Margaret Chin Launches Participatory Budgeting For 1st Time

LOWER MANHATTAN, NY — Manhattanites across the Lower East Side, Chinatown and the Financial District will soon be able to submit ideas and vote on how to spend $1 million in city funds.

Their representative, City Council Member Margaret Chin, will launch participatory budgeting for the first time since the council program launched in 2011.

Chin, who has been in office since 2010, faced significant criticism during her 2017 re-election campaign for not launching participatory budgeting. Her opponent at the time, Chris Marte, pledged to bring the program to Lower Manhattan.

Critics say the program adds a significant workload for council staff and that certain groups would dominate the process — particularly in districts like Chin's, which stretches from the Lower East Side through Chinatown to Tribeca and Battery Park City and is diverse both socioeconomically and racially.

Those concerns still remain in Chin's office — but an internal commitment to multilingual outreach has pushed the District 1 lawmaker to join 32 other council members in the participatory budgeting process as residents submit ideas this fall for a vote next spring.

"For any democratic process, we also have to think about execution at the end of the day," said Marian Guerra, who's leading the participatory budgeting process for Chin.

Guerra said outreach in Mandarin, Cantonese and Spanish is critical to ensure the program is fairly conducted, given that language access has historically been a barrier in democratic processes. In the early 1990s, Chin successfully sued to get ballots and instructions printed in Asian languages for elections.

"We want to make sure that we have the tools and capacity in place to mitigate that as a concern and as a barrier,"said Guerra, who was a budget delegate in her own district, sifting through ideas to shape into fully-fledged proposals.

Chin joins East Village and Kips Bay Council Member Carlina Rivera in kicking off the process Sept. 17.

Earlier this year, Rivera held the budgeting process in District 2, which led to about $1 million in funds for countdown clocks along bus routes, a STEM learning cart at PS 34, street resurfacing, gym renovations at PS 188, and an accessible lift at PS 40.

Chin and Rivera will hold a participatory budgeting kick-off event for the districts at Henry Street Settlement Gym, 301 Henry St. 6 to 8 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 17. Submit your ideas on this participatory budgeting map.