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Locals Want To Spend $1M on Mobile Soup Kitchen and Park Repairs

By Camille Bautista | October 1, 2015 7:13pm
 Residents at a participatory budgeting meeting in Bed-Stuy shared their ideas for the neighborhood on Wednesday night.
Residents at a participatory budgeting meeting in Bed-Stuy shared their ideas for the neighborhood on Wednesday night.
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DNAinfo/Camille Bautista

BEDFORD-STUYVESANT — A mobile soup kitchen and food pantry, energy-efficient air conditioners for schools and renovations to local parks could come to Bed-Stuy if residents have their way.

More than 70 locals attended a Wednesday night meeting to propose ideas for the neighborhood as part of the area’s first year of participatory budgeting.

Under the City Council program, a total of $1 million is up for grabs for projects in Bed-Stuy and northern Crown Heights.

“I feel like this is ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,’ but on a community level,” City Councilman Robert Cornegy said to the crowd at the Greater St. Stephen United Church of God on Myrtle Avenue.

“We’re going to spend this money in a prudent fashion that’s determined by you.”

After residents pitch projects they’d like to see funded, volunteer delegates will transform the ideas into full proposals.

The drafts will then be up for community feedback at the beginning of 2016, and participants can vote for the front-runners in the spring.

Resident Patrick Esquilin said he wanted to have a say in the funding's use to benefit low-income and disabled locals in a "gentrifying" neighborhood.

“We want everything to be better for everyone,” he said. “It’s got to be better than this, and we’re trying to do things right.”

Ideas included the renovation of Charlie’s Place, a playground and park on a mostly vacant lot adjacent to the Brooklyn Transition Center school.

“I want to see this turn into a real park, where residents in the neighborhood have a place to exercise,” said Regina Tottenham, principal of the Ellery Street school.

Attendees suggested a variety of upgrades to the area, including renovations to the senior center at Sumner Houses, speed bumps on Marcus Garvey Boulevard and benches installed at the plaza on Fulton Street and Utica Avenue.

Participatory budgeting participants can be as young as 14, according to City Council representatives.

Dwight Williams, 15, attended Wednesday’s meeting in hopes of getting mobile units for Greater St. Stephen Church’s soup kitchen and food pantry program.

“It’s good to voice a voice,” Williams said.