The Seattle City Council Tuesday voted 9-0 to lift a key proviso on $1 million in spending to support creation of a Participatory Budgeting process in the city.

The vote will allow planning to move forward on a $30 million package hoped to address inequity by creating a system of more direct control of community spending in Seattle. CHS reported here on the plan and the Black Brilliance Research Project born out of last year’s Black Lives Matter protests in Seattle.

Breaking a logjam over what department might lead the effort forward, Tuesday’s vote will put the Office of Civil Rights at the center of the process “to partner with community members to draft a Request for Proposals (RFP) giving additional opportunities for neighbors to guide” the participatory budgeting process.

The Office of Civil Rights will also lead the search for an organization “to manage and conduct the participatory budgeting process.”

“The goal of this engagement is to break down institutional barriers, create transparency, and work toward an equitable outcome,” an announcement from the office of Councilmember Tammy Morales on the vote reads.

Morales called the project “the biggest people-directed investment process that the City has ever funded.”

“During last year’s budgeting process, and following the murder of George Floyd, community members made clear that City Hall needed to democratize access to power and resources, and make new investments in Black communities,” Morales, the driver of the participatory budgeting legislative process, said in the press release. “The answer to this call by tens of thousands of people who demonstrated in Seattle for nearly 100 days was participatory budgeting, which gives real power to real people over real dollars -approximately $30 million in fact.”

Meanwhile, Tuesday’s council votes also included a rejection of a much-changed bill originally intended to move more than $5 million out of Seattle Police’s 2021 budget and into social and community spending. But after amendments reshaping and watering down the legislation’s SPD cut, councilmembers Tuesday opted to scrap the bill altogether.

There will be more money on the table for community support, and major issues around homelessness and inequity as a City Council committee takes up debate Friday on the Seattle Rescue Plan, a $128.4 million COVID-19 recovery package powered by federal funding.

HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE
Subscribe to CHS to help us hire writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. To stay that way, we need you.

Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.