What’s a Sanbot?
a. a miniature PB&J sandwich robot
b. a 6” heel woman’s shoe style
c. the URL for the Jarrett Meeker Foundation
d. a garbage truck driver in Flatbush
e. all of the above
Letter e. became the right answer when NYC Deputy Mayor for Operations Stephen Goldsmith — the famous “Missing Man” of the 2010 Blizzard — designated BK14 (Flatbush-Midwood) as the pilot district for garbage truck-tracking by GPS. Continue reading
NYC Charter Revision: We missed portions of Monday’s webcast NYC charter revision commission hearing when our Internet access crashed. Here’s what we managed to see and hear: Continue reading
Posted in 2010 NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, Anthony Crowell, bloomberg charter, charter revision, Citizens Union, Common Cause, Matthew Goldstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New york Community boards, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NYC charter, nyc charter revision, NYC Government
2010 NYC Charter Revision Commission
The 2010 NYC Charter Revision Commission spent much of its July 12 meeting agonizing over ways to restore the public’s faith in government and increase voter participation. It did not acknowledge that voter apathy may stem from the public’s resignation that billionaires will continue to control the Mayor’s office, and that selection of City Council members may make little difference in shaping City Hall’s major decisions.
The webcast meeting had been convened to discuss the commission staff’s July 9 preliminary report. But as quickly as the staff’s proposal for instant run-off voting — IRV — appeared on the pages of that report, it got jettisoned when chairman Matthew Goldstein’s colleagues complained that they never had discussed it. Continue reading
Posted in 2010 NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, Anthony Crowell, Anthony Perez Cassino, Betty Chen, bloomberg charter, Borough Presidents, Carlo Scissura, charter revision, Citizens Union, Community Boards, Hope Cohen, instant run-off voting, Kenneth Moltner, Lorna B. Goodman, Matthew Goldstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, non-partisan elections, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NY City Council, NYC charter, nyc charter revision, NYC City Council, NYC Government, Ronald Lauder, Stephen Fiala, term limits
Matthew Goldstein
Past practice suggests that charter revision chair Matthew Goldstein will use the commission’s June 24 forum on Land Use to signal what his panel will focus on as it moves into summer.
We — and others — have criticized the NYC Charter Revision Commission’s calendar, which delays publication of land use proposals until July. This is too late for most community boards to draw residents to public hearings to comment on any proposed changes. The commission must submit its final proposals to the City Clerk by Labor Day to get them on November’s ballot. Continue reading
Posted in 2010 NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, bloomberg charter, CEQR, charter revision, Christine Quinn, Community Boards, Lorna Goodman, Matthew Goldstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NYC charter, nyc charter revision, NYC Government, Queens Civic Congress, Ronald Lauder, ULURP
Ira B. Harkavy
Ira Harkavy, Florence Nathanson, Esther Lopato and Helen Henkin were community board members back in the day when board membership meant more than echoing the mayor’s priorities or being ignored.
The three women are gone; Harkavy, who quit as chairman of Brooklyn Community Board 14 to run for the bench, is retired from a long and respected judicial career during which he inspired a Hollywood film by sentencing a landlord to live in his own tenement.
All of them were “plugged in” (Harkavy, for example, concurrently led CB14, the Madison Jewish Center, the Brooklyn College campus foundation and alumni association, the Brooklyn College Hillel House, and the Midwood Development Corporation); all adhered to the highest ethical standards; all commanded respect and all used their formidable intellectual and moral powers to ensure that City Hall paid attention to the needs of Flatbush and Midwood, the neighborhoods their board comprised. Continue reading
Posted in Community Boards, NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, bloomberg charter, Borough Presidents, Brad Hoylman, charter revision, Citizens Union, Common Cause, Community Boards, Development, Doris Ortiz, Gerry Esposito, Ira B. Harkavy, land use, League of Women Voters, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NY City Council, NYC charter, nyc charter revision, NYC Government, NYPIRG, Scott Stringer, Susan Lerner
Brad Hoylman
Brad Hoylman took the time to phone us to explain his June 10 Charter Revision Commission invited testimony. He asked why we oppose his proposal — indistinguishable from that of Manhattan BP Scott Stringer — to force each community board to hire a planner to provide technical support on land use, transportation, liquor license, or sidewalk café issues.
