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City Officials Debate What To Do About Taxi Medallion Debt Crisis


taxi medallion drivers rally city hall

Council Members Levine & Rivera & drivers rally at City Hall (photo: Jeff Reed)


City Council Speaker Corey Johnson asked what sounded like a simple question: should the Taxi & Limousine Commission apologize for its role in the taxi medallion debt crisis, in which thousands of taxi owner-drivers have been trapped in predatory loans unchecked by city and state watchdogs?

Jeffrey Roth, nominated by Mayor Bill de Blasio to lead the TLC, failed to give a direct “yes” or “no.” Johnson asked again, to which Roth said, “whether or not the TLC leadership there should apologize, I don’t know.” Visibly frustrated, Johnson moved on to a new question.

The exchange took place at a July 18 hearing to discuss Roth’s nomination for TLC Commissioner – a nomination that has since been temporarily withdrawn in part due to Roth’s performance at the hearing.

Roth’s evasiveness on the apology questions and others, and Johnson’s resulting exasperation highlighted a growing debate over the culpability of city government in facilitating the medallion crisis. As a New York Times two-part investigation published in May revealed, the TLC ignored warning signs of a highly inflated medallion market (the city sells taxi medallions and sets baseline prices for auction) and risky lending practices, leaving many medallion owner stranded in colossal debt when the market collapsed. A wave of suicides among driver-owners, along with the Times' series, has elevated the discussion to emergency status.

But, as policymakers, drivers, and others have been asking, should the city itself be responsible for forgiving the debt? What is the best path for helping driver-owners get out from under their loans?

For the Taxi Workers Alliance, the most prominent organization representing for-hire vehicle drivers, the answer is a resounding yes: New York City government should prepare a bailout. But Mayor de Blasio has repeatedly said a bailout would be both out of the city's purview and too costly to the city's budget. On the other hand, several City Council Members, including Speaker Johnson, have expressed some initial support for the idea of a partial bailout of driver-owners.

Bhairavi Desai, the head of the union since its inception in 1998, has called for a city-run program to determine the current market value of medallions, then buying out and forgiving loans down to that value. At the height of the market in 2014, medallions were going for more than $1 million, compared to a $200,000 price tag a decade earlier.

The TWA has calculated that, based on a current medallion market value of $150,000 and an average owner-driver debt of $600,000, the program would cost between $1.6 and $2.4 billion – an increase from the $1 billion the TWA estimates that the city made from inflated prices at medallion auctions.

City Council Member Mark Levine, who represents Upper Manhattan and has long been one of the TWA’s strongest allies in government, claimed at a July 11 rally outside City Hall that a clear precedent for a city-run bailout exists.

“During the housing mortgage bubble, an entity here called the Center for New York City Neighborhoods did exactly that for New Yorkers with underwater housing mortgages,” he said alongside Desai and dozens of assembled owner-drivers. “The fact is, there is a myriad of precedents for this here in New York City, and it’s simply inexcusable to say this isn’t possible when we have done projects like this in the past.”

Levine is not alone in his support for the TWA’s proposal. Council Member Carlina Rivera of Lower Manhattan appeared at the same rally to call for loan forgiveness; City Comptroller Scott Stringer and Council Member Ritchie Torres, among others, have also expressed some measure of support for city-financed debt relief. Because bailout legislation has yet to be introduced to the City Council, it is difficult to gauge how broad the proposal’s support is.

Desai and the TWA have also called for a cap on medallion mortgage payments at $900 per month (compared to an average of $3,000 a month currently) and the creation of a retirement fund for drivers, among other things. But with chants of “Loan forgiveness now!” and pre-printed signs calling for “Debt Forgiveness NOW!” at the July 11 rally, owner-drivers have made their first priority clear.

On the other hand, de Blasio, as well as officials in the TLC, have expressed skepticism about, even dismissal of such an idea. Their preferred plan of action is for the city to instead pressure the private banking lenders to downsize loans, without the city itself directly buying or bailing out anything.

De Blasio, in a June interview on WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show, said that he would “absolutely pressure banks and lenders to be fair to these drivers, we’ll do that.” But he rejected the possibility of a city bailout, saying the city “doesn’t directly fund the drivers…There’s some things the City of New York simply has limits on.” He has indicated on multiple occasions that the city simply doesn’t have the billions of dollars that would be needed for a bailout, that it would be too costly of a one-time expense.

