On the 6th of May the city council of Sopot in Poland has passed a landmark resolution that starts the process of participatory budgeting in our city. It means that the citizens of Sopot will have a direct say in what the public funds are spent on. We’re beginning with a modest amount of 1.1 million USD – I say “modest”, because it’s less than 1% of the total budget expenditure. Nevertheless, in the city of 37,000 residents many small projects can be funded with this amount.
It took us more than two years to get here and it was all possible thanks to the support of the new city council. That’s exactly why taking part in the elections is so crucial. The situation is a bit complicated though, because the mayor of Sopot, who also won the elections, is against participatory budgeting and he has announced his own counter-project of consultations for the whole city’s budget. It may seem nice of him at first glance, but there is a catch — his consultations are non-binding, and the whole point of participatory budgeting is that the decisions made by citizens are final. Luckily for us, it is the city council that approves the budget, not the mayor, and the councilors will hopefully respect the results of the citizens voting.
We’re all very curious how participatory budgeting will go in Sopot — how many citizens will get involved and which projects will receive most votes. As far as I know we are the first city in Poland to introduce participatory budgeting. The challenge now is to design the whole process, so that it will be both meaningful and fun. What we are suggesting is to establish a Citizens’ Forum which is meant to be the place for regular meetings of citizens, where the projects will be prepared and discussed. To engage the citizens we are planning a city-wide campaign with invitations sent by mail to all households. There will be posters, a website, etc.
The ideas for the projects are to be developed throughout the summer, and later on the cost estimates will be made. We don’t know yet if pre-selection of projects will be necessary — it depends on the number of projects submitted.
What can the money be spent on? On everything that can be funded from the city’s budget. This can include: renovation of a park, bicycle lanes or retrofitting of a school, for example. Who can propose the projects? Each citizen of Sopot, NGOs, public institutions (such as schools) and the municipality as well. I’m a bit worried that we’ll get such a huge number of projects that citizens might have a problem with reviewing them all. There are many issues yet to be solved, but the news of the day is: we’re starting!
