AustinTalks (http://austintalks.org/tag/projects/)
About 390 residents cast votes last month to decide how to spend Ald. Chris Taliaferro’s $1 million menu money. Sixty-five percent will go to street and alley resurfacing, while $312,500 will be spent on four community projects.
Voting runs through Nov. 20th on five neighborhood projects on the list to be funded out of Ald. Chris Taliaferro’s $1.3 million “menu money” budget. This is the second year those living in the ward have been able to take part in “participatory budgeting.”
Ald. Chris Taliaferro is collecting ideas about how to spend $500,000 of $1.3 million allocated to the ward in “menu money.”
The funding will pay for play lots, air conditioning and other improvements.
City, state and federal agencies have spent millions of dollars on projects in which West Side minister John Abercrombie played a leading role, yet the results have been mixed, the paper reports.
An analysis of how Austin’s council members distributed their funds last year shows some went unused.
Tax increment financing of private-sector projects bypassed parts of the West and South Sides, though some funding was approved for Austin.