Culver City approves civic assembly to revise budget process

December 1, its city council voted 3-2 to use a civic assembly to propose modifications to the budgeting process to enable meaningful public participation as budget decisions are made. Budgets embody government priorities, and Culver City wants to include the public in setting the priorities.

A civic assembly will be created using a lottery (sortition) to select a statistically representative sample of approximately 30 city residents to review and possibly modify proposals. Testimony and expert presentations would be made to the assembly, which would then deliberate and issue its report, over a period of several weeks, spending on the order of 40 or so hours. An honorarium would be given to compensate the participants for the significant time

Since Culver City is doing this for the first time, city staff were asked to collect and review proposals by competent organizations. Four organizations responded, and staff selected a proposal by Center for New Democratic Processes (CNDP) who were originally founded in 1974 by Ned Crosby. Dr. Crosby was one of the pioneers in the revitalization of statistically representative civic assemblies in the late 20th century. CNDP will develop participation selection, analysis, and deliberation procedures.