We'll go ahead and get started and uh call this hearing to order.

Thank you for joining us for this participatory budget pilot public hearing.

Uh, the purpose of this hearing is to unveil uh and review the framework of the colon of Columbus's first participatory budgeting pilot and to share next steps with the community on how they can begin to engage in this process.

For those who are unfamiliar, participatory budgeting is a democratic process where community members uh directly decide and or influence how to spend part of a public budget, typically through brainstorming, proposal development, and voting.

Uh, this process currently takes place in many municipalities across the country and governments worldwide, including New York City, Boston, and Seattle, just to name a few.

I've been a fan of this concept for quite a while, uh, participatory budgeting and uh really pushed hard for us to bring this process to our city uh in starting earnest uh last year.

Thanks to the support of community partners, our residents, and some outside expertise.

We now have a framework on how this process will play out in our city.

Uh, the unique thing about participatory budgeting is that it's different per city and looks different in each community.

As a foundation for the process, uh, I was able to secure with the support of my colleagues nine million dollars in last year's capital budget, in which we amended the CIP.

And so in this year's budget, you will see uh nine million dollars in the capital improvements budget for this pilot.

The nine million dollar pot will be split among the nine council districts, leading to a one million dollar pot for each district.

With us tonight, we have several presenters, both internal and external, who will share details on how the framework has uh was developed, their role in the process to date, and how our residents can start to engage in the process moving forward.

After the presentations are concluded, we will open the floor to public comment, followed by closing remarks and next steps.

Uh, before I go any further ado, any of my colleagues want to thank my colleagues for joining me, Councilman Remy and Councilmember Day Akauer.

Any uh opening remarks from either of you, Councilmember?

Remember, thank you so much, Chair Bangston for holding this hearing and for the work, Melissa.

Thank you for getting this pilot to this point.

Participate participatory budgeting is it's a hard word to say in total.

Uh it's an exciting idea because it gives residents a more direct hand in getting what gets built, shaping and what gets built in our neighborhoods.

And in a moment, when a lot of people want to feel more connected to the local government, that matters.

What stands out to me about this pilot is that it was designed with resident input from the very beginning, with a steering committee representing all nine council districts, and that the process is clearly trying to reach people who are often left out of traditional civic engagement.

With nine million set aside and a million for each district, this is a meaningful opportunity to build trust, generate new ideas, and show residents that their voices can lead to substantive results.

At the same time, I think it's important that we understand how this will work in practice, how we make participation broad and fair, and how we move ideas into projects that are actually deliverable and how we set this up for long-term success beyond the pilot phase.

So that's what I'm excited to learn about tonight.

Appreciate the work.

Thank you both.

And uh look forward to the rest of the comments.

Thank you, Councilmember Remy.

Councilmember De Alcau.

When this whole started thing started, I had the general understanding of what it was, but the amount of work that this committee went into to kind of create the structure to make it happen has just been really impressive.

Because it's real easy to say, well, I know what to do to you know get input to spend money in a community, but to create a structure so that we can ensure that um that the people really have an opportunity to participate in ways that are meaningful as just a really exciting um project for me.

So I'm looking forward to hearing where you all are at right now.

Uh thank you, Councilmember.

And yes, uh, participatory budgeting is a mouthful.

So around here we just call it PB.

So you hear me say PB for the rest of the hearing, uh, that is what we were referring to.

Um so again, thank you for my colleagues to join us.

I know that more will probably uh join us as well.

Uh so first up, um joining us virtually, uh we have Kayla uh Knight with the participatory budgeting project.

PBP works with communities across the US and Canada to decide together how best to spend public money.

Since 2009, they have collaborated with grassroots organizations and government partners to launch PB processes in over 40 cities, empowering more than 739,000 people to directly decide how to spend over 400 million dollars in public funds.

And so we were so grateful to have them by our side through this process to your point, Catholic member Dayakhauer.

Uh, when we thought about this, you could easily say, yeah, we know what we're doing, but we wanted to get the best of the best and have expertise uh walking alongside of us, and so really thankful for PVP and their partnership.

And with that, I will turn it over to Kayla, and the virtual floor is yours.

Thank you so much for that incredible introduction.

My name is Kayla Knight, and I am the director of technical assistance here at the Dissipatory Budgeting Project.

And I am so happy to be here with you all this evening.

Um, and just in partnership with you as you all are creating your participatory budgeting process.

And I am a joined today by two of my colleagues, um, Edna and Rahel.

Um, and so I am gonna go ahead and get us started.

Um you all know who we are a little bit from the the introduction.

Um, so just to kind of like go ahead and get into what is participatory budgeting, as folks have already said, it is in fact a mouthful.

So I will be uh using PB instead of disparatory budgeting uh throughout the presentation today.

So, what is participatory budgeting?

Um, it is a process where community members come together to decide how to spend a portion of a public budget.

And so thinking about sorry slides, okay.

So thinking about, you know, why does this matter?

So when we talk about why this matters, we have to start with how decisions about public money are usually made.

And they're often made through existing processes that don't always include those that are most impacted.

Um, access to information, trust and government, all shape who is able to show up and whose voices get heard.

So PV is one way to respond to that.

It creates a structure where community members are not just giving their feedback, but they're also directly involved in shaping decisions.

And so I want to take a moment to just talk about how participatory budgeting is different from other forms of participation.

So most ways that we participate in government look like sharing our opinions through surveys, hearings, meetings.

And when you look at the bottom part of the ladder, these spaces are where people are informed or invited to give feedback, and these are important parts of uh participation, but ultimately decisions are still being made elsewhere.

So as you move up, people are more involved, uh joining discussions, advisory groups.

But PB shifts that it moves community members from reacting to ideas to actually deciding on what gets funded.

So this is just you know some forms of participation that I think that most folks might be familiar with, have may even experience themselves.

Uh so really excited for full participation, but there's participatory budgeting process happening here in Columbus.

So now I'm gonna get into how participatory budgeting actually works.

And so it starts with the planning phase.

Um, and then once all the you know, the budget has been decided, timeline has been put together, folks have been hired to support the process.

We then get into the design phase.

So the design phase is when a group of community members that are representative of the folks that you're trying to engage in the process, they come together to decide on the rules for the process and they create a guidebook, which I think is going to be shared at some point during our conversation today.

So they get to they come together and they decide on the goals and the values for the process.

What is important to us?

What are we trying to achieve with this process?

They decide on participation eligibility.

Who do we want to be a part of this process?

They decide on outreach and engagement.

So who do we want to be a part of this process?

And how are we going to make sure that they are engaged?

And after all of these conversations have been had, these decisions have been made, they create a guidebook that is then shared with the rest of the community and different stakeholders just for full transparency.

Next is when the process is opened up to the broader community, and folks are invited to share how they would like to see these funds spent through a number of different ways.

This could look like having events, it could look like having an online platform where people can share their ideas, which I know is something that we'll also be talking about today.

And after all of those ideas have been collected, they are then reviewed and vetted based on a criteria.

The criteria that I have seen use the most usually looks like, you know, thinking about is this idea something that we can do?

Is it feasible?

What is the significance of it?

What is the impact on equity that this idea is going to have?

