A BLUEPRINT FOR REFORM:

The collective testimonies, proposals and suggestions of

Frank Morano to the Charter Revision Commission

Enhancing Accountability and transparency in city government;

Empowering Voters and make New York’s Civic Life More Participatory

June 24th, 2010

Frank Morano
 (347) 742-7902
Wisdom.Morano@gmail.com
Introduction
As someone who has been proud to attend each Charter Revision Commission hearing
in every borough thus far, I want to begin simply by saying thank you. I know how hard
each of the Commissioners have worked, how much time you’ve put in, how much grief
you’ve taken (and will continue to take) from the public and that it’s all been for no
additional compensation, glory or fame. New Yorkers are rarely hesitant to vent their
frustrations or complaints about anything, but we often overlook the time, energy and
effort you put in to what can more often than not be a thankless job. Thank you. Your
work isn’t going unappreciated and I think all New Yorkers owe you a sincere debt of
gratitude. On a personal note, in attending each hearing, listening to public input, taking
in the advice and suggestions from elected officials and community leaders, listening to
each of the commissioners and hearing from the experts at each of the expert forums, I’ve
learned more about city government (as it’s currently constituted) than I could’ve ever
imagined. I know too, that I’m not alone. As I’ve sat in the gallery, I’ve repeatedly
heard New Yorkers say to one another, “I didn’t know that”, “that’s a good idea” or
“Really? Is that really what happens?”. If you’ve done nothing else, I think you’ve
dramatically enhanced the civic education of this city (perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised
by this given the Chairman’s background as an educator). You’ve done much more
though.
Even if not a single question is put before the voters (which I sincerely hope will not
be the case), the work of this commission will have been a success. More so than any
Charter Commission since 1989, this commission has undertaken a thorough, complete
and substantive review of virtually every aspect of city government. While previous
commissions were very narrow in their scope (2002-3- non-partisan elections and
Mayoral succession; 2005 budget), this commission truly has taken the mandate of
reviewing the entire city charter to a new level. Every future Charter Revision
Commission that’s empanelled going forward will be referring to the work that this
Commission has done as a foundation and a template for their own work going forward.
Just as Fritz Schwarz suggested you look at the process of charter revision as a

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foundation rather than a house, I think you could also look at your work in this particular
instance as a foundation for all future foundations.
Chairman Matthew Goldstein has done what I believe is a masterful job throughout
the conduct of this process. For starters, the selections in terms of staff, etc. have
underscored the independence of this commission and taken the wind out of the sails of
critics who tried to portray this Commission as little more than a Mayoral task force. The
efforts to include public input have been the greatest I’ve ever seen (particularly
incorporating new media like facebook). Having the commission hearings webcast (both
live and archived) have brought these hearings to anyone who has even a passing interest
and I think the use of technology has been superb. The diversity of locations (from
Harlem to the middle of Staten Island) and the willingness of the Commission to stay
until EVERY New Yorker has had their say has really achieved the goal of “casting a
wide net” and soliciting input from every New Yorker who cared to offer it. I believe his
stewardship of this process serves as a model for all future Chairs going forward.
Commissioner Stephen Fiala (who as the only representative of my home borough,
Staten Island, is naturally my favorite Commissioner) has said several times (most
recently at the June 16th panel on Public integrity), this commission wasn’t necessitated
by a court decision (like the ones in the 1980s basically forcing New York City to rewrite
its entire playbook from scratch) but I believe the work done by this Commission and the
proposals you put forward are just as necessary and will have as serious an impact on our
city. The sad reality is that in the minds of New York City voters, government is
hopelessly dysfunctional, corrupt and incompetent. Cynicism and frustration are found in
endless supply amongst the electorate whereas optimism, hope and faith that our
government is out to protect the rights of taxpayers is in short supply. Because of many
factors including, but not limited to, the decision to overturn the will of the voters with
respect to term limits, the corruption scandals and criminal conduct involving scores of
government officials, the increasingly burdensome taxes that New Yorkers are forced to
bare and the very real sense that rank-and-file New Yorkers have no real voice in their
own city, doubt, suspicion and distrust is now the norm. Ironically, it seems that in the
days of Tammany Hall and Boss Tweed, New Yorkers weren’t as skeptical of their
government as they are today. In those days at least, government may have been corrupt,

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but at least it seemed functional….these days that doesn’t seem to be the case. Francis
Barry’s book “The Scandal of Reform” does a masterful job detailing the history of
corruption in this city and the efforts of (so-called) reformers to remedy them. If you
haven’t read it already, I would humbly suggest that you pick up a copy right away.
I think the current City Charter is far too large and covers many areas of public life,
which would more properly be handled by amending the New York City administrative
code or doing other things that a functional legislature might view as within its domain.
That being said, I’ve outlined a series of proposals that I think will serve the principles
and values that Chairman Goldstein laid out in the initial meeting of this commission,
those being:
- Improving the accountability and transparency of the workings of government
- Making government more efficient and effective
- Making civic life more participatory and representative

These are by no means the be all and end all of things that I believe need to change in
New York City government, I’ve just sought to highlight a few key areas that I believe
the commission is likely to (and should) focus.

Process
I’ve been attending Charter Revision Commission hearings since 2002 and been
following the Charter Revision process for far longer than that. Every year that there is a
charter revision commission it seems as if the arguments are the same: there’s not enough
time, the commission isn’t truly independent, there aren’t sufficient efforts at outreach
and to include public input and not enough people are participating. This year has been
no different.

