CIP Writers' Bureau

Participatory Democracy

Participatory Budgeting in Porto Alegre
NORTH SHUSWAP, Jan.17, 2004 (Vera Gottleib) - Hi! I had sent out a comment about a very interesting form of city government in Brazil. I mentioned Belem but it is Porto Alegre, where already 2 World Social Forums have taken place. The text that I am copying is from a book called "One No, Many Yeses" by English journalist Paul Kingsnorth. He travelled to various parts of the world, trying to find out what motivates the "anti globalization" forces and how the various groups are doing. The book starts in Chiapas, Mexico, and the Zapatista movement under sub-comandante Marcos.

But back to Porto Alegre, Brazil and quoting from this book: "Porto Alegre's "participatory budget" (bold italics are mine) is trumpeted by the PT (Brazil's Workers' Party) as a future for urban democracy, and "people's economics", and they may be on to something. A woman from the Porto Alegre government is explaining how it works. {People's participation in the city used to be confined to the act of voting every few years. Now they decide on how their money is spent in their city, through a democratic process.] The people of Porto Alegre control the way their money is spent on their city to a degree that I have not come across anywhere else.

In 1989, the PT removed the power to decide on the city's budget from the usual councillors and technocrats in City Hall and began a process of popular consultation, which has evolved annually to iron out glitches that appeared along the way. Currently, budgetary priorities are divided up by themes - environment, transport, taxation, culture, health, education, etc. - and for each theme there is a regular public conference in each region of the city. Any citizen can participate in these conferences, which debate how much money should be spent on that theme, and how.

Each conference then elects a delegate, who puts forward the decisions made by their electors before electing a clutch of budget councillors who put the budget together according to the broad choices made by the citizenry. Finally, after months of being kicked about, touched up and debated, the proposed budget is voted on by the people of the city - only if the approve it will it go ahead.
It's a long and complex process, and not without its flaws, but it does give the people of Porto Alegre a significant degree of real control over how their money is spent. According to the PT, the participatory budget has meant changes in the way the city is run, as citizens adjust it to suit their priorities.

Since it was introduced, they say, it has been used to pave 25,000 kilometres of roads, provide 96% of homes with clean running water, steadily increase sewage provision, set up family health clinics, work towards eliminating child labour and expand the number of infant schools. The idea, clearly, is that the money is spent on what people want - not what politicians think they want, or want themselves.

And it is proving popular - so much so that the model is being extended not only to 500 towns across Rio Grande do Sul, but to other Brazilian cities which the PT controls, including Rio de Janeiro. Other cities across the world are watching it closely - so are plenty of other people at the World Social Forum. It is an example of an alternative approach that can be seen in action, rather than simply envisioned on a stage. And it works."

I had read about this somewhere else but can't remember where. I don't even know where to find more information. Possibly, search engine "google" might be a possibility.
I find this very interesting. Finally, a possible way of returning local governance to the local people - instead of being controlled by the whims of the "elected" ones.
If you find any other source of info, please let me know. Thanks.

I thought this might be of interest to you. BFN, Vera (Gottleib) veragott@mail.ocis.net

Here's some more info... http://www.internationalbudget.org/conference/2nd/brazil.htm

SUSTAINABILITY

Sustainable Vancouver
PUGET SOUND, WA, Jan. 15, 2004 (by Jennifer Hunting, CIP-SB) - Vancouver, British Columbia has been using local involvement as a driving force towards sustainable living. Vancouver focuses on sustainable initiatives including transportation, building development, energy, environment, solid waste and storm water management, and social sustainability. It also focuses on developing new, innovative urban designs starting at the local level.

The city defines sustainability in the same way as the Bruntland Commission and has developed a mission statement, “A sustainable Vancouver is a community that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs…. Sustainability is a direction rather than destination…. Sustainability requires integrated decision making that takes into account economic, ecological, and social impacts as a whole.” (“City of Vancouver”) Perusing this mission means implementing new, efficient ideas about the environment, economy, and social well being within the city.

Energy use is one of the sustainable efforts that community members can witness every day. Vancouver is implementing LED traffic lights. These lights use eighty percent less energy and last six to ten times longer. The community commends these new energy efficient lights because it saves taxpayers almost $250, 000 on bills and $110, 000 on street light maintenance. Another of Vancouver’s active plans includes “City Fleet”—a vehicle downsizing operation that promotes alternative fuels and markets electric and hybrid cars within the city. One of the most innovative sustainability plans in Vancouver is the landfill/gas utilization project. In this project, methane gas is captured from the landfill and used to create heat and electricity, thus reducing greenhouse emissions 200,000 tons per year (City of Vancouver - http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/sustainability/initiatives.htm ).

Vancouver is one of the fastest growing cities in the northwest. It is developing “smart growth” guidelines so that livability can be sustained as the city continues to grow. The community action and involvement approach to sustainability have been successful in opening communication between citizens and businesses. These kinds of city implementations provide a picture of what sustainable living looks like.