So a group of community members called budget delegates or proposal developers come together, they review all of these ideas and they think about these big things that I was just talking about, like the significance of this idea, the impact that it's going to have on equity, and they narrow down that list, and they decide which of these ideas they would like to do further research on and turn into project proposals.

Those proposals that they narrow down are the ones that eventually end up on the ballot.

And so that is when we move into the vote, and community more community members are brought back into the process again, and they are asked to vote on these projects that are on the ballot.

And so the winning projects are funded.

And then after there are conversations about, you know, thinking back to the beginning of the process, what were the goals?

Did we achieve the goals that we set out to?

Did we involve the people that we wanted to involve in this process?

Who showed up?

What was their experience?

So, really evaluation is happening at every phase of the process, but that kind of final reflection happens at the very end.

And then all of that information is used to inform the next cycle of participatory budgeting.

And so centering equity and participatory budgeting.

So when we think about good PB, I think what comes to mind for practitioners of this work is thinking about money that matters, right?

So wanting to use money that gets people excited and they feel like you know this is something that they want to show up for and they know that their voice is going to be heard and that their voice is going to have an impact on the process.

Um, and I know that is something that is happening in the city of Columbus with the budget that the size of the budget that you all are using, really you all are using money that matters.

Thinking about community leadership, the people closest to the issues help lead the process.

PB works when power is being shared.

Um, and so I know that's another thing that is also happening in this process.

So, you know, through the steering committee, and I know there's also going to be community organizations as well that are going to be supporting this work, um, and making sure that we're reaching the folks, we're reaching communities that we want to center in this process, thinking about inclusive design, the process is designed so more people can participate, not just the folks who are already showing up, already engaged, already part participating and thinking about the form of participation that I just talked about.

So, how are we designing a process so that we are limiting as many barriers as possible so that people can show up as their full selves and be able to participate in this process, thinking about intentional outreach?

You know, you can have a really well design process, you can have a significant size budget, but if you are not meeting people where they are, you're not really centering equity and the PB process.

Um, and on this note of center and equity, um, thinking about you know, at the different phases of the process, like really going back to equity and thinking about the decisions that are being made.

Are we centering community voice here?

How can we, you know, better be doing that?

What PB makes possible?

So is some of the impacts of participatory budgeting from all of the experience that we've seen again, we've been around since 2009.

I have been at PvP for about six years now.

And so some of the impacts that we have seen in this work is that participants are more likely to vote.

There's also an increase in civic engagement.

Once people get involved and they see what it looks like to be a part of these kind of processes, what it looks like when there are experience the lived experiences and your voices are centered in this process.

They want to continue to be engaged.

There's also more collaboration.

Sorry, but that is also more collaboration between local organizations that are happening as it takes more than one organization, more than one person to for there to be a successful process, right?

So there's a lot of collaboration that is happening.

Funding is being redirected to the communities that most need it.

And lastly, participants learn about public finances and how you know public budgeting works.

So thinking about where is participatory budgeting happening.

So I know this was shared a little bit in the beginning.

Dissipatory budgeting has been happening for a long time.

We first saw participatory budgeting happening out of Brazil.

And since then, disparatory budgeting has happened in over 7,000 places across the world.

And it's also happening in the United States and has been for about 16 years now.

So Columbus is not one of the first places to do this.

This is a something that we have seen that is proven to work.

And so wanting to just say that, you know, in thinking about dissipatory budgeting processes, no two processes look the same.

And the reason for that is no two communities are the same or have the same needs.

And this is why a steering committee comes together and they really think about what are the goals and the values for the process, who do they want to involve, what is the budget?

So even thinking about, I know Boston was one of the examples that was shared at the beginning of the process.

So I am from Boston.

I was a part of the first youth-led dissipatory budgeting process that happened in the country.

That was a very specific process.

That was a youth process where people between the ages of 12 and 25 were involved in the process.

You have to be between the ages of 12 and 25 to vote.

So that was a very specific process, like for that context.

And there's so many examples of the different ways that PB looks, just given the context and the goals of the process.

And so really excited to see all of the amazing work that's going to happen through this process.

But that concludes my presentation, and I am happy to open it up for questions.

But even in a city, do you see that process change from year to year based on who the steering committee members are and what have you?

Is that something that's typically seen?

Yeah, I would say that we do see changes in the process from year to year, because I think it's going to depend on like what are the goals of the process every year.

And so what we see is we see steering committees, steering communities like build on the work that has is already happening.

So like reviewing the last guidebook and really reflecting, are you know, do we still want to prioritize like these communities?

Are there other communities that we might want to prioritize in this process?

So I want to say it depends on the goals of the process and also just kind of going back to that evaluation piece that I mentioned as well.

So taking if you're taking all of those learnings and using it to inform the next process, um, there will likely be changes.

So maybe it looks like last year we did this and thinking about how we outreach to folks, we realized that actually this way might be a little bit more successful.

So maybe we use like this form of outreach instead of that one.

And so it really, these processes should be you know building off of each other, so that you will start to see some some changes um as you go through the cycles.

Uh thank you for that.

And you know, from the onset of this, uh I've jokingly said, but it's true that you know, this is a pilot force's first time we're doing it.

Uh, we're creating this together, so it's going to be messy.

So I'll tell the residents of Columbus, it's going to be messy.

We're gonna make mistakes.

You have any best practices, even with that of how uh we navigate those things that may come up and what you have seen around the country and what works best as it evolves and as you go through your first time doing it.

Yeah, I also just say I'm also joined by some colleagues.

So if you all at any point want to like add on to what I'm saying, please feel free to do that.

Um so I will say that a pilot process, as you said, very much can be messy because as you are learning, you are also doing right.

Like as folks who are holding the container and facilitators of this process, you are very much learning as you are teaching and bringing people into the process and so it can be messy.

Um, and I think having patience, I also would say that moving at the speed of trust is something that I have seen to be really important, uh, especially like in these pilot processes as you were doing new work, you are engaging communities in ways that you have not engaged them before.

Um, so it looks like building relationships, and I think being able to move at a pace uh that allows for trust that allows for collaboration, um, and that just allows for you know meaningful relationship building.

And so I don't know if my colleagues would like to add on to anything that I shared.

Hi, my name is Sedna Sandoval.

I'm also part of PvP.

I will add that part of building trust is um for building trust is necessary to move through conflict.

And conflict is something that is going to happen when you involve so many people, but also conflict will bring fully transparency and fully trust.

So I think that this is normal.

Uh we're not trying to avoid the messy parts of the process because this is how we move forward with a lot of lessons, and this is how we make sure that people have fully participation instead to you know um just share like the things that they disagree because they also move with solutions.

And I think this is why we love to have um a type of trust that is coming from a lot of dialogue.

Thank you for that.

Any questions from my colleagues for our partners at PBP?

All right.

Well, thank you again for helping to uh guide us through this process and honestly for the work that you all are doing across the country uh to lift up the voices uh of residents.

Um we will move on uh with the agenda.

I also want to welcome council member uh Ross who has joined us, and thank you for being here, uh council member.

Um next we will move to um a presentation, uh joint presentation uh for uh from our legislative research office.

We have uh Matt Erickson, who's the director of our legislative research office, as well as uh Melissa Bila, uh, our former participatory budgeting coordinator, uh, who are here, what I call her our fearless leader who led us through this project, uh at least for the first phase.

