De Blasio's monuments commission appointed

From CBS 2:

The members of the commission are:

Co-Chairs

Darren Walker President of the Ford Foundation; longtime leader in nonprofit and philanthropic sectors

Tom Finkelpearl Commissioner, Department of Cultural Affairs

Commission Members

Richard Alba Distinguished Professor at CUNY Graduate Center; former vice president of the American Sociological Association

Michael Arad Architect; designer of the World Trade Center Memorial

Harry Belafonte Singer; songwriter; actor; and civil rights activist

John Calvelli Executive Vice President for Public Affairs of the Wildlife Conservation Society; Vice Chair of International Affairs at the National Italian American Foundation

Mary Schmidt Campbell President of Spelman College; former vice-chair of President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities

Gonzalo Casals Director of the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art; adjunct faculty at CUNY Hunter College in arts administration

Teresita Fernandez Visual artist with experience in public art; MacArthur Fellow

Amy Freitag Executive Director of the JM Kaplan Fund; former Executive Director at New York Restoration Project

Catie Marron Editor of books on urban parks and public spaces; chair of the board of Friends of the High Line; trustee of the New York Public Library

Jon Meacham Vanderbilt professor; Pulitzer prize-winning biographer of Jefferson and Jackson

Pepón Osorio Visual artist with experience in public art; MacArthur Fellow

Harriet Senie Public art scholar; author; professor of art history and director of the Art History program and Art Museum Studies at City College of New York

Shahzia Sikander Visual artist with experience in public art; MacArthur Fellow

Audra Simpson Mohawk anthropologist; Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University

John Kuo Wei Tchen Historian of Chinese Americans in New York City; Associate Professor at New York University

Mabel Wilson Architect; scholar of race, memory, and urbanism; Associate Professor at Columbia University

Ex-Officio City Agencies Public Design Commission, Law, Education, and Parks

Council member introduces bill for shelter commission

From the Daily News:

A city councilman wants to take the politics out of locating homeless shelters by having an independent commission decide where new ones should be built.

“This isn’t happening just in one neighborhood, but it’s happening all across the city,” Councilman David Greenfield told the Daily News. “I think it will be a lot easier to get done than the way we have to get it done right now, which is piecemeal.”

Greenfield will introduce a bill Thursday to create a 15-member commission, made up of 5 appointees from the mayor, 5 from the City Council speaker, and one by each of the 5 borough presidents. The commission — which would have to be approved by voters at a referendum — was inspired by the independent board that determines which military bases face closure, another political can of worms.

“It’s an ambitious solution for what is essentially a political problem, where the politics of placing homeless shelters prevents them from getting built and we’re always playing catch up,” Greenfield said.

Commission created to study plastic bag use

From NY1:

Governor Andrew Cuomo is revisiting the idea of a fee on plastic grocery bags with a new task force.

The commission will study the issue for a year and then come up with recommendations for reducing the use of plastic bags.

Don't count on property tax reform

From Capital New York:

In April, City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito unveiled an ambitious proposal to re-imagine New York City’s property tax code.

Because Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first budget proposal would continue to rely on revenue generated by a property tax code experts across the political spectrum consider insane, Mark-Viverito suggested, in response, that she and the mayor create another commission to examine the issue.

“The commission on property-tax reform will spearhead changes to the city's outdated tax code and create a more equitable and transparent property-tax system to meet the demands of New York City in the 21st century," she said in a statement provided to the Wall Street Journal.

At the event the story was designed to preview, Council finance chair Julissa Ferreras said the commission would look like former mayor David Dinkins’ 1993 Real Property Tax Reform Commission, which was appointed by the mayor and Council president and led by the city finance commissioner.

Mark-Viverito's office said the commission would be created in the “near future.”

Eight months later, the idea appears to have fallen victim to a reluctance on the part of the Council and mayor to delve into a problem that is both mind-numbingly complex and politically dangerous.

Newsflash: Many politicians are crooks

From the NY Times:

A commission appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo issued a stinging assessment of corruption in Albany on Monday, saying it had found evidence of probable wrongdoing and recommending sweeping changes to New York State’s elections, ethics and campaign finance laws.

The panel, which Mr. Cuomo appointed in July after a series of scandals involving members of the Legislature, described a political system in Albany where money is dominant and misconduct has become commonplace.

“The commission’s preliminary observation is that both the general state of our political system, and the way business is transacted within it, cry out urgently for reform,” the report found. “New York needs comprehensive reform to restore the public trust.”

The commission’s study offered a bleak picture of New York’s government. The commission said its investigation had found “deplorable conduct, some of it perfectly legal yet profoundly wrong; some of it potentially illegal,” and promised that some findings would be referred to law enforcement officials.

Without providing details, the panel said its investigation had turned up cases in which wealthy interests exchanged campaign contributions for legislation; legislators spent their campaign money on personal items like cigars and stereo equipment; and the Board of Elections abdicated its responsibility to enforce the election laws.

YOU DON'T SAY?

Amendment may be proposed to state constitution

From Capital New York:

Aides to Gov. Andrew Cuomo and commissioners of the anti-corruption panel he appointed may take plans for a system of public campaign finance and propose them as a constitutional amendment, according to a source familiar with discussions between the commission and the administration.

The governor's aides have been in regular contact with members of the Moreland Commission that was formed in July. It's unclear which side first brought up the idea of an amendment, which the source says is now under discussion.

The commission has held two public hearings already, and to this point no witness has suggested the need to amend the state constitution to set up a public financing system. The testimony has focused on ideas for legislation that the commission will put forward in an expected December report that will, in turn, form the basis for negotiations with legislators when the return in January.