EcoVersity

Practicing What We Teach
GALT, CA, Jan. 14, (CIP) - There are over 4,000 universities and colleges in the United States. Each year, these institutions prepare millions of students who will graduate, work, teach, raise families, buy homes, consume and produce. Those alumnae will affect future generations by their example and their teachings. And so, their alma maters play an important role in how our society defines its priorities and its goals.

What are those schools teaching about the real cost of being a citizen on this beautiful planet? Are they instructing their students in how to reduce their ecological footprint, or to leave this world better than they found it? Recently I explored universities in California, and found that many are doing a good job at teaching those lessons – others have a ways to go.

According to David Orr, one of the goals of higher education should be to prepare students to be responsible citizens, giving them the knowledge about their place in the natural world, and the sustainable practices needed to protect that world. However, shouldn’t higher education also “practice what it preaches,“ making sustainability a fundamental part of its curriculum, operations and investments? By closely examining and improving its own practices, the university can set an example as an avatar of sustainability, and engage students in understanding their ecological footprints.

Universities are beginning to bring sustainability into their program of study and business procedures. Making this change has helped them to achieve high regard and economic savings. Keeping with the concept of preparing students to be environmentally responsible citizens, they are making genuine attempts to include students in the decision process. Students attend committee meetings, participate in site visits of green buildings, and help select contractors. This is undoubtedly an excellent experience for those students, one that they take with them into the “real world.”

In my visits to campuses, where I talked with faculty, administrators, staff and students, several themes kept recurring. The excitement of affecting change was evident, particularly in the sense of “breaking the cycle” of the old way of thinking about universities. Meeting challenges, such as finding a way to bring others on campus on board (in particular financial officers), and the interaction of interdisciplinary endeavors was energizing.

With good reason, the campuses are proud of their “green” buildings, the work they’ve done and the recognition that they are receiving. They are proud of the teamwork they’ve utilized to become green, in particular the way their students have been involved. Many are proud of their independence and ingenuity, often because of the ways they have been able to fund their projects or convince reluctant co-workers.

Carol Ann Brodie
Galt, CA
orcalady2003@yahoo.com

Empowerment / Self-reliance

Vibrant, Healthy Communities Through Self-Sustainability - Fhyre's Story

"Self-Sustainability starts at home." That's my motto.

The federal government is obsessed with spending our tax dollars on the military and the super-wealthy and the corporations are obsessed with profits-for-stockholders-at-all-costs. As a result, the economic health of our local communities is suffering. It falls to us, the common people of our local communities, to get motivated, creative and make community self-sustainability happen for ourselves.

Living in rural Humboldt County is probably much the same as living in other rural counties - jobs are scarce and the pay is invariably low. If we depend on others to offer jobs and dictate wages, nothing much will change.

One way to change this situation is to create a locally owned and controlled currency. Here in Humboldt County, California, I launched the Community Currency Project on May 1st, 2003 - International Workers' Day.

Through the Community Currency Project, we print our own cash so we can create our own jobs within our own communities. Printing cash is perfectly legal, providing the person printing it isn't trying to copy Federal Reserve Notes. Community Currency serves a different function than Federal Reserve Notes so we design our local currency to look very differently.

In early 2003, I commissioned four local artists to each create one of the following bills: a $5, $10, $20 and $50 bill. These bills each have a theme. They are: Our Community, Our Bioregion, Honoring Women and Honoring Diversity, respectively. The results could not have been better - the bills are colorful, gorgeous and inspiring!

We finished the design work and the currency was printed on a special hemp/recycled fiber-blend paper, using the very finest organic ink by a local printer. Both obvious and subtle measures were taken to thwart counterfeiting.

Along with the currency, the Minimum Living Wage Campaign was launched. This campaign declares that anyone using the new local currency must be paid at least $10 per hour.

The next step was educating people to the idea of a "Person-to-Person Economy" rather than a "Person-to-Business Economy."

Most of us want to do work that relates to our personal passions. We want to be paid well, to set our own days and times that we work and we don't want to have to drive a long way or for a long time to get to work.

The Community Currency Project enables us to easily become self-employed, doing work we are passionate about, for the wages we want to earn, at the times we want to be working. For this to work, we each need to do two simple things: 1. Those offering services must accept 1/2 of their pay in Federal Reserve Notes and 1/2 of their pay in Community Currency and those selling goods must accept their payment in 3/4 Federal Reserve Notes and 1/4 in Community Currency. 2. We must support each other. Let me repeat that: WE MUST SUPPORT EACH OTHER. This means that if we want others in the community to support us by hiring us for our skills or buying our goods, then we must hire and buy from individuals as well. If we continue to buy most of our goods and services from companies, especially large companies, we'll never take back economic control of our communities or become self-sufficient. Hence, the Community Currency Project is based on a Person-to-Person economy rather than a Person-
to-Business economy.

How do others in the community learn who accepts Community Currency and who is offering which goods and services? I started by creating the Community Currency Directory. This four-page Directory listed every person involved in the project, what services or goods were offered and the phone number of the person offering it. The services and goods offered were surprisingly diverse and useful. Aside from services and goods offered, there were also headings such as: "Free", "Wanted" and "Trades".