Timing. Literally every meeting has heard from someone saying that this process
shouldn’t be rushed and that there should be no question(s) placed on the ballot this year.
I couldn’t disagree with this notion more. I would implore the commission to place at
least one (and hopefully more) proposals on the ballot this year. For starters, a question
should be placed on the ballot this year, because this is a year where voters will actually
show up! With elections for U.S. Senate, Governor, Congress and the state legislature in

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every district in this city, there’s likely to be a far higher turnout this year than next year
when turnout will be anemic. If the voters of this city are going to be making decisions
that will effect their futures for decades to come, don’t you want the widest possible pool
of participants deciding their own fate? I think it would be incredibly short sighted not to
at least place proposals on the ballot this year regarding term limits and non-partisan
elections. The voters are familiar with these issues, have voted on them before, have
debated them around the water cooler and the kitchen table and in the case of these two
issues seen several previous charter revision commissions study them. I’ve even heard
some elected officials say that to focus on federal, state and city issues at the ballot box
all in one election cycle would prove too confusing to the voters. I find this assertion
incredibly insulting to the voters of this city. With so much of the city’s public policy
areas (including budget, education and public safety) being directly impacted by federal
and state policy, I think to have all of those choices in the same election cycle could
actually serve to enhance the civic debate at every level of government. Imagine voters
asking their state legislators about financial aid for New York City or asking candidates
for Congress how they would alter the Medicaid funding formula. In a very real sense it
makes it harder for some government officials to pass the buck to another layer of
government.

If the commission wants to further study more esoteric of “wonky” issues like budget
reform or decentralization, then I would encourage you to put the big-ticket items on the
ballot this year, ask the Mayor to re-appoint you in the hopes of putting additional
questions on the ballot next year, a year where only “charter revision junkies” are likely
to turn out.
The notion of their “not being enough time” for proper study, review and debate, is
totally fallacious in my view. The entire constitution of post WWII Japan (which still
largely serves as the framework of that nation’s government) was written in just a few
days. Even the U.S. Constitution (which many of those who have asked for more time
have compared the city charter to) was written in just four months….THAT’S LESS
TIME THAN THIS CURRENT CHARTER REVISION PROCESS!! New Yorkers
aren’t stupid; they can review proposals and make a decision about their position on it.

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There’s plenty of time for interested parties on both sides of an issue to make their case to
the public and plenty of opportunity for interested parties to make their voices heard.
Attendance. The attendance at the vast majority of these hearings has been impressive.
Several times, I’ve found myself in the standing room only section of the meeting room,
even though I arrived only a few minutes late. Still though, I’ve heard some critics of
this year’s process try to compare the attendance at these hearings to the often larger
attendance at MTA and Rent guidelines hearings, to make whatever point they seek to
make (which is usually don’t do anything). I would strongly urge you not to take these
criticisms to heart. The bottom line is that the city charter will never be a sexy issue.
People don’t see the direct day-to-day impact on their daily lives of something like
ULURP reform or altering Community Boards that they might with an MTA fare hike.
In many ways, those issues are simpler and populist partisans are better able to galvanize
public input. I think you should be incredibly pleased with the public attendance (and
participation) at each of these hearings, while still seeking to build on it in your third
round of hearings.
Put each question on the ballot individually. As to how the questions should appear on
the ballot, I would urge the commission to put each and every proposal that you come up
with on the ballot as individual questions. I know that the 1999 Charter Commission put
all of its proposals into a single omnibus question encompassing all of the proposals,
rather than listing each on the ballot individually. I know that this is something that some
members of the Commission have discussed with the media and indicated they were
uncertain about. I would urge you to put each on the ballot to pass or fail on its own
merits, rather than lump less well known or less popular questions in with big-ticket or
very popular items. I know that this is an approach shared by former Parks
Commissioner Henry Stern and I think it’s a sound one. To do otherwise in my view,
would be a grave disservice to both the public and to all the great work done by the
commission and the commission staff.
Elected Officials speaking first. One practice I would encourage you to revisit though is
having all the elected officials speak before the public. I have a great deal of respect for
elected officials as well (some more than others), but I think if they were forced to wait
their turn on a first come, first serve basis like everyone else, they would have a better

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appreciation for what the public really wants. Too often it seems as if elected officials
are just able to deliver their prepared remarks and leave, rarely hearing what actual
citizens believe. Additionally, make elected officials give precisely the same testimony
at multiple hearings, while members of the community where the hearing is being held
are forced to go home because they’ve had to suffer through endless meandering by
politicians. Assemblyman Jim Brennan and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer
are the best examples of his but far from the only ones. Additionally, I think there’s
absolutely no excuse for the practice of allowing the staffers of elected officials to speak
before the public. To suggest that the testimony of politicians or their staffers have more
merit than testimony from the public sends precisely the wrong message. I think perhaps
if elected officials were in the habit of being treated like everyone else, they wouldn’t be
so quick to disregard the will of the public when it comes to things like overturning the
twice expressed will of the voters, as they did with term limits. I would suggest that
going forward, there be NO exceptions to the first-come, first-serve policy.
State Law recommendations. So much of the government of New York City is not found
in the city charter, but in state law. Several of the experts heard at the panels and several
members of the public offering testimony offered many common sense improvements to
government, which you will no doubt find is more appropriately within the purview of
the state legislature. To that end, I would encourage you to itemize a list of suggested
improvements to New York City government, which you don’t have the power to put
before the voters yourselves and ask the state legislature to consider taking these matters
up. Who better than the sixteen of you who’ve spent the last several months researching
every aspect of city government to tell Albany how it could be better? This is something
that I don’t believe any recent charter commission has taken the opportunity to do, but I
believe could have great long term impact not only on public policy in this city but on the
debate about municipal government as a whole.
Term Limits

