Participatory Budgeting is Open – Don’t Waste Your Time
Participatory Budgeting is when community members give ideas for projects that can help their community.
Then the community votes on the projects.
Then we are supposed to see great things happen.
What Really Happens: School Projects were allowed on participatory budgeting last year.
What’s wrong with that? Schools already receive NYC Funding and if they wanted Smartboard, they would have purchased them with school funds. That’s what other schools do. Brannan could fund schools with other money – he has other money other than what is part of the participatory budget.
People objected to schools being funded through this last year, but no one heard them.
When it comes time to vote for participatory budgeting, children are able to vote in the process. That’s great because it makes them part of the community, but of course they will vote for their school project and then community projects don’t go through.
Some people have submitted projects for our area already this year. Sadly, they are simple quality of life issues with easy fixes (add trees, add garbage cans, etc).
Last year I was so excited when I read the ideas that Bay Ridge residents submitted. But none of those cool ideas made it to the voting round.
Tese were the that went through:
a) School projects – smartboards
b) Cameras for 5th Avenue (haven’t seen them…years ago, we were supposed to have received cameras from Gentile’s and Golden’s funding, but we never saw them)
c) A $500,000 butterfly garden (no I’m not kidding). It sounds like something amazing right? Yeah it’s not. Take a lo0k at Park Slope’s $600K butterfly garden here
d) Gates around trees at Owls Head Park (I haven’t been there so I don’t know if there were installed).
Participatory budgeting is supposed to be for cool community projects like a community place where artists can meet or teens can play basketball – things that are for people to build their community. Last year, someone recommended a sensory garden for children with disabilities – that project didn’t even make it to the voting section.
As you can tell, I’ve lost my faith in rigged systems, overrides, red tape and lame people who can call 311, but can’t call on anyone to help with real problems like inflated property taxes and illegal conversions.
Go here and submit an idea. There’s a Bay Ridge resident who recently shared pictures of a swing for a child or an adult in a wheelchair. Hopefully, she or someone else will submit that project here.
Hugs,
marlene
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