Norah Brennan, chair of the participatory budgeting committee, presented the next five projects that could receive funding under the participatory budget.
Saratoga Springs residents can vote to allot up to $75,000 toward the proposed projects. Among the options is a celebration of the Lake Avenue Elementary School centennial, a solar charging bench for the Saratoga Springs Public Library, and educational programming at the city’s farmer’s market.
Speaking after the city council meeting, Brennan said this level of civic engagement can be significant.
“And I think that people in the community should get very excited about the opportunity to contribute directly to saying ‘this is what we should be doing.’ You know, one of the things about the budget program here, and anywhere for that matter, is the budget is not necessarily—we have the opportunity, as residents, to step up and say ‘we don’t like this, why are you spending money on this? Why are you spending money on that?’ But in a lot of cases, the budget is what it is. This is one of those places where we can contribute to deciding how to spend the money before it’s been allocated,” said Brennan.
Speaking with WAMC, Commissioner of Finance Minita Sanghvi added that individuals aren’t the only ones who can submit project proposals.
“And then you have organizations also, you know, who may be needing to do one off projects but they don’t have the budget for it, or want to do specific things to help different parts of the community. And then we are able to, sort of, help that. Like curling; a resident was like ‘hey, wouldn’t this be a great idea?’ Because, right now a lot of people had to go to Schenectady to do curling, and drop-in curling allows people to try it out here in Saratoga,” said Sanghvi.
The commissioner was talking about a project from the previous round of funding: bringing seasonal curling to the Weibel Avenue ice rink so that anyone could try out the Olympic sport, and long-time players can sweep stone nearby.
Brennan spoke about one of the round’s proposals – a set of bocce ball courts – and how the participatory budget can show some support to up-and-coming sports that draw passionate fans.
“You know, I think that it just shows: that there’s a lot of varied interests in this community. And something like bocce ball, which is actually , technically, really just curling but on sand, it’s all about hitting a target. But I think that there is a lot of variety in the community. We also had a submission for pickle ball courts that didn’t work out and I think there were some issues about logistics, about location and stuff,” said Brennan.
Mayor Ron Kim, leaving office after one term, stayed mostly neutral on the proposals.
“I’m not gonna favor one or the other, I think they’re all interesting. I thought that, ironically—I go back to, sort of, my growing up in Schenectady in an Italian family; I like the bocce ball courts, but that’s purely personal,” said Kim.
Public voting is now open until December 12th. There’s more information at wamc.org.
