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City Council Seeks Expanded Power, Sweeping Change in Recommendations to Charter Revision Commission


johnson council

(Photo: John McCarten/City Council)


The New York City Council wants a voice in picking the commissioner of the NYPD, more independence for ethics and oversight agencies, and greater power over the city budget.

Those are among the recommendations that the City Council made in a new report to the 2019 Charter Revision Commission, seeking amendments to the city’s governing document that would broadly strengthen the powers of non-mayoral elected officials and require changes to how the city budgets, decides land use changes, and plans for the future.

The 2019 commission was created last year through legislation passed by the Council and spearheaded by then-Public Advocate Letitia James and Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer. Its members are appointed by a variety of public officials, including the mayor, comptroller, borough presidents, and City Council speaker, Corey Johnson, who also appointed the chair.

A separate commission, conducting its work in 2018, had previously been appointed by the mayor and put three questions on the November ballot that were overwhelmingly approved.

On Thursday evening, the Council-created commission finalized a list of focus areas that will be the subject of several public hearings in the next few months before its final report is due in September. Ultimately, its recommendations will be on the ballot for voters to approve or disapprove this November.

The City Council’s 37-page report to the commission details several recommendations in key areas on the balance of power in government, voting processes, police oversight, city budgeting and contracting, and land use and planning policy. The report is authored by Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Council Member Fernando Cabrera, who chairs the Council's government operations committee, and Brad Lander, the deputy leader for policy.

“It’s been almost 30 years since the last comprehensive Charter Commission and based on the public participation in the 2019 Commission’s process, it is clearly time for change,” Johnson said in a statement. “In formulating the Council’s proposals, we took into consideration all of the public testimony given as well as Council Member input, and we are confident that our recommendations will improve the way our City is governed and make life better for New Yorkers.”

Balance of Power
The report proposes requiring advice and consent powers for the City Council in appointing the city’s corporation counsel, the NYPD commissioner, City Planning Commission chair, the chief administrative law judge and the executive directors of the Campaign Finance Board and Conflicts of Interest Board (none of these positions are currently subject to Council approval). It also proposes implementing three-year terms for each of those positions.

It also proposes requiring the City Council’s approval before the mayor can remove the commissioner of the Department of Investigation, currently the one department commissioner the Council must approve after mayoral nomination. That proposal may be a response to the controversy involving the termination of former DOI Commissioner Mark Peters, who had been a thorn in the side of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration. Though Peters was removed for overstepping his authority, Council members at the time raised concerns about the agency head’s ability to stay independent and investigate the very mayor who appoints them without worrying about retaliation.

The Council also recommends giving the City Council, the public advocate, and the comptroller one appointment each on the Conflicts of Interest Board, which is currently made up entirely of members appointed by the mayor. “No single elected officer should be solely responsible for the appointment of COIB and by dividing the appointments between all the branches of City government, COIB can more effectively meet the goals of its mission,” the report reads.

Other recommendations include giving the Council a direct appointment to the city’s Art Commission and changing the structure of the Landmarks Preservation Commission

A few of the proposals would also increase the authority of other elected officials, including the public advocate, an office with a small budget and limited powers but a strong bully pulpit. The Council proposes allowing the public advocate to direct DOI to conduct investigations and giving the office an appointment at the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), which probes NYPD officer misconduct. The report also recommends independent budgets for the public advocate and comptroller — the two offices would be able to submit their own budget proposals into the mayor’s executive budget — and guaranteed “non-negotiable” budgets for borough presidents and community boards based on a percentage of an existing, related budget.

Voting and Elections
The upcoming special election for public advocate on February 26, with 17 candidates on the ballot, illustrates cause for some of the issues that the Council’s report addresses, it says. It advocates for establishing ranked-choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, in all primary and special elections. Without ranked choice -- which allows voters to pick their preferences by ranking and distributes second-rank votes if no candidate initially meets the required vote threshold -- a candidate in a crowded special election could win with a small total vote and percentage of the ballots cast.

The report also notes that establishing ranked-choice voting would eliminate the need for costly primary and general elections that are held after a special election -- for instance, the winner of the public advocate special will have to defend their seat later this year. The report recommends doing away with those contests since ranked-choice would ensure that a candidate with deep support is elected to the seat and serves the remainder of a term.

Police Oversight
The Council recommends giving the public advocate the power to appoint one member of the CCRB, reducing one of the mayor’s appointments, and also proposes that the agency’s chair be chosen jointly by the mayor and the Council.

It also pushes for putting into law the CCRB’s Administrative Prosecution Unit, which conducts civil trials for officers accused of severe misconduct. The APU was created in 2012 through a memorandum of understanding between the NYPD and the CCRB, which the report points out could be revoked by the police commissioner, threatening the independence of the oversight agency.

The Council also proposed strengthening the CCRB in other ways, tying the agency’s budget to the NYPD’s, giving it subpoena power, and establishing a time-bound process for the NYPD to respond to the agency’s disciplinary recommendations.

Budgeting and Contracting
One of the more prominent roles of the City Council is its power to approve the city’s annual budget in negotiation with the mayor. For years, Council members have cried foul about the imbalance in those negotiations and the “budget dance” -- purposefully underfunding an item in initial proposals only to fully fund it later on, knowing all along the plan is to do so -- that mayors past and present have used as leverage.

In his first year as Council speaker, Johnson pointed to the imbalance and put forth a new focus on the city’s capital budget and made the level of rainy day funds put away each year a priority. The Council would put new related measures into the charter.

