You can vote on what neighborhood projects receive capital funding from City Council

Participatory Budgeting Vote Week is underway in NYC.

Per the city:

New Yorkers can vote online or in person all week to decide how nearly $30 million in capital funding will be spent in the Fiscal Year 2024 city budget to improve neighborhood schools, parks, libraries, and local infrastructure. 

City Councilmember Carlina Rivera's District 2, which includes the East Village, Gramercy Park, Kips Bay, the Lower East Side and Murray Hill, has $1 million in funds available ... and 11 projects up for a vote.

Per Rivera in a statement:

"The projects on our ballots range from improving safety in public housing, enhancing public parks and green infrastructure, adding new recreation spaces, and upgrading technology in our educational and cultural institutions. Our neighbors as young as 11 years old and older can vote, regardless of citizenship status, which makes PB one of the most inclusive ways to participate in local government. I encourage everyone to vote for their favorite projects."

And the 11 items open for a vote (residents may choose up to five):

• Community Garden Resiliency 

Gardens between Avenue A and Avenue D 

Permeable pavers and water access in community gardens 

• Library Technology Upgrades 

Computers and Laptops for Kips Bay, Epiphany, Ottendorfer and Tompkins Square Public Libraries

• Improvements at Merchant's House Museum 

29 E. Fourth St.

• Girls Locker Room Upgrade — School of the Future 

127 E. 22nd St. 

• Upgrade for the shared library for PS 64, Tompkins Square Middle School and the Earth School  

600 E. Sixth St. 

• Bathroom Renovations — East Side Community School, P.S. 15, P.S. 63  

• Riis Houses Pathway Lighting 

Avenue D and 10th Street 

• LES II Basketball Court Upgrades (photo above via a reader)

750 E. Sixth St. 

• Meltzer Towers Safety Improvements 

94 E. First St. 

• Peter's Field Basketball Courts Reconstruction 

2nd Avenue and 20th Street

• Union Square Park Fences and Landscape Initial Funding

Residents age 11 and older may vote (once!) online here until Sunday, April 2. Or! You can vote in person (once!) at the following locations...

On the bright side, Brandon Jacobs thinks the Giants will be in the Super Bowl next year

Ouch. From the Post:

"You can only get so much blood out of a stone" with budget cuts and other measures, the mayor said.

He proposed closing a $4 billion budget gap in 2010 with $955 million in cuts and savings that reached into every agency -- from the NYPD, which stood to lose another 1,000 cops through attrition, to the FDNY, which could see 12 companies vanish, to the child-welfare agency, which was asked to absorb 608 layoffs.

Happy holidays from the state comptroller! (And MTA!)

The Post reports today:

It keeps getting worse.

State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli warned yesterday that the city faces budget gaps of $3.5 billion and $8 billion in the next two fiscal years -- far higher than previous forecasts.

That's a sharp increase from the $1.3 billion and $5 billion deficits Mayor Bloomberg projected last month in his budget plan for the 2010 and 2011 fiscal years. It even surpasses the state Financial Control Board's dire figures that came out just five days ago and put the city's budget gaps at $2.3 billion and $6.4 billion.

Meanwhile, subway and bus fare will probably increase to $3 next year!

Now let's go out and spend some money!

How Bloomberg is going to deal with the budget gap

Layoffs. (New York Post)

Here's Lenny Waller's response to the article/cuts: