The City of Evanston Friday night announced that seven of the 20 proposals on the participatory budgeting ballot won the competition for $3 million in federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
The PB scheme was set in motion by a City Council vote in March 2022.
Here’s the vote count for each of the winning proposals:
Rank Title Votes Funding 1 Mental health first aid training 3,400 $50,000 2 Grants to support marginalized students in grades 3-12 3,117 $700,000 3 Evanston urban farm 3,014 $350,000 4 Affordable housing subsidy 2,918 $810,000 5 Affordable refugee housing 2,890 $645,000 6 Youth and young adult drop-in center 2,692 $210,000 7 Small business grants 2,095 $150,000 Total $2,915,000 Remainder for PB Leadership Committee to allocate $85,000
In a news release, the city said 6,565 votes were cast in the participatory budgeting balloting that ran through the month of September.
That compares to 10,671 ballots cast in the February 2021 mayoral election in Evanston.
Persons 14 years and older who either live in or claim some other connection to Evanston were eligible to vote in the participatory budgeting balloting.
City staff will be assigned to implement the winning programs.
More irresponsible spending from “our “ council.
I am curious what kind of oversight will there be for these grants? how will we know if they are successful? For a random example where will the 700,000 actually go for the grants to support marginalized students in grades 3-12 and who defines what a marginalized student is?
The devil is in the details with all of these. We can only encourage the city to be transparant with its spending.
“Small business grants” is particularly troubling to me.
I voted for the roller skating project because it is a one-time capital investment and it is something that almost everyone can make use of.
The “dentist van” did not make any sense to me, and I am glad to see it did not win. I do not understand why that is better than distributing coupons to people in need for dentists with offices.
Urban farms do not solve anything. They are way too small to provide a significant portion of calories per year that any group of people would need. Bringing food to grocery stores with trucks is very efficient. If an area has a lack of good grocery stores, then addressing the underlying causes of that is a better use of government money and energy.
How was the determination made for the amount given to each recipient organization? The top 3 groups combined will receive over $2 million of the total $3 million available. Seems there could have been a more equitable way to award these funds so that more organizations could benefit. Also, how are these “marginalized” students going to be “supported”?
Why isn’t tax relief on the table?