STATEN ISLAND — North Shore residents can help decide how the City Council spends $1 million in the neighborhood at a participatory budget meeting next week.
Councilwoman Debi Rose will bring the participatory budget process — which lets residents vote on what they think a portion of her allocated budget should go to — to Staten Island for the first time and will host three meetings to get ideas this month.
"As someone who spent much of my career not in politics but as a community advocate, I know how important it is to involve constituents in the budget process," Rose said in a statement.
The first public assembly where residents can share their ideas will be on Sept. 9 at the Trinity Lutheran Church, 309 St. Paul's Ave., at 5:30 p.m., Rose said.
Rose dedicated $1 million of her capital funds to the participatory budget — the first council member in the borough to use the process — and residents can suggest improvements to libraries, public housing, parks and more until Sept. 14.
The ideas must benefit the public for at least five years and cost at least $35,000 and can be submitted at the meetings or online until Sept. 14. They will then be developed into formal proposals and be voted on by the public in March, Rose said.
"My hope is that this process will not only result in the funding of projects that the community needs and wants, but that my constituents will gain a better understanding of how local government works," she said in a statement.
