The Charter Revision Commission green-lighted several questions for voters to decide this fall, including whether to return to a two-term limit. But the push for nonpartisan elections died with a whimper.
At a hearing in Brooklyn, people called on the charter revision commission to take on a wider range of issues–from lulus to land-use–than its staff has targeted.
Some members of the Charter Revision Commission disagreed pointedly with the panel’s own staff over what changes to city government are worth contemplating before a November vote.
When the Charter Revision Commission meets Monday night, it will weigh its staff’s recommendations against advocates’ calls for a wider vision.
The Citizen Union’s recommendations to the city’s charter revision commission go well beyond the good-government group’s reversal on nonpartisan elections.
At its last full meeting on June 9, the New York City Council dealt with legislation on taxi licenses, property taxes and health insurance for spouses of prison guards. But what dominated its agenda was land—deciding what could be built on it and how it could be used.There was an application for a sidewalk café in the west forties, a measure creating an urban development action area in the Bronx’s Belmont section and a special zoning permit on Kosciuszko Street in Brooklyn. With a rapid set of votes, the City Council executed its role in the city’s multilayered land-use process.What’s wrong with that process? A lot, according to both developers and the community advocates—the belligerents in many land use battles. On Thursday evening both sides will pitch their ideas for reform to the city’s Charter Revision Commission, which is considering changes to the city’s 400-page constitution.Thursday’s meeting—to be held at 6 p.m. at the Flushing Branch of the Queens Borough Public Library, located at 41-17 Main Street in Flushing—is the last of five “issues forums” that the commission called to study parts of the charter that might warrant change.
Mayor Bloomberg, at left, speaks in front of a giant Mayor Bloomberg, at right, during the 2009 campaign. Some public testimony to the Charter Revision Commission held that the mayor’s influence looms too large of the Conflict of Interest Board and other entities. Photo by: Jarrett Murphy
The charter commission hears from experts as it considers whether the city’s ethics monitors are sufficiently independent. By: Jarrett Murphy
During its first round of public hearings, the city’s Charter Revision Commission heard more than one speaker suggest that it was inappropriate for the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board—which largely regulates the mayor and his appointees—to be composed entirely of mayoral appointees. On Wednesday evening, the commission will take up that concern, and hear from experts.
The New York City Charter Revision Commission meets Thursday night to hear testimony about whether borough presidents and the public advocate should vanish or get more power.The hearing at 6 p.m. at Staten Island Technical High School, 485 Clawson Street, is the third in a series of five “issues forums” where the 15 commissioners are hearing from experts on topics where charter changes are possible. Forums on term limits and voter participation have already been held. Sessions on public integrity and land use remain. Testimony on Thursday will be heard from Baruch College Professor Doug Muzzio, Hofstra Law School’s Eric Lane, former chair of Manhattan Community Board 2Manha Brad Hoylman, former deputy mayor and current CUNY official Marc V. Shaw, and Gerald Benjamin of SUNY New Paltz. Public comments will be taken after the experts have testified.
The Charter Revision Commission’s Tuesday night “issue forum” on term limits was billed as an opportunity for commission members to hear from experts about the complex pros and cons of restricting elected officials’ tenure. That it was. But after eight public sessions, it was also the first time the commissioners discussed their own views. And—despite criticism that the panel is but a rubber stamp for a mayoral agenda—those views were far from uniform.Tuesday’s hearing was the first of five issues forums that the commission is holding to explore policy areas where they might suggest charter changes. Hearings on land use, government structure, public integrity and voter participation are scheduled for June.
Attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Andrew Cuomo wants the rest of New York State to have campaign finance laws, business assistance programs and workforce development policies similar to those already in place in New York City.In a 250-page policy blueprint released this weekend, Cuomo says:The state needs a campaign finance system like the one in New York City “to allow limits on campaign spending and to increase participation by qualified candidates who lack the means or connections to raise significant campaign funds.”Easing the burdens on the state’s small businesses requires “on a state-wide basis, a version of New York City’s Business Express project — an online, one-stop shop for required permits and documentation for all state agencies.”MA sound workforce development program means aligning “responsibility for workforce training with agencies that have the best understanding of the needs of both business and labor, as New York City did by moving its workforce training to its Department of Small Business Services.”None of the proposals stray into controversial waters. The city’s campaign finance system, which was implemented in 1988 after a municipal scandal and offers matching funds to candidates who abide by spending limits, is widely believed to have encouraged more participation in the city’s elections (although term limits also spurred more candidates to run). It features limits on donations that are thousands of dollars lower than the equivalent state regulations.The past three city elections—in which Mayor Bloomberg outspent rivals by tens of millions of dollars—exposed the limits of any voluntary campaign finance system, which cannot stop wealthy, self-financed candidates from dwarfing the outlays of candidates taking public financing. However, mandatory campaign finance systems have not survived Supreme Court scrutiny.The city isn’t just a model for policies in Cuomo’s book; it’s also a target for a few initiatives. After discussing congestion at New York’s airports, the candidate calls for “a 21st Century transportation infrastructure policy that addresses this issue including next generation air traffic control systems, improvement of ground traffic management and expanding the use of Stewart International Airport in the Hudson Valley.”
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