 With that, I'm going to introduce Sylvia de Oyoz, who is part of the Interpretary Budgeting Committee at Palo Alto College, and shows us what you know and what you need to know in terms of the event. After she did this slide presentation, after a little mock run, you'll get to move out with great gathering groups and we'll direct you for that. At the end of that, there's the opportunity to engage with some city council members. He'll be showing out or will be sending people in their proxy so that they can learn also about this process, that they haven't already been in the audience. And that will give you the opportunity to directly connect with people that are going to be integral to making this process work. Thank you so much. We are from Palo Alto College and I'm going to be introducing to you the rest of the participatory budgeting committee from Palo Alto College. Initially, the whole concept of participatory budgeting came to our president. He was from Palo Alto College, Dr. Michael Koyes. And as much as he would have liked to have been here, he would have liked to have been here. Nonetheless, it was his enthusiasm and his desire for us to work with this particular concept, this process, that now we have in great students working for us in the higher education study. So what we will be doing is we will actually be showing you a very brief PowerPoint, a little bit about our experience at Palo Alto College with participatory budgeting, and explain what participatory budgeting is in the community. I'm going to introduce rest of the committee, and then we'll move to the part of it as well. Anthony Davis, everybody, we really are not that shy, seriously. So Anthony Davis, Veronica Rosas-Tayden, Duzal Monia, Alexis, Carmen. We actually, and I talked to you about participatory budgeting because this is a process that has come together with all of us. We as a committee have put together what works for Palo Alto College, and we as a committee have reviewed what are the proposals that you will be looking at in terms of what succeeds. Anthony, can you talk a little bit about the faculty that you're talking about? Sure, so good evening everyone. So several years ago Dr. Flores approached some of the faculty and staff leaders at Palo Alto College and started off with an email like, hey, here's participatory budgeting, check into it. And so I got an email and I'm like, budgeting, why do I want to worry about budgeting? And that doesn't sound very exciting. And so once we started doing some of the research with our faculty staff leaders part of the mall at the time, I was a staff council president, so I was invited to be part of the committee. Carmen was our director of student engagement at the time, so she had definitely a different voice. So there was a lot of different perspectives brought together to go over what participatory budgeting became. So once we did some of the research and Dr. Flores said, hey, do some research on this, it helps me if you're interested. We decided, you know, this is something that we need to explore. Participatory budgeting sounds scary because that word budgeting is growing there. But once we did some of the research, we decided, you know what, let's go ahead and there was a conference and let's go check this out. Let's see what it's about, see if we can kind of remove ourselves from the fear of budgeting. So we all went to a conference in Chicago to learn about what participatory budgeting became. And so that's how we really got started. There was a small group of, again, faculty and staff leaders to really decide how can this work for us at the college. So what we're going to share with you today is a lot of what we learned at that conference and how we were able to bring that back, adapt it to the special needs of our community and make it a community hall of college to make it what it is today, the program that we have that started out with faculty and staff. Propulsions in that way is expected to allow our students to submit proposals. So that's a little bit about what we're going to share with you this evening. I'll go ahead and start the talk point. And like I said, it's very brief, but we're going to give you a point. So the participatory budgeting came to battle at the college. And so I'm going to explain to you this. Very brief little video is going to show you how participatory budgeting works in the communities. We're talking about Chicago and other states where participatory budgeting has already been done and it has been successful. Participatory budgeting gives people real power over real money to make the things that affect their lives. It's democratic process in which ordinary community members directly decide that it's going to support the public budget. This is different because you're actually voting for where the money is going to be spent instead of allowing them to decide where to spend the money. You know better about the community than what I live in. I'm afraid of the big words participatory budgeting. It sounds boring, but it's an opposite of that. So how does this work? First, people write strong ideas. They come together in meetings and assemblies and start to think of what kinds of projects they would like to see in their neighborhoods. We have to think of big, we have a million dollars that we can use so we can fund parks, health issues, streets. Volunteers or good experts, to turn people's initial ideas into full project proposals. We started with about 40 projects and so we had a series of budget delegate meetings and we narrowed down the list into about four or five projects. We met with the Parks Department and we talked about what we wanted to see change in some of the parks and how we were going to work with them. What are the world into and what is it that you can do that's going to benefit as many people as possible? Dreaming of new benches, modern benches, seniors have no way to go. Displays and bus shelters throughout the district and it will tell people when the next bus is due to a rush. We're asking for a projector for 130. Stay in the art fitness center. Have the volunteers share the top projects the community can turn to vote. So we're validating every voice in our community and saying you know what, whatever your position is, you live in our community, you have a right to decide and that me as a representative and government should respond and should listen to that voice. Anybody could vote in this process. Immigrants, whether you're documented or not, people that normally don't get to vote. Most people, they don't even know this. CEOs would go on and vote today. Some of them are pretty surprised. They say really? I think yes. They never vote. The projects with the most votes get funded. The Redbone Library Community Garden. So it's been implemented over the next few years. And the following year the process starts again. People brainstorm new ideas, turn them into new projects, vote on them and fund more improvements with our community. PVE becomes part of the budget process. It becomes a new way of working. I think this is like the greatest wave of democracy coming into the United States. It started in Portugal and in Brazil in 1989. From there it spread all over Latin America to over 1,500 cities around the world. In Toronto, public housing tenants have decided to spend going to dollars in improvements to their goals. City Council members in Chicago, New York, other cities have engaged thousands of residents in allocating discretionary funds. Entire cities are watching PVE, such as in Baleo, California, for funds from sales staffs and in Boston for youth funds. Even schools and universities have used PVE. This was a great opportunity for you to be a part of government. And better than city living. Who would want to be a manager of that? You're creating a more educated platform of voters overall. So I think this can only be good for the big project of democracy. It's community organizations, but we need a development of the budget. These funds that are allocated in the participatory budget process are not the usual funds. They're allocated when you see the city structure going through the development of the budget. And you can hear that they have public hearings and all of those things. Participatory budgeted funds are actually separate funds. Perhaps they're discretionary funds during the council districts. It just depends on how those are allocated. And that's not even for us to say, that's just the way the process works. We then, if you notice, the