The first meeting of the Richmond Participatory Budgeting Steering Commission took place on Thursday September 22, 2022. This brought together the commission, City Council members, City staff, and community partners to start the process of designing a participatory budgeting process for Richmond.

The commission is made up for residents from every district in the city based on an ordinance that City Council created in the fall of 2021. They are tasked with developing a rulebook that creates a design for the future implementation of participatory budgeting in Richmond. This will provide advice on ways to improve the budgeting process to make it accessible to the community, set a general timeline, determine the allocation, and define other parameters for how pb will take place.

As this was the first meeting it was also a moment to get to know each other and discuss how the commission will work together. In preparation the commission had been surveyed to get some feedback on their general positions on how to move forward.

A few major questions emerged around the guidelines for how a commission can work defined by City and State Law. These questions the difference between voting and non-voting members, if they could use a shared leadership form of meeting, and if it is possible to use an online platform (Slack) to communicate.

For the next meeting the commission members were tasked with watching the “What is PB?” video and do some basic research about how PB is taking place around the country.

Further information can be seen in the meeting minutes and presentation below.

‍