Hoylman said having such a planner on staff would give community boards “teeth” — in our view, an overstatement — and would help boards “inhibit new development” as well as support it. Taking his assertions at face value, we tried to explain our concerns. Continue reading
Posted in 2010 NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, bloomberg charter, Brad Hoylman, charter revision, Community Boards, Development, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NY City Council, NYC charter, NYC City Council, NYC Government
Brad Hoylman
The strongest push to hobble NYC’s community boards by forcing them to hire dedicated planners and revert to a narrower “planning board” role (an idea we strongly oppose) came not from Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, but from the former chairman of Manhattan Community Board 2, Brad Hoylman, who was one of five invited “experts” who spoke at the Charter Revision Commission’s June 10 session on Government Structure in Staten Island. Why the commission chose Hoylman as a featured guest became evident upon examination of his credentials. Continue reading
Posted in 2010 NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, Angela Mariana Freyre, bloomberg charter, Brad Hoylman, Carlo Scissura, charter revision, Christine Quinn, Community Boards, Douglas Muzzio, Eric Lane, Father Joseph McShane, Gale Brewer, Gerald Benjamin, Marc Shaw, Matthew Goldstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NY City Council, NYC charter, nyc charter revision, NYC City Council, NYC Government
Father Richard Gorman
It took four hours until anyone — expert witnesses, charter commission members, or one of the evening’s 21 informal speakers — finally zeroed in on why voter participation has plummeted in NYC over the last two decades:
“Maybe the reason why people don’t vote is they don’t think it’s worth the trouble of going to vote for a government that increasingly shuts them out.”
The speaker was Father Richard Gorman, chairman of Community Board 12 in The Bronx. Unfortunately, by the time he spoke, at 10:05 PM, the panelists, half the commissioners, and almost all the main-stream press, had deserted the Lehman College auditorium. The few audience members who lingered were mayoral aides or one-issue advocates for non-partisan elections. Continue reading
Posted in NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, Anthony Perez Cassino, bloomberg charter, Borough Presidents, charter revision, Community Boards, David R. Jones, Father Richard Gorman, Harry Kresky, J. Phillip Thompson, Jerry H. Goldfeder, Lorraine C. Minnite, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, non-partisan elections, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NY City Council, NYC charter, nyc charter revision, NYC City Council, NYC Government, Roxanne Delgado, voter participation
John Banks and Matthew Goldstein
This week’s charter revision commission forum on Voter Participation will take place at Lehman College in The Bronx at 6:00 PM on Wednesday, June 2. With live webcasting in place, it’s a fair bet that relatively few residents of Brooklyn or Staten Island will make the journey to personally attend —- except for members of the Independence Party and its youth affiliate, the All Stars Project.
The Independence Party — now New York State’s third largest — perennially pushes for non-partisan elections: a voting change that in NYC would weaken the dominant Democratic Party and make it easier for well-funded media campaigns to trump grass-roots voter organizing at the polls. Continue reading
Posted in 2010 NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, bloomberg charter, charter revision, Community Boards, Matthew Goldstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, non-partisan elections, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NY Independence Party, NYC charter, NYC Government, NYC Independence Party, The Hankster
F. A. O. Schwarz, Jr. photo courtesy praxagora.com
You wouldn’t expect that a panel discussion by former charter revision commission chairs would be enlightening or amusing, but it was both. Monday’s webcast panel at Baruch College featured former commission chairs Richard Ravitch (1986-88), F.A.O. Schwarz, Jr. (1989), Randy Mastro ( 1999, 2001), Frank Macchiarola (2003), and Ester Fuchs (2005). Current commission chair Matthew Goldstein moderated; several of his colleagues participated in the questioning.
The senior panelists agreed that Mayor Bloomberg’s 2010 commission has no choice but to address term limits (although they couldn’t agree on how), that New York’s strong mayoralty must continue, and that the borough presidents’ offices should be strengthened. What they didn’t agree on — term limits, their impact on minority voting, the fate of the public advocate, and non-partisan elections — provided some lively back-and-forth. Continue reading
Posted in 1989 NYC Charter, 2010 NYC Charter Revision
Tagged 1989 Charter Revision, 2010 charter revision, 2010 NY charter, bloomberg charter, Board of Estimate, Borough Presidents, charter revision, Community Boards, Eric Lane, Ester Fuchs, F.A.O. Schwarz, Frank Macchiarola, Jr., Matthew Goldstein, Mayor Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg, Michael R. Bloomberg, New York City Charter, New York City government, New york Community boards, non-partisan elections, NY charter commission, NY charter revision, NY City Council, NYC charter, NYC City Council, NYC Government, Randy Mastro, Richard Ravitch, Rudolph Giuliani
CityPragmatist 