City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (photo: John McCarten/NYC Council Media Unit)

With a new City Council class and new speaker leading the legislative body, there is another opportunity to change the Council’s internal rules, which haven't been formally revised since 2014.

It's a relatively obscure corner of public policy because in a city of 8.8 million people the rules apply only to the 51 elected Council members and a few hundred Council staff. But Council members and advocates have for years pointed to measures that

Speaker Johnson, middle, and Council members (photo: John McCarten/City Council)

In December, several City Council members jostling to become the powerful next speaker of the 51-member legislative body signed on to a broad platform of reforms to the Council’s rules and procedures, which can have a significant impact on city law-making and funding for communities. Both returning and newly-elected Council members, 33 of them in total,

Council Speaker Corey Johnson, at podium (photos: William Alatriste)

Just after he was elected Speaker of the City Council on January 3, Corey Johnson had some initial business to take care of: naming a temporary rules committee, including a chairperson. And in this first official decision in his new role, Johnson made a relatively small but important move that is emblematic of the broad shift in the City Council and

City Council chambers (photo: Sofie Hecht/Gotham Gazette)

A majority of the incoming class of the New York City Council, including newly elected and returning members, has signed on to a newly-released package of internal rules reforms for the next four-year session, which begins in January. The agenda is intended to improve the Council’s budgeting and legislative drafting processes, strengthen the role of committees, bolster internal budgets, and enhance workplace conditions for Council staff, among other measures.

Of the 51-member

Council Member Van Bramer starts a hearing (photo: @JimmyVanBramer)

On March 1, at perhaps the most important City Council hearing of the year, just three of the finance committee’s eleven members were present when the session began. The Council’s first hearing on Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $82 billion fiscal year 2017 preliminary budget began nine minutes after its scheduled time, at 10:09 a.m., more prompt than typical Council hearings. The City Council Speaker, Melissa Mark-Viverito, arrived three minutes later, just after the finance chair, Council Member

A scene at the City Council (photo: William Alatriste)

At one of the shortest City Council hearings ever held, Council members from the Committee on Rules, Privileges, and Elections approved on Wednesday morning a resolution to “delete” the Committee on Community Development.

The decision to eliminate one committee relates to questions regarding the number of Council committees, how many committees each member sits on, and member attendance at committee hearings. Regularly, by the time members of the public testify at City Council