RESIDENT IDEAS WANTED AT COMMUNITY BUDGETING PROCESS

RESIDENTS INVITED TO COMMUNITY BUDGETING PROCESS

SOMERVILLE – Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

invites Somerville residents to participate in a Community Budgeting process focused

on four key investment areas identified by the community in the SomerVision

plan: Recreation, Public Health, Arts and Culture, and Civic Engagement

including Immigrant Outreach.

While areas including education,

infrastructure, public safety and public works remain budget priorities,

resident feedback and values reflected in the City’s 20-year comprehensive

plan, SomerVision, have indicated that residents also want to see enhancements

to the key areas listed above. To begin this work, for the first time, City

officials will engage residents in a Community Budgeting process beginning with

the Fiscal Year 2015 budget. Three public meetings will be held to help put

these goals into action. At each, fun (yes, seriously, fun) interactive

activities will help residents learn more about how municipal budgeting works. Feedback

will then be gathered to help guide the investments made both for the fiscal

year 2015 budget as well as for long-range planning for these four key

SomerVision goals.

“As I said in my inauguration

speech, when this year’s budget is presented to the Board of Aldermen, it will not

be my budget, it will be our budget,” said Mayor Curtatone.

“This budget and our long-range fiscal planning should reflect what the

Somerville community wants to accomplish and what we value. To guide the

investments we make, we spent three years asking the community to identify

goals and values via SomerVision. Now, to put those goals into action, we need

your ideas—the crazier the better—and by ‘crazy’ I mean innovative, creative

and outside-the-box thinking. In other words, the kind of ideas that make us

Somerville.”

To put potential investments into context and to help

increase budget literacy, participants will have a chance to spend “Somerville

bucks” on City services and compare their spending to an actual City budget.

City officials will also share information about the decisions that go into making

the budget, various spending and revenue constraints, and the trade-offs that

have to be made in funding services and programs (again, yes, seriously, this

will be fun). Following short, dynamic PechaKucha-inspired

presentations around Recreation, Public Health, Arts

and Culture, and Civic Engagement/Immigrant Outreach, residents will take part

in brainstorming and idea-gathering activities for enhancements in each area.

“Arts Council programs can include

so many things, from large festivals like ArtBeat, to cooking classes, youth

programing, public art, and policy work to promote the arts,” said Arts Council

Director Greg Jenkins. “Given the diversity of what we do, we really need to

hear from residents about what they’d like to see more investment in and get

their creative ideas around new things we could try.”

Ideas gathered at the meetings and

via additional community outreach will then be put to vote via a community

survey. The Community Budgeting webpages on the City website also offer an

opportunity to learn about the budget and take the post-meeting surveys. Visit

the webpage at www.somervillema.gov/ourbudget and follow www.facebook.com/SomervilleCity and www.twitter.com/SomervilleCity for updates.

This year’s meetings represent

Phase I of the City’s Community Budgeting effort to translate general

SomerVision goals into concrete plans. Further discussions of the four key

areas for 2015 as well as other SomerVision priorities will be addressed at future

Community Budgeting sessions.

“No idea is too big or too small,”

said Mayor Curtatone. “While we are specifically looking for community input on

our fiscal year 2015 investments and projects, we are also looking to set our

course for the long-range as well. So whether you’d like to see more language

interpreters at public meetings right away or if you want a community center

built in the future, we want to hear your ideas. SomerVision is not just a

document to set aside to gather dust and to point to when we talk about

adhering to the community’s values. We will work to ensure that we follow

through on the vision and goals it sets forth. These meetings are a step toward

realizing specific priorities, and the information we gather will be fully

integrated into our planning.”

Community Budgeting Meetings

will be held on:

·        

Monday, Feb. 24 (snow date

Thursday, March 6), 6:30 p.m., at the Capuano Early Childhood Center, 150 Glen

St.;

·        

Thursday, Feb. 27 , 6:30 p.m., at the West Somerville Neighborhood School, 177

Powderhouse Blvd.;

·        

Saturday, March

1

(snow date Saturday, March 8), 11 a.m., City Hall, 93 Highland Ave.

Each community feedback session will offer the same content,

and each has been scheduled before department heads have to submit their final

budget proposals so that resident input can be considered.

–

END –

Contact:

Jackie Rossetti 617-625-6600,

ext. 2614

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