Meera Joshi, formerly the commissioner of the TLC, listed in an email to Gotham Gazette several proposals to address the crisis, all of which involve the city leaning on banks to modify loans so that they match drivers’ income. “State and city officials should publicly name those that refuse to work with borrowers,” she suggested, “much like the 100 worst landlords list. Publicity about their inflexibility will go a long way in making a change, and will achieve change quickly.”

Two other possibilities Joshi mentioned involve conditioning medallion ownership on viable financing, thus causing “banks that do not modify loans within a prescribed period [to] lose the medallion as an asset,” and “chang[ing] state tax law to ensure that forgiven loans are not considered taxable income for individuals below a certain income level.”

When asked directly about the possibility of direct loan forgiveness by the city, Joshi stated that she supports “all real assistance, but prioritizes what can realistically happen, affects the largest group, and most of all happens quickly, which is pressuring banks to restructure loans.”

Current Acting TLC Commissioner Bill Heinzen, during a June 24 City Council oversight hearing on the crisis, expanded on this assessment, saying that “the people who have the power and money here are the banks and the credit unions that hold those loans, and they should be the ones who should be forced to write down those loans to something that is human and possible to pay.”

And Roth, responding to pointed questioning from Johnson, said that he thinks “there are measures short of financial bailout...that might be sufficient and not excessive.”

Writing in a City & State op-ed column the day after the July 11 rally, Nicole Gelinas argued that the roughly $2 billion required for a bailout of many owner-drivers would make a significant, arguably unfair dent in the city’s budget. “The city must follow only public need,” she wrote, “not the extraordinary circumstances of one industry.” Others, including Roth, have pointed out that a city-financed bailout might inadvertently reward lenders for their predatory behavior.

While she echoed some of the other ideas that have been offered for alleviating the crisis, another of Gelinas’ proposed fixes involves city- and state-level regulation, without either funding a bailout. “The city,” she wrote, “should make it much clearer whether it is giving up on the medallion system or not, guiding both lenders and borrowers on underlying value, and allowing lenders to keep an interest in the future, possibly higher value of a medallion in exchange for debt relief.”

For their part, the TWA and its Council allies have also called on the city to lean on lenders to forgive debt and ease burdens on owner-drivers. Levine noted that, if the city can successfully push lenders to downsize loans, then the pricetag the city pays for a bailout decreases and becomes more politically feasible.

But some who support a city forgiveness program worry that the focus on outside forces like credit unions makes concrete solutions harder. Council Member Brad Lander, at the June 24 oversight hearing, said he worries “that if we only focus on accountability, we will fail to come up with a real approach to relief...We must find a way to do both.”

A spokesperson for the City Council said in a brief Thursday statement to Gotham Gazette that “Speaker Johnson and the council are committed to helping drivers, and the newly appointed task force is exploring a variety of ways to help including various forms of a bailout.”

Appearing on Thursday evening’s Inside City Hall on NY1, Johnson was asked by host Errol Louis about what he thinks should be done for the medallion owners. “I think the mayor is right in one aspect,” Johnson said after disagreeing with the mayor’s claim that if a cap on new for-hire vehicle licenses had been instituted in 2015 much would have been different, while also reiterating his regret for not supporting the cap back then, “which is $17 billion for a full bailout is not realistic, and it would be inappropriate and disingenuous for me to say that’s what we can do. But there has been a proposal -- Council Members Levin and Levine and Lander have been talking about doing a partial bailout for some of the medallion owners who are under water, maybe at $100,000 or $200,000, to get them out of debt in a way where they’re not as under water. It’s something we need to look at.”

Underlying the debate over debt forgiveness is a deeper question over who, exactly, bears the blame for the crisis to begin with. Mayor de Blasio has called the crisis a “private market reality,” and the TLC released an investigation it conducted laying the responsibility on lenders and the National Credit Union Association while insisting that “TLC and the City have no regulatory oversight or control over lending practices.”

Additionally, Roth, Heinzen, and Joshi – the prospective, current, and former TLC commissioners, respectively – all pointed to the specific ways in which the TLC worked to mitigate the crisis, including loosening restrictions and reducing taxes on drivers. The cap on vehicle hailing apps such as Uber and Lyft has also been highlighted as a measure that the city took to help owner-drivers (de Blasio has repeatedly said he wishes the City Council had gone along with his 2015 push for a FHV cap, rather than stalling for several more years until its passage in 2018). 