Uh, again, want to thank her for that.

Uh, with that, I will turn the floor over to you all.

Thank you so much, Chair Banks, and I appreciate it.

It's so wonderful to come in front of all of you and talk a little bit about PB.

I'm um very pleased to be joined by Melissa Biela, who uh without her, we would not even be close to where we are today.

So I want to talk a little bit um first about the capital budget, just because this is a natural inclusion um with the um with participatory budgeting cap the capital budget is the most logical place for us to really be piloting something like this.

Talk a little bit about uh similar efforts uh to participatory budgeting that the city's engaged in in the past, uh, and how we kind of undertook our own uh PB effort uh and then where we are and what can be expected um in the immediate future.

So this is a sort of very reductive primer about the capital budgets, uh, but for anybody who uh may be familiar unfamiliar with some of the city's financial processes.

Uh we do uh traditionally pass a capital budget every single year.

Uh the capital budget represents what what we uh what council uh has authorized as the plan for investments and permanent improvements in the city.

Uh those tend to be the things that you see, touch, and feel.

Again, a very simple differentiation.

Um, and we it's necessary to make this differentiation because of course, whenever uh council members are out in the community and we are talking about neighborhood investment, it's always going to be a mix of um residents uh requests that are capital or they're operating or somewhere in between.

Um, and it can be challenging for us to talk to residents about uh where are the most pragmatic points of intervention uh to try to influence those processes.

So again, the operating budget, which council passes every single year funds people and services.

Again, it's overly reductive, but it's a simple way to understand it.

Contrast the capital budget funds things.

It's how we pay for roads and sidewalks and rec centers, police and fire stations, uh, pretty much the entirety of public utilities infrastructure as well.

The operating budget, uh council adopts every single year, it changes every single year.

It functionally resets every single year starts at zero.

Uh, we budget for the entire year where we spend down a budget throughout the year.

Capital budget, because projects are multi-year in nature, uh the budget for a single project doesn't change every single year.

It changes if it is increased by an action of council or if spending occurs, or if priorities are redirected elsewhere.

Otherwise, the easiest way to think about it is that the capital budget essentially replaces the prior year's capital budget.

It's entirely debt financed.

I think it's I think it's safe to say it's entirely debt financed.

The city uh tends to sell bonds or incurs loans or other uh debt instruments in order to finance projects and then pays them back over time.

Uh we do that primarily through two separate mechanisms, uh the income tax set aside uh and through utility charges.

Um the latter is is much easier to understand that through utility charges, obviously the entirety of public utilities infrastructure uh tends to be paid back through uh rates uh through uh customer bills for sewer water electric charges.

Um there are riders added to that in order to pay back uh the debt that the city's incurred for that infrastructure.

Uh we refer to that as enterprise debt.

Pretty much everything else is considered general obligation debt, which we tend to pay back through what we call the income tax set aside, 25 cents of every dollar that the city receives and income tax uh gets set aside uh and is used to pay back our general obligation debt over time.

Uh and of course, in combination with council, the administration, and the auditor's office, there are a number of policies and financial management principles that the city leverages in order to ensure that we are being responsible with our debt management with our debt issuance and our ability to prioritize projects.

I think when talking about the capital budget with residents who who may otherwise be unfamiliar with city processes, it's very important to note.

My other asterisk for this is the fact that projects obviously take years.

Uh there is uh uh going to be a perpetual stereotype about the the slow wheels of government, and that's understandable.

I would note that to a degree, some of that is very intentional.

Some of that was developed organically over decades that you see some of these processes in place that can be tremendously protracted, like right-of-way acquisition and bidding and procurement processes.

Those are protracted for a reason.

Uh in it has, again, developed over years, pretty much for the purpose of making sure that the government doesn't walk onto your property and start doing things on it without the necessary authorization.

And so there are a number of steps that are in the process of any capital project that are going to inherently make it take a little bit longer for people to make decisions about what they want to see in their neighborhoods and then actually see the manifestation of that decision.

In terms of the city's prior uh efforts around participatory budgeting like uh initiatives, the most obvious uh program is the Urban Infrastructure Recovery Fund that was created back in 1992, championed by then uh council member, possibly council president Mike Coleman, uh, which he he then carried into his uh his administration when he became the mayor.

The original intention was an acknowledgement of older neighborhoods that had seen a lack of investments uh and trying to vest some of that uh investment's influence in the residents of those neighborhoods.

Uh so URF projects tend to be a pot of money.

Where they have some common features with participatory budgeting is that it is not necessarily an administration coming to residents and saying, This is what we are going to do, we need your sign-off on it.

It is the administration going to neighborhood groups and saying, what is it that you need?

What is it?

Where do you feel like things are lacking?

And they are soliciting ideas from neighborhood groups.

These tend to be area commissions and civic associations.

Uh and those projects that are proposed by area commissions or civic associations, then go through a vetting process to evaluate those projects for feasibility, for cost until ultimately they are approved and sort of a joint agreement between the administration and some of these groups that have had involvement in the process.

Where it sort of differs and deviates from a what we'll be able to call a true participatory budgeting process is that there I think it's safe to say that there's minimal broader community engagements.

Uh, when you are focusing some of that decision making authority in some of the in groups like area commissions and civics, civic associations, you have natural concerns, the fact that not every part of the city is covered by an area commission or a civic association, uh, which I'll show on the next slide that uh the areas where URF funding tends to get applied are limited in nature.

Uh again, the original intention of the program was to revitalize underinvested urban core neighborhoods, um, which is that there's a there's a tremendous amount of value and virtue to that.

Uh but uh I think what we would routinely hear from residents as we would go out and talk to them was uh a lack of avenues for those with the exception of um area commissioners and civic associations, those who had a great deal of familiarity with how city processes work, uh what were the opportunities for other residents to get involved in trying to influence that process.

By the way, please feel free to stop me anytime if you have questions.

We don't need to wait until I'm done.

Um this map here shows where UIRF funding um has been concentrated, has been budgeted, where projects are currently um being undertaken, uh, where they are planned and where investment has occurred in the past.

So as you see, and uh where actual uh funding has been applied is uh limited to um just those areas in blue.

And I already noted this.

Um again, the impetus primarily for undertaking this was that sort of chronic concern.

I think that it's sorry, council member, I don't want to speak for you and your reasons for undertaking this, but uh at least in my experience here and going through capital budget processes year after year was a uh a routine feedback that we received from from residents that they did not have enough opportunities at that stage where a capital budget was being formed, where spending decisions were being deliberated to have some degree of influence.

There's the idea that there was a lot that was already done and their intervention points were limited uh from that point forward.

And I think generally, as as Kayla sort of talked a lot about in um her presentation, the the verges of PVP, that we see a uh we see broader value in being able to mobilize residents just beyond the capital budget or beyond a pilot program of a million dollars per district, uh, that's being able to take residents who are otherwise um uninvolved with city processes on a regular basis, uh being able to provide them with information about something that is otherwise seems somewhat inscrutable and impenetrable, um, and um giving them delegating them with some ability to have some influence.

Um, we saw that as as being positive beyond just this capital budget process.