start of Chicago, New York, and it's been around for quite a while, we then decided to carry it over and embrace it and use it in higher education. So this is what we did for us. This is a lot easier. So the whole idea of it was, well, why do we decide to do it? Why do we want to do participatory budgeting? Again, realizing that this is in higher education. So if you notice, this is what we did for us. It increases and deepens a buy-in from all stakeholders. In our case, it's the faculty, the staff, and the students. Otherwise, it's community organizations. It provides accountability. It expands relationships between the stakeholders and any advocates with any diverse groups, whatever happens to be. And what I don't mind for you to do is to put it into perspective as to how you would be applying it in the community of San Antonio. Outcomes, well, certainly, it increases the stakeholder support. It provides a practice of openness and accountability, which is something that is extremely important to all of us, whether it's in higher education or in a community role. It yields collaboration and innovation among the stakeholders. And it builds a sense of community among the stakeholders. So what we did, the infrastructure was needed. In our case, our president, the administration, set aside the $25,000 each year for the projects. The winning projects are then funded in maximum of $5,000 each. So I'm going to go through this very quickly because then we're going to actually experience this process. At Bob Arthur, the participatory budget committee is the administrator, one of the vice presidents at Bob Arthur College, staff members, faculty members, and public relations. So the individuals that I introduced to you early on are that committee. And of course, we have our public relations staff. On the other side, we have consultants. These are the experts that when a proposal is prepared, they will look at the proposal in terms of feasibility. So depending on what the proposal is that we're submitting, it could be perhaps, well, is it to not do a little look at the IT individual and he will look at it and say, okay, it's reasonable. If not, perhaps, the facilities, we're looking at similar applications to the campus or other issues. So here's, in a nutshell, as you saw in the video, brainstorm, plan, vote, fund, and act. And you guys work in this cycle. So as we go through it, you're going to see how that goes. So the brainstorming, the brainstorming begins with a group of individuals getting together. We actually set up a time frame and say, okay, what is important to us in our community? Could it be recreation? Could it be health? Could it be education? Whatever happens to be, and it could be, what is important in your particular area of town may not necessarily be in another area of town. It's just what is important at that time. So the questions are, how does this align, in our case, with the College of Strategic Planning, who will this project benefit? Is it sustainable? And it will not be allocated for personnel or those recurring funds. The idea of, is it sustainable? If it's not sustainable, it's just a one-time project. Well, maybe that's not necessary. Something is going to benefit even the College or the community. So then we go to the development of the plan, the development proposal, based on whatever was put together under the brainstorming. So then, we have actually set up a timetable, month one, identify the project leads. We, the committee, review these pre-proposals in order to make sure that the criteria has been met. That's with the job of the committee. The following month, then the project leads, those are the individuals that actually put together the proposal, came up with a concept, and meet with the consultants, is a survival idea. The final month, month three, is that they submit the proposal due to the committee. And then we go on to the voting. This is so much fun and so exciting, because there's actually a campaign within the community. And we're not talking about a political campaign. This is, hey, this is the project that we are involved in. This is what we would like you to vote for. So you can imagine that in a college campus, when we have a student or a faculty where we're all excited about, yes, fund this. This is what we're looking for. So we go to the voting, and this is what it looks like. Voting for the projects. The projects actually are put on this way, and this is where our public relations staff comes through. They will actually, she will actually invade several individuals. We'll put together a little poster. This is the idea. This is the concept. This is what it's going to look like. A little graphic of some sort. The voting will take place over two days. All the voters can select up to three projects depending on how many are submitted. In our case, the first round that we went through was only for faculty and staff. We are now into, Suzelle, we're into our fourth, but we actually have gone through seven, seven cycles. And the reason we say seven cycles and this is the fourth round is because we started with faculty and staff. Then we brought in the students for their round. Then we came back with faculty and staff. Then we did another one with students. And the idea is to have everyone have an opportunity to submit proposals and to then vote on their individual proposals. Okay. Funding. So now we're talking about the last one. Funding. Go ahead. Voting for the projects takes place before the beginning of the next fiscal year. This is really very important. Whatever the fiscal year happens to be, the money gets put aside and it is allocated for that particular project, and then they go in to actually implement it. So the projects are funded at the starting fiscal year. Our fiscal year begins September 1. The project needs will work with a campus budget officer. That's when the funding occurs to begin purchasing the project needs. The reason this, let me say this, it may take a while and we will briefly talk about the projects that we actually got implemented. Explain to you what was outstanding about the projects that we submitted. So that's actually implementing the idea. In implementing the project, okay, now they have 10 months from September to July which is our fiscal year to implement all the projects within the timeline and the budget. The leads are going to work with the consultants, the consultants that I mentioned to you. Those are the experts. And then upon implementation there is an actual review of that minor project. Did it work out? Was it beneficial? Is there something that we should have done differently? Since I mentioned we've gone to several rounds and we started it initially as a test to see what was going to work for us. This is what happened for us. We decided to expand to the student-initiated projects. We started with faculty and staff and we decided to then incorporate the next round of students. And it's actually been very successful, very exciting for the students. We then implemented a survey so we could collect feedback from everyone. Is it working? Is it working? What do we want to do differently? About all the college, and this is weird, extremely proud of this, in 2015, the 2015 Texas Award for Performance Excellence this is through the Quality of Texas Foundation. And we're proud of this with the innovation in implementing this particular participatory budgeting into our annual budgeting process. So as I'm explaining this to you, you want to kind of consider how will that work in my community? Those are the things. This is something for us that was very new and extremely exciting for us, a new concept and new approach. You have your typical budget and then we have this participatory budget and that's exactly what that study requires. The annual overall personal assessment of the college environment, which is a pay-servit on everyone, has indicated a collaborative environment in leadership, which is the highest of four levels, continuously since 2014. These are high, high recognitions for part of the college and we certainly extremely proud of those achievements. So these are some of the projects and as soon as we get best analyzed, Alexis to come over and talk a little bit about it. Virtual office simulation, theater, the journey to wellness, from project to program. And I want to talk a little bit about those two before we can get out of the picture. So, I am extremely proud. I'll go ahead and ask Radhika if she wants to add a little bit more of