Here in our district, we’re in the middle of Cycle 10, our tenth year of extending participatory democracy to budget decisions in our district. Volunteer PB delegates are busy finalizing projects for the ballot, and they will be ready to share with you soon. Vote Week is coming up April 5 - 14 (more details below).

But if you’re a young person between the ages of 9 to 24, you don’t have to wait that long. You can vote right now in the NYC Civic Engagement Commission’s “It’s Our Money” program. 

It’s Our Money is a city-wide participatory budgeting process designed by youth, for youth. Young people are deciding how to spend $100,000 on projects from street soccer to youth composting to building youth power for school integration. There are 49 amazing projects to choose from (you can vote for up to 5), all proposed by young people or youth organizations.

Young people only have until February 21 to vote! So please forward this to the youth in your life and encourage them to vote.

Many of us worked together to create the Civic Engagement Commission in 2018, to take participatory budgeting citywide and help create new civic leaders. This is their first big program, so I hope you’ll spread the word.

Meanwhile, back in our district ...

During this hard pandemic year, we’ve come to appreciate more than ever the investments we make in our public spaces and buildings. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked in hushed awe through the Endale Arch in Prospect Park (I really still think it’s amazing every single time), or marvelled over the amazing new entrance on Flatbush Avenue. When we fought for better A/C and ventilation in our public schools, who knew we would be preparing for a pandemic? These and dozens more projects have been funded over the past ten years of participatory budgeting. 

Last year, just as the pandemic hit, we weathered the big disappointment of canceling Cycle 9 shortly before the vote in early April.

The decision to hold Cycle 10 this year was not an easy one. The City Council cancelled the city-wide PB process, leaving our volunteers little centralized support. And you know one more zoom delegate meeting can make your eyes exhausted. But our District 39 PBNYC District Committee decided to push forward (Districts 33 and 38 are participating as well, and there’s an amazing PB youth committee), believing that it was important to keep working together to imagine our future together, and then help to make it real.

And the results are great! After months of idea creation and project development, we are getting close to having a ballot of 16 amazing projects that upgrade our parks, schools, and streets, address food insecurity, support outdoor learning, and much more. We’ll have the projects to share with you soon. Vote Week is April 5-14. All voting will be online this year.

Finally, if you care about PB’s future -- in our district and beyond -- I wanted to let you know about a District 39 City Council Candidates forum sponsored by the D39 Participatory Budgeting District Committee, and the PB Youth Committee, in partnership with the Cobble Hill Association, this Thursday night, February 18th, at 6 p.m. on zoom. Details and zoom link here.

There will be lots of opportunities to hear from the candidates for our City Council seat before the Primary Election on June 22nd. At this forum, you’ll get a chance to hear among other things about the candidates plans for the future of participatory budgeting.

We’ve got a lot of work to do to renew our city from this crisis. Participatory budgeting is one good opportunity to roll up our sleeves and do it together.

Brad