Making Referenda binding. Obviously, much of the reason that your work has garnered
so much attention is because of what happened last year with term limits. It’s been my
experience, that there are few who believe that what occurred last year was anything
short of an outrage. Primarily, I’ve found this to be the case because the city council

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overrode by legislative fiat, the will of the voters, which was made clear twice. I believe
that this was not only improper, but illegal, even if the courts disagreed with me. I think
it would go a long way towards reducing cynicism towards city government and restoring
faith in the city charter if you were to codify in the charter that the City Council be
prohibited from altering any question approved by city voters, without first returning to
them and seeking their consent to do so. It would seem like this is nothing less than
common sense, unfortunately this is something that seems to be in short supply among
NYC elected leaders. Please, once the voters speak, don’t allow politicians to mute their
voices.
The Merits of term limits. “Show me someone who thought they were irreplaceable and
I’ll show you someone whose successor inevitably did a better job”- Mayor Bloomberg,
before he changed his position on term limits.

When people first seek to get involved in politics or run for public office, they have no
idea what’s not possible. They approach government with the energy and fervor of a
wide-eyed high school civics student trying to win an essay contest. After years (or
decades) in elective office though, they often become overcome and overwhelmed with
the same sort of cynicism and frustration that their constituents know all too well. They
feel overwhelmed by the institutional barriers inherent in government and often seem to
view their public service as nothing more than a means to collecting a paycheck and
securing a generous pension. I recall talking with one Council member who had been in
office for several years and appeared to be at the end of his rope with pothole complaints
and double talking lobbyists. He said to me, “I’m done. The people beat me. Whatever
it is they want from me, I can’t give them. If I was half the Councilman I was five years
ago, maybe I wouldn’t feel this way, but after seeing what I’ve seen and going through
what I’ve gone through, I’ve realized we’re always going to lose”. I can’t tell you how
sad that sentiment made me. Here was an immensely talented, incredibly brilliant elected
official, who was incredibly honest and very hard working, who had come to resent the
very people he was elected to serve. This person still serves in elective office today.

Term Limits provides government with several key benefits. For starters (at least once
every few election cycles), it produces competitive elections. I’m of the belief that

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competitive elections are a good thing. With multiple candidates seemingly willing to
crawl over glass to beg voters for their support, I think the public becomes the biggest
beneficiaries of that. Additionally, while there are no state legislative term limits, I think
we can potentially observe the indirect benefit of municipal term limits on state
legislative elections. With scores of city elected officials (who often still possess great
talents and great ambitions) faced with the prospect of not being able to serve the public
any longer, they will seek other means to do so, the most natural one being state
government. Council members and city wide elected officials have chosen to run for
state office, often against incumbents, giving a lethargic legislature what it fears most,
challenges from intelligent, well known candidates who already have a base of support
within their own districts. Had term limits not been altered, I believe that 2010 would’ve
seen a record number of longtime state legislative incumbents challenged and defeated.
Additionally, I think recent history has shown us that elected officials who enter into
office as a result of term limits are no more or less capable than their more experienced
predecessors. Is Mayor Bloomberg less able to handle the affairs of city government than
Mayor Giuliani (indeed his appointment of such a talented and intelligent charter revision
commission would seem to indicate the contrary)? If so, it’s not because of term limits. I
think the current members of the city council (who thought themselves so worthy of their
positions that they overrode the twice spoken will of the voters) would disagree with the
notion that they’re less capable than their more experienced predecessors. At the end of
the day, term limits provides us with new blood, fresh ideas, new opportunities, more
competitive elections less lethargic leadership, it’s no wonder why the public has
embraced them time and again.
I would urge you to put a question on the ballot giving voters the choice to restore term
limits of no more than eight years for all municipal elected officials.

Voter Participation

Proportional Representation. If there’s one aspect of this commission’s work that I’m
disappointed in, it’s this one. In spite of detailed written and oral testimony from me and
others, the issue of restoring proportional representation hasn’t seemed to be on your
radar screen at all. Not a single question was asked to a single expert witness on the

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subject and there seems to be little hope of your putting a question on ballot that would
restore its implementation. However, I remain hopeful that you will consider doing so,
so allow me to reiterate the need for this critical reform and outline how it might work.

What is it?

In the current system we have 51 separate city council districts. In each of these
districts the parties select a candidate in the primaries all of whom face off in the general
election. The candidate who gets a plurality of votes wins. It doesn’t matter whether this
candidate wins with 94% or 25% of the vote as long as they get one more vote than their
nearest competitor they’re elected. Under proportional representation, each borough
would be allocated a certain number of seats in proportion to its population. Perhaps
somewhere along the line of one council person for every 75,000 voters, which might
lead to three council members in a place like Staten island and a great deal more in
boroughs like Queens or Brooklyn. Then each voter would go to the polls and see all the
candidates on the ballot in their borough. Every voter would have an opportunity to vote
at every stage of the process. The voters simply rank candidates in order of their
preference, putting a one beside their first choice, a two beside their second choice and so
on. (chart below) To win under choice voting candidates need an exact number of votes
called a threshold, for example if we were electing ten seats candidates they would need
10% of the votes to win and the threshold would be approximately 10% of the total
number of votes cast. So in the voting booth all the voters have to do is rank 1, 2 and 3
and it is really that simple. it’s as easy as ONE, TWO AND THREE After counting first
choice votes candidates with the winning threshold are elected. To maximize the number
of voters who help elect someone, surplus ballots beyond the threshold are transferred to
that voters second choice and this continues in this precise method until all the seats are
filled.

