Participatory Budgeting Cycle 12 Kickoff Event: Tuesday, September 27, 6-8pm on the High Line’s 14th Street Passage (entrance on 14th St. & 10th Ave.)

Participatory Budgeting is the volunteer-driven, voter-empowering process during which community members decide how to spend $1 a of their NYC Council Member’s discretionary capital funds on City property projects such as schools, parks, and more.

If you’ve ever walked the block of West 20th Street between Sixth and Seventh Aves. and heard the sound of play—and sometimes, the sound of music—emanating from a former derelict Department of Sanitation site now known as Chelsea Green Park, you know firsthand how Participatory Budgeting can identify a public need (in this case, a corrective for the area’s scarcity of park space) and fund it into existence. Chelsea Green, was, in fact, District 3’s very first PB winner—and there really ought to be a plaque in the park to praise its place in PB history.

Have your own idea for a community improvement project? September 27’s PB Kickoff event, says the office of NYC Council Member Erik Bottcher, serves as an occasion to invite you “to be part of the process and sign up to be a PB Delegate. PB Delegates are volunteers who work to research, evaluate, and prioritize the project ideas submitted by community members. PB Delegates ultimately develop the final project proposals for the annual PB vote in the spring. They do this through research and assessments, as well as through consultations with City staff regarding project feasibility and cost.”

To register for Tuesday’s Kickoff, click here.

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