For many, however, these measures were too little and too late. Though the city was not directly responsible for reckless lending practices that may have helped thrust owner-drivers into severe debt, Levine and others claim it still has a “moral debt” to pay for its lack of oversight. Levine charged that “the city itself was asleep as thousands of drivers entered into a world of financial hell.” 

Council Member Torres, who co-chaired the oversight hearing with Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez, said that the TLC “is inclined to scapegoat everyone except itself.”

The TLC, as many debt-relief proponents have pointed out, was not just a regulator asleep at the wheel. Faced with a $3.8 billion budget deficit early in his administration, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his TLC commissioner, Matthew Daus, advertised the medallion market as a stable, “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity in order to increase city revenue. In 2011, Andrew Murstein, the former president of a prominent medallion lender, called the city his “partner,” because “they want to see prices go as high as possible.”

Debt relief, either from the city or from lenders, is not the only measure being discussed to address the medallion crisis. At the June 24 oversight hearing, four bills were proposed that would increase accountability at the TLC, with the goal of preventing future crises.

Additionally, Council Member Rodriguez, who chairs the Transportation Committee, has proposed a bill that would exempt taxi drivers from congestion pricing. The TWA held a rally on July 18 demanding that the cap on for-hire vehicles be extended, which would continue to restrain competition to the taxi industry. And, as Roth mentioned in the July 18 committee hearing, the TLC plans to set up a driver assistance unit to provide drivers with financial and mental health services.

But, as these legislative proposals’ backers have attested to, such fixes are not enough to help those already in massive debt. Regardless of who bears the blame for the crisis and who needs to pay for it, thousands of drivers remain in dire straits. “This may have taken years in the making; it cannot take years more in the fixing,” said Desai at the July 11 rally.

“Otherwise," she said, "thousands of families are going to simply break.”

***
by Joey Fox, Gotham Gazette

Read more by this writer.

As De Blasio Promises Paid Personal Time, Small Business Owners Push Back


may bdb bx president ruben richie

(photo: Edwin J. Torres. Mayoral Photo Office)


The City Council took steps Tuesday aimed at addressing what some have described as a crisis of small business closures across the city.

Passing a package of bills that now head to Mayor Bill de Blasio for approval or veto, the Council is seeking to mandate more city outreach to small business and studies of business closures. The legislation does not, however, directly address concerns expressed by members of the business community about over-regulation.

Under de Blasio and two different City Council classes, several major new mandates on businesses have been passed, with another sweeping measure -- two weeks of mandated paid personal time off -- now on the table, with de Blasio promising passage by year’s end and vocal opposition from small business owners.

The Council on Tuesday passed Intro. 1471, a bill sponsored by Council Member Helen Rosenthal that requires the Department of Small Business Services (SBS) to provide training and education for small businesses; Intro. 1472, also sponsored by Council Member Rosenthal, requires the Department of Finance to collect and publish data related to leases and vacancies on the city’s commercial properties; and Intro. 1049, sponsored by Council Member Carlina Rivera, requires SBS to, every three years, complete an assessment of the state of storefront businesses in at least 20 of the city’s community districts in what some say would be the city’s first real survey of storefronts, as well as a national first.

One of the other bills passed, Intro. 1467, would mandate creation of a website that provides businesses with information about applicable laws and regulations.

“To be quite frank, if it’s not available for them in an easy to read and follow format, it’s going to be very difficult for our small businesses to comply with the city’s rules and regulations,” said City Council Member Mark Gjonaj, lead sponsor of 1467, during the bill’s committee vote on Monday. “It’s not that they don’t want to comply, it’s that they don’t know. Basically, the way most of our small businesses find out about rules and regulations are through violations, through a gotcha scenario. And that’s not right.”

Small business advocates said that the legislation passed this week is positive, but doesn’t accomplish enough, and doesn’t address the main issue emanating from City Hall: overly-burdensome mandates.

“The passage of today’s small business bills is a step in the right direction, but let’s be crystal clear, these bills are not the regulatory reforms our city’s small business owners desperately need,” Andrew Rigie, executive director of the New York City Hospitality Alliance, said in an email. “And while we urge Mayor de Blasio to sign them into law, their passage must not be used by the Mayor and the City Council as evidence they support small business, so they can enact the Mayor’s proposed paid vacation bill and more policies that will further harm small businesses. We still need real, comprehensive regulatory reform.”

Much of the current dissatisfaction with the mayor and Council’s business reform policies centers around de Blasio announcing support during his State of the City address earlier this year for legislation to mandate two weeks of paid personal time for every employee each year.

