By Juan Soto
On a sweltering summer evening, more than 100 people gathered at the Sunnyside Community Services Center because they wanted to control a piece of the New York City budget pie.
They came to learn how to decide where money is spent in their neighborhoods and this is the only chance they will have to do just that.
By playing a role in participatory budgeting, constituents in the 26th City Council District, represented by Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), will be in control of $1 million of capital discretionary funds. Another 21 Council members around the city are participating in the program as well for this fiscal year.
The residents had a blast while learning about the participatory budget program while playing “Jeopardy!”
“I will be Alex Trebek for a while,” joked Van Bramer, referring to the show’s longtime host. “Participatory budgeting for $200. How many councilmen are using participatory budget in 2014-15?”
A volunteer from the audience answered: “D, 22.”
“That’s correct,” said Van Bremer. “It’s an all-time high.”
The process to spend $1 million in local capital projects began officially Tuesday evening with the information and the “Jeopardy!” sessions. Constituents will now decide how to spend those tax dollars.
The next step is coming up with ideas, like improvements in parks, schools, streets and libraries. Once the proposed projects are on the table, there will be a need to analyze them and determine if they are viable.
The ideas that get a stamp of approval from the city agencies and the councilman’s office will be voted on by the residents of the district. The vote will be sometime next spring.
“This is an amazing turnout,” said Van Bramer. “It’s a good beginning and it inspires me to keep on doing it.”
The five projects that get the most votes from the residents in the district, with a population of 165,000 that stretches from Long Island City and Astoria to Sunnyside and Woodside, will be the winners.
Participatory budgeting began in Porto Alegre, Brazil, when civic groups demanded transparency and a more direct saying in city government. The program has expanded ever since, and hundreds of cities around the planet joined the movement.
“It’s not fair that the City Council decides the budget and you just deal with it,” said Christopher King, of Community Voices Heard, an organization of low-income New Yorkers. “Now, you get to decide how to spend $1 million.”
King was at the information session, and he was pleased to see that Van Bramer stayed for the whole meeting.
“I never saw a councilman stay this long,” he said 70 minutes into the reunion.
“You deserve nothing else,” Van Bramer said, as people in the audience applauded.
“I am really anxious to see how it works,” the councilman. added “This process will not be controlled by anyone”.
Reach reporter Juan Soto by e-mail at jsoto@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
