’ve heard lots of great ideas from the constituents already. I am looking forward to seeing how they decide to spend a million dollars.”
For the current financial year, 22 out of 51 council districts are using participatory budgeting.
“The expansion of participatory budgeting to 22 council districts, and the institutionalization of the process in the city council as a new way to govern, is truly exciting and a tribute to the success of the early cycles,” Sondra Youdelman, executive director of Community Voices Heard, a lead community engagement partner in the process said. “Community Voices Heard is proud to have helped spearhead this process with council members, community organizations, and local residents.”
It has “the potential to engage new and diverse groups of people–including those typically most disenfranchised,” she added.
