Update from Porto Alegre

Sergio Baierle, from the NGO CIDADE, just published a critical report on the status of Porto Alegre's PB. See the summary below, or the full report at:
http://www.ongcidade.org/site/php/noticias/noticias.php?area=artigos&completa&id_noticia=1021

Whittling down the Potential of Participatory Budgeting?
by Sérgio Baierle
2008-08-19
“PB is still alive!”, The government repeatedly and publicly claims, as if it is trying to convince itself. There are doubts about the validity of its statement, the most serious of which have been pointed out by participatory budgeting council members themselves. How can one defend the idea that PB still exists, they say, if 1) The decisions made by people do not translate into more resources being allocated in the Investment Plan?; 2) The neighborhoods that haven’t prioritized certain themes receive more of those resources than those that prioritize them?; and 3) When it comes to implementation, the city government cherry-picks initiatives that suit its needs without paying any attention to the priority scales that are voted on in each neighborhood and without setting up collective management teams to preside over the public works?