A new week, a new story at Indy Week! Today I drafted an article updating readers on the city’s participatory budgeting initiative, which allotted the three city wards $2.4 million — $800,000 per ward — to spend on community improvement projects. The catch? Anyone studying or living within Durham, albeit only those ages 13 and up, decided where the money will go. The experiment in direct democracy was launched in May, and voting continued through PB Durham’s website and physical polling stations until May 31. We don’t know the results yet, and getting that info is one of my main goals for this article. To that end, I requested information from the project’s managers and utilized Lara’s extensive notes (3,500 words!) on the topic. I also enlisted the help of Thomasi and his infinite knowledge of journalistic writing.
In addition to working on that story, I continued to help Thomasi with his research on crime within Durham. We called sources, found statistics from a new internet database, and even attempted to craft Thomasi an email signature (let’s just say that technological problems abounded with Outlook). As I worked, I enjoyed the rather pretty view of the post office– it looks something like a Greco-Roman temple– across the street.
