By Jeanette DeDios | KUNM

On Tuesday, District 6 members will come together to celebrate a new grower’s market in the International District as well as host a community workshop to hear ideas about spending district funds next year.

District 6 City Councilor Nichole Rogers, Mayor Tim Keller, and members from the district’s community participatory budgeting team will be cutting the ribbon on the new market at Kathryn Southeast and San Mateo Boulevard. Rogers said this was a need because the International District is a food desert.

“I was really proud of the entire district, decided to focus our district’s funds on the most vulnerable neighborhood,” she said. “It’s a place where we can host our own growers market, we can have not just food vendors, but other vendors from the neighborhood come.”

In 2024, Councilor Rogers dedicated $1.5 million of her council set-aside funds that was earmarked for the participatory budget pilot program within her district.

The project had the most votes in the city’s first participatory budgeting process last year, where citizens decided how to spend district funds – which is about $950,000 in this case.

After the ribbon cutting, Rogers will also be hosting a second round of community project workshops. She said the first one had over 250 project ideas.

District 6 participatory budget timeline for the next round will be from March through November. The process involves community members submitting ideas for projects, developing them into real proposals with cost estimates, community voting on those proposals, and the winning projects getting funded and built.

Rogers said she’s excited to hear what her community’s top concerns are.

“It’s your voice, you get to decide what projects go on the ballot, and then after that you vote on those projects to decide what we do. So without community involvement, it’s not really a community driven process,” she said.

In addition to the grower’s market improvements, there will be a a one-stop respite station and an outdoor restroom unit.

Rogers said she’s heard from other community members who want to implement participatory budgeting in their own council districts. She said City Councilor Stephanie Telles is looking to implement it in District One which includes the west area of the city around the Petroglyph Monument.

The ribbon cutting of the new growers market will be at 1:30pm on Tuesday June 09, 2026 between Kathryn SEand San Mateo Blvd. The workshop will follow after the event.

This story was originally published by KUNM