“Workers across the nation have been working too hard without enough time to rest and recharge or enough time for family and important life events. Every other major nation recognizes the necessity of Paid Personal Time. We as a country must get there, and New York City will lead the way," de Blasio said in a statement announcing his support for the proposal, a Public Advocate Jumaane Williams-sponsored bill that had been sitting unmoved in the Council for several years, but got a jumpstart when the mayor decided he wants to see it passed. "To be the fairest big city in America, New Yorkers can't be forced to choose between bringing home a paycheck and taking time off to just disconnect or spend time with loved ones – that choice ends with Paid Personal Time.”

According to a June survey of 1,471 small business owners, conducted by various organizations and chambers of commerce across the city, 80 percent of small business owners are concerned that they will have to make significant operational changes, including letting workers go, if their business is required to provide two weeks of paid vacation to each employee. The mayor has pledged to pass the requirement this year, working with the City Council, which would add to a slew of policies that de Blasio and city legislators have advanced over the past five-plus years since the mayor took office promising to reduce inequality.

There has been significant attention in recent years to the struggles of small businesses -- de Blasio ran in part on a promise to reduce city fines on them and help them meet regulatory requirements without financial punishment, while he also pledged to do more for workers, like extending paid sick leave. Many news reports have outlined what some call an epidemic of storefront closures, not to mention the demise of “mom and pop” stores that are at times replaced by big banks and pharmacies that have proliferated.

Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer counted 188 vacant storefronts along Broadway alone in a 2017 study and small business owners say that number will only increase with de Blasio’s proposals.

Small business leaders and advocates say that the various measures (including some passed at the state level like a significant increase to the minimum wage, now $15 per hour in the city) negatively impact business, and in some cases, force businesses to close.

The local legislative efforts, which Democratic officials say are to provide workers with a better standard of living and create a more fair economy, include requiring fast food employers to create predictable schedules, expanding rights for freelancers, and paid sick leave for most workers. To help provide some Manhattan business owners with relief, de Blasio agreed to a push by Brewer and then-City Council Member Dan Garodnick to reform the commercial rent tax.

Not all fingers have been pointed at city government -- some have called for a city tax on big landlords who leave storefronts vacant for an extended period of time. Often what drives small businesses under is excessive rent payments, which can jump quickly based on landlords’ desires for bigger paydays from large chain stores. There has been a decades-long movement to get the city to pass one version or another of the Small Business Jobs Survival Act, which in its latest form would institute not commercial rent control exactly, but several lease renewal regulations that would benefit commercial tenants.

The results of the June survey cited by small business owners and advocates contrast with a 2016 report from CUNY’s Murphy Institute, cited by the de Blasio administration, which found that 85 percent of employers experienced no changes in costs due to paid sick and safe leave, which allows employees to take paid leave if they are victims of or threatened with domestic violence, human trafficking, or unwanted sexual contact.

“I speak with small business owners around the city day in and day out and not once have I been told by a small business owner that the paid sick leave law has had no impact,” Rigie said in a July 18 interview with Gotham Gazette.

Prior to releasing the survey, on June 26 – the same day de Blasio took the stage at his first debate as a presidential candidate – small business owners rallied at City Hall against regulations coming from de Blasio and the Council, in an effort to push back against the likely passage of the paid vacation mandate.

“Businesses are really struggling, and business people have families too, and they have kids,” Rigie told Gotham Gazette after the rally. “So, when everyone says we need to support working people – guess what – small business owners are working people. We need to stop getting the language out of City Hall that is setting up us against them. We're all New Yorkers. We're in this together, and we need fair and equitable regulation.”

Small business owners also expressed frustrations with city fines for minor violations and what they described as overly-aggressive inspections by city agencies. According to a 2017 report from the de Blasio administration, fines on small businesses had dropped by 40 percent over the first three years of the mayor’s first term, saving small businesses an estimated $6 million. But frustrations with fines clearly persist, and worries about additional regulations and expensive mandates like paid personal time are top of mind for many business owners.

“Paid Personal Time should be a right, not a privilege. New Yorkers work hard and deserve a break without fear of losing a paycheck, or worse, their job,” Melissa Barosy, press secretary of the city’s Department of Consumer Affairs, said in an email. “We understand the concerns from small businesses and by requiring it of all businesses, we are leveling the playing field. We heard the same concerns when we mandated sick leave in 2014 but jobs are at a record high across all five boroughs and our city has a thriving economy. I know most of our businesses want to treat their employees right and to provide their workers with time off so they can be more productive—with the City and business owners working together, we can make sure businesses thrive too.”