this. The first year that we had this, they asked if we were interested in doing something. A lot of us, I am a business instructor. I'm a faculty and I'm all our businesses know what we can do. Well, we had our capital funds, we had our capitalist budget for us, but there were some master's, some of the answers. I wanted technology, I wanted the virtual reality, I wanted all those things. And as much as I wanted it, we did quite have the funds to do it. So, I had a community and I asked Miss Taylor if she would also work with me and we actually had a community of several of them. She's actually the chair of my program. So, we got together and put together this proposal for the virtual office simulation theater. Well, it got funded. I was so excited. But that was only partial funding. So, the following year, we had a phase two for that proposal. And that included then another virtual reality enhancement for the simulation theater. And that was funded again with that second proposal. So, this is something that for you to consider as you're looking at the community, I'm going to ask the flexible breaker when you go into the journey to wellness. For journey to wellness, ours was that we had as we're in the Physiology Department Physiology and Health, but we're constantly getting people and faculty and staff asking hey, can you develop a fitness plan for me? Or can you do training and you tell me what my body composition is? And but we didn't really have it set, you know, they would just have to come up to us. So, our first time out as part of the journey to wellness, we put together a plan where we would take applications, take those people and take them through a fitness training plan. It was very popular. So popular that when we go back to the that's why I kept hitting on that you can't hire anyone because it was just faculty doing it kind of on our own time as a volunteer. And for that reason we could only have so many people. Well, it became really popular and then it became popular among other faculty and staff that were like, well, it's not in my you know, I have a degree in Physiology, even though I'm in computers. So we kind of opened it up to people because we had more faculty and staff. So not only was it that we had more participants applying for it, we actually had more people being able to be almost coaches to say and to help us through. That time we not only took them through an entire workout project, the ending was a 5k race where they were able to we pay the entry fee and they ran the 5k and or walked it. We had people coming that that said, you know, I didn't walk mine. And one of the biggest things about this was that all of a sudden now they were walking around campus. So it wasn't just that they were doing it off time. It was that we were bringing it back onto campus. People were starting to get out of their office and walk to the other buildings versus just emailing somebody or calling them. And so when you talk about the stakeholder buy-in that's one of the things that is for one thing. Ours was for fitness and wellness. It was literally to take them to a plan and to take them to an event. From that point it grew and we got to the point that we were I applied first year then the second year and the third year each three times I got funded to the point that the fourth year they were like don't apply here's your money. So it went from being something that we were asking for we went from the first time only doing 15 people this past we did the fiesta 5k, 10k and we had 42 people registered which meant they had gone through all of our projects and they had either done a 5k or 10k. Because it had become so popular it went from being a part of the participatory budgeting into part of the budgets. So now I have applied so other people can apply I think we're seeing that okay, fitness and wellness is important because I also know if you saw in the slide one of the ones for this time is exercise bike desks for students so that while they're studying they can cycle and so no longer this part is set and one of the examples of participatory budgeting is the same thing happened in New York on a much larger scale they found that schools kept winning and what that brought to the attention of their they're not called councilmen but councilmen was that oh people want more money for schools and so all of a sudden instead of being part of that discretionary fund part of the regular city budget more of the regular city budget started going for the education so it's one of those things that through participatory budgeting the wants start coming out and if normal people are wanting an idea that saying need is there it can bring the attention of it and bring it out into the regular budget and so that's one of our the journey to wellness and how we keep it as Alexis mentioned one of the beauty of this is that this is actually just focused on the project it's community organization or community initiated this is not something that is brought up as a result of a council member Alderman or public official but rather these are ideas these are issues and concerns that are brought up by the community I think that's the beauty of it that's what makes it so good and so successful go ahead the next one okay so did anybody else want to offer anything else Veronica Anthony our administration it wasn't about the district administration it was about the students and the faculty and as a community what we're learning is as we grow out just toward budgeting is that it's not a political event it's not about individuals that are running for office it's about us it's about empowering people you and making you have an opportunity have a voice and that's what's so incredible about this is that we found we went to New York and Boston and Chicago California and all these places around the United States people who are self telling us you know you're the only one doing this in a higher education setting yeah we know that but our president had this vision that it wasn't about him it was about turning this all around and making it about faculty and the staff and the students so how amazing is that that's what we want as a community and that's what we're here today because we feel that this is going to give us we're going to flip the pancake you know this is going to give us an opportunity as citizens in this community to change the way we do things if this grows out this would be the largest city not only the United States but in the world that is pulling down to participate in our budget we would be the largest and that is something that says something about our community and I just want you to know that we're the loudest cheerleaders here because we saw what this did to our small community our college community and it really changed things people that didn't communicate did people that had biases and maybe had judgmental views didn't so it's a great opportunity so I encourage you to think about flipping the pancake and getting involved in participatory budget yeah yeah and that show and I showed that's exactly what this is all about and if you see the excitement in our part that's because we saw how useful and how much we were able to turn it over to who goes it matter our students and they were able to say we have a voice and if you saw my video pay attention to the video that's what the individuals were saying there were the various community organizations saying I had an opportunity to make an impact it was me they listened to me I had a voice so now what we're going to do is we're going to I'm sorry okay do you want to see if your questions are going to answer questions in the group or in the future? yes what we're going to do is we're going to do in an actual mock and exercise you should have you go through it but again these questions before this in terms of the approach the concept we'll do that and then we'll move around a little scenario so you can see where it actually is like we're going to answer your questions yeah I want to know what you could tell us about the challenges that you encountered while trying to implement and then also once it was implemented any other challenges maybe about the community that you encountered after and please remember that our community is our campus okay and please Anthony Veronica to talk about the challenges that we had Alexis tomorrow because this is really very communal or permanent message Carmen is actually very very good she was actually at the onset to talk about the challenges that we had those are