After presenting to council, participatory budgeting group meets today

Four supporters of participatory budgeting spoke at last week's Greensboro City Council meeting, and now the group will meet today to continue plans to create a participatory budgeting process that would allow citizens more direct control over how the city's budget is allocated.

The project, which is backed by the local Fund for Democratic Communities, is asking for one percent of the city's annual budget — approximately $4.5 million — to be set aside for the participatory process beginning next fiscal year 2012-13.

The council meeting was packed with supporters of the initiative — according to the fund, over 60 people stood in support of the project.

"Now that we've introduced [participatory budgeting] to Greensboro we need to ensure it is adopted by the City Council," the group's latest email said. "Let's put Greensboro at the forefront of this democratic movement that is picking up steam across the United States!"

For more information about how a participatory budgeting process would work, visit http://greensboropb.org. Today's meeting is at 5:30 p.m. at the fund's office at 620 S. Elm Street.

Fund 4 Democratic Communities joins internet blackout to protest SOPA

As major sites like Wikipedia and Google "go black" by blocking some or all of their content today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act (SOPA and PIPA), the Greensboro-based Fund 4 Democratic Communities has joined in.

Above, a screen shot of the homepage for F4DC's website, www.f4dc.org.

"F4DC has joined the internet blackout protest over the SOPA and PIPA bills in Congress," said a statement on the group's Facebook page today. "See our website for more information and how you can voice your opposition to these bills, which threaten free speech online."

Proponents of the bill say it would protect against internet piracy and copyright infringement, while opponents say the wording of the acts is vague and would pave the way for widespread censorship of the internet including popular social media and networking sites that many say have fueled popular and dissident movements worldwide.