Your Voice, Your Choice: Help Decide How to Spend $2 Million of the City’s Budget

Your Voice, Your Choice: Help Decide How to Spend $2 Million of the City’s Budget

Last year, Seattle youth helped successfully launch the City of Seattle’s first participatory budgeting process, in which more than 3,000 young people throughout the City decided how to spend $700,000 of the City’s budget!

It was an inspiring process…so much so that we are expanding our participatory budget efforts to make room for more voices and more ideas.

This month, we are launching Your Voice, Your Choice: Parks & Streets, a new approach that will allow community members of all ages to directly decide how to spend $2,000,000 of the City’s budget on small-scale physical improvement projects in Seattle’s parks and streets.

What are “small-scale physical improvement projects”?

Things like crosswalks, medians, flashing beacons, sidewalk repair, curb ramps, park benches, and trail improvements.

Projects must cost $90,000 or less, must be in Seattle’s parks and/or streets, and must benefit the public.

Need a visual to help you understand what some of these projects might look like? Check out these past project examples.

How will this all work?

Well, there are basically four main phases to this process and they all center on YOU:

YOU submit ideas YOU and your neighbors develop those ideas into concrete proposals YOU vote on those proposals YOU watch as the City funds and implements the proposals with the most votes in 2018

It’s that simple! Below is more context for each of the phases and how you can get involved.

Idea Collection (February 2017)

The City will collect project ideas through February 26, 2017. Anyone can submit a project idea online or at an in-person idea collection session. Want to host an idea collection session? Learn more. Project Development (March – April 2017)

As ideas are collected, anyone interested in being a part of project development teams in their Council District is welcome to join. The role of these teams will be to turn the submitted project ideas into 8-10 proposals for the ballot. Learn more. Voting (June 2017)

In June, a voting ballot will be created for each Council District’s 8-10 project proposals. Seattle residents will vote for the top projects within their Council District they work, live, go to school or receive services in. Voting will take place online and at in-person voting stations. Learn more. Fund & Implement (2018)

Lastly, in 2018, the City will fund and implement the projects that received the most votes – up to $285,000 in each district.

This is your chance to decide how to spend public funds in your neighborhood.

If you have questions about how to get involved in any of the phases, please contact Jenny Frankl at 206.233.2044 or Jenny.Frankl@seattle.gov.

Ready to submit an idea?! Use our online idea collection tool.