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Why? What’s wrong with the current system??

Now why we do need to do this? Well let me explain a few problems with the current
system of electing City Council members as I see it:

For starters in the current system two many voters don’t get to participate. In all but a
few council districts in this city, one party dominates the district. In most districts that’s
the Democratic party but in one district that’s the Republican party. If you don’t get to
vote in this party primary you’re essentially left out of the only stage of the process that
matters. That means if you’re a Republican and you live in a heavily Democratic district
or you’re an independent voter-someone who’s not enrolled in any party, you are paying
taxes to administer an election that you don’t get to participate in and is essentially
decided long before you’ll ever get to vote. Now it’s bad enough that many voters don’t
get to participate in the only stage of the process that matters but even voters who are
eligible and vote in that party’s primary often see the actual impact of their vote
minimized by party bosses who control almost every stage of the process from ballot
access to distributing ballots to counting the votes.

One of the many other problems with the way we elect council members now is that
because these districts are tiny, council members are concerned not with issues of
borough wide importance but by and large local parochial issues. In addition to this
shortsightedness with respect to policymaking, this also leads to distribution of member
items of which the city council member has almost sole discretion to nonprofit groups or
charities that might have a lot of political clout in one neighborhood. Through the slush
fund scandal we’ve seen exactly how dangerous that can be. I can assure you as a Staten
Islander, voters in Tottenville are just as upset as voters are in Saint George about traffic,
about tolls, about taxes and about the Fresh Kills landfill. Under Proportional
Representation, we would have three pit-bulls fighting for Staten Island, rather than three
members who are concerned largely with their own backyards.

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 One of the many other problems with our current system is that it doesn’t encourage
voters to vote for the candidate they like most, it encourages them to pick winners. For
instance, I worked on two campaigns for nonpartisan special elections in New York City
in which there were multiple candidates in both of those elections. I encountered literally
hundreds of voters that told me they would not be voting for the candidate they liked the
most because they feared it would only lead to the election of the candidate they liked the
least. This is the so called spoiler effect. With proportional representation voters get the
opportunity to vote for the candidate they like best without fear of splitting votes from the
candidate they might prefer more than others.

Another problem with the current system is that it promotes the election of radical
members because the election is decided largely by the democratic primary, those that
come out to vote are often the most partisan, militant left wingers the city has, many of
whom put what’s best for their party or their narrow, ideological agenda ahead of what’s
best for the city. Because this is who votes in the primary and because the primary is all
but decisive as to who gets elected we end up with a crop of elected officials that
represent the most extreme ends of the political spectrum. This is not a group which
lends itself to consensus building or finding non-ideological ways to administer city
government. If everyone had an opportunity to vote in every stage of the process,
chances are candidates would have to appeal to a broader constituency.

Although there are many other problems with the current system, the last one that I’ll
mention here is that it’s not really reflective of the voters’ wishes. Let’s take a look at the
current system. In theory you could have one party, let say the republicans get 49% of the
vote in all 51 city council districts. So with essentially half the city supporting how
republicans want to administer city government, how many votes would they then get in
the City Council? What percentage of the power would they get in the City Council?
Zero! You may think that I’m being silly using that sort of an example, but that’s actually
not that far off from what we have now. In 2001 for instance, which is the last year that
we had a whole new crop of Council members because of term limits, the republicans
received about 31% of the vote in City Council elections across the city, now what

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percentage of the seats did they then get in the city council? 8%!!! So even though they
got 31% of the vote, they only got 8% of the power. That’s not that far off from my 49%
to zero example.

Advantages of PR?

So what are the advantages of proportional representation? One, it completely

eliminates the so called spoiler effect. No longer will any voter in New York City ever
get told that their vote for one candidate over another is a wasted vote. This would lead
to voters truly voting for the candidate that best articulates their vision for NY.

Second, and this can’t be understated in this time of fiscal catastrophe, is it completely
saves the cost of a second election. No primary election and then a general, no primary
and then run often then a general it’s just one election. And, that election is more
reflective of a voter’s wishes than the current system that we have now. So we have a
chance, as taxpayers to save literally millions of dollars by having elections for City
Council decided in one election rather than two.

The next biggest advantage of proportional representation and this might even be the
most important one as far as I’m concerned is it includes every voter at every stage of the
process. Republicans, Democrats, independents, libertarians and vegetarians…. they all
get to vote and they’ll have an equal say which is how it should be, not the system we
have now where if you’re not a member of one party or another you get treated for all
intents and purposes as a second class citizen.

Now be cause there’d be a much more diverse group of a political ideologies

represented in the City Council this will also go a long way towards promoting consensus
building. For example, right now if the speaker the City Council wanted to ignore the
five republicans on the City Council, she could just ignore them without fear of seriously
jeopardizing the coalition she needs to have in place to govern. However if there were
ten republicans or eight republicans, three greens, two working families parties members

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and for independents, the speaker would seriously need to listen to the members that were
elected by their constituents rather than holding this giant pot of money which she can
use to reward allies or punish dissent, as is the current case.

With all these great reasons to support proportional representation, you might wonder
why in the world did New York City get rid of it. Well, the actual reason is because
Tammany Hall was beginning to lose control of New York City government. I think that
was a good thing. I think most of us would probably agree that was a good thing but the
reason they gave the voters of New York City at the time, through code language,
smacking of red-baiting and race-baiting was very different. Party bosses convinced the
voters that if we kept proportional representation, more black City Council members
would get elected and more communists would get elected. Two Communists did get
elected, yes, but you know what they were elected by the voters and I think just as you
saw from 1937 to 1949, you will again see proportional representation providing fair
representation to both racial and ethnic minorities, as well as to political minorities who
have since 1949 been unrepresented in New York City government.

