Innovative Participatory Budgeting Process In Brooklyn Profiled By NY Times - Roosevelt Island Public Purpose Funds Allocation Has Been Doing Same For Several Years
You Tube Video of Brooklyn Participatory Budgeting
The NY Times reported yesterday on residents in some Brooklyn neighborhoods participating in an experimental participatory budgeting process allocating NYC Council member funds to local projects. According to the NY Times:
... The event in Brooklyn was part of something called participatory budgeting, in which constituents in four City Council districts were given control over a slice of their council members’ discretionary budgets — $1 million in each district. In a process that began in October, they proposed projects, researched their viability and ran them by city agencies. This week, voters will finish choosing which of the proposals can move forward. Results are expected to be released this week....and:
... This is only the second time that participatory budgeting, originally developed in Brazil, has been tried in the United States, and the first time in New York City, said Josh Lerner, executive director of the Participatory Budgeting Project, a nonprofit organization. Whether it will become entrenched here is unclear. But what is known is that over the past six months, 250 regular New Yorkers jumped into the trenches and dirtied their hands with democracy. The point of the experiment in October was to counter people’s cynical view of government by inviting them to participate in the very process they mistrust. To some extent, it worked.Click here for the entire NY Times article.
Of the more than a dozen participants interviewed for this article, all said the process had emboldened them to stay involved in their communities and to continue pushing their representatives to work on the projects they thought would benefit their neighborhoods. Still, skepticism runs deep. Some said they were concerned that they would ultimately be defeated by the powers that be....
Except the Brooklyn process is not the first time a Participatory Budgeting process has been utilized in New York City. We on Roosevelt Island have been using a Participatory Budgeting process for several years in the annual allocation of $100 Thousand Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) Public Purpose Funds via recommendations by the Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA). As reported in previous post:
... The Roosevelt Island Residents Association (RIRA) has been delegated by RIOC to make recommendations to the RIOC Board for the allocation of available Public Purpose Funds. RIRA created a Public Purpose Funds Committee that will interview and evaluate the applicant organizations and then make recommendations as to how the funds get distributed to the full RIRA Common Council. Upon approval by the RIRA Common Council, the recommendations are forwarded to the RIOC Board for approval....The RIRA Public Purpose Funds Committee interviewed 12 Roosevelt Island organizations seeking a portion of the $100 Thousand Public Purpose Funds this year and will present their recommendations to the RIRA Common Council this week at the April 4 RIRA Monthly meeting. RIRA will then vote on the recommendations and forward their findings to RIOC for final approval.
Below are the organizations requesting Roosevelt Island Operating Corp (RIOC) 2012 Public Purpose Fund Grants and the amounts sought.
Roosevelt Landings Residents Association - $ 2,800.00
Roosevelt Island Disabled Association, Inc. - $ 10,500.00
R&R Concerts Inc. - $ 14,400.00
Island Kids, Inc. - $ 16,000.00
Flannigan Chiropractic Offices - $ 19,200.00
Roosevelt Island Seniors Association, Inc. - $ 20,000.00
Roosevelt Island Community Literary Associates, Inc. - $ 20,000.00
Life Frames, Inc. - $ 25,000.00
Roosevelt Island Historical Society - $ 26,000.00
Parent-Teacher Association PS IS 217M, Inc. - $ 26,558.00
Roosevelt Island Visual Art Association, Inc. - $ 28,800.00
Roosevelt Island Day Nursery, Inc. - $ 35,000.00
Roosevelt Island Swimming, Inc. - $ 53,000.00
Total Amount Requested - $ 297,258.00
The Task of the RIRA Public Purpose Funds Committee is to determine which Roosevelt Island organizations will receive the funds and how much of the $100 thousand they will receive.
The Participatory Budgeting Project has more information on the concept and there was an international conference held March 30 - 31 on subject
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