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Bed-Stuy missing its chance
Councilman has boro’s lowest participatory budgeting turnout
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
He gets an “F” for participation.
An annual participatory
budgeting process organized
by Bedford-Stuyvesant Councilman
Robert Cornegy Jr. has
the lowest voter turnout of any
district in the borough, with
just one percent of voters deciding
the fate of millions of
dollars in public spending, according
to data analyzed by
the Brooklyn Paper.
Each year, the majority of
Kings County Council members
set aside a portion of their
discretionary funds to be spent
through the city’s so-called
participatory budgeting process,
which allows constituents
to vote on how to spend
their hard-earned tax money
over a several-week-long period
each fall.
Projects may include the
renovation of parks and public
spaces, new classrooms and
school upgrades, and improvements
to road and transit infrastructure,
with nominations
selected by a group of volun-
Photo by Trey Pentecost
Bed-Stuy Councilman
Robert Cornegy has the
lowest participatory budgeting
turnout of any lawmaker
in the borough.
teer delegates and advertised
largely by the individual council
members.
For the past four years,
however, Cornegy — who
was named the world’s tallest
elected official by Guiness last
year — has only been able to
scrape together a measly 6,951
votes for more than $4 million
worth of Council funding,
with an average annual voter
turnout of only 1,738 people in
a district of roughly 150,000
Brooklynites, according to the
most recent census data available
through the city, which
dates back to 2010.
Last year, only 1,562 people
voted on allocations totaling
$1.2 million, with projects
including renovations to the
gymnasium at PS 3, and upgrades
to Troy Avenue’s Harmony
Park and the Tompkins
Houses Community Center
Turnout for Cornegy’s
participatory budgeting process
stands in stark contrast
to those organized by Sunset
Park Councilman Carlos
Menchaca, who topped the
charts with a total 32,441 voters
participating over a period
of four years, and an average
annual 8,110 civic enthusiasts
taking part since 2016.
Menchaca credited the
roughly $2 million he makes
available annually for the democratic
budgeting process —
significantly more than other
Brooklyn council members set
aside — for the comparatively
high turnout in his district.
The Sunset Park councilman
also attributed the high
turnout to his district’s large
foreign-born population,
claiming immigrants and firstgeneration
Brooklynites often
take a greater interest in local
government than their more
settled counterparts.
“The energy around participatory
budgeting is rooted
in an immigrant, youth energy,”
said Menchaca. “When
you think about people who
are franchised in the political
world, that’s not always
the case here.”
Still, Menchaca’s relatively
large turnout remains small
when compared to the roughly
160,000 people residing in the
38th Council District, with
only about five percent of residents
turning out for votes
that have decided more than
$8.5 million worth of spending
since 2016 alone.
Last year, Menchaca was
outdone by Bushwick Councilman
Anthony Reynoso,
who gathered 8,349 votes, and
Park Slope Councilman Brad
Lander, who attracted 7,689
voters to his participatory budgeting
process, as opposed to
the Sunset Park councilman’s
6,399. Those figures amount
to roughly six, five, and four
percent of their districts’ total
population respectively.
On the other end of the
spectrum, Bay Ridge Councilman
Justin Brannan and
Brownsville Councilwoman
Alicka Ampry-Samuel edged
out Cornegy — who had the
absolute worst voter turnout —
with 1,654 and 1,853 voters last
year respectively. Those numbers
all factor out to around
one percent of their districts’
total population.
One government watchdog
questioned the effectiveness of
participatory budgeting.
“It’s often people who are
really engaged and in the
know,” said Maria Doulis,
Vice President of the Citizens
Budget Committee. “Are they
representative of the broader
community?”
Conergy declined to comment.
Crown Heights fi ght heats up
Activists call for criminal charges against developers
By Ben Verde
Brooklyn Paper
Anti-gentrification activists
are demanding criminal
charges against the developers
behind a slew of projects
in Crown Heights, claiming
that the builders are violating
a court-ordered restraining
order to prevent building
on the sites.
“The city and the developers
are not above the law,”
said Alicia Boyd, who is representing
herself pro se in a
lawsuit challenging the rezoning.
“Criminal charges of contempt
of court should be issued
against both the city and
the developers.”
In April, Brooklyn Judge
Reginald Boddie put a temporary
restraining order on
the property as the court case
plays out — but developers
are violating that order by excavating
soil on the property
at 931 Carroll St., according
to the activists.
Last week, Boyd and four
others were arrested while trying
to block dump trucks from
operating at the site, according
to Gothamist. Protestors presented
police with the court order
halting construction within
the Crown Heights rezoning
area, but officers still did not
shut down the construction.
The Police Department did
Alicia Boyd (pictured in September) claims developers
are violating a restraining order.
not immediately respond to request
for comment. The city’s
Law Department said that the
court order should be adhered
Photo by Aidan Graham
to, but declined to comment
further. Representatives for
the builders — Carroll Plaza
Development — could not be
reached to comment for this
story.
At the most recent court
hearing in December, Judge
Boddie blocked the developer’s
request to move forward
with soil excavation — a move
activists say would have effectively
ended their case.
“If the cement is poured,
we will have lost the case,”
Boyd said in December.
The lawsuit is challenging
the rezoning of Franklin Avenue,
which was approved by
the City Council in 2018 —
before being stymied by legal
action anti-gentrification
activists, who claim that the
city failed to conduct a thorough
environmental impact
review before approving the
zoning change.
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