As I mentioned though, it’s my belief that you won’t see scores of extremists getting
elected, because every voter including general election voters who are generally far more
moderate than primary voters get to participate, you will see much more moderate and
sober candidates for public office getting elected. This is a good thing for New York
City.

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this though, is that it will lead to competitive
elections. Too often it seems as if aside from when there’s an open seat, there are no
competitive elections for City Council in this city. No one wants to challenge an
incumbent. No one wants to defy the party bosses and no one wants to go through the
Herculean task of running for office against an all but certain winner. This system (PR)
makes it so that you’re not running against an incumbent; it makes it so that you’re
running for City Council! You’ll have more candidates running from a diverse
background and it will lead to more compatible elections. I’m of the belief that

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competitive elections will lead to more voter choice and then whoever emerges, will be a
better council member for it. Let’s have proportional representation. Let’s have
competitive elections and let’s have voter choice.

The last thing that I’ll mention in terms of an advantage for proportional
representation is that it does away with the silly redistricting and gerrymandering process
that we go through every ten years. Every single special interest, every racial or ethnic
group, every political party, and every politician, wants the City Council lines redrawn to
benefit them, their political party, their ethnic group, their friends, etc. This proposal
does away with the politicization of that process. This makes it so that Staten Island is
Staten Island, Brooklyn is Brooklyn, Manhattan is Manhattan. No longer will a partisan
redistricting commission carve up half a block here or there that might have a
constituency that’s favorable to you and carve out a half a block there, which might have
a political party that’s not to your registration advantage. Now you have to reach out to
everybody and the voters are going to get to choose their elected officials and gone will
be the days of elected officials choosing their own constituents.

So I hope you’ll strongly consider putting this proposal on the ballot. I think this is one
of the most fundamental reforms New York City can adopt a hope you’ll join me in
fighting for it.

Non-Partisan Elections. Barring the re-implementation of Proportional Representation, I

hope the Commission will put the question of non-partisan elections on the ballot once
again, for all of the reasons referenced above. I think a proposal similar to the 2003
proposal would be fine and in this political climate, believe it would pass. I would
suggest at least two alterations to the 2003 proposal.

a) the option to put your party label- The 2003 proposal included a provision that
would allow candidates to put on the ballot the party in which they were registered
with. I think this is a huge mistake. For starters, by only allowing candidates to
put this single piece of information on the ballot (and not education, beliefs,

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 experience, background, etc.) we’re implicitly telling the voters that this is the
single piece of information that should matter most to voters. It’s not. Let’s not
put more emphasis on this one aspect of a candidate’s profile than any other. If a
candidate’s registration is something that he wants known, believe me, it’s not
something that he’ll have a hard time communicating to his constituents. Let’s not
advertise it for him at the public’s expense. Second, allowing this practice creates
a false impression to voters. There’s nothing to stop a militant right winger or
radical leftist from both registering as Democrats. Democrats in that district might
then wrongly assume that because there is a Democratic label next to a candidate’s
name, that the candidate represents the same values that they do, when that’s not
the case. Charles Barron and Peter Vallone are both registered in the same party,
but their ideologies couldn’t be farther apart. Mike Bloomberg and Tom Delay
were both enrolled in the same party, but their politics couldn’t be more
diametrically opposed. Why create this false impression to voters? Let people run
as people and let candidates communicate whatever information they think is
important to the voters in their district.
b) Replace the run-off with instant run-off voting. The 2003 proposal would’ve
called for the first two candidates to face off against one another in a run-off.
We’re in the midst of a fiscal crisis. Why force the taxpayers to pay for a second
election when there’s no need to? With a system of instant runoff voting (IRV),
voters rank their choices in order of preference. If one candidate gets a majority
then he’s elected. Case closed. If no candidate gets a majority, then the candidate
with the least number of first choice votes is eliminated and all of that candidate’s
votes would go to those voters’ second choice. This system is just as
representative as run-off voting and far less expensive. Additionally, it does away
with the wasted vote stigma, in which voters fear voting for the candidate they
truly support so as not to split the vote with another candidate. As I did in 2003, I
would urge the commission to adopt IRV for all non-partisan elections.

Petitioning and ballot access. In every City Council district in this city, you need only
900 signatures to run for City Council as a Democrat. In some cases, this can mean that

