Thank you to everyone who voted in this year’s People’s Budget! A record-breaking 2,156 votes were cast in this year’s People’s Budget. We had a particularly high showing from students this year, with over 300 students casting a vote in this year’s People’s Budget.
Here are the results:
Of the $1 million that neighbors voted on how to spend, 62% will go to fund repairs, vs. 38% for special projects––which amounts to $620,000 spent on repairs, and $380,000 on special projects.
Here are the winning projects, ranked from first to last place:
- Mather Park Benches and Pathways ($250K)
- Pedestrian Crossing Timer at Berwyn and Western ($150K)
- Butterfly Garden at Budlong Woods Library ($60K)
- Raised Crosswalk at Devon and Ravenswood ($150K)
- Pedestrian Plaza at Ridge and Thome ($100K)
- Chappell Elementary Mural ($50K)
With the $380,000 that neighbors voted to spend on new projects, we will likely be able to fund at least two of the top three projects.
How we calculated the results
To determine how much to spend on repairs vs. new projects, we calculate the average percentage of all the neighbors’ votes: in this case, 62%.
To determine which projects to fund, we use rank choice voting. Neighbors rank each of the projects in order of importance. Each ranking has a point value (6 for 1st place, 5 for 2nd place, 4 for 3rd place, 3 for 4th place, 2 for 5th place, and 1 for 6th place). Once all the votes are in, we tally the points for each project to determine the winning project(s).
Timeline + Next Steps
Now that you’ve done your job by casting your vote, it’s time for us to do our jobs to make these projects happen! In the coming weeks, our team will reach out to the appropriate departments to move forward on the winning projects. We will likely send the three top projects out for survey so we can get an updated estimate (the estimates above are determined based on the base cost we were provided from the department, but actual costs can change depending on the site conditions). Once we receive those updated estimates, we will determine whether we will be able to fund any additional projects.
In the meantime, we will be reviewing repair requests in the next few weeks, so we can submit our repairs to the Department of Transportation (CDOT) by the end of January. If there is a repair you want to see in your neighborhood, now is a great time to submit a repair request!
The timeline for installation depends on the specifics of each project. Projects that involve traffic signals (e.g. left turn signals, pedestrian crossing signals) have a significantly longer lead time due to material shortages. Parks projects can also take a bit longer, because they involve coordinating between several different agencies. Other projects, like repaving, can happen more quickly. We’ll keep neighbors posted on the timeline for all of these projects!