the things that it was coming up and it's like oh wow did we think of this and why did this not work so with this it was just like anything we had a lot of ups and downs we had a lot of challenges but every year we got better and we addressed those challenges at the beginning the way we started it was we had people the first semester which was obvious through May we had them whoever we would have workshops and we would show them how to do the project and how to come up with the project but the thing is our big issue was what we didn't know was an issue was then we only gave it January through July to implement it it takes time to order things it takes time for things to get done especially if we were going to have any kind of monument or something on campus all of that takes time so that was number one we needed to expand so what we did was we gave them the whole year to go ahead and be able to implement that another issue that we had was as we reviewed all of these proposals we thought however we kind of left an administration out we didn't have them look at these because then we found out that they already had some of these ideas in thought and this was already going to be institutionalized whatever some of their ideas were and so now the next step was make sure we run all these through all the proposals through our administration so that they can see if this is something that they already had on their radar because if it is how badly going to be taken funded and but it wasn't to say no I don't like here and on like that it was to see is this something already that's on their radar but if it's not then we put it up we put it up for a vote if it is then we let them no congratulations this is something that already going to be happening and it's already going to be funded and maybe down the road this is something that our administration wants another thing was we really needed to make sure we had all the A's on because as they were creating these proposals they had a lot of questions and so they just emailed all the everybody on the committee and the committee was like well are you going to answer that or who's going to answer that so then we went ahead and selected one of the A's on who would be working with the faculty and staff and one of the A's on who would be working with the students and if the students had any questions about from the beginning from the proposal to the implementation that would be something that they would talk to and so and we would always also say this is our timeline where are you with this and especially with the students we needed to grasp we needed to have that rein that in to make sure they stayed on on task because they have other things to do they have organizations have a little other things to do so we need to make sure they stayed on task and then another thing was we wanted to make sure that we involved the consultants a lot more because they don't have these ideas but don't realize that $5,000 only buys so much so we needed to say okay then this is that's how we had the consultants IT consultants so they could say this is exactly how much things cost let's go back to reality we know we want to change the world but reality said we can only afford this much however you might be able to implement it in phases just like Sylvia did she implemented it in the first phase and then it she wasn't automatically voted in for the next phase but she went and said hopes and she went ahead and put it in and she got voted in for the next phase so this is not a popularity contest we don't if we would say who is putting it together all it says is this is an idea because again we don't want the popularity we want everybody we want to be very transparent we want everybody to support whatever it is that we were proposing so there were some of the challenges that we had and every year we got something else that we hadn't thought about and so then we would add that in and so this is the work in progress it has been for the last five years and so we're hoping that we will be able to overcome we have been able to overcome some of these challenges and then anything new we take that into consideration we don't see that as a failure we see that as evolving different I guess my number one question is how is this going to translate to a city-wide plan or are you guys this is like you guys are trying it out here brainstorming it here at Palo Alto how is this going to translate to the regular community on the size of the city that need it to be troublemakers etc. so the way that they did it in Palermo the way they did it in New York was they had there was something that had discretionary funds and they said we are going to set aside this amount of million dollars yeah we wish but like let's say some of them actually get a million dollars and they said now this is what we are going to do on the side and let the communities decide and that's something that we are trying to approach the councilmen that we have here what every city obviously has a different kind of budget and structure but we wanted to see what can we do to have that discretionary if it's called discretionary funds or whatever it's called here in San Antonio you'll see how much they are willing to kind of pledge so that then we can let the communities know I know from Ron Narmor he had mentioned that he had done something similar on a smaller scale just to kind of try it out in his district with the district aid and so he wanted to kind of bring that in and so this is something that we are trying to visit with each of the city councilmen but it has the impact we just had on our school and how it may again that transparency because we know transparency and budgeting is there are a dozen numbers we want to make sure that people know where the money end up taxes are going and have them maybe a voice for them yes sir Allen Townsend I'm the president of the Paul Pikes neighborhood association we were ready to go with a community project about three years ago and we thought we had the buy-in of our council woman it turned out once my wife and I Diane Lang and I went to Balejo to a conference on community on the participatory budget came back and it turned out she wasn't really willing to do it she got cold feet she said I can't do this and I think with council people there's the feeling of losing control this is a wonderful democratic approach Palo Alto is like a very enclosed environment I applaud you guys for doing it but there is I want to let everybody know this really but it is possible it's going on all over the country all over the world actually and it is possible to implement it in a city what we had hoped to do was take the discretionary funding at least $100,000 of it and then work the process out by getting citizens to be not just the people who vote but the people who make the rules about how voting is going to be done who attend meetings then go back who talk with the city staff to find out how much things really do cost in fact but ultimately who take responsibility for it and so that's I think that's what this lady is how are you going to translate this college experience into the big bad world of San Antonio and at least I know how I would do it if I got the chance thank you just a little quick response to that that's why this has been brought this is not about a lot of college initiative they asked us to invite us to show you how it works as you mentioned in a closed environment and it did work very well for us and it does continue to work for us and granted yes it is a matter of control it's a perception of the controls being relinquished all of us part of the engagement discussion having those talking points it is not up to about our college or any other to actually go and approach and say you will do this because it's working for us is the doors being opened perhaps coming to the table to have those discussions and say this is how it works it's worked in Boston it's worked in Chicago it's worked in these cities and it's working by a lot of college and as Zell mentioned this is an opportunity will it be taken I can't say can't say but certainly it's an opportunity you mentioned you mentioned somebody you were inviting this presentation by the city of San Antonio no this was not the city of San Antonio this was a San Antonio Progressive Alliance which is why Elaine was the one dimension so it is not to be partisan in any way at all just to show what happens so what example people were here and what is that the near and near view for this district you know again like I said that's really more from the San Antonio Progressive Alliance and what their communication has been with the various council persons or any of those either running for officer in office as far as how many more to demonstrate this is how it works so I really can't speak to who who is involved or who is interested or not because that information is not provided to us and do you recommend this for smaller organizations or more organizations and so where does that idea come from administration or is that okay so what do you think that's interesting in our type of question in our case it was administration and he brought the idea to us with the community it does begin with the community if you notice this video Josh Josh Lerner he is the president of the district where he came up with this concept so he in his community approached their Alderman in Chicago so it was the community and he said you know what we've been going together since but it's just not happening well they approach that particular Alderman so in that case that's the way it occurred perhaps but it's kind of a chip in our type of thing perhaps it's a community thing if one of the council members is already kind of torn with the idea and he has something similar to it but not quite participatory but just a little bit to say you know it's your council member who made it this is what we're thinking and now we're we've picked a momentum these are the things we wanted to approach sorry I was open in tech space my name is Elaine somebody asked a question about city council second to last question I just want to say I'm representing Brick I'm a social worker community social worker on staff at Brick and I host a civic engagement series on Tuesdays and this is one of those this is our kickoff for participatory budgeting we're going to continue the discussion each second Tuesday of the month so the next one will be on July 11th Tuesday same time as we develop this and as it grows in the community it is an organic and dynamic we have invited a number of city council folks and candidates and the oral candidates out to participate and they'll be arriving probably about 8 o'clock we told them towards the end 8 and they'll be hopefully coming in and they want to say that they support this kind of initiative this is our opportunity it's not part of necessarily a campaigning stop it's just this topic participatory budgeting how would you like to be a part of it implemented do you agree with the ideas San Antonio congressional line is one of the many groups that meet in our space that we allow into our space so that we can foster our community better and they actually members of their group reached out and knew participatory budgeting and so that's the connection in terms of San Antonio progressive alliance but this itself stands alone like she said before it's nonpartisan and it does involve everybody who would like to participate for her for all of you yeah I'm sorry I can tell you why none of the city council people are here and today is the last day of early voting so everybody's working the whole I'm sure the whole I'm one of the candidates for city council in the runoff and last year we took the mayor and five city council members to Spain and we had a very long full day meeting with the mayor of Spain and their participatory budgeting team Spain has a hundred million dollars a hundred million euros set aside I'm sorry Madrid has a hundred million euros set aside every year on its budget to participatory budgeting and they put it through the exact same process that you guys do obviously they have a different website but this is called Decide Madrid I'd encourage you all to see it the mayor of Madrid sat down to workshop with Mayor Taylor and five city council folks along the subject for participatory budgeting and the walk away from that was that it requires a significant amount of bravery on the part of administration which is the city council to give up the control that you're talking about which is I'm about to give a hundred million euros up so that people can decide how they're going to budget and that's a that's a bold step that went for as your president took in letting you guys sort of have control over a piece of his budget and the second thing that we walked away from it is that it's only as good as the number of people who are willing to participate in the budget right and so as important as your process is the most important component to that is spreading the word the process exists right absolutely absolutely and so in our case we got a few our people that was a very thing just by their nature of our campaign for individual projects that's for the interest the excitement for the projects and then even your proposals and it's growing my proposal perhaps can get funded a question for the government how long do you feel that America and the council people will visit to see the idea there's no way that they walked out of that day not understanding what it is I think that anybody could walk out of there knowing that it was tremendously successful for Madrid but again it's entirely dependent upon the quality of the participation right so it works right if you can actually get people to show up to the party and participate in the surveying and brainstorming who is what who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is who is never worked out before, walking in by pace of the commitment to be able to train for it. So they trained with it. They had so much fun, they said, huh, what can we do for our students? And so then they went forth and they put their own plan. They asked me questions about it, and I helped them develop it, but now it was theirs. So it's something as simple as, we had an idea, our idea brought other people in, they liked it, they enjoyed it, they put their own thing together. And it's something, that's what I'm talking about, with Disciplinary Budgeting, and it's not just this, other plans as well, we have a child care center on campus, and they wanted a track for their kids to, you know, write little tricycles around on. It went up, it, it got funded, the next things people were like, oh, well there's running a fight for the kids now. So the next, another regained it, and they put boards at the house. So a lot of times it's just that little niche, seeing something actually get done makes more people want to get involved. And so I think that's one of the best things about Disciplinary Budgeting is, it is that preference. It's exactly what people want. I don't know if it's a question or more about a state, I guess it is a question, and it plays off of your manner, correct? Yes, I am. Alright, you're in my district. Of how do we make this accessible to individuals that are most vulnerable in our community? And in district 8, we don't have too many of those individuals aside from the refugees, okay? So there's a heavy refugee population because they're along the 5-10 corridor that falls into district 8, okay? But there's a huge generational poverty problem on the west side. Having events like this on the second Tuesday of every month is fabulous. I don't see any of them coming here because they have transportation problems or because they are working three jobs. How do we get them involved? They're the ones that need it the most. And how do we get the mayor to give up that control and say, okay, I'm handing control over to persons that maybe don't have college education? For good ideas. Is this a control point that the other part of my brain comes out in my other form of life? It's like, okay, well then you have to go there. And so, well yes, this is great and we can get people going now. Okay, so where are you going to go back to? Where are you going to go? Okay, so now that you're here and you can make a connection with either this base board, the San Antonio... Okay, if you make a connection to the San Antonio resident lines, we can make a connection with all the different policies that are on the brick. I'd say on that city level, bringing them in now, okay, so we don't have to... This is, once again, not my space and not my meeting. You don't have to have a meeting here. Thank you, Trevor. I have a question. We're trying to record this and put it up on YouTube, so a whole lot of other people who couldn't be here can replay it. The more you speak it to the microphone, the less work she's going to have to do editing it. So I was just saying, it's a matter of you saying, okay, now I want it. So you make a