Updates from District 39 in Brooklyn

Participatory Budgeting update from Neil Reilly, District 39 District Committee Member and former Transit Committee Delegate

Through patience and persistence, bringing real change to our neighborhoods is possible through Participatory Budgeting—even when a project doesn’t fit the budget or scope of PB!

As a budget delegate serving on the Transit Committee last year—the first year of PB in New York—I spearheaded a project to improve the subway stations in the district. I compiled the suggestions submitted by district residents for improvements at all of the F/G stations from Church Avenue through Bergen St, as well as the R station at 4th Avenue/9th Street. The suggestions ranged from improving lighting to repairing track tiles to repainting the ceilings.

Participatory Budgeting Update from Alix Fellman of the District 39 Parks & Recreation Committee

This time last year the people of our district came together for our first Participatory Budgeting vote, and selected seven projects to improve our community. One of the winning projects (the one I worked on) proposed to plant 100 trees on the most barren streets of our neighborhoods.

Over the past year the volunteer budget delegates from our district have been working with Parks Department staff and Councilmember Lander to get the trees off the drawing board and onto our streets. In the past month things have moved forward quickly, showing that the participation doesn't stop at the ballot box. We have been able to stay involved with implementing the project, making sure that the community’s vision is represented in the final product.

By Rachel Fine of the Participatory Budgeting District Committee in District 39 

As a District Committee member, I have been focusing on getting the word out about participatory budgeting and engaging our district’s diverse communities in this process. Although the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of activity getting ready for the neighborhood assemblies, our outreach efforts have targeted a number of communities.

One of the main goals this year is to increase youth participation. We are hosting youth breakout sessions at each of the neighborhood assemblies, beefing up our social media presence, encouraging youth to be budget delegates, and spreading the word to students and young people about all of these great opportunities to get involved! In addition to engaging youth, we wanted to host mini-assemblies at local neighborhood spots (e.g. popular bars, coffee shops, churches) and a Spanish-speaking assembly to reach folks who otherwise might not have heard about it. I really wanted to host one at Ginger's, the local lesbian bar, but that idea will have to wait until next year since our calendars were filling up with various events such as hosting mini assemblies, phone banking, and canvassing.

My main focus has been organizing phone banks to invite residents to the neighborhood assemblies. Our strategy was to set up a series of phone banks at people's homes. We organized one phone bank per neighborhood and invited anyone who wanted to help out. I realized phone banking is not easy and it was tough to find enough volunteers; however, the ones we did find were awesome! Fortunately, the anxiety of contacting people over the phone turned out to be totally unfounded. Everyone we talked to were receptive and thrilled to hear that participatory budgeting was happening again.