Countries and states often have Constitutions – the City of New York has a Charter, and a mayoral commission is holding public hearings in each of the five boroughs before it suggests changes to it.
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg announced the appointment of the 15-member panel on Wednesday, March 3. Since then hearings have been held in Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island.
On Monday, April 19 at 6 p.m. the Charter Revision Commission will hold a public meeting in the auditorium of LaGuardia Community College, located at 31-10 Thompson Avenue in Long Island City. Members of the public can register to speak for three minutes, and extend their remarks by submitting a transcript.
It’s a rare chance for John Q. Public to suggest changes to city government –enormous ones like making city office elections non-partisan; empowering the Borough Presidents or abolishing Public Advocate – or smaller but important ones like funding Community Boards; returning “excess rent” to keep water bills down or giving the City Council veto power over “variances” that give developers exemptions from zoning codes.
Charter revision isn’t new.
Since the very first Charter, issued by the Dutch West India Company in 1652, it has undergone major revision every generation or two, with a watershed change coming in 1989 at the behest of the U.S. Justice Department. The Board of Estimate – which approximated a “senate” of the boroughs – was eliminated and the City Council was expanded from 35 to 51 members.
Records from more recent commissions can be found on the city’s web site at www.nyc.gov/html/charter, which posts live webcasts of the hearings, videos of past hearings, links to the work of other recent commissions and a link to the Charter itself –all 359 pages of it.
Those so inclined can also follow the proceedings on Twitter at https://twitter.com/CityCharterNYC.
The panel of 11 men and four women isn’t exactly reflective of the population – six live in Manhattan, four in Brooklyn and only two live in Queens. Nevertheless, they will issue a preliminary report sometime in July before they submit any proposed charter changes in the form of “ballot questions” by September 3, 60 days before the election, according to commission spokesperson Matthew Gorton.
“They may decide not to put any questions on the ballot,” Gorton said. “That’s happened before.” – See Editorial.
