by KRISTIAN GRAVENOR

So you've got a spectacular plan to improve the city. Perhaps you'd like to close down the opera and replace it with the Giant Museum of Skateboard Heroes. Or maybe you want to expropriate a factory and replace it with a placid wooded paradise. Dream on: in spite of talk of public consultations, the engine of city planning remains the budget, which is written in private by the mayor and his executive committee and voted on by city councillors.

But elsewhere around the globe an ever-growing gaggle of towns and cities are allowing citizens to directly decide where their tax bucks go. This weekend, experts from places such as Porto Alegre, Brazil, Manchester, England, and Vancouver converge here to explore how to allow citizen-scripted budgets to flourish all over, during the Third Citizen's Summit on the Future of Montreal.

The first known publicly written city budget was written in Porto Alegre in 1989, and since then other cities have aped it. Conference organizer Dimitri Roussopoulos explains how it works: "A neighbourhood gets together and decides its needs and priorities. They might want better sidewalks or streets or social housing or to deal with prostitution; the discussions unfold and there's an open dialogue between the citizens and elected representatives in view of what the financial resources of that particular city will allow them to achieve."

If implemented here, such a system would see money flow to where people want it to go. Roussopoulos, for example, would like to aim more cash towards what politicians now consider a low priority. "The Plateau borough has an annual budget of $47-million, and a certain amount goes to the traffic department," he says. "I'd argue we need to introduce practices of traffic calming on a number of streets."

Three weeks of studying the system in sunny Porto Alegre left UQÀM geography prof Anne Latendresse raving about the possibilities of bringing the system here. "Here, our local democracy allows citizens a forum to go and complain, but we don't take part in decisions or deliberations," she says. "There, they discuss the needs and priorities of investment in the area. Here, they do budgets behind closed doors. We want budgets to be participatory and transparent."

Latendresse says municipalities that have launched a citizen-budget process include about 130 Brazilian cities, St-Denis and Bobigny in France, four cities in Portugal and others in Spain, while Quebec City, Val d'Or, Rouyn-Noranda, Guelph and Toronto have embraced elements of participatory budgets. "They proved that it's possible to reinvent local democracy, to place citizens at the heart of decision making," says Latendresse.

The weekend conferees will also discuss the concept of proportional representation, which they like, as they believe it advances the cause of minorities and non-mainstream political thinkers. "With all of the diverse cultural communities in Montreal, we think such a system would allow other voices to speak," Latendresse says.

About 500 people are expected at the yakfest, which features such speakers as Brazilian social policy expert Silvio Caccia Bava, social activist Judy Rebick and French writer and academic Gustave Massiah. Those wanting to participate can call 281-8381 or show up Friday at 5:30 p.m. at 245 Ontario E. For more info visit www.3sc.cam.org.