I soon realized, however, that our daily lives can not be separated from the larger world around us. Whether the issues are about promoting Democracy in the U.S., protecting the Environment from further destruction, the need for stronger Feminist voices and influences in society, the wars against Peace or any number of other issues, we are all being affected, whether we know about it or not. I decided that we should know about it.

Therefore, in October, 2003, I launched the Humboldt Exposure, a monthly, 20-page, Pro-Community, Pro-Feminist, Pro-Democracy, Pro-Environment, Progressive newspaper. Now, in addition to the headings of "Services Offered" and so on, I began to add headings such as "Car Pooling", "Cheap College Textbooks", "Community Activism", "Cultural and Cross-Cultural Activities", "Goddess Circles", "Messages", "Native American News" and many other community-oriented topics. I was also able to reprint articles from independent (non-corporate) media, activist websites and stories about what activists are doing in other communities in other parts of the world.

The newspaper also serves as a vehicle to create alliances with other activist groups. Using the resource of the Humboldt Exposure (media) and the Community Currency (we give grants to other progressive, pro-community groups and projects) we negotiate win-win relationships with other progressive groups in the county. Invariably, part of the mix is to advertise what these other groups are doing. We do this through the 5,000 copies of the Exposure we distribute throughout the county every month.

The Larger Vision: I want to achieve two additional goals with this project. I want to earn a decent living by serving my community in creative, healthy ways and I want to model a "for-community, for-profit" business that other activists can copy. I believe that for community activists to be effective, we must be financially self-sustaining by doing activist work. Having to rely on grants, fund-raisers and voluntary poverty makes us weak, ineffective and prone to burning-out.

To achieve these goals, we must develop pro-community mechanisms to produce income. This income must come from real and tangible services and goods rendered to the community. Creating new jobs anywhere - much more in a low-wage, rural county - is a huge task. However, using Community Currency makes this quite possible and even painless on the community. After all, creating jobs using Community Currency requires no new taxes for ourselves or our neighbors, no new corporate intrusions into our communities and no new environmental compromises for our bioregions!

Locally, we model self-sustainability by offering these five services and products to the community:

#1 Person-to-Person Advertising: People advertising their services or goods in the Humboldt Exposure are charged a very modest fee of $10 for 10 lines of advertising. In return, each person receives $50 in Community Currency the first time they advertise and $25 in Community Currency for each additional month they advertise! In other words, WE PAY YOU to do exactly what it is you want to be doing! This is just one example of how community solutions to community problems are so much better than corporate or government solutions to community problems. FYI - there are more than 100 individuals who have advertised in the Humboldt Exposure and used Community Currency so far and that number grows every month!

#2 The Buyers' Club of Humboldt County: The Buyers' Club provides free advertising to locally owned and operated businesses in order to help them compete against the "big box" stores such as Costco, K-Mart and Target. In return, these local businesses offer discounts and deals to our Buyers' Club Members. This helps local businesses develop a larger, loyal customer base. We charge nothing for a business to receive the advertising benefit, the commitment is month-to-month and the discounts or deals can be changed monthly. We charge individuals an annual fee of $25 for Buyers' Club Membership.

#3 Display Ads for Businesses, Individuals and Organizations: Our circulation is 5,000 copies per month distributed throughout Humboldt County. Our rates are surprisingly reasonable. We pride ourselves on our Progressive focus. While storefront businesses are not required to accept Community Currency, a limited acceptance, such as "Community Currency Accepted on Saturdays" is helpful.

#4 Subscriptions to Humboldt Exposure: Subscriptions are available to those who want the convenience of receiving the Exposure at your home or business each month. Annual subscriptions are $36.

#5 Collectable Fine Art: Community Currency Proof Sheets are the original sheets of Community Currency as it rolled off the printing press. Limited to 200 copies, these proof sheets show both sides of the full-colored $5, $10, $20 and $50 bills. Each proof sheet is signed by each of the four artists who created them. Each sheet is numbered, matted and ready for framing. Proof Sheets are $200 each.

All of the above goods and services pay for the people - usually local community activists - to do the office management, bookkeeping, writing, editing, layout, design, distribution, ad sales and so forth.

Our goal is for this project earn $150,000 annually - and employ several community activists - by May of 2005. After that, by May of 2010, I plan to expand this project to 100 groups of activists all over the United States. Can you imagine? Several hundred community/peace/environmental activists collectively raising $15 million per year in order to create hundreds of jobs in each of their communities, create a Minimum Living Wage of $10 per hour, create 100 new progressive publications and fund a national movement for social change, social responsibility, a healthy environment and a stronger voice for the feminist perspective!

Community Self-Sustainability is a True Home-Grown Revolution.

Please join us.

Fhyre Phoenix
Founder, Community Currency Project and
The Minimum Living Wage Campaign
Publisher, Humboldt Exposure
P.O. Box 5082
Arcata, CA 95518
707-825-7779
communitycurrency@lycos.com