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you need as little as 1% or even less of the active registrants in that district to sign your
petition. In each of these districts though, to run as an Independence Party candidate,
Working Families candidate and Conservative candidate (and in most instances this also
applies to Republicans), you need 5% of the registrants to sign your petition to get on the
ballot. So, even in areas like Manhattan or the Bronx, where collecting Democratic
petitions is usually as easy as standing on a street corner, you need a markedly lower
threshold for signatures than you do running as the candidate of a minor party. If you run
for office as an independent (with a small i) or the candidate of any independent body,
you need THREE TIMES the number of signatures as someone running as a Democrat or
Republican. Is this fair? In my view, the answer is clearly no. I would encourage the
commission to explore offering an alternative method for getting on the ballot other than
petitioning. For instance, what about a filing fee of 1% of the salary for the office you’re
seeking. In a year with many candidates running for office, this could provide some
welcome relief to city coffers, as opposed to the current costly and wasteful process of
administering petitioning and the challenges to individual candidate petitions. At a time
when the city is facing a fiscal crisis of epic proportions, wouldn’t this be a better way of
putting candidates on the ballot? I, understand that the state election law specifically
mentions the 900 number as a signature requirement and that the Charter Commission
may not be able to reduce either that number or the percentage without a change in state
law. If that’s the case, I would urge the commission to make it easier in other ways. For
instance, perhaps that 900 number could apply to candidates running in non-partisan
special elections, just as it does in party primaries. This 900 number could also apply to
candidates running as independents or the candidates of independent bodies. Because
any registered voter is eligible to sign these petitions and any registered voter is eligible
to collect them, this would make petitioning far less onerous for candidates, volunteers
and voters alike, thereby achieving Chairman Goldstein’s stated objective of making
civic life more participatory. Lastly, if the commission does choose to adopt my
proposal, reinstituting Proportional Representation, I would encourage you not to raise
the 900 signature limit, thus enlarging the pool of voters eligible to sign the petition.

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Make the referendum process easier. Currently, the power of the voters to amend public
policy themselves is very narrow in this city and this state. I would encourage you to
look at steps that can be taken to allow the voters to amend any city law through Initiative
and Referendum, rather than just charter revisions. It’s a common sense step which
would dramatically enhance the voters desire to participate. I think this would also go a
long way towards reducing cynicism.

Government Structure
Community Board Structure and Composition. Currently, the Borough Presidents have
complete and final say over who is appointed to the Community Board. This often leads
to many boards being comprised of yes men to the Borough President and his agenda.
While, there can be no doubt that the Borough Presidents play a crucial role in land use
issues and in representing the conscience of their community, it could be argued that the
City Council members from that individual district (although as I’ve stated time and
again, I believe the City Council would be better served if the Single Member District
Plurality- SMDP model were replaced with Proportional Representation in borough wide
districts) has a better sense of what’s going on in that individual community than the
Borough President has. It could also be argued (as it has by Senate Majority Leader
Pedro Espada and former Republican candidate for Public Advocate Alex Zablocki, etc.)
that it’s the voters themselves rather than any politician that has the best sense of who
should speak for their community on local issues. I’m most sympathetic to this line of
thinking, as I’ve always been of the belief that we should err on the side of giving voters
greater choice. However, I’m reminded of the testimony of former Parks Commissioner
Henry Stern, of New York Civic, who has far greater expertise in city government than I
could ever hope to attain. In contrasting the successes of Community Boards with the
failures of the Community School Boards, he indicated that it was precisely because the
CBs were appointed and the CSBs were elected, that the former has had far greater
success than the latter. I’m still of the belief that the voters might be entitled to some say
in Community Board composition though, and I would love to see the Commission
examine a hybrid approach in which the Borough Presidents would be able to appoint a
third of the members, the individual Council Members (should you choose to retain the

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SMDP model) would get to appoint a third (without approval by the Borough President
as all their picks most currently be subject to) and the public would get to elect a third.
This would diversify the makeup the Community Boards and provide that a multitude of
voices from every sector of the community are heard.
Full-Time Council. I was once with one Council member as he was struggling to reach
another Council member to discuss either some committee work or issues pertinent to
their borough delegation. After several failed attempts to reach his colleague, he finally
did and said “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you all day”, to which his
colleague replied, “Hey. I gotta pay the bills”. The latter member had been in court all
day because he’s an attorney in private practice. There are currently several council
members who earn more money from their outside job than they do from their job as a
council member. If their employer is paying them more than the public is, whose interest
do they really have first and foremost on their mind? I think the answer is clear. This
creates the appearance of impropriety if nothing more and just doesn’t smell right.
Currently, council members earn over one hundred thousand dollars a year. That’s
certainly no princely sum, but it’s more than most state and municipal legislators around
the country earn, and it’s a salary that you can certainly get by on. If the current
members of the city council can’t find a way to live on $112,000 per year, I’m sure the
public can find others who will. I would urge you to consider making the council a full-
time position.

The Public Advocate’s office and Mayoral succession. What function does the Public
Advocate’s job really serve? I think if it were abolished tomorrow, most New Yorkers
wouldn’t even know the difference (aside from maybe the money we’d be saving that
could be used to pay police officers, firemen or teachers). It’s a total waste and serves
only to act as a bully pulpit for ambitious politicians. I would urge the Commission to
put a question on the ballot abolishing this office and give the ability to cast tie-breaking
votes in the City Council to another citywide elected official, the comptroller and give the
ability to succeed the Mayor (temporarily before a special election) to a Deputy Mayor of
the Mayor’s choosing. What is the real benefit of keeping it? I can’t figure it out and I

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became more convinced of the need to do away with it after hearing the testimony of
Frank Macchiarola before the commission.
A cost estimate for all legislation. One of the ideas that Commissioner Fiala put forward,
which I thought had a lot of merit particularly in this era of fiscal austerity was to have
the city council explain exactly how it’s going to offset the costs for all proposed
legislation, rather than leave it to the Mayor to figure it out afterwards. This sort of
Revenue Impact Estimate would force individual legislators to act responsibly before
proposing popular legislation, which they’ll never have to worry about paying for. As
Councilman Fiala put it, if left unchecked, a legislature would spend not only “every last
dime but the unearned dimes of my grandchildren”. In a similar vein, I really like
Councilman Oddo’s proposal of requiring the Independent Budget Office to conduct a
cost estimate of every council bill, rather than leaving it to the council itself to estimate
costs. These are the sorts of budget related questions which I think it might do the
commission well to study over the course of the next year and place on the ballot next
year.
Procurement. One question that the 2003 commission placed on the ballot, which I think
is certainly worthy of revisiting is simplifying the procurement process, particularly
making it easier for individual agencies to make purchases themselves rather than go
through the PPB. Commissioner Crowell wrote eloquently on all the aspect of the
proposed charter changes in 2003 and it’s my hope that he’ll be equally vocal this year. I
think the defeat of this proposal in 2003 was less of a judgment based on the merits of
this proposal, but more of a reflection of low voter turnout, lack of voter education on this
question and the coat-tail effect of the defeat of another high profile proposition.