connection with the San Antonio groups and say, this is what we think we need. Okay, so where? Well, the public health person says, okay, so now you set up meetings at churches and at elementary schools. And I say elementary schools because that's usually your younger parent versus setting up a high school. But so then it's, okay, so now it's about giving the community involved. And like you said, or like me, it's only as good as the people who want to come. So even if it's not your district, giving that district person and saying, okay, where is the biggest need? Once again, public health person and he says, okay, you go to schools, you go to churches, you go to community centers. You go under the British, you go wherever the people are and you ask them what they want and what they need. And a lot of times the short term is what they come up with, but it's a matter of taking that short term food and making it into a project that can be sustained because a lot of these worked at, you know, the kids didn't have books in the library. Okay, well your short term, you have a book draft. Long term, what can you do to bring in your books on different things instead of just all these books that people don't want anymore? So while you take care of the short term, you expand it into the larger need and that's where you're working with the city of San Antonio. You're working with, there are a lot of city groups that can bring that in, but it's just about making people involved. As many people are involved as you can get. I like that too because it's a logistics question and I've got logistics. So yes, going to the neighborhoods, having people from the neighborhoods and themselves taking on those goals is the best way to do it, especially for people who are not able to travel, like you said, on the two buses with kids, absolutely. But the great thing about participatory budgeting is that the process is fueled exactly by that, by people taking it on in their own communities. Well, we have tonight, on our way out, hopefully you'll see that there's a sheet of paper that asks for your name and your info which district you're in and if you'd like to take a leadership process, whatever that may be and it might be just, I want to hand other names of other people I know who would be good point people. This works like a legal system. It's called and then they get extended out and you get that one next time you're going. So this is a very good first meeting. This space will be dedicated every second Tuesday for this. We can do trainings as it grows, more specific trainings, the exact process, but it's all driven by the people in their own communities taking it on. So what's great is that also in the last week, I want to see as many high schools get reached out to and re-propose projects because if we start them at age 16 in this process, they're going to be voting at age 18. So there's really, there's no limit and it has to be decided by our own needs in our own communities. First I want to say I think it's good that there's a Q&A, I think that's more important. And first meeting that dealt in right into what's practice. So I'll say that. But secondly, since you guys went to various states and some places I think you went out, Councilman Kennedy went to Spain. What kind of examples do you have of pushback from local politicians because I don't see it as going to be a piece of a community. It wants change and has time to go where the most vulnerable are but I don't think it's as civilized. It's the quality of the people. No, it's the quality of the politicians going to benefit people. I think so. We realized that our experience is really great because we have a higher education and I keep on referring back to Josh for our new video. There is a lot of information that talks about that, so I hate to refer you to go to the website and check that it's free to find a lot of that information on those very questions that you're making. Yes, there was an issue and this is how we went around or this is how we addressed it or this is how they came to us. So please, look at the website, we are certainly the Oval Tax Director by the individuals from the Dispensatory Budget. We really want this to grow and so they will have a lot of insights on how they can give you, how you approach, how you address pushback on all those things. We had a lot of that. So where we experienced a whole lot of this, not necessarily pushback for the administration but maybe pushback for faculty staff because they didn't believe that what do you mean they're going to give us $25,000 to staff? And so we kind of almost had the opposite of that. It's getting our faculty staff to, yes Dr. Flores is saying here $25,000 tell us how we should spend it. So it really has to come from that community involvement piece where we're doing this, where we're going to do our call-off to college and how it's worked for us. I've been able to bring the faculty and staff together and hire them to see that division, almost like how we're at the division of the different districts. This district has this need, this district has that need. So the faculty have a specific need, the staff have a specific need, and then you're going to come together and identify needs together. And so once we've got the faculty and staff, because we had to get the faculty and staff by just like you would have to be a community member by in the same way, you would have to get the councilman and of course the mayor by him as well. So there's kind of like that, is this going to work for all of us all the way around from the community members all the way to your councilman. But it is definitely kind of a challenge of getting everyone on board. So once we kind of got through that in the first round, the faculty and staff were somewhat doubtful, like, oh, this is real. So that definitely has helped with the process and has helped it grow. Has there ever been in your research a time in which the community was like, we want to build, we want to totally like to redo a park with benches, you know, something, has an example, right? And whoever was allocating that money was like, no way, man, you know, I think it would be way better to put them in and they just like disregarded the voice of the people. So because these projects are developed by the people, so we work with that administrator who's in charge of the overhaul and the college. So the committee and so the community including her, we're not there to decide whether we like the project, whether we think it's a good project or if this is a better project. We're there to make sure it follows the criteria. So the people who decided on the project are the thought between stop voting. We don't even allow ourselves an opportunity to vote because we're on the committee. So we don't want to put any bias into whether we think a project is better than the other. The idea is that this funding is there and the community decides how that is going to get spent. Dr. Flores has no say in what gets and how that money gets spent once he releases it to the committee. It's up to the teams that come together to follow those projects and vote it out. I think also your hypothetical which I'm not sure this occurred but it has an immediate backlash especially when you're dealing with, say, two-year terms. If you have something that all the people who are most specifically engaged that they've gone through this process, they've done it from a grassroots perspective and then you just absolutely ignore what they've been working on. That's a fantastic way to get voted out of office. So that's one of the great things about this project is that there's pressure built into it and at the same time there's satisfaction built into it. There's a much greater degree of satisfaction as a civic participant when you have this direct connection and you know the person representing you and you're having these conversations and you're also seeing how some of these choices are being made in terms of the budget. You're better informed and you're also empowered. Yeah, that's interesting. We'll find a thought on this both related and that you mentioned. When you talk about this pushback, faculty and staff don't necessarily always get along. So in terms of community, that happens as well. And there's also a very territorial whether it's the business department, the community department or whatever, it's kind of, oh no, it's my needs whatever I want. Again, as a community that occurs but as Anthony mentioned the beauty of this it