And so in order to actually initiate this, uh, last year during the 2025 capital improvements budget process, there's always a parallel uh product called the Capital Improvements Program, uh, which is the longer term outlay for how uh the city is going to be making investments in certain areas.

Uh the council amended the 2025 to 2030 CIP by adding nine million dollars in funding for 2026 uh for this year's upcoming capital budget.

Um likewise, um I think Kayla mentioned some of this, but beyond just the capital uh funding the the uh dollars out that will be supported by uh uh debt in the city's capital budget for a true PV process, you also need some um operating uh resources as well.

Uh, because again, it's not just about uh the projects, it's about reducing barriers for participation for residents.

And so, you know, why have we traditionally uh seen participation by uh only a small handful of residents?

Um there are not a lot of residents that have barriers for participation, such as child care things, basic essentials such as they might not be able to attend a public meeting that doesn't have meals available.

Um child care, uh you know, access to locations.

So uh we have earmarked some funding um in the operating budgets um that will be leveraged by other community organizations to try to reduce those barriers to participation.

Uh we brought on an AmeriCorps VISTA program member uh for uh about a year, uh Melissa Bila.

Um could not have been luckier finding uh Melissa as a uh as an incumbent for that role uh and assuming uh leadership immediately in taking over this program.

Uh and then we also hired the participatory budgeting project, as Kayla spoke, as an expert consultant organization that's cultivated a really strong reputation for working with other major cities around the country on their PD initiatives.

I think with that, I'm gonna turn it over.

Yes, with the director Erickson uh to kind of stick with that line of the impetus behind this and UIRF and some of the other things that we have done.

Um you could correct me if I'm wrong, UIRF was also a fund that wasn't designated to different parts of the city was a f a citywide fund.

Whereas with this, we know that what the defined amount is.

Now given uh the size of the district, I understand, but it's a pilot process, so we wanted to start small.

Uh and I would also just to clarify too, part of our process in this, and you don't see that I think Melissa will go through is also evaluating those projects that they can actually get done.

We wanted to really have bytes uh size, if you will, projects that we know that could be shovel ready, get in the ground and get done for residents.

And and also just to clarify, this doesn't, I think, exclude how we will want to engage with uh the community and community leaders around the capital budget.

And I would argue, I would think the capital improvements program is really where the energy of our community leaders should be focused.

Because a lot of times when we're talking about uh the issues in our communities, it's large things like sidewalks for two miles or street lights in this or a rec center or parks, which are not things that would ever materialize in uh a capital budget because the way, as you said, the capital program is a six-year outlook.

And so a lot of these projects that we see in the capital budget are things that are I want to say already baked, but they've been planned out for some time.

Uh now where we get to and are able to, I think, fit some of the community's priorities in is in those years when we have extra capacity, or we can identify projects that we can either build on later on or add in after the fact, but never to the magnitude of again, say a fire station, uh, right.

And so I think I really wanted uh this process to be really focused on some of those more quality of life things that we hear from neighbors all the time, right?

Pocket park, uh, or maybe it's even enhancing a project that may be coming, right?

Maybe in the upcoming budget, we're able to pay for one mile of sidewalk.

Well, now maybe we want sidewalks on both sides, and we can do that because of this.

And so that is really the spirit of this.

And so I just thank you for lifting uh that up and how we got to uh this this process that's different than UIRF or some other things.

Not saying that those were not successful, but it's just structured a little differently.

Um Miss Melissa.

Yes.

Um, to initiate the PB process, I was brought on as an AmeriCorps member, and my work was obviously leading the PB process, and I came in with understanding that PB was about mobilizing residents, are usually not traditionally involved in civic engagement or local government um uh processes.

And just like how the council member said that we want members to understand how couple budget budget work and also understand like those little things that they want to be done can be done through this PB process, and they can come through this PB process to talk about that.

We also wanted to go into planning this process.

We also wanted to make sure that we're looking at the neighborhoods, the district that we're going to be working with that we're going to go into with PB and understanding their demographic as well and understanding what investment has been made through other um council processes, and we wanted to go through this with an equity lens, which also reflects on how we selected our steering committee members and as well as our community organizations.

So through the steering committee member, um, obviously PBP, excuse me, PB is a community-led program process.

So what we wanted to do is to select steering committee, we had decided to reach out to our community organization here in Columbus and ask them to nominate about, I believe it was six to ten maybe um residents or constituents that they serve, um, constituents that they believe will be a good person for this steering committee role.

Um, once they had given this them their nomination, we reached out to those um members, to those residents, and we asked them to come and invite them to come to the informational session to learn about PB and also learn about this role.

Um, through this process, we're looking for residents that are currently making an impact in their uh neighborhoods, but not only making an impact in their neighborhoods, are willing to learn how to make an impact in their rural neighborhood, and they have passionate for their neighborhood.

Um they're invited, they were learning, they learn about PB, and we asked them to be selected as a steering committee to um to fill out an interest form.

And that interest for it, we it allowed us to evaluate how what works are they doing in their neighborhood and what works are they willing to do to improve their neighbors and also have their neighbor and neighborhoods to involve themselves in the council um PB process as well.

After uh we had selected about, excuse me, we have selected about 18 members, two members representing each district.

We have nine council districts here in Columbus.

And these members came together from November to February through a series of about 11 workshops.

Through those workshops, they worked together to create a guidebook, a guidebook, which is we're going to talk about later.

Through this guidebook, before working on the guidebook, they first had a bit of a workshop about learning about capital budget.

What is a capital budget?

What money are we going to use for this PB process?

And then we also did a little of a workshop to do a PB in practice.

So before they start deciding what the guidebooks gonna look like, before the side deciding about what the process was going to look like, we wanted them to go through a PB and training, going through the whole process from designing to brainstorming ideas to putting these ideas together and then voting as well.

And then the guidebook, after 11 uh workshops, 11 weeks of working together, um, the steering committee created a guidebook.

Uh a guidebook is a public-facing document that represents and describes what this PB process is going to look like, what the Columbus PB process is going to look like, and also how can residents participate in this PB process.

And then after the design process of this uh PB phase, we moved into starting to recruit community organizations.

Um we were looking for trusted community organization in each council district who are the trusted community organization in their district, sorry, uh, who are also just serving their community and are willing to help us bring as constituents that they serve into this PB process.

Um we had reached out to all Columbus community organizations and asked them and invited them to come to also an informational session about PB to learn more about participatory budgeting and also to learn about what their position will be and what their role will be through this process.

Their role will be to help us engage with residents that we collect council can't really um engage, help us lead those engagement process, outreach process um during the idea collection and during the voting process as well.

And yeah, that's all thank you.

I'm gonna I I want to emphasize re-emphasize something that um Melissa I don't think she probably hit on enough around the recruitment of the steering committee, which was something that we kind of had to recalibrate our our thinking on throughout this entire process, which is that uh we're really supposed to be mitigating uh our influence on the process entirely.

Uh, that we are supposed to be creating uh significant degree of separation between ourselves and the residents that are involved in this process.

Um we shouldn't be influencing this to the greatest degree possible.

Uh and so it was leveraging those community partnerships that we have and saying um we are looking for individuals who have not been involved with this before because we're we're looking we are looking for um for fresh perspectives and fresh ideas uh about um how we should be investing our dollars and in just approaching this process generally uh and the steering committee uh I think delivered on that um extraordinarily well.

