You decide how to spend $3 million of the City’s budget! 

From June 16 – July 16 is your chance to vote for your favorite local park and street improvement projects. It’s all part of the City of Seattle’s Your Voice, Your Choice: Parks & Streets, a participatory budgeting initiative in which community members democratically decide how to spend a portion of the City’s budget on small park and street improvements. A total of $285,000 is available in each City Council District, and residents can cast their ballots for their top three choices in the district where they live, work, go to school, receive services, or volunteer.

Each council district will have its own ballot. The projects were selected from over 1,000 ideas submitted in January by community members across Seattle. More than 500 community members evaluated and prioritized each idea based on need at the project’s location and community benefit. The projects, which can be viewed at www.seattle.gov/yvyc, range from new pedestrian lighting to basketball court improvements.

Community members ages 11 and up can vote online or at in-person polling stations between June 16 – July 16. Paper ballots are also available at all Seattle Public Library branches. The projects that receive the most votes will be funded by the City and implemented in 2019.

New this year is additional funding for projects in Equity and Environment Initiative (EEI) focus areas. These are geographic areas where communities of color, immigrants, refugees, people with low incomes, Native peoples, and limited-English proficiency individuals tend to live. Because these areas are highly impacted by socio-economic and environmental challenges, the City’s goal is to ensure the people most affected have a voice in finding solutions. Projects will be voted on through district-based ballots, and the top vote-getting projects in EEI Focus Areas citywide will be funded up to $1 million overall.

After ballots are tallied, the winning projects will be announced in August. You can find information and voting instructions at www.seattle.gov/yvyc.