Before the vote on the draft budget resolution (let us recall – the councillors were unanimous), the leaders of the councillors’ groups Forum, Ziemia Bolesławiecka and PiS, as well as Platforma Samorządowa, presented their groups’ positions. Arkadiusz Krzemiński of Platforma Samorządowa said: “After reviewing the draft budget for 2016 and the opinion of the Regional Chamber of Audit, the Platforma Samorządowa councillors’ group decided to give it a positive assessment; we will vote in favour. We believe that the budget is technically and substantively sound, but we would like it to be more civic-minded in the future – with greater emphasis on public consultations and a participatory budget – and less presidential.”
Piotr Roman: “We frequently carry out tasks indicated by councillors, and I hope that these are, in reality, tasks indicated by residents. We have included in the budget an optimally large number of councillors’ proposals, including those submitted throughout the year and even in previous years. I disagree that this budget is not pro-citizen. Especially during this term, in which we have single-member districts, you councillors have to—and do—take much greater account of what very specific residents say.”
Chcielibyście mieć większy wpływ na budżet Bolesławca?
“It may not be the budget of our dreams,” the mayor continued. “But it is a very concrete budget, the result of the work of a great many people.”
P. Roman also stressed that the municipal authorities carefully analyse councillors’ interpellations: “If councillors repeatedly advocate something, and it is not just one councillor but several, that means the matter is important. And we always have to make a choice, because it is impossible to do everything in one year; there is no chance of that. Besides, if it were possible, we could all retire with a clear conscience.”
He added that he had once taken part in a teleconference with mayors of cities in the United States. When the American leaders were asked about participatory budgeting, they said they saw no need to introduce it because their entire budget was like that.
Such a budget operates in many Polish cities (for example, Legnica): a certain amount is set aside in the local government’s budget, after which residents submit projects to be carried out within that amount. A vote is then held. “And this is good when it comes to stimulating civic activity,” the mayor noted, “but on the other hand it contradicts the idea of local self-government, because local self-government exists so that the budget can be civic.”
He stressed: “I am not abandoning the introduction of a participatory budget; I support it, despite the reservations I have mentioned. We are closely observing the experiences of cities that have introduced participatory budgets. And there are very good examples and very bad ones. Recently, major problems emerged in Wrocław. But Sopot has had good experiences. We want to wait just a little longer before introducing this budget in order to avoid mistakes. After a period of intense activity, almost euphoria, in cities that have introduced such a budget, a moment of enormous disappointment arrives, because it turns out that a project was badly estimated—as in Wrocław, where it was accepted for implementation but later turned out to be much more expensive—or that the voting system was defective and made it possible to create informal lobbying groups that had little to do with residents’ opinions, while looking after the interests of very specific social groups seeking to
win something in the name of their own, highly particular interests.
And he assured them: “We will arrive at a participatory budget.”
We will return to this subject.