So uh we're at the the idea collection phase now of this process.

This is the uh the stage where we are going to begin actively uh recruiting uh project proposals from residents uh from any um anybody who resides in any of the the council districts.

Uh we are um we're gonna hear a little bit uh later from common um that is uh the organization that's gonna serve or at least the common platform is gonna serve as uh the uh the host platform for Columbus's PB initiative, uh which will include um you know a uh a site for um project submission, proposal submission, uh repository for all of our information, including the guidebook, um, and uh I think we're expecting to undertake that shortly.

Um kind of in a parallel process you uh are recruiting uh a role known as budget delegates.

Budget delegates are uh another subset of residents who uh then sort of step in after that the project proposal process and refine those proposals uh ultimately uh to end up on a ballot uh down the road.

Uh that again ultimately end up on uh some kind of balance, some kind of voting mechanism that that is again an open point of discussion um amongst ourselves.

I actually want to let the steering committee talk about that more than anything else.

Um I'm happy to take any additional questions.

Uh thank you, uh Director Erickson, and thank you again, uh Melissa for all your work on this.

Any questions from uh my colleagues?

Uh I don't think I have it.

I think after we hear uh from our steering committee um representative, I will I I just do want to re-emphasize what you brought up, Director Erickson.

Uh and I think that Lawrence can attest to this is that when we put together the steering committee one, those recommendations came from outside community agencies uh that work every single day in our community to lift up those names.

Uh I went to the very first steering committee meeting to kick it off, and I told them very directly, this will be the last time you see me.

Uh, and I held true to that because through this entire process, it's been solely ran by residents.

There have been city staff who have come in, I think, to educate and to help uh uh with some of the content.

Uh but the the guidebook that we were about to unveil, and I think with Lawrence will talk about his experience and the leadership he showed on the steering committee was all led by residents.

Uh and what I was really proud of when I got to sit with them afterwards and get a debrief of how not only did they learn about the city processes, but how they learn from each other uh as residents that had open discussion and dialogue and being able uh to see the differences of what is happening in our communities uh because what is maybe a priority or may look uh one way to someone in the hilltop is completely different than someone in Linden.

Uh and so I was really proud of that and want to say again an immense thank you to these residents that gave so much of their time, and they truly led this.

This was not uh when I went into them, I said, Look, this is your assignment, go forth and conquer.

All right.

So this was not, I want to really underscore that that residents led and drove this.

Residents will give us the projects.

Residents will again be able to vote on those things.

The only place where we will interact, uh, as you will see, is that when it comes to the feasibility of the projects, and that's simply because again, they have to be within that million dollars, and also for us have to be things that can get done within a year to two year time frame because we want to see that project come to fruition.

Um so again, that is a great segue uh to Mr.

Uh Lawrence Jackson who is with us.

He is a representative of district six.

Uh, we're not gonna get into whose district is the best around here, okay?

All right, I don't know.

Councilmember Green's not here, so I mean she would probably be on your bandwagon.

Um but again, Lawrence want to thank you for uh your leadership on the steering committee, and thank you for being here today.

I'll turn the floor over to you.

And as Lawrence is talking, you'll see we will uh display the guidebook uh as well.

Lawrence, floor is yours.

Thank you, Councilmember Bankson.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, City Council and distinguished guests.

As mentioned, my name is Lawrence Jackson, and I would first like to thank City Council for the opportunity to represent the very first steering committee established for Columbus's participatory budgeting program.

My wife of 13 years and I reside in the Southwest Hilltop neighborhood with our two boys, aged 12 and 5.

She and I are not lifelong hilltoppers, let alone from Central Ohio.

We met at the Ohio State University, graduated, married, and decided to lay our foundation in Columbus, moving to the hilltop a little under a decade ago, provided us with our first home, less stressful commutes to work, and unbeknownst to us at the time and abundance of community, the richness of local relationships, shared gifts, and mutual support rather than just material wealth.

This mindset transforms neighborhoods by recognizing the skills of every resident, fostering hospitality, and building trust to create a satisfying interconnected life.

As a millennial, I feel compelled to have a responsibility for utilizing my talents to best represent my generation.

We prioritize personal fulfillment and social responsibility, our civic duties.

For almost 10 years, I have served as an election official official, excuse me.

I am the personable guy that ensures that voters have a lasting experience while exercising their right to voice their opinion.

But also the guy that the team depends on for direction and accountability.

My mindset is if not me, then who?

And I believe Councilmember Bankston stood on top of the people's house and shouted Avengers Assemble, gathering a group of like-minded human beings to signify unity and the start of this massive collection effort.

I approached this opportunity, green, and that's no play on words from my district representative, the best district.

Uh political science was never a strong suit of mine.

And in fact, my first big boy job was serving as the administrative assistant to minority leader of the Ohio Senate during my interview.

I was advised of my start date and then advised to head down to Barnes and Noble to pick up politics for dummies.

That was a long year.

Each subsequent opportunity to learn and advance my understanding of the political landscape is a journey I meet I meet with unbiased lens.

Participatory budgeting is a democratic process that gives ordinary people like me direction to sit direct decision making influence over a portion of a budget, especially with those perspectives often excluded from civic processes.

Our mighty group of committee members come from all creeds of life to prioritize inclusion, transparency, accountability, some of the very nouns the public uses to display their insecurities with politics and political figures.

We weren't elected, rather recommended by people who genuinely believe that we will approach this challenge for no underlying reason, other than to get this right for the community members we represent.

Hence why we decided to call this our voice our choice budget.

Committee members have worked together since August of last year, developing the processes and procedures for the community to ultimately voice their opinion without the influence of city officials.

In my mind, I'm the only one that lives up here.

If citizens don't change or don't vote vote when the opportunity presents itself, you basically have given away your leverage to object decisions made on behalf of the people.

The committee's next steps include leveraging ideas and conversations with key stakeholders within our communities to ensure that everyone is aware of this initiative and is prepared to possibly voice their opinion when the time comes.

Thank you again, Lawrence.

And uh, even down to the name of this Our Voice, our choice.

I didn't have a choice in it.

Um the committee came up with it.

They they actually sent me like the list of options that they have.

Well, I actually like this one more, and they came up with something else.

But anyway, uh if you if you could, Lawrence, just really quickly, just you know, give us some of the reflections of I think the process, uh, what you took away from it, and and honestly, for us, feedback on how we can build and strengthen it forward next time.

Yeah, um, I think the opportunity to again, like I stated before, to sit around the table with like-minded individuals who really care about their community, they care about their inclusivity in this process and to give it your all.

Um, as we a Melissa talked, we we've been meeting since November of last year, over 11 weeks of grown adults sitting around the table in the evening uh with their families at home, just leaving work.

And you take every opportunity that you can to give your best when that opportunity presents itself.

This is the first time that we're doing it in Columbus.

Like we want to get it right just as much as you do.

So to be in the environment uh of other like-minded individuals was really a blessing throughout this process.

Thank you for that.

Any questions for Mr.

Jackson?

Council member I just have one question, but first I want to say hi.

Hi.

To you, law.

Uh and it you when you go to Ohio State, like there's so many people that are around, but I just remember seeing you all of the time, and then somebody sent Lawrence.

