If you lived in Buffalo's Masten District, how would you spend $150,000? That topic is being discussed in a series of public meetings in the coming weeks.
The first meeting took place Monday night in the Delavan-Grider Community Center. It's called Participatory Budgeting and is new here but in use in much of the world and the Masten District is a pilot project to see how it might do in Buffalo.
"Most people want infrastructure. They want to see sidewalks, streets and curbs," said Masten Councilmember Ulysses Wingo.
"They will find out real quick $150,000 will only go so far."
There were a lot of projects discussed at the tables, as the meeting went on. Some were the traditional items, like better streets or more trees, but others were different like money to help people with basic home repairs or testing the air and soil around the old American Axle plant brownfield on East Delavan to see if contaminants have wandered into the community.