is not the committee that votes on this, it is the community itself and that's where getting the word out getting that proposal and the word out getting those votes on the proposal. And that's the way it's funded. That's based on the initial guidelines for this is how the process will work this is the funding and this is how they will be funded. The other question? Yes, what was the overall data of the committee, the PD committee? Was it student staff administration or solo administration? No, actually it's administration. We had the one in terms budget and will I said it was very equally represented throughout and it will be rotating. In your experience going to other cities were there any situations where groups or specialists presented projects under the guise of individual ideas and used numbers to influence the outcome of those projects or the voting? Well it certainly has the potential for it because you notice in the video there were certain groups, certain organizations that were presented proposals so it has the potential for it and those are the things that immediately want to be addressing and be mindful of it and to ensure that it is not one particular issue that is being put forward but rather than something that is represented and that's where the voting comes in as the proposals being presented. As far as the chancellor of mall community and the board you know that sometimes I'm so glad you asked that because the chancellor is very proud of what we've done and while they're in the community talking about political and all this stuff and certainly no one is in you no one is in these organizations who need to include political activity but our chancellor is actually quite supportive of what we've done and what we've been following with the very support of our president and members of our organization. The percentage of the funding I'll put your question. I mean, out of all the funds that are now in the community knowledge it seems to me how much it is that we provide. Yeah, this is not out of the colleges this is by law of the college this is strictly by law of the college while we are supported by the chancellor and senate this is a great idea for by law of the college he is supportive of each of the campuses each of the colleges instituted participatory budgeting in their own college it is not out of the colleges why at this point I know he has encouraged the other colleges to institute that but by law of the college is the only one so therefore it is our administration by law of the college to decide on the actual allocation for that. Next question. What would you say the percentage of the budget allocated for the TV is not upon the law of the college? Do you agree with what was the actual percentage? I'm just being honest I don't really know about what it is it's not a very large percentage and the reason it was not large is because please remember we've been growing with it so the first time it was just a small amount that the president said this is a great idea let's try it let's see how it works and actually the amount is growing as we move forward with each round both for faculty and staff and for students and any of those projects have also been picked up by administration and do you agree with the actual fund? So I have over 10 years in nonprofits thank you for that question that's an amazing question I do not have a perfect research answer for you on top of my head though obviously when you put something in motion it can fall apart and you don't have a number of different leaders if you don't have a lot of people who know the process and I think it's something that one of the reasons why I was so glad to bring this into break and be like yes we can do one of the spots is that it's dependent upon people feeding in their own communities and everyone can be a part of that process there's nobody who specializes in knowledge there's a website that has all the things you need to know on a team that will always be accessible if you message them but really there's nothing there's no one here who can be like well I'm going to be the leader of PB in San Antonio that's me, I'm going to be that person and then I just said like oh I really just I don't want to do that or I just don't like Sylvia and that's not possible it happens in your own communities and you can hold each other accountable and you can do your own vote on which projects and there's total transparency everybody is seeing that process at those meetings or it doesn't happen some of those instances, I don't know about all of them that they probably just ran into a lack of mobilizing that initial the small inner part of that wheel the hub of the wheel and getting that moving in a sense of having people who can fall into step and carry it on, carry it on this is our first meeting this is going to be a long process that's why we're trying to make sure that you all go out and if you know places you can have meetings and if you need help in any way you can reach out through San Antonio PB at geneal.com you can reach out to the website we have a website up and find out any information you need to do this meeting in your own neighborhood the important part is to to be educated and if you're interested in the process to just get moving on and that's that's really what makes for success she might not this is my last question but it's probably there's two important questions first part is funds and the second part is how willing are our councilmen and each of our districts willing to participate in PB that's another good question I'm happy that it's like diverse as well that's a very good question and once again I hate to say I don't know because our frame of reference is certainly a file of account yes there is a potential for the discretionary funds in our case our discretionary funds were the discretionary funds for the president of the file of account San Antonio council members have discretionary funds to spend within their districts assuming that that is what will be used it doesn't happen that way in every city it just depends on what the process is decided it could be that the mayor or whoever decides this pot is going to be used for that so it really just depends if it's going to be citywide or perhaps just in council districts that I will use it only for mine and I will assign these discretionary funds so it really is very important in terms of how that will be the funding for this but that is set up at the very onset even before the process begins that certainly is a different company you asked about willingness on council districts and I'm in district 5 I'm in that district you were referencing historically district in purposefully made to be so yes I reached out to Shirley Gonzalez office and I believe they have sent two representatives today to document to get notes on the process they were very I called every number and I left a voicemail on my phone last night and they called me back this morning and they said you know me and I emailed it and she doesn't have to be here because she's already going in I think the reality is that some people who are reaching out and are sending you fires and press releases and this is it, these are the details and you have a standing meeting so you know what they're going to be people do show up I mean I see that from me and you and that is obviously just my own experience but typically if you have pressuring people they're interested, they want to go where you say there's going to be people who want to talk to them have you contacted the universities like our lady of the lake or St. Mary's talk afterwards or anybody else because that's a fantastic place to start to be those leaders and there's some folks I have talked to I know a bit of Anita is far away in the lake there's Axel resource and there's some folks in their programming over there especially for social work who are all about this do you know anything else you need to know about our district or if I didn't know excited about it thank you very very much we have some handouts of information just general information in terms of the process that I know as Amy Lee mentioned we are going to talk your ears on participatory budgeting if you can generate that excitement that we have and pass it on to others and then have it in your community whether it's in your district, your homeowners association your neighborhood, whatever all that is that's really the way it begins because that's the way it came for us and while I'm talking about just about all the college