I was like, no, that's law.

Um it's so good to see you and so good to have you engaging with this process.

Um, I actually wanted to know because obviously the nine million dollar split amongst nine districts means just one million dollar projects.

However, I think the conversation of what is needed in those areas, I would be interested in in understanding like even the the bigger, broader projects or the bigger, broader needs.

And so I was curious as to how you were reporting back on those things that may not fit within the boundaries of the participatory budget process, but are still things that the community is very much interested in seeing happen and how then we could better advocate for those things on a on a bigger level.

I'm glad you asked that.

Uh, I recently met with Councilmember Green, uh, connected with her last week, and that was the purpose of my call, because this is about the people's choice, the people's voice.

I also want her to know that I am still here to leverage any type of active activities or anything that's already going on in the community to where this million dollars gets stretched as much as possible.

We already know what a million dollars looks like, Councilmember Bankston spoke towards it.

You're talking about a slither of a sidewalk, you're talking about some maybe some murals on the side of a few buildings, but how do we be intentional about the limited funds that we do have?

We see it across the board, I see it in my work.

You where our limitations are there and apparent when it comes to funding, right?

So how do we get to the bottom line of what is really needed in the community?

And that's by going out and engaging with those leaders that are already doing the work and saying, hey, you've got another voice over here.

Let's see how we can just team up and give our best effort to the community.

Because we only got a limited time, we got limited resources.

What do we do now to be intentional in the time that we do?

So would you say that's just the prerogative of each steering committee member on engagement back to their district representative, or is there a formal process by which we could maybe even implement the next time that we do this so that there is formal reporting back on?

These are the things that we think we can do through the participatory budget process.

These are the larger things that we are still hearing from our community members about what needs to be done as far as infrastructure and investment back into the community, just so we have a broader idea.

Because I think the I think the process by which you all take are taking is bringing in folks that aren't generally brought into the conversation, and I'd be really interested in and understanding what folks are saying with regard to what they need in their communities outside of what we generally hear on a consistent basis.

Sure.

Um we don't necessarily have a plan across the board when it comes to what everybody's approach to this looks like.

The overall idea is that you get with your community leads, you go to the area commission meetings, you go to anything and everything that you can get acclimated with the people and understanding what the needs are, what the desires are of the people, not having such a structured process to where oh you have to follow these guidelines.

My process is gonna look a lot differently in the hilltop as opposed to like the east side.

So um I just feel like that's that's when we're gonna be developing the blueprint moving forward to where we can set something up for years to come to say, hey, this is what we did the first year, these were our pitfalls.

Like we've we've had those.

We ran into those along the way, and how do we improve it moving forward?

Yeah, and Councilmember, I'll jump in there as well.

That a part part of this process is each district will have a community-based organization that will be leading the effort.

And so we were getting that information back at the end of the day, what all the projects were.

Uh, and then two, uh, as PBP said, is one of the best practices.

We there will be an evaluation period after it as well.

Um, you know, I think can Mark, can you put up on the screen the guidebook again?

Um I'm not sure who was controlling that.

I do want to point out to what the steering committee did, because we even when we talk about a million dollars.

I really need glasses, y'all.

Um there's a page here I just wanted to see.

So we're talking about eligibility, outreach, and engagement, but I think there is the one where it talks about what we are looking to prioritize.

Uh, and we'll make sure we get that, but even within the districts, the committee themselves came up with for a project to be eligible, it has to meet these types of standards.

It has to think up and lift up the voice of those, right?

Because our districts uh are different and have different needs uh as well.

So again, this is available on uh the city council's page, as well as there will be hard copies given uh out to every community-based organization and distributed to the community.

So we will make sure that uh we get this to every member as well.

We were making editors up until yesterday.

So even the steering committee, I mean, they was even part of the editing process of the book.

I mean, so that that's that's how much this has been driven by residents.

Uh before we move on, any more questions for Mr.

Council Mm Remakes?

Yeah, I just thank you for the work that you put into this.

And um, I just wanted to maybe understand what residents on the committee felt how city you what do you most want to see the city to understand where where traditional engagement falls short I think with this being a pilot, we have to approach it with that understanding and to know and to be able to shift and maneuver when things don't go according to plans, right?

Um, so I think transparency remaining transparent throughout the entire process, which we didn't necessarily have an issue with, but remaining transparent, um, maybe understanding what our timeline a little bit more now uh to where we need to make the shift into another piece of work that we need to be working on.

Um, I think that would that would be the basic one.

Uh again, looking at it as not to say it was basic, but to look at it as the pilot approach.

Yeah.

And then, like, what would make residents in the in your district or across the city feel that this process was genuinely yours rather than just another city program?

I think that's our involvement in the community, and that's our next steps now is to be uh forthcoming and and show face in the community to where you can speak it into yourself.

Like people are going to believe what they're going to believe.

But you have 18 genuine people that are now in the community talking about this initiative.

18 people aren't going around here saying the same thing, and it's just making it up.

So like it's gonna take the public to kind of lend on that faith that they have, like, okay, maybe they're getting it right.

If they're thinking like, oh, we're off the rails with what we're thinking and what we're doing out here in the community, maybe this is that that rightness of the train.

Um, so I feel like uh us being in the community, more of the community members speaking, more of the community leaders, going back to your point of those uh those organizations in the community, uh just the communication around this entire process is going to uh liken the possibility of them believing that this was genuinely their decision.

And finally, yeah, as this project moves forward, what would you like this council and city staff to protect for you in the in this process and as this work moves forward?

Um our values and principles.

Uh we spent a lot of time on it.

You have a lot of people from a lot of different makeups, like I say, a creeds of life, uh, chose that on purpose because you had different religions around that table.

You had different backgrounds, you had a new American, probably more than one, but one evident.

Um, yeah, black, brown, white, everybody was sitting around the table and they were being heard.

That was the biggest thing.

One of our one of our steering committee members said, um, you know, I don't I don't speak much in general.

And so that's why I haven't really voiced my opinion throughout this process.

And I feel like the feedback from the steering committee really upheld him to say, hey, no, we need you to speak up more.

Like you're the reason why you were selected to be on here.

So we need to hear your insight into this as well.

So we're getting it right from your perspective.

So I think the values and principles that we have laid out at the very beginning, they they should be the thing that you hold on to most.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate all that you guys have put into this.

Thank you a lot.

Thank you.

Uh, we will uh now move into one final presentation because we do have one speaker here.

I want to make sure that we uh hear from them.

Uh we have uh another partner coming alongside us, and that is one project.

Uh the this is the organization behind the platform common, which will serve as the website and one stop shop platform for the remainder of the participatory budgeting process.

Uh, with us virtually, we have Ilana Jacobs and the Zaana Hall from the One Project team uh to give us a presentation.

I will turn the floor over to you all.

Thank you so much, uh, Councilmember Bangston.

Uh it's really great to be here with all of you.

My name is Ilana Jacobs.

I'm head of platform at One Project.

I'm also joined as uh as you mentioned by my colleague uh Zaana Hall, who is focused on partnerships and platform development.

Uh one project is a nonprofit and common is the platform we're building to support participatory processes like our voice, our choice uh from the first idea residents submit all the way through tracking what gets funded and implemented.

