City of Dieppe offers $300K to best community project pitches
Dieppe Mayor Yvon Lapierre says with $300,000 earmarked for community projects, he is hoping residents will pitch some great ideas over the next few days to improve the city.
"We want our residents to get involved in the municipality's decision-making process, to propose ideas that we may not have thought of," he said in an interview on Information Morning Moncton on Tuesday.
Lapierre says it's an idea that encourages citizens to get involved and is already being used in bigger cities such as Boston and New York.
The project ideas will be reviewed by by a committee of residents who will decide which ones meet the criteria, and the finalists will be voted on by residents in a popular vote, likely in November, he said.
"They will be pitching it to a selection committee which is made up of citizens but in a wider scope they're actually going to be pitching to a wider population because everyone in Dieppe will be allowed to vote as long as you're 11-years-old or older."
Lapierre says the number of projects funded will depend on the types of projects that are proposed.
"We know for example if somebody wants to talk about a dog park, that's $300,000 gone because the estimate has already been looked at in the past for this particular project but if that's what people want that's what they get."
"All of these decisions are made by the people," Lapierre said. "Council is hands-off totally"
Lapierre says he is proud of council for taking the bold move of moving $300,000 out of the operating budget to this project.
"It shows the intent of council to ask people to get involved in municipal affairs. It's their business … they need to get involved."
There are three public sessions planned:
- Tuesday, May 26 from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Dieppe Public Library
- Thursday, May 28 from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Dieppe Boys and Girls Club
- Saturday, May 30 from 1:30 p.m. to 3 p.m at Dieppe City Hall