Nallely de Jesus, a small business owner and board member of the National Supermarket Association, said on June 26 that small businesses want to be able to pay for paid vacation time, but they can’t.

“The proposed 10-day vacation from Mayor Bill de Blasio will affect our stores. And it’s not that we don’t want to pay them,” de Jesus said. “The point is that we can’t afford to pay them. We’re asking that if the city funds it at 100%, then we will back it up at 100%.”   

Other small business advocates echoed de Jesus’ sentiment that they would support the mandates if the city paid for them.

“If you need paid vacation, then the mayor should help fund it, but let's change the conversation,” Rigie said on June 26. “We need to have a comprehensive save-our-storefronts, support-our-small-businesses plan. If there's a Green New Deal, there should be a Support Small Business Deal.”

In terms of what governmental action they are seeking, business leaders stressed things like allowing additional warnings and cure periods for minor infractions, preserving the restaurant industry tip credit, giving tax credits on property taxes that commercial tenants pay, and eliminating the commercial rent tax on businesses south of 96th Street.

They added that being included in negotiations is an important step in creating appropriate regulations.

“We want to help shape policies that make sense, we agree there needs to be a real comprehensive review of regulations in the city that are affecting businesses, particularly small businesses, because there are many that have been on the books for a very long time that just don't make sense anymore with the way that people do business,” Samara Karasyk, interim president of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, said in an interview with Gotham Gazette on July 18. “So, that's one thing. And then the second is, we really want to engage with our policymakers in a productive way to help businesses and workers together.”

***
by Caitlyn Rosen, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Charter Revision Commission Gives Final Approval to 19 Proposals in 5 Questions to Appear on Fall Ballot


voting election

(photo: Mihael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


The 2019 New York City Charter Revision Commission held its final meeting at City Hall in July to officially approve the language of 19 ballot proposals that will be put before voters for the November 5 general election. (The commission dropped a proposal related to units of appropriation in the city budget, which had earlier been approved for inclusion.)

The meeting concluded a year of activity for the commission, which was created through legislation passed by the City Council and included members appointed by Mayor Bill de Blasio, City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, Comptroller Scott Stringer, former Public Advocate and now State Attorney General Letitia James, and the five borough presidents. Over more than 65 hours of public hearings and meetings – and doubtless dozens of hours of discussions behind closed doors – the commission sifted through hundreds of suggestions about how to amend and improve the charter, the city’s governing document that establishes the powers and functions of municipal entities and officials.

The ballot proposals that the commission settled on are as varied as they are numerous, and are grouped into five overarching questions that will appear on the November ballot, when voters across the city will have few electoral races to decide but significant potential changes to city governance and elections to approve or disapprove. New York is also rolling out early voting for the first time, so voters will have nine days before Election day, from October 26 to November 3, to cast their ballots. (Early voting sites can be found here).

The ballot questions will be grouped by those about elections and redistricting; the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), which investigates police misconduct; ethics and government; city budget; and land use. New Yorkers will have to cast a “yes” or “no” vote on those questions, each of which needs a simple majority to be approved.

As the July 24 meeting in the City Council chambers got underway, it was almost immediately disrupted by Black Lives Matters protestors, who were displeased that the commission did not advance a measure to create a popularly-elected CCRB. Commission Chair Gail Benjamin was forced to recess the meeting temporarily until the protestors voluntarily departed. 

There were few amendments proposed to the draft report that the commission had approved earlier. Commissioner James Caras said there was a lack of consensus on language for the units of appropriation proposal, but that he had been assured by the City Council and the mayor’s office that they would work together on the issue, which is about how clearly budget line items are presented, outside of the charter revision process. 

Elections and Redistricting
The first of the three elections-related proposals would establish ranked-choice voting in primary and special elections for all city government seats beginning in January 2021. Ranked choice voting, also known as instant runoff voting, allows voters to rank as many as five candidates in order of preference. If no candidate meets a set threshold of first-preference votes after a first count, the candidate with the least number of votes is eliminated and their votes are redistributed to other candidates. The process continues till a candidate can be declared a victor. RCV eliminates costly and labor-intensive runoff elections in primaries for citywide seats and helps create a stronger sense of a popular mandate behind the winners of crowded elections.

