Locals want to dole out $1 million in city funds. Yes dog park, no workout equipment
Credit: Bushwick Daily
Supporters are saying the city's fledgling participatory budgeting program is a way to open up murky machinations of how city contracts are handed out by giving New Yorkers the chance to vote themselves on what they want to see funded. And the people in Bushwick want an upgrade at the dog run at Maria Hernandez Park!
Local council member Jennifer Gutiérrez announced the budgeting process, which has been going on since 2011. Antonio Reynosa, the former Bushwick councilman who has been elected borough president, had been amongst the early pols to back the idea back — a hallmark of her successful election campaign last year.
Voting on these projects is somewhat different from elections for public office as they are open to anyone over 11 years old.
Hence, most of the winning projects tend to work on improving local schools. In this year's round, voters agreed to buy 133 new laptops for students at the Joseph F. Quinn middle school in Ridgewood, 100 new laptops for students at the Lyons Community School, a junior-senior high school on Graham Avenue, and renovate a hallway at Jean Paul Richter, a Queens area elementary school.
Gutiérrez's office is most excited to tout the $300,000 project to upgrade the popular dog run at Maria Hernandez. It's an exciting step closer to making the large repairs that the dog run very much needs. Williard is a volunteer who helps manage the dog run.
Other winners in the past have included a "multisite project" that would create some new "curb extensions and permanent plazas in Williamsburg." The goals of these would curb pedestrian fatalities, an issue that has motivated some other local politicians as well.
Among the projects that have failed to secure funding was an idea to construct adult exercise equipment at Cooper Park in East Williamsburg. The failure surprisingly proves that people definitely prefer dogs to working out.
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