The African American Roundtable’s Participatory Budgeting (PB) Steering Committee wrote the following letter to the Milwaukee Common Council to highlight the alderpersons’ lack of support throughout the organization’s PB process.

Dear Common Council:

This letter is on behalf of the Participatory Budgeting Committee, an intergenerational group of Milwaukee residents who support the African American Roundtable.

On October 17, 2023, the African American Roundtable, located at 6914 West Brown Deer Road, Milwaukee, WI. 53223, presented $40,000 to four residents and organizations of the Northwest Side of Milwaukee. Each winning resident or organization received $10,000 for their proposal. We considered this a historic event because the residents of the Northwest Side were collectively able to write safety and wellness proposals that they believed would make the Northwest Side of Milwaukee a better place to live.

The Participatory Budgeting Committee began working on the project in February 2023. This has not been an easy endeavor, as residents are accustomed to politicians making the decisions of how the city budget will be distributed. The residents were surprised that they had a say in where these funds would best work for the Northwest Side. The African American Roundtable gave $40,000 of their own funds to allow the Northwest Side residents and organizations an opportunity to decide how they believe the funds should be used to better the Northwest Side of Milwaukee.

After publicizing the Participatory Budget Program on social media, media interviews and flyers, the residents wrote and delivered a total of 30 proposals to the African American Roundtable. This was a diplomatic effort, and we asked the residents of the Northwest Side community to vote for the projects that they believed were deserving of winning $10,000 each. Over 800 people voted for the projects. Forgive us for sticking out our chest; however, we believe that we did a damn good job.

We were very disappointed that representatives from Districts 5 and 9 did not attend the awards presentation, neither was a representative from their office in attendance, and also there was no mention of the awards presentation in their recent newsletter. We believe that this would have been an opportune time for the representatives to get to know more residents and to witness how the Northwest Side community involved themselves in participatory budgeting and how well the process worked. We understand that alderpersons cannot attend every event within their district; however, we believe that the giveaway of $40,000 to better the Northwest Side of Milwaukee warranted someone from either one or both districts in attendance, and we believe that an announcement of it should have been in the districts’ newsletter. We are thankful that the media was available to witness a “democratic participatory budgeting process where the residents made decisions and selected the winners!”

We look to our city representatives to help to highlight positive events that benefit the Northwest Side community where residents have felt neglected.

Though Districts 5 and 9 alderpersons did not attend the awards presentation, there is an opportunity to implement participatory budgeting by supporting it at the city level.  Thank you for supporting your district.

Sincerely,

The Participatory Budgeting Committee

The African American Roundtable