The second proposal would extend the time between a vacancy and a special election, to bring it in line with state and federal laws. Currently, special elections are held after 45 days in case of a vacancy for public advocate, comptroller, borough presidents and council members, and after 60 days for the mayor's seat. The proposal would increase that period to 80 days. 

The third proposal would change the timing of the process for redrawing City Council districts, which happens every ten years. The proposal would ensure that is it completed before candidates begin collecting petition signatures to get on the ballot for the next primary election after redistricting.  

Civilian Complaint Review Board
The CCRB is an independent civilian agency charged with monitoring and investigating complaints of abuse of power and misconduct by police officers. The charter commission’s proposals would expand the Board’s membership from 13 to 15. One of the two new members would be appointed by the public advocate, and the second, who would also serve as chair,  would be chosen jointly by the mayor and City Council speaker. The proposal also allows the Council to directly appoint members to the body rather than requiring the mayor’s approval.

Besides tweaking the structure, the ballot question also expands the CCRB’s authority. The board, with a majority vote, would be able to give the executive director subpoena power; it would receive a guaranteed personnel budget – equal to 0.65% of the NYPD's budget for uniformed officers – unless the mayor expressly determines otherwise; and it would allow the board to investigate and discipline officers for lying during a CCRB probe. 

Another proposal requires that the NYPD commissioner provide a written explanation any time they do not abide by a disciplinary recommendation made by the CCRB or by the Police Department's Deputy or Assistant Deputy Commissioner for Trials.

Government Ethics
Former city officials and employees currently face a one-year ban from appearing as a lobbyist before the agency or branch of government they served. The commission proposed expanding that to two years for anyone leaving their post after January 2022. 

Commissioner Sal Albanese said it was a “modest improvement” on the revolving door of city officials and the lobbying industry, and proposed amending the implementation of that proposal to make it effective by January 2020. But his amendment failed. 

“My ideal is a lifetime ban,” he rued. “I proposed a five-year ban, I settled for a two-year ban.”

The ballot question also contains significant changes to the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board. The board currently has five members appointed by the mayor with the advice and consent of the City Council. The ballot question would replace two members with one appointee each of the comptroller and the public advocate. It would also ban COIB members from working for political campaigns in the city and lower the maximum amount of money they can donate to campaigns to $400 (the “doing business” limit).

Another proposal in the question would give the City Council advice and consent power in the appointment of the corporation counsel, who heads the Law Department and is the city’s top lawyer; and it would also require the citywide director of the Minority- and Women-Owned Business Enterprise program to directly report to the mayor and be backed by a mayoral M/WBE office.  

City Budget
Though the city sets aside billions of dollars each year in reserves that can be used in case of an economic slowdown, there is no specific charter-approved or -mandated fund for that purpose. The commission proposed allowing the creation of such a “rainy day fund” that can cover revenue shortfalls if the city should face them. This measure, however, would also require separate authorization from the state Legislature because of the city’s troubled fiscal history of decades ago.  

Commissioner Stephen Fiala sought to set parameters for any proposed rainy day fund and tried to strengthen the language of the charter amendment. But that proposal, like Albanese’s, also failed to get support, with other commissioners worrying about the unintended consequences of last-minute changes. 

The ballot question also proposes guaranteed budgets for the offices of the public advocate and the borough presidents, therefore preempting the mayor’s office from slashing their funding at its discretion. At minimum, these offices would receive a budget increase in line with inflation or the percentage by which the city’s expense budget increases, whichever is lower.

Two other proposals would give the City Council a more even hand in deciding budget allocations with the mayor’s office, requiring that the mayor provide non-property tax revenue estimates to the Council on an earlier timeline, and to provide proposed budget modifications to the Council within 30 days when making changes to the city’s financial plan.

Land Use
On land use, the commission did not propose sweeping changes that many advocates wanted. Nonetheless, the ballot question proposed would give borough presidents and community boards more information and a somewhat greater voice in the approval of land use applications through the city’s Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). 

The proposal requires the Department of City Planning to provide detailed summaries of ULURPs to the borough representatives at a minimum of 30 days before the application is certified for public review. It would also give community boards additional time to review land use applications.

Election Day -- when the five questions with 19 proposed city charter amendments will be on the ballot -- is Tuesday, November 5. The charter commission will dedicate resources over the coming months to making sure that New Yorkers know they can and should go vote on the charter revision proposals in November.

***
by Samar Khurshid, senior reporter, Gotham Gazette
     

Read more by this writer.

Note - this article has been updated. 



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