Among other things, the report proposes requiring the mayor to submit revenue estimates at a fixed date in the budget process, allowing the Council to estimate how much the city should be spending, and calls for increased transparency in the expense budget, particularly by tying spending to performance measures.

It also proposes limits on the mayor’s control over appropriated funds, and more efficiency and transparency in the long-term capital planning process.

Perhaps the biggest budgetary change the report recommends is the creation of an explicit Rainy Day Fund, which is currently prohibited by a law in place till 2033. The Council recommends establishing the fund in the charter as well as seeking state authorization for it.

On city contracting, the report recommends several improvements including setting time limits for specific processes, such as requiring that oversight agencies review contracts within 30 days (the same limit applied to the Comptroller’s office), and involving the comptroller’s office at an earlier stage.

Land Use and City Planning
The report advances several suggestions for making the city’s land use process “more equitable and rational,” chiefly by requiring a comprehensive plan for the city every ten years, created with community feedback, to inform policies on land use and infrastructure.

The Council also seeks to enhance the “fair share” system which determines how municipal facilities and infrastructure is sited across the city. The current “fair share” guidelines have often been criticized as inadequate and have not prevented the concentration of undesirable facilities, often in low-income communities of color. The Council’s report proposes changing those guidelines into binding rules to be followed and updated regularly along with other improvements to the siting process.

The Council is also attempting to wield more power over land use applications, giving them the ability to modify city-sponsored land use project during the approval process.

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by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

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2019 Charter Revision Commission Announces Four Focus Areas


spequinn city council 2012

(photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


The 2019 Charter Revision Commission on Thursday officially decided on the issues it would explore and evaluate going forward, settling on four overarching areas of consideration and several specific policy recommendations within each bucket.

The commission, which was empaneled through City Council legislation, features appointees from various elected officials and the Council, and first met in July of last year, is working on a longer timetable than that of last year’s mayor-empaneled commission, and is taking a broader look at the city’s central governing document. Its recommendations will be put on the November 2019 ballot as referenda.

The four topic areas of focus over the next several months will be elections, governance, finance, and land use, and the proposed policies that the commission will study were drawn from over 600 submissions from the public.

The commission made clear that the proposals are not what will appear on the ballot, but rather the specific policy ideas that it will further study as it decides what to put before voters for yes or no selections.

“A vote now is a vote to explore further,” said Gail Benjamin, the chair of the commission and the former head of the City Council’s land use division.

The elections bucket includes ranked-choice voting (otherwise known as instant-runoff voting), elimination of “duplicative primary elections,” appointments to the redistricting commission and how Council District maps are drawn, the appointment structure at the Campaign Finance Board, and potential alternative campaign finance systems like a “democracy voucher” system.

Former Council Member Sal Albanese proposed that the commission add nonpartisan elections, arguing that the structure of New York’s elections silences the votes of independents. The proposal was shot down by other members, particularly 32BJ Vice President Alison Hirsh, who claimed that nonpartisan elections depress turnout by eliminating a prominent marker for a candidate’s positions, and that voters had rejected nonpartisan elections in a previous referendum.

The governance bucket, which some commissioners argued was too broad of a category, consists of allowing the Council advice and consent powers on certain mayoral appointees; evaluating the power, roles, and structures of the borough presidents, public advocate, corporation counsel, Civilian Complaint Review Board, Conflicts of Interest Board, and Board of Statutory Consolidation; lobbying by former public officials; and police disciplinary practices.

Hirsh suggested that the commission add consideration of a Chief Diversity Officer in the Mayor’s Office and in every city agency, noting that only seven agencies currently have one and recent Council legislation creating one in the Department of Citywide Administrative Services to oversee diversity in hiring at agencies. The commission approved the amendment, which echoes a call from Comptroller Scott Stringer for such officers.

In the finance realm, the commission decided to study the issues of more detailed units of appropriation in the city budget, making the capital budget correspond to “discrete projects,” a “comprehensive city planning framework” for capital budgeting and land use, independent budgeting for certain agencies and offices, the management of public pensions, and evaluating procurement and contract registration processes and policies.

The final bucket, land use, consists of the comprehensive planning framework that overlaps with finance, evaluating the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Process (ULURP), including the possibility of a public pre-ULURP process, and evaluating the four land use boards: the City Planning Commission, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Board of Standards and Appeals, and the Franchise and Concession Review Committee. The consideration of the LPC was added as an amendment by Commissioner James Caras.

Going forward, the commission will conduct research on the proposed policies, as well as further public hearings. Its final report and ballot measure recommendations will be due in early September and in order to appear on the November ballot, but there will be other steps in between.

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by Ben Brachfeld, Gotham Gazette

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Max & Murphy Podcast: Public Advocate Candidate Ben Yee


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Ben Max, left, of Gotham Gazette, and Jarrett Murphy, right, of City Limits


January 30, 2019 - Max & Murphy Podcast: Public Advocate Candidate Ben Yee

byee 150pxBen Yee is an entrepreneur and activist who has been involved with Democratic politics and government on several levels. Now a candidate for New York City Public Advocate in the special eleciton set for February 26, Yee joined the show to discuss his resume and vision for the office, which he would focus heavily on civic engagement.

Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think -- we're on Twitter @TweetBenMax and @JarrettMurphy. You can listen to the show through the embedded audio below or download the episode wherever you get your podcasts, under "Max & Murphy," and listen to Max & Murphy live on Wednesdays at 5 p.m. on WBAI radio, 99.5FM or wbai.org

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by Ben Max, Gotham Gazette
     

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