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As Seattle City Hall tangles over the latest $1.6 billion budget proposal from the mayor’s office, an effort being touted as “the biggest participatory budgeting processes ever in the United States” is taking shape in the city.
The Participatory Budgeting Project is hiring staff and seeking Steering Committee and Working Group members “to shape, launch, and run” the effort.
CHS reported here in April on the selection of BPP — the only candidate organization to step forward for the gig to run the city’s new participatory budgeting process that is hoped to become a component in the city’s annual budget setting debate.
The bid from the national advocacy group was selected for BPP to serve as the third-party administrator on the newly formed effort to shape a $30 million package hoped to address inequity by creating a system of more direct control of community spending in Seattle.
Now BPP says it is ready to make hires and add new members to its committees formed to shape the new process:
The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) is recruiting local staff, Steering Committee, and Working Group members to shape, launch, and run one of the biggest participatory budgeting (PB) processes ever in the United States.
Five Seattle-based Full-time Positions:
- Community Engagement Director
- Community Engagement Manager
- Participatory Budgeting Coordinator
- (2) People’s Fellowship Managers
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, but interviews are ongoing, and we are looking to hire ASAP. We strongly encourage applications from Black, Indigenous, and people of color, women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ individuals.
For the steering committee, the organization says it is seeking members to guide the effort “to ensure it meets the needs of people who live and work in Seattle residents and are impacted by systemic lack of investment in the city’s historically underserved Black community.”
Working group members, meanwhile, are asked to bring “specialized skills” in the following fields and emphasis areas: Accountability and Restorative & Proactive Safety Working Group, Lived Experience & Outreach Workgroup, Budget Delegate & Facilitation Workgroup, and Evaluation & Data.
You can learn more at Seattle.gov’s participatory budgeting website.
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Whatever we can do to get rid of some cops and their money, I’m all for
Hello CHS. Thanks for referencing your article from April. There were a number of comments from folks questioning the decision to select a group from Brooklyn, as in New York, with the task of hiring staff here and running this organization. Well, yes they were the only applicant, but perhaps that should worry taxpayers right there. I’ll be anxious to see if some of the same people who questioned this spending and the organization doing it. As always, accountability would be a good thing.
Accountability ? What is that? This is performative. Those who seeks accountability must look elsewhere.
I hope for transparency and accountability in yet another government program. I’m sure this time will be different.
Glenn hit it on the head, this is performative. There is no plan nor goal. It’s time to grow up and realize that a well trained and monitored police force is required to keep communities safe and civil. Yes we would all like to see people behave how we think they should but that is naive.
It is worse than performative. It is a mechanism for City Council members to funnel money to special interest groups to strengthen their political power. It eroded public trust.