The Borough Presidents. I think Commissioner Scissura has spoken eloquently about the
awkwardness of Borough Presidents going hat-in-hand to their council delegation to beg
for funding. This seems totally out of whack for an independently elected official. I
think the proposal to allow the Borough Presidents to have independent budgets is a
sound one. I also think that Councilman Oddo’s proposal to give Borough Presidents a
hand in picking agency commissioners is worthy of consideration. This could take many
forms including allowing them to submit several names to the agency commissioners for

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review. At the end of the day, Staten Islanders know a lot more about the transit and
infrastructure needs of their community than a Manhattan based bureaucrat. I also think
little value could be served by abolishing the office of the Borough President. Presently,
there’s no voice for voters at the borough level. This is critically important. I also think
that the ceremonial and “cheer-leading” aspects of the BP job are important. The
borough bully pulpit is something that’s been shown time and again to have a great
impact on the lives of city residents. In my view, Guy Molinari (of Staten Island) and
Marty Markowitz (of Brooklyn) have set the standard for what a post Board of Estimate
Borough President should be. It’s my hope that once these offices are enhanced, the next
generation of Borough Presidents can achieve even greater results for borough residents
than these distinguished public servants.
The Mayor’s impoundment power. I think Speaker Quinn and Council member Brewer
outlined brilliantly in their report the need to reform the current impoundment practices.
As Fritz Schwartz pointed out in his testimony to you, New York City has a strong
mayoralty and for all the reasons he laid out, I think that’s a good thing. However,
there’s still a legislature, which has law-making and budgetary authority and to diminish
their already (in comparison to the Mayor) insignificant power would be unwise, but
that’s exactly what’s occurred as a de facto result of the Mayor deciding what to spend
money in. In 1998, when the council passed its own budget over the Mayor’s veto, the
Mayor simply refused to implement many aspects of it. This left groups struggling to
patch together a means of survival in the absence of funds that they were not only
counting on, but that had been allocated. In short, it was a disaster. As a city that’s
waiting anxiously for Albany to pass a budget to find out how much state aid we can
expect, we know better than anyone the perils of not getting promised funds. Why would
we do that within our own city? As the Speaker points out in her report, the Mayor
should be able to retain these powers, but they should be mandated for use only for
financial reasons, not for political or policy implementing purposes. I would love to see
the Commission do something about altering this formula. I think this is another area that
could do well to have another year of study.

Public Integrity

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Publicly funded legal bills. I was disgusted two years ago during the slush fund scandal
as the city council hired high priced attorneys in private practice, to guide individual
members through the perils of a criminal investigation. If I’m under criminal
investigation at my job, I don’t have the luxury of having my employer pay for it, why
should council members? In my view, they shouldn’t. I think this is yet another perk of
public office that elected officials have taken for themselves and in my view, it needs to
end. If public officials know they’re going to be paying their own legal bills, perhaps
they’ll think twice before engaging in questionably legal or ethically murky conduct.
Regardless, I shouldn’t be paying for them. There are attorneys on the central staff of the
counsel, who should be able to handle the legal work involved in issues that involve the
institution as a whole, barring that, the taxpayers just can’t afford to continue paying for
the criminal conduct of politicians.
Member-Items, Discretionary Spending and Non-Profits. I think if we learned anything
from the slush fund scandal, the indictment of Councilman Seabrook, the indictment of
Councilman Stewart’s aides and the indictment of Councilman Martinez, it’s that the
system needs to be reformed. As some have proposed, I think the idea of eliminating
member items (or discretionary spending) over which members have almost dictatorial
control, with little or no oversight deserves to be explored. Barring that though, there are
two common sense reforms, which I think should be enshrined in the city charter with
respect to discretionary spending for non-profits. First and foremost, you should not be
able to serve simultaneously as a member of the City Council and the head (or officer) of
a non-profit group that seeks public funding. To me, this is a no-brainer. I would like to
see this ban extend to family members of council members, staff members of council
members and family members of council members.
A slightly less overt form of influence peddling is also common place though.
Employees of non-profit groups routinely make campaign contributions to the very same
council members who fund their non-profits. These contributions are then matched 6-1
by the public. I think this might put pressure on those affiliated with particular non-profit
groups to contribute to candidates in the hopes that they will keep that member-item
money coming to their groups. I also think it provides special access to donors who are
affiliated with certain groups as opposed to non-profits who don’t have any campaign

