There is still time to join neighbors in helping Councilmember Carlos Menchaca decide how to spend $2 million.
First up is the Project Expo from 12 to 3 p.m. this Saturday, March 15, to be held at the Sunset Park Recreation Center, located at 43rd Street and Seventh Avenue. Residents and business owners can walk around the tables and read colorful poster boards—like at a science fair—that describe each of the 46 proposals that neighbors have nominated during previous brainstorming sessions.
These proposals were ideas developed as part of the popular participatory budgeting (PBNYC) process, which had been implemented in other parts of Brooklyn and New York before coming to Menchaca’s district, Council District 38.
Thus far, potential projects include new furniture for the Sunset Park Library, trash and recycling stations along the Fifth Avenue shopping corridor, flood lighting and Safe Zone lighting in Red Hook, improved basketball courts in NYCHA’s Red Hook Houses, bathroom and other renovations and dance/computer/music space at several area schools, and more.
The goal of the Project Expo is to give community members a chance to review the projects and start to get an idea of which ones they want to vote for, explained Menchaca’s District Director Ana Maria Cruz at a February informational meeting.
Those votes can officially be made during Vote Week—scheduled for Sunday, March 30 through Sunday, April 6—at several poll sites that will be located at community-chosen poll sites across the district.
Voting locations will be throughout Sunset Park, Red Hook, Greenwood Heights, South Park Slope and the Bay Ridge Towers.
To find out more about the PBNYC process and to find voting locations, contact Menchaca’s office at 718-439-9012 and “like” its Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pbnycdistrict38.