it really is not just about all the college affects the entire south side of the area so we are impacting the students and everybody in that area Sky's a limit in terms of what the proposals could be done whatever can come up with it really is up to the community to say wow I wish we had done this I wish we could do that and we have had all sorts of really really interesting whether it's recreation parks, chairs, benches swimming school for a different park area all those buildings that are not quite in the budget yes, those are the ideas so if you believe in nothing else that inspiration and desire to promote it will there be seven blocks perhaps but certainly it's worth it thank you very much we're running a little late in the CISF event so it's just important that people begin to have a solid understanding and that process is going to take shape as it takes shape and we definitely understand that would you like to have them explain in our process or go into anything in terms of that because what we're going to do which is fine we'll just do the next event or we'll do whatever we're ready as a process learning about it was actually kind of run to what would happen in the communities in libraries and schools where you actually have folks who set forth projects and go on them and come up with that process a little bit more or you can have the opportunity just to needle and chat does anybody have preferences I would like to see more about the actual process we were seeing a lot of a couple million or just a couple or two or five or seven or seven and that's very important she learned a lot and I think it would be important for her to be here so what kind of thoughts would you like to take as far as you know I think honestly this is our first meeting and it was a late three check process to be completely honest again this is a community run process and we are just getting started and everyone's volunteering their time so I think as we get better at running our own process she'll know when we show up so I was I definitely felt glad that they even followed up and were like oh yeah we're trying to get people here just because I realized I talked to them this afternoon and I was taking my shower to get ready so I love that that's a good conversation people are paying attention but I would definitely like to make sure that we connect afterwards any other thoughts in terms of what you prefer to learn it occurs to me also that we just went through a very important bond that $850 million bond package for example participatory budget in some ways they had thousands of hours spent on putting projects out there letting people bring their own projects letting council folks develop their own projects proposing them bubbling them up through committees and different town hall meetings and then finally deciding upon them and then finally putting them through last month and so we do participatory budgeting in a different kind of way I mean $850 million is nothing to see as that but if San Antonio were to ever do participatory budgeting in earnest it would only work with the help of folks like Paul DiGiorno over here and the ideas to COSA and Speak Up San Antonio which is probably the most important tool as far as citizen participation citizen engagement if you've got it so I'd encourage you all before you leave ask those ladies what it is they do and I would like to second that Speak Up SA was so kind to come out too very last minute this is something that we've been working towards but when things come together they all come together at once it seems like when you when you launch something and they and the city budget office have been incredibly kind in taking their time this evening to come out today's the last day to put in your most important and valuable things to what should be in the city's budget today's the very last day for them to take the notes and then they're going to put together their rough draft of the city budget we're going to have a meeting in August too on another Tuesday so look out for that to talk about some of the things that went into that run version of the budget so there have been lots of opportunities in kind of a mixed old traditional meets new way of city meeting public city meetings and they're really trying out normal ideas so please do give your opinion because that's why they are here so do you have a hand out does everybody have a hand out so what we passed out right now our initial intent was to actually have a mock process where you would actually go through developing all these stages that I talked about the brainstorming and putting the proposal together and going through the vote and all those things well at the end of this time that's not going to happen but if you notice in these handouts that's what you've got, you've got the process that you go through the beauty of participatory budgeting is that there is no idea that is not good there is no idea that is too small and that's what is so good about this as these ideas these concerns wherever they come from, wherever in the community they start to bubble up and perhaps perhaps there may be two or three groups or two or three individuals any given area of town or the ownership or association or whatever it is that now they have three different perspectives on one issue so as they start to put that together and say this is how we're going to address this issue this is the proposal and it starts to come together as one one concept one thought and we integrate together so that's what these steps are that you saw as it talks about the brainstorming and the developing and the proposal and the funding and the voting and then acting from the actual implementation and while it sounds so simple say well oh yeah it goes through all these steps it really isn't and as you know there's always the naysayers and all these other things so yes it is an issue that needs to be overcome if you will but certainly if you look at this all of these steps it is possible it requires engagement it requires engagement it requires engagement I think you're going to know when you go outside at the bar you'll see those forms if you want to put your information down and how you might like to lead or what district you're in please do so I will probably be the one contacting you so you'll hear my voice and we can get started or however it needs to be done whatever meeting needs to be in your community to start growing this it's very I think people call it rhizomatic like plants that grow up and are connected and then suddenly you just see everything bloom when it happens people are going to be a bit surprised if it was a success just like Sylvia was talking about does anybody have any thoughts or comments or questions okay please I could ask afterwards but since it says in organizing tool have you been in contact with COPS Metro they are on our list and again it was just a time budget thing but yes they are and in fact if you would like to email a list to that San Antonio PBH email and we can start building out who should be on it and then when my idea is that for each district people who would like know who is in which district and leading us off and then we can even go into neighborhood associations it really comes down to what matters to you your neighborhood and how and the environment there your own space it's San Antonio PBH at gmail.com and I want to thank everybody for coming out for being part of this very first event for San Antonio I want to hang around and they'll come in then because they thought I was going to end about 8 to 8 30 of your earliest because since we are skipping that mock they'll probably come by you're welcome to chat with them I'm with the San Antonio Progressive Alliance and I just want to tell you a few things about what our vision was in trying to roll out participatory budgeting in San Antonio San Antonio Progressive Alliance has a valley system of democracy grassroots democracy we want everyone to kind of keep in mind that when you're making projects a vision and you're promoting that to keep in mind that we have a lot of inequality here in town and gentrification and poverty and that this can be used as a neoliberal project also so anything can be turned into something that it's not meant to be this is meant to be a grassroots effort that brings our community based necessities and then the projects that really kind of serve the community so that we can maintain kind of a consciousness about the future of these projects as we move along thank you