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contributors associated with it. At the very least, it gives the appearance of impropriety,
which could be just as devastating towards damaging public confidence in the system as
actual impropriety. I would urge the commission to prohibit council members from
accepting money from any non-profit employee, working for a group that this particular
member is funding. This is the same rational that led to the Mayor and good government
groups seeking to reign in contributions to politicians from those who do business with
the city. Donors should not be able to use their private finances to achieve public gain
and council members shouldn’t be able to use the public treasury to ensure their political
survival.
Allow Party Chairs to serve in government. Currently county chairmen of political
parties are barred from serving as Borough Presidents or Council members. I think this
prohibition is silly and discriminatory towards minor parties. In practice, I think it does
little to serve its intended goal of prohibiting conflicts-of-interest, because if a party
leader achieves a position in elective office, they merely install a hand picked partisan
puppet to do their bidding. For instance, in Staten Island, no one disputes the fact that
Staten Island Borough President Jim Molinaro yields total and complete control over the
Conservative Party in that borough. So what does preventing him from actually being
county chairman actually accomplish? In my view, it only serves to deceive the voters.
Additionally, for county chairs other than Democrats who somehow achieve elective
office in New York City, there often isn’t a lot of talent to draw upon from within their
own parties. A GOP, Independence of Conservative County Chairmanship can often be
as time consuming, pain-staking and thankless a task as serving on the charter revision
commission (if not more so). To discourage bright, reform minded minor party chairs
from seeking elective office does a disservice to the public. Should these folks get
elected, to deprive them of the ability to serve in a party leadership function does a
disservice to the members of that party. I would suggest that County leaders be permitted
to serve openly and the voters can decide for themselves whether that’s too much of a
conflict for their liking.

Pensions for criminal politicos. While it may have been a bit unorthodox, I think having
Kristin Davis, aka “the Manhattan Madam” testify on this issue gave a lot of perspective

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on it. She of course provided prostitutes for former Governor Eliot Spitzer and went to
jail for her crimes. Yesterday, how did each of them spend their day? Kristin Davis went
to her probation officer and Eliot Spitzer got a primetime TV show on CNN. Spitzer also
gets to continue to enjoy his lavish public pension, while Ms. Davis had all of her assets
seized by authorities. I realize that Spitzer was a state official, but to me the principle is
the same. There have been scores of municipal elected officials who’ve left office in
disgrace, why should the taxpayers be forced to subsidize their retirement? I would urge
you to consider making a criminal misdemeanor or felony conviction grounds for losing
your pension. As I mentioned in my oral testimony, so many corrupt politicians are
nothing more than prostitutes, they’re only less honest about it.

Land-Use
In Staten Island, we know first hand about the perils of overdevelopment and
irresponsible planning, so while I’m no expert, there are a few common sense reforms
that I think would go a long way towards streamlining the land-use process.

Consolidate the Department of City Planning and the Department of Buildings into a
single agency. This was another idea first introduced by Councilman Oddo and I think it
makes all the sense in the world. To do so would serve the commission’s stated principle
of increasing transparency and enhancing accountability. In my view, such a
consolidation is logical and as Oddo points out would make the people who write the
zoning rules the same people who enforce them.

Remove rulings on scope from the City Planning Commission and allow the City Council
to do it. This was something initially proposed by Councilman Ignizio, but echoed by
several other council members around the city. I think its very sound in both a theoretical
and practical sense. In a theoretical sense, we elect a legislature (which is empowered
with land-use authority); they are accountable to the voters. If we, the voters don’t agree
with the decisions the legislatures makes, we can throw them out. If we don’t like the
decisions the City Planning commission makes, we’re virtually powerless to alter it. In a
practical sense, the individual members know their communities far better than
bureaucrats do. At the end of the day, I believe this will lead to better land use decisions
and more accountable public officials.

Give Borough Presidents a full vote each on the Franchise Concession Review
Committee rather than have them share a vote on issues pertaining to multiple boroughs.
This is another common sense proposal that comes out of the Speaker’s report. I think
this would further the notion of local control and I can’t see a single reason not to do it.

Other:

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 As I mentioned, I do hope the Mayor re-appoints you for another year. Look at what
you’ve been able to achieve and how far the debate about municipal government as
already advanced. Regardless of your re-appointment though, I’d like you to consider a
novel approach which I think would have a positive impact on generations of munipal
government. At the conclusion of this commission’s work (whether that happens this
year or next year), what if you were to voluntarily continue to meet, perhaps each month
or so and continue to hold hearings and solicit public input and do all of the things you’re
presently doing even though you wouldn’t have the ability to place questions directly on
the ballot. You could serve as a sort of City Government Recommendation Commission
and annually make recommendations (with the same stated goals of enhanced civic
participation and government accountability) for charter changes, changes in state law
and changed in the administrative code. I think there would be no shortage of private
donors willing to subsidize the fairly low staffing and administrative costs of such a
venture and the value this would bring to city government would be incalculably high.
Going forward, perhaps this Recommendation Commission would even choose to put
questions on the ballot through the petition process. I think with a group like you looking
out for New Yorkers, they’d feel far more reassured than just having politicians do it. If
some Commissioners choose not to participate, there’s no reason you couldn’t choose to
add other distinguished persons to fill their place like former Commission Chairs Ester
Fuchs or Randy Mastro. I think this would have the potential to create a dynamic, on-
going conversation about how best to govern New York City.

I hope that even after coming up with the drafts of the proposals you wish to put on the
ballot, you’ll keep an open mind throughout the next round of hearings just as you have
until this point and not hesitate to add additional ballot proposals or alter the drafts of
what you come up with if a compelling case can be made to do so.

I’m sorry to have made this so lengthy, but believe it or not, I did seek to make it pithy.
I know you have literally thousands of pages of documents to work through and I didn’t
want to add to it. However, I do hope you’ve gotten something out of this. I’ve really
enjoyed the last few months and in many ways feel as if I’ve been through this process

26
with you. In many respects, I feel as if we’re all somehow part of the charter revision
family and I look forward to participating in future hearings.

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