Packaging public financing as a constitutional amendment could make those proposals more palatable to resistant legislators, in part because an amendement would face several additional hurdles to becoming law and could not take effect for at least five years. Democrats in the Senate and Assembly support a system where small donations are multiplied with public funds, but Republicans have attacked this idea, citing some officials who abused the system and an ideological aversion to using taxpayer funds to pay for elections.

From the Cuomo perspective, pursuing an amendment could also change an increasingly unfavorable storyline, which has come to focus on ths administration's interference with the very commission he created, to considerable fanfare.

Districting commission to redraw maps

Letter From Chair Romano to Speaker Quinn
From the Daily News:

...Romano's response letter...says the Commission will hold a vote on whether to withdraw, update and resubmit the maps. As the story explains, though not everyone agrees, the Commission believes it can by law go ahead and do that without any Council action.

Quinn divorcing herself from Vito

Here's the latest on the redistricting pickle that Christine Quinn got herself into:

From the Daily News:

In an effort to eliminate a growing political problem, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn is desperately trying to convince city lawmakers to vote down the proposed new map by arguing it will help their chances of staying in office, a source said.

Many of the Council’s 51 members are reluctant to go back to the drawing board to reshape one messed up district that was secretly drawn to help the embattled Assemblyman, the source said.

In response, Quinn's top aides are frantically calling Council members arguing that voting down the proposed lines would help them win re-election by stalling the final maps release until March or April, the Council insider said.

Leaving the lines in limbo until that point would handcuff potential City Council challengers who would be left with just a few weeks to figure out what district they reside in and who they are running against before the likely June Democratic primary.

From the NY Post:

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn insisted yesterday she had nothing to do with a proposed map change by the city Districting Commission to help embattled Assemblyman Vito Lopez.

“I’ve never spoken to a member of the redistricting commission about any lines. I wouldn’t know the chairman if I saw him tomorrow,” a testy Quinn told reporters.

“I’ve not spoken to my appointees, to the mayor’s appointees, to [council Minority Leader James Oddo’s] appointees.”

The speaker has tried to distance herself from a proposed move by the Districting Commission — a 15-member body assigned to redraw council district lines this year — to shift Lopez’s home block of Stanhope Street in Brooklyn into a neighboring council district, where his power base lies.

From the Politicker:

Although the Districting Commission’s proposal for new City Council lines was initially expected to easily pass with no changes, Council Speaker Christine Quinn has officially thrown a wrench into that process. In a letter to the Commission’s chair, Ms. Quinn said she is “requesting in the strongest possible terms that the Commission withdraw its submission to the Council to receive additional input from the public.”

“[I]n reviewing the lines, I have a few concerns that I believe would have been vetted and addressed during another round of public hearings. The most significant concern I have relates to the new lines for District 34,” Ms. Quinn explained. “I am requesting in the strongest possible terms that the Commission withdraw its submission to the Council to receive additional input from the public. After you have satisfied your benchmarks for review and public comment, the Commission should then resubmit a plan to the Council with new district lines. I recognize that the Charter still affords the Council the opportunity to vote on the plan after this formal submission.”

It’s not immediately clear if the process described in the letter, whereby an up-or-down City Council vote is seemingly skipped by simply withdrawing the map, is technically correct. A Commission spokeswoman told Crain’s Insider the legislative chamber needs to reject the map first.

Hat tip to True News.

Redistricting Commission proposes blatantly gerrymandered Council districts

QCC received several complaints from member civics that the Commission’s first draft boundary map did not take the opportunity to fix some towns that were separated in the 2003 redistricting. On the contrary, the Commission has proposed additional changes that in some cases further divided traditional, contextual and geographical communities. QCC has submitted a comprehensive proposal that addresses these guiding principles: meet charter population requirements; keep traditional towns and “areas of common interest” together; utilize natural boundaries or straight lines wherever possible; and, consider demographic distribution in the districts. Following are links to QCC’s Report and supporting maps and charts.

See how the tweeders wanted to divide your community.

QCC Queenswide Redistricting Report The old tricks are all here - racial politics, carving out incumbents' potential opponents, etc. Despite what you may have read in the weaklies that "the commission proposed minor boundary changes based on shifts in population," in fact, they proposed major changes that will dramatically affect Council representation for the next 10 years.

You can testify at today's 5:30pm hearing at LaGuardia Community College or send written testimony to hearings@districting.nyc.gov.

I'll be focusing on some of the changes on the blog in the coming days.

Eliminating governmental dead weight

From NY World:

Buried deep in New York City’s laws lurk obscure bits of bureaucracy like the Tattoo Regulation Advisory Committee and the Horse Drawn Cab Stand Report. Many have endured for decades in name only, while others carry on, with or without a reason for being.

These dusty corners of government are about to get a housecleaning. This Friday a new Report and Advisory Board Review Commission — that’s right, a commission on commissions — will hold its first public hearing, reviewing 21 mandated reports and boards that city agencies say have outlived their usefulness.

The commission consists of three members of the City Council — Speaker Chris Quinn, Gale Brewer and Leroy Comrie — and four appointees of the mayor, including his budget, technology and legal chiefs. By a majority vote, they will be able to suspend any or all of the reports and task forces. The Council will then vote to ratify the commission’s recommendations.

As requested by a majority of city voters last fall, the group will review all 175 reports and advisory bodies that have piled up in the City Charter and administrative code, the two blocks of law that govern New York City. Most are vestiges from past crises and administrations — like the Arson Strike Force, initiated in 1978 by the City Council and run until 1993 by the Fire Department in cooperation with the city’s police department and housing, welfare and finance agencies.