For the 1st time Districts 33 and 34 held a joint meeting to brainstorm ideas for Participatory Budgeting
Volunteers are needed! Go to http://labs.council.nyc/pb/volunteer
Ideas filled the air of the First Spanish Presbyterian Church on September 19th. Community members from Districts 33 and 34 came together to come up with projects to better our community. This was the first time Council Members Levin’s and Reynoso’s districts joined forces for Participatory Budgeting (PB), with the added help of Los Sures — Southside United HDFC. It was the neighborly thing to do.
Council Member Antonio Reynoso said, “For the third year District 34 is proud to open the budget process to its residents. The amount of participation last year was almost double of the year before, and naturally, this year we want to continue to expand. We want to ensure that we open this process up to more and more of my constituency so that they too can tell me how to spend $1M in their neighborhoods. We have started the idea collection at our NYCHA developments and senior centers and will continue to host assemblies throughout the first week in October.”
“One communication will just naturally reach people from the 33rd and 34th. People don’t often know what district they live in, why make them figure it out? Just invite them all to the same place and we can figure it out together. [Also] it shows that PB is bigger than just one neighborhood.” Benjamin Solotaire, Participatory Budgeting Coordinator for Council Member Stephen Levin.
“We had a real good group this Monday and they contributed tons of ideas for their NYCHA developments, area schools, and parks.” said Tevina Willis, a member of Reynoso’s staff (Community Organizer, NYCHA). She also mentioned some plusses to having the joint meeting, “We are able to reach a large number of constituents in one meeting. Some constituents live in our district but have children who attend school in District 33, which is how this idea came about.”
At a typical neighborhood assembly there will be a short presentation that explains the purpose and process of PB. After this participants share their ideas of what capital projects they would like to see in their neighborhood and idea support groups form.
The general deadline for ideas has passed 9/30 – however if you hurry it is possible this may have been extended for a few more days.
Catch up with an upcoming neighborhood assembly if you’d like to be in on the planning stages.
Projects will be voted on starting March 25–April 2 in 2017.
To find out how to help or more info for District 33 email: BSolotaire@council.nyc.gov ; for District 34 email: TWillis@council.nyc.gov If you want to see the map of each district’s ideas visit: http://ideas.pbnyc.org
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