Council Legilius in the pledge.

I pledge allegiance to the life of the United States of America.

This evening, Council is grateful to have Reverend Landon Adams, Director of New Membership at New Salem Baptist Church to pray with us.

Welcome back, brother.

Good evening.

Let us pray.

My Lord, the earth is yours and the fullness thereof.

So this evening we come grateful for and to answer the call of service of governance and administration of city government.

Cause this meeting agenda to ease well in the doing for the city of Columbus and disrupt anything that would bring harm to her people.

To those who sit in service before us, may they know your love and affection that they may govern from a place of compassion and conviction.

May the work of this council feed those who are hungry, clothe those who are naked, and develop policies that cause those who live, work, and come to this city to be free from bondage, debt, and oppression.

Now, my God, as many across our community begin the observance of Holy Week headed toward Easter.

Let us remember that resurrection does not negate the atrocities of this week to come.

Rather, it brings us power to govern and create a reality where justice is administered rightly.

Thank you.

Clerk, please call the role.

Any person who takes any action to obstruct or interfere with the conduct of tonight's meeting may be charged with disturbing a lawful meeting pursuant to Columbus City Code 2317.12.

Any person who enters those areas of city council chambers reserved for city officials or invited guests may be charged with criminal trespass pursuant to Columbus City Code 2311.

Can I get a motion to the reading of the journal?

Clerk, please call the row.

To refresh everyone's memory, participatory budgeting is a democratic process where community members directly decide how to spend part of a public budget, typically through brainstorming, proposal development, and voting.

Uh the participatory budget steering committee supported by Melissa played a vital leadership role in designing our proposed PB process, conceiving uh convincing to establish the goals, uh rules, procedures, and outreach strategy that will shape a fair, inclusive and community driven cycle.

Through this, uh uh through though this is uh phase one of a five phase process.

I believe that this group of residents deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated for their leadership service and commitment to this novel process.

Additionally, Melissa Bila, who has been a vital part of this this process since the start, has concluded her temporary position here at City Council, and we'll be starting graduate school this fall.

So we also want to double celebrate her.

Um, and so uh as I'm gonna have uh Miss uh Melissa come up come over up to the front and we'll start there and then have everyone introduce themselves.

And just I think as as a reminder, because this seems like so long ago, you know what spurred this was the 2025 capital budget uh where uh this body uh was able and we were able to secure nine million dollars for each one million dollars for each of the districts to go with forward with this participatory budgeting process.

Something that is historic uh for our city, something that is I think one of the most progressive things we done from a budgeting standpoint uh as a city, but also as these folks will probably tell you to have a sidebar with them, one of the messiest processes that we have done.

But we really wanted to be authentic.

When you think about the spirit of participatory budgeting, it is really truly resident driven.

Uh and these folks here know uh I didn't want to abandon them, but I came to their first kickoff meeting.

I said this will be the last time you actually see me because I wanted them to understand that they were safe in that room, to have conversations, to have dialogue, to truly shape a process that will help shape uh our community.

Uh and so with that, uh before I pass for the resolution, I'm gonna turn it over to our fearless leader in this work, uh, Miss Melissa Bila, who's gonna go off to do great things.

Want to introduce yourself, give some remarks, and then we'll have all of the committee uh members uh introduce themselves as well.

Thank you, Councilmember Bangston.

Um, good afternoon, good evening, council members.

Great to see you all and being here.

Um I want to start by saying thank you to Councilmember Bengston for choosing me and to Matt and JP for choosing me as an AmeriCorps member to lead this process.

This was at my first big girl job.

So it was exciting and scary, but I'm grateful the opportunity.

I'm also grateful to the steering committee.

Um, they were a great group, community members leading this process.

They were there with me, being patient and supportive, leading these processes, and they worked well together.

Um, they had passion and they were driven to create a PB process that is meant for the community members that will bring in equality and education, not only about participatory budgeting, but also about the city council and the budget.

So I'm just grateful for the opportunity.

Um, that's all I have to say.

Uh I'll pass it on to the steering committee members.

They'll just introduce themselves and just tell us what uh district that they represent.

Start with Leah.

Thank you.

Good evening, everyone, council members.

Uh, my name is Leo Rodriguez.

I currently live in district three.

And super excited to be a part of this committee.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Smith Francois.

I represent District One.

Um Linden specifically.