New York City is experiencing a new kind of democracy. Through Participatory Budgeting, residents of eight Council Districts have directly decided how to spend $15 million of public money. From September 2013 to April 2014, community members will be exchanging ideas, working together to turn ideas into project proposals, and voting to decide what proposals get funded.
To all who voted or attended a project expo, came to an assembly or facilitated a meeting, made phone calls or door-knocked, proposed a project idea or developed one as a budget delegate--to all the participants in and organizers of this year's PBNYC process--congratulations and thank you for another year of making democracy work! We'll see you again at an assembly in September!
And if you weren't able to participate this year because your Council District isn't part of PBNYC, now is the time to organize for Participatory Budgeting in your community! Contact your Council Member or the candidates running for your district's City Council seat, and ask them if they will launch Participatory Budgeting in your district.
This weekend, almost 6,000 NYC residents came out and took part in what the New York Times called “revolutionary civics in action” – NYC’s first experiment with a new form of hyper-local democracy, participatory budgeting.
The winning projects are here:
District 8 - Melissa Mark-Viverito (Manhattan/Bronx)
District 32 - Eric Ulrich (Queens)