We built this because we believe, like all of you, that when citizens are meaningfully involved in making decisions that impact their lives, you get better outcomes for everyone.

So we couldn't be more thrilled uh to do this alongside uh Columbus.

So common is designed around four things that really matter for a process like this.

Participation at the scale of a city like Columbus across multiple languages and means of participation, coordination across the many groups involved, from residents to community partners to budget delegates and city staff, a transparent public record at every step, and the trust and compliance that comes with meeting public sector accessibility and data requirements.

So I'm gonna show you what this uh could look like for Columbus.

We're actively designing uh how the platform will support Columbus' process along with the council team that's supporting this initiative, as well.

Uh, we'll be working closely with the nine community partner organizations uh and those representatives involved in community as we build this out.

So this is an introduction to common, helping people decide together how to use their resources simply, intuitively, and effectively.

And so I will take you from here into what the our voice, our choice experience could look like for residents.

This will just be an abbreviated snapshot of some of the phases of the process.

Again, that will build out more fully in collaboration with all of you, leading up to when the process kicks off.

So this is what Columbus resident could see when they arrive at the Our Voice, Our Choice Idea Collection portal, the first phase of the process.

At the top, you can see a full timeline of the process, idea submission, community review, resident vote, and results.

At every step, residents know where they are and what is coming next.

In the center, residents can submit and browse ideas, filter by district or category, and submit their own.

The platform is designed to make participation as easy as possible.

And we're working with the city team to make sure that nobody is excluded.

You can participate on your phone, on a tablet at a library event, or on a computer at home.

On the right, the city and your community partners can post updates to keep residents informed as the process moves forward.

And just speaking previously to a question that was asked about making sure that there's a record of what people across community are interested in, even if it doesn't get voted on, all of these proposals will remain as a record for community organizations and city staff, so that even if they don't get funded, eventually in the voting stage, they can be used to inform community and city priorities if that is so desired.

The side panel during the share ideas phase also has a meeting tab, so dates and locations for in-person events run by the community-based organizations can live right alongside the digital process.

Residents can see when and where their next opportunity is to show up in person and engage.

We'll put the guidebook, FAQs, sample project ideas, and any supporting materials can all be linked here.

We'll also work with the council team and community organizations to build out sort of a home page or landing page that residents can visit to understand the process from a more holistic perspective.

And so ultimately the platform becomes the one place residents go for everything related to our voice, our choice.

Your community organizations will also be able to submit ideas on behalf of residents at in-person events, again, so that nobody is left out of the process because they don't have access to a device or aren't online.

When a resident does have an idea, say a walking trail with solar-powered lighting at a neighborhood park, this is what submitting it looks like.

They give it a title, pick a category, estimate a cost, and describe the project.

They can attach supporting documents like a site map or a cost estimate, and community organizations or budget delegates can collaborate on a proposal together so that an idea that starts as a rough concept can be developed into something concrete.

Residents can also submit ideas in their preferred language.

We support the translation of user-generated content across multiple languages.

So there are no language barriers to participating in your own language or to other residents being able to read and understand your ideas in their language.

After the idea collection phase closes, budget delegates can complete the review and proposal development process on the platform as well.

This is what their view could look like.

They can see all the proposals in their queue, track which ones they've reviewed, which are in progress and which still need attention.

When you're working through dozens or even hundreds of ideas across a district, which we hope will come in through this process, this kind of structure makes it much more manageable to work through.

When a delegate opens a specific proposal, this is what they see on the left, the full idea, the budget, any images or documents the resident included.

On the right, the evaluation criteria.

Does this proposal address structural barriers?

Is it feasible?

What's the overall recommendation?

The criteria are fully configurable.

So they'll reflect whatever your steering committee and budget delegates determine matters most for this process.

And delegates can leave notes and provide feedback directly to the person who submitted the idea.

City staff will also be able to use this view to assess technical feasibility.

And we're designing the permissions so that delegates, staff, and council each see what's relevant to their specific role in the process.

When it's time to vote, residents come back and see the proposals that made it through the review.

They can read summaries, compare projects, and cast their votes.

The layout here is just illustrative.

For Columbus, the goal is for residents to prioritize projects within their districts, one million dollar allocation, as we just heard.

So we'll work with the city team and community members representing their districts on exactly how the voting should be configured per the guidebook and the design of the process, including the ranked choice model that the steering committee has recommended.

We are also exploring the ability to vote via SMS or WhatsApp, which would be especially valuable for reaching previously unengaged communities that your steering committee has identified as really priority groups for outreach to ensure the equity and broad civic engagement of this process.

And this is what it looks like when the results are in.

So residents can see exactly which proposals were funded, how many people voted, and the total amount allocated.

They can look at all proposals and see what was funded.

Everything is transparent, downloadable, and part of the public record.

What we're also building towards, and this speaks to the longevity of processes like participatory budgeting that so many on this call spoke to is the ability to track whether funded projects were actually implemented and to what result.

So that when residents come back for cycle two, three, four, five, um, they can see here's what we voted for in the past.

Uh, here's what happened with that money.

Here's what got built and implemented, and here's what the impact of that ultimately was on our community.

So that accountability loop, we really believe is how you turn one successful PB cycle into a lasting practice that can be evolved and iterated on to greatly benefit the community in the future.

And finally, uh accessibility really has been central to how we've built common.

The platform, as I mentioned, works on any device and supports multiple languages and will work with uh the city and communities to add the specific languages that Columbus needs based on your community demographics.

The onboarding is designed to be very simple with low barriers to access, and your community partners and city staff will have training and support at every step of the way.

So that's that's our presentation of Common for today.

We are really honored to be part of our voice, our choice, uh, the way that Columbus has designed this process, community-led, equity focused, running across all nine districts.

Um, all of the words that we've heard from participants in this hearing about the importance of this process to communities, really exactly the kind of process that common was built to support.

Uh, and we're really looking forward to working with all of you to make this uh success.

So thank you so much.

And Zaana and I are happy to answer questions.

Uh thank you again for your partnership.

Um Alana.

Uh I do have a question, but not for you all.

I think it's actually more for either uh Melissa or Lawrence.

Uh in a one we want to utilize the platform, and I'm really excited about common because this is something they've done across the country.

Uh and we'll utilize technology as much as possible.

But did this come up in the steering committee on voting?

Uh, will there also be in-person or other options for folks who may just want to do that versus going online?

Yes, that did come up in our discussions.

Uh we're trying to utilize every every option that we have.

Uh, obviously for the younger generation, they're gonna want something digital, some type of app that they can download, but then you have those people, like I said, uh work at the elections.

You just have people that want to vote on a piece of paper.

Like, I don't want to vote on the machine, I don't trust the machine.

So you're gonna have that, so you want to have that opportunity too.

Um, and that transparency as well.

Um, if we put everything behind the app, then they're gonna be asking questions about like the data connectivity and all of this thing, the data collection and things like that.

So I feel like if we have something uh face forward uh that they're able to come in and actually do the entire process in person, uh I think we should utilize both.

Thank you for that and for the thoughtfulness.

Um, you know, uh as a politician, I tell folks there's many ways to vote.

Uh I encourage folks to go vote early.

I'm old school, I go vote on election day.

