Residents of several neighborhoods around the city got a small taste of what it’s like to be involved in the city budget process.
Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) was among the four council members that were involved in a participatory budget, which allowed residents of their district to vote on what programs or local facilities get funding in their neighborhoods.
Ulrich did this for people that live in the Rockaways and Broad Channel, which is part of his district. They were presented with a ballot of 16 item choices that could get a piece of the money, which totaled $1.3 million. After the voting was finished, nine of those projects were awarded with the needed funding.
The items that got funding include technology upgrades for three public schools: P.S. 47 in Broad Channel, P.S. 317/M.S. 318 in Rockaway Park and P.S 114 in Belle Harbor. This project got the most votes at 1,010 and it was the most expensive of the projects, costing $230,000.
The local fire departments in the Rockaways also got some help from the participatory budget, as they will get a new oxygen refill system, costing $60,000, and a new water pump that will help with flooding in that district, and will cost $39,000.
Ulrich spoke about the budgeting at a recent community meeting, saying that he wanted to give people a chance to decide on how their tax dollars are being spent.
“It’s not my money; it’s not the city’s money; it’s not the government’s money; it’s the taxpayer’s money,” Ulrich said at the Community Board 9 meeting earlier this month.
He also said that he might have funded some of the things that didn’t make the cut to get a piece of that $1.3 million dollar pie. For example, one item that didn’t get enough votes is renovations for a dog run at Shorefront Parkway and Beach 93rd Street. That item only got 157 votes and had the second lowest vote total. Ulrich said that while there are many people, including himself, who are proud dog owners, it’s not what the majority of the people in that community want to put their money towards.
“Clearly the majority of my constituents in Rockaway don’t want it,” he said. “That’s not their top priority, so it’s not going to make the cut.”
Ulrich’s office held several public meetings throughout the Rockaways to discuss and decide what items should be on the final list of 16, according to his chief of staff, Bart Haggerty. Then, members of Community Board 14 (CB 14) and volunteers split up into separate groups to discuss what items should be submitted to go on the list. For example, there was a parks group that talked about concerns in that area and there was a public safety group that discussed those issues.
They then started with a grand list of 270, according to Haggerty, which was whittled down to the final list that was put to the vote.
Haggerty said that they chose to have the budgeting in the Rockaways because it’s isolated geographically and it gave them a chance to see how it would work since it was their first time doing this experiment.
Jonathan Gaska, district manager of CB 14, said that it was a good idea for Ulrich to have the participatory budgeting for the Rockaways.
“It really showed me how little $1 million really is,” Gaska said.
Gaska also said that CB 14 would get together and figure out another way to fund the projects that did not make the final cut.
As for the other communities in Ulrich’s district, Haggerty said that they are open to doing the budgeting in the areas of Community Boards 9 and 10, but that it would be more complicated to do so because it spans across multiple community boards and it would require more people being involved in the process.
Haggerty added that he does hope to do the participatory budget again in the Rockaways next year.
For more information on the participatory budget, visit pbnyc.org.
By Luis Gronda
