Culver City Holds Civic Assembly on Public Budget Participation

As a result of many months of advocacy by PDLA, Culver City City Council authorized a civic assembly on how to involve the public in the budgeting process. We are proud that our work with Culver City helped make it a reality.

The assembly, held last week, from May 14-16, was moderated by by Center for New Democratic Processes. The process started with sortition: solicitation post cards for participation were sent to a large number of Culver City residents, and a random selection of 30 participants was made from the people who offered to participate..

The task set before the Culver City Civic Assembly was to get ideas about how to increase the amount of public participation in the budget process. The participants represented a demographic cross section of Culver City.

Testimony was presented by the mayor, vice mayor, city manager, assistant city manager, and chiefs of police, fire and police chiefs, city council, and representatives of various city departments.

Participants came from many backgrounds: Entertainment industry, software developers, real estate, retirees, people who work with the unhoused, etc. This cross section discussed how budget priorities could be developed by city residents.

When the 3 day session was over,the organizers started to collate the results, which have not yet been made public. A second 3 day session is envisioned, but has not yet been set. One question is will it use the same participants, or will another random selection be made.

The participants were very enthusiastic about the process. Discussions were civil and in depth, among people with a wide variety of beliefs. Opinions were expressed indicating more of this kind of process would be desirable.

A full report of the recommendations from the 30 Civic Assembly residents and the Civic Assembly details will be presented in public at the City Council meeting of June 22.