FOLLOWUP: Voting results delayed in ‘Your Voice, Your Choice’

From the “in case you were wondering” file: The city Department of Neighborhoods had promised results by July 18th in the “Your Voice, Your Choice” voting for park/street projects – the first time it was trying “participatory budgeting.” The date came and went and the project website changed its languaging, unannounced, to a promise of August. Finally an explanation appeared this week on the department’s Front Porch blog-format website, saying “the delay is caused by more voter participation than expected”: 7,500 votes in all from around the city, with 2,000 of those on paper ballots. The online update did not mention that the project also had a personnel change – it was noted at a local community meeting earlier this month that Jenny Frankl, who had launched and evangelized it, was no longer with the department; the YVYC website now lists Kraig Cook as the project’s coordinator. DON now says it “hope(s) to announce the final vote results in each council district by early August.” Each district was allotted up to $285,000 to fund three park/street projects; we first reported on the plan last January.

P.S. The projects that were in the running in District 1 (West Seattle/South Park) are shown and described in the “voter’s guide.”

2 Replies to "FOLLOWUP: Voting results delayed in 'Your Voice, Your Choice'"

  • seaopgal July 27, 2017 (11:47 am)

    Oh, those pesky voters …

  • Seattle Department of Neighborhoods July 27, 2017 (5:51 pm)

     

     Seattle Department of Neighborhoods here….. Thank you for your
    interest in the voting results of Your Voice, Your Choice. This is our second year implementing
    participatory budgeting for the City, and we are excited about the number of people
    who participated this year. In fact, that is why we are providing the results later we than
    hoped. The deadline was June 30, but due to an extraordinary number of paper ballots, it is taking more time
    to tally than we had originally planned. We are eager to get back
    to community members, so you’ll hear from us early next month. And thank you for your patience!

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