Residents of 11th Council District should expect new district-wide improvements including bus count-down clocks and security cameras, thanks to Councilman Andrew Cohen’s participatory budgeting process.

Cohen gathered with volunteers and community organizers at the Rambling House bar/restaurant in Woodlawn to announce the results of the process in which local residents vote on what community improvement projects to spend a portion of his 2017 fiscal year budget on.

In a yearlong process, residents of Council District 11 were able to discuss and propose ideas that would appear on the final ballot after a review by volunteers and city agencies. After the final ballot was designed, residents were able to vote on how $1 million of Cohen’s capital budget will be spent next year.

This year, four projects received enough votes to receive funding including the installation of bus countdown clocks at the Bx1, Bx10, Bx16, Bx26, and Bx34 bus stops worth $120,000, new security cameras to be divided by the 47th, 50th, and 52nd precincts valued at $300,000, a district-wide technology upgrade for schools including PS 19, PS 340, and the In-Tech Academy among others, and lastly, $400,000 towards an air filtering system at the Mosholu Library in Norwood.

About a total of 1,800 residents cast ballots in the process with the first place project, district-wide bus countdown clocks, receiving a total of 1035 votes.

Cohen was thrilled to see many of the projects impacted the whole district, rather than just a portion of it. “It’s important to me since I’ve been in office, because I represent all these kinds of distinct neighborhoods, that everybody feels like they’re getting the appropriate mention,” he said.

Cohen’s first time introducing the participatory budgeting process was last year and it is still an evolving process. But this year, his office was able to increase the number of voters in the process by a third. Unlike last year, residents of the district as young as age 14 were able to vote, as opposed to last year where the youngest age requirement was 16 and participants were able to vote for as many as up to five projects out of the 12 projects listed.

The change in age requirement helped to bolster participation in the process, as some ballots were taken into local schools for voting. “I think it’s an opportunity to engage people. If you want to go vote for me in an election you have to be 18, and this is tapping into a group of people who otherwise don’t have the opportunity to vote and I think are capable of making these kind of decisions,” said Cohen.

After community requests, Cohen also opted to provide funding in the total of $275,000 for auditorium renovations at PS 280/MS 80, serving as a kind of consolation prize. The auditorium, commonly used for community events, will receive new seating.

Cohen plans to re-introduce the participatory budgeting process again next year, with hopes that the turnout of voters will continue to grow.