We encourage New Yorkers to vote Yes on the statewide Proposal 1 on their ballots this coming Election Day, which though poorly written is intended to cement abortion rights in this state. As for the other five NYC-specific ballot initiatives, color us a bit skeptical.
If we’re all going to be clear-eyed about what these proposals are, they’re a mishmash of somewhat half-baked ideas pushed through by a Charter Revision Commission appointed by Mayor Adams in a successful and necessary effort to derail the City Council’s clamor for a ballot question on executive confirmation. Heading this eventuality off was a worthwhile objective, particularly in light of the Council’s circus around the would-be confirmation of corporation counsel nominee Randy Mastro. We’re not so sure the body could reliably handle piling a bunch more confirmations on its plate.
So pass or fail, the five Charter questions have done their job, which was to block the City Council from a wrongheaded effort to turn itself into a local version of the U.S. Senate.
Nonetheless, as ill-advised as this Council power grab was, the afterthought nature of Charter Commission-driven counterattack doesn’t inspire much confidence in these proposals, regardless of whether they have some good ideas.
Among the concepts worth further consideration are the extension of authority to the Department of Sanitation under Proposal 2 to clean certain city property and require containerization, a power that would help with the broader push to keep trash from piling up in the street and combat rats. That DSNY does not have purview over parks and bits of certain streets is more oversight than a well-reasoned separation of duties.
We’d be hard-pressed to balk at the idea of more detail on capital planning and there are good arguments to be made in favor of some reforms to how the City Council calculates fiscal impact, though we’ll note that adding City Hall’s cost estimates is not necessarily clarifying when the Council’s have historically been more accurate.
Still, if you consider voting for any ballot proposals, the most solid argument lands on Proposals 3 and 5. As for the rest, Proposal 6 seems relatively useless to its stated goal of fomenting minority and women-owned business development and film permits, and we don’t see the point of arbitrarily delaying public-safety related bills, as posited in Proposal 4.
All in all, these reforms are worth having conversations about, but this is not really a proper vehicle. They were, practically everyone agrees, rammed through for strategic purposes, which is no way to make changes to the city’s foundational organizing document. They should probably go through the deliberative process of legislation, or at the very least have a more serious consideration and drafting before we enshrine them in a way that could only be modified via another Charter revision.
There are plenty of ideas beyond these that the Commission can and should take up, including pro-democratic reforms like instituting nonpartisan ranked-choice primaries and top-finisher general elections. We’ve detailed these and other ideas befitting a ballot proposal before, and there are others. Focus on that and use the power of Charter revision to its maximum effect.
As for the Council, stop messing around with confirmations and hone in on policy to move New Yorkers’ interests forward.
https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/10/15/charter-barter-nyc-ballot-proposals-already-did-their-job/