Hey, check this story from the South Philly Review on the recent budget workshop held at St. Monica’s Catholic School at 16th and Porter streets. What’s interesting about this story is that it kind of suggests that we could see more of these citizen budget forums in the future. Check out the part I’ve underlined.

Citizen input wasn’t involved in the first round of budget cuts, since there wasn’t enough time for feedback in order for cuts to be in place by Jan. 1, Nutter’s Chief of Staff Clay Armbrister told the crowd.

“In contrast to what happened in November, this is our normal budget process and, in fact, the idea to have this kind of civic engagement was something that the mayor talked about during his campaign,” he said. “One of the mistakes that we did in fact make ­— that all of us including the mayor is willing to admit to — is that had we had the opportunity we certainly would have come out and tried to get the opinion of our citizens before we made some of those decisions.”

What do you think of the idea? Would you like the City of Philadelphia to hold public budget forums this time next year? Do you think this direct-democracy undermines the whole point of representative government?