Participatory Budgeting #Fail in Bay Ridge
Here’s the projects that were voted on & won:
1. SMART Boards for P.S. 102
2. Butterfly habitat at Shore Road Park
3. Security cameras on 5th Avenue
4. SMART Boards for IS 30
5. Funding for new trees and tree guardsB
Three school projects won. It’s not that these school projects are not worthy of funding, it’s that they should have been funded from another source. In other areas, the Council member didn’t put school projects in the participatory budget. (See here)
Why didn’t the Councilman fund the schools outside of the participatory budget?
Councilman Brannan had other money (See here), but certain projects were put into this “Participatory Budget” list because Bay Ridge residents would vote for education. If funding school projects is part of the participatory budget in Bay Ridge, then it will always win here because everyone wants schools to do well. People aren’t aware that schools have multiple sources of funding.Another resident wrote:
Participatory budgeting was a waste of time in Bay Ridge as school projects were chosen for it.
Since children 12 and up were able to vote as well, that will skew the funding towards their school. The voting seemed like a waste of time because school projects were included.
The butterfly habitat sounded interesting in the description that Brannan provided residents. When I saw it would take $500K, I went to see if there was more information about the project online. Essentially the money is going to be used to grow some high grass and put a sign on it. Yes, it is going to have a sign that says it is butterfly island because you may not know why there is wild high grass without the sign as butterflies don’t live in NYC for about six months of the year.
Voters didn’t have the description that I saw of the project:
Where did the cost of $500K come from? Whose managing it? Is someone’s salary being paid to make or design this? #SomethingIsntRightHere
There is going to be problems with this “butterfly area”: no one likes high grass except ticks. Next to a door park – that doesn’t sound good. Even more interesting, the description says “school groups” will go to it. I don’t see that happening.
The money should have gone to fixing up one of our parks (some look terrible) or setting up a community center – something cool for residents.
How do I know Bay Ridge did better without Participatory Budgeting? When Vincent Gentile was Councilman, we didn’t have participatory budgeting. I wondered why and I went to check how he spent the money. He funded renovations at Martini Home (see here) for developmentally disabled adults. That’s something sustainable and changed lives for people who really needed it.
Brannan’s answer to people who didn’t like the results of Participatory Budgeting is to join the Participatory Budgeting district committee (See here)…..I don’t remember him ever mentioning a PBD committee (To the last PBD Committee: Do you realize you spent $500,000 tax dollars for bugs that live here for less than six months a year?)….#Ridiculous
Hugs,
marlene
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