Uh, I'd like to go see my poll workers, and so it's just a preference.

Um I do have one question that I just thought of is around uh to what Lawrence was saying, around the data collection.

Uh, with the system that you all have, is there any uh back end analytics?

So, for instance, if there's keywords that keep popping up in a certain area of town or key thing, are you all able to synthesize that for us and uh we're putting in a way that we can utilize that data?

Absolutely, yeah, we can definitely support that.

Um, and you know, as we work towards designing the full process, we can both preempt what those data needs might be, um, and also implement them after the fact if there are questions you all have about the process uh that we can pull out of the data, of course, respecting um people's data privacy and anonymity, and um doing so in a way that's aggregated.

Um, but absolutely to support uh again understanding community needs, uh themes, keywords 100%.

Thank you for that.

Well, that brings us to the end of our presentations.

Again, I want to thank uh all of our partners who got us to this point and really looking forward to the next steps ahead.

I will now move into public comment.

Um, as of today's 10 a.m.

deadline, we did receive two requests for in-person testimony.

And so I know that Melissa Tompkins was one of those speakers.

She is not here, but but wanted to make sure that we acknowledge that she did sign up to speak.

And then the other person we have is Luca Winberger.

Come on up.

Sorry.

It's okay.

None of my teachers.

I got it a second time.

There you go.

Well, Luca, welcome to council.

Thanks for being here.

Um, it's just you today, so we will leave the clock off and take as much time as you need.

Oh, what?

I would have written so much more.

That's okay.

Um, hello, my name is Luca Weinberger.

I'm a hilltop resident and a local artist.

Uh, in fact, on page two of the participatory budget guidebook, you used my mural, uh, which is located at the intersection of South Central and Sullivan Avenue.

Uh, I'm very proud to be a West Sider and look forward to much needed upgrades and changes on the often neglected southwest side of Columbus.

I love how much transparency is being focused on for this process.

I think the part I love most about this uh idea is that the community itself gets to vote on it and not just the city council.

On April 20th, we learned through an article by Rachel Wenning at Matter News that a vote was about to happen that very day regarding McCoy Park and a proposal to lease at Acreage to National Women's Soccer League.

This came as a shock as this plot of land had been specifically chosen after around 900,000 in tax funds was used on research to determine which neighborhood park would most benefit from major adaptive upgrades.

And suddenly, with no warning or community input through the process, except for right before the vote, that promise was broken.

Instead, it will become yet another training facility for a sport that operates at a loss every year in our city, and the city and county taxpayers are going to foot the bill.

50 million dollars combined in tax subsidies.

Believe me, this is not about a hatred of women's sports.

Not to be that person, but look at me.

Uh, do I look like I hate women's sports?

This is about responsible use of funds and fulfilling your promises.

This is about concern that whatever ideas these committees bring to you, whatever the community votes on, you can change your mind.

The second corporate interests enter the picture or just simply not follow through.

The relationship between city council and the city is just that.

It's a relationship.

And when you break our trust and also have us pay for this pilot program, it feels an awful lot like you cheating on us and then grabbing our wallet to buy us flowers and dinner as an apology.

Close to a million dollars was already spent and rendered useless by a decision to choose billing our profits over the community you swore to represent.

So if you want to actually make right with us and build trust, like council member Remy said earlier, what you should be doing is going back to the table with NWSL and saying, you know what?

Our bad, we actually already made a commitment to our city for this park.

We need to choose another option for this training facility, or we need to say no to NWSL and fulfill our promise.

I want to take a second and uh say to the three citizens behind me and the other 15 people who are taking the time and energy to be part of this pilot program.

Thank you.

I do truly love this, and I think there's a lot of potential, Councilman Bingston.

I really do.

But also it is useless if this council or the city commissioners or the mayor can just make whatever background backroom deals they want in the end without our voice or our choice.

Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony and do just want to uh set the record straight on a couple things.

Uh, one, I think it uh demeans the work of 18 residents who have been working on this since November of last year.

Uh it also think demeans the work of this body who fought for this and got this last year.

So to say that this is some type of switch is just not true.

Uh, two, I think that is very unfortunate.

I think you heard this body say that, uh, but there is a process underway already that all parties in the final amendment that we put forward are working on to deliver those park, the the park and the amenities that was promised.

And so uh we are moving with lightning speed, and I remain committed uh to making sure that we do uh deliver on that uh for the Southwest side.

But again, thank you for uh your testimony.

Thank you for being here.

Um for closing remarks again.

I want to thank my colleagues who were here uh that joined us and again uh really excited about the the work ahead um for uh participatory budgeting in our city.

Uh thank you to all of our presenters, presenters, and public speakers for their participation in this afternoon's hearing.

Now that the guide book and framework uh for the Our Voice, our choice budget has been released.

We can begin the next stage of the process.

Earlier this year, uh council put out an application for community partners to support implementation of the idea collection phase.

Community partners will be responsible for the following sharing information, supporting language access and educating community members on the process, holding info and idea collection meetings in trusted community spaces, conducting door-to-door and community-based outreach to meet residents where they are, running social media campaigns and newsletters to spread the word about the process, and finally recruiting budget delegates, encouraging idea submissions, and hosting and or supporting voting events during the voting phase.

The following organizations have been selected to engage uh with the uh following districts.

The Ohio Hispanic Coalition will be uh leading our efforts in District One.

Community Refugee and Immigration Services, better known as Chris, uh, will be leading our efforts in District 2.

Elevate Northland will be overseeing District Three.

The Community of Caring Development Foundation will be overseeing District Four.

C Brilliance will be overseeing District 5.

Transit Columbus will oversee District 6.

Community for New Directions will oversee District 7.

Uh, South Side Thrive Collaborative will oversee District 8.

And last but not least, the Columbus Literac Literacy Council will oversee the work in District 9.

The appropriate context for these organizations along with the other details for this framework can be found in the Our Voice, Our Choice Budget Guidebook, which is currently on my webpage on the city's website, and again will be made available much more widely, both by print and digital uh forms in the coming weeks.

Starting this week, the one project team that you just heard from will begin building out the platform for this process and the idea collection process, and the platform will go live the week of July 6th.

On May 18th, I plan to bring forward a resolution before this council to acknowledge and support the contents of the Our Voice, Our Choice Budget Guidebook.

Again, all questions uh in the meantime can be directed to those community-based organizations that I just mentioned, and they will be able to help and direct our residents.

Of course, always feel free to reach out to my office or reach out to council, we'll make sure that we can help triage that as well.

Uh, if you do not know which district you reside in, you can find out by clicking the district map located at the bottom right-hand corner of the Columbus City Council webpage home page and putting in your address.

Again, thank you, thank you, thank you for everyone that has been a part of this.

Uh Lawrence, Melissa, uh, Director Erickson.

Uh, I also want to thank my team, JP Dorval, uh, and Jonathan Brown, who have been working diligently on this uh and really looking forward when we talk about uh true progress in our community.

This is really what it looks like when I think about things like a rental registry and things like a participatory budgeting process, not statements, but actual policy that we are putting forward uh for our residents to engage in.

That's what I really get excited.

And so looking forward to the ideas that will come about, and more importantly, looking forward to shovels in the ground uh soon in our neighborhoods.

Thank you, everyone, and have a good night.