It's charter season

plus congestion pricing drama, #84

This week I joined mostly other reporters and city employees for the first public hearing of Mayor Eric Adams’s Charter Review Commission, held inside the beautiful Helen Marshall Atrium at Queens Borough Hall. 

In under an hour, seven people – three virtually – testified in front of fewer than half of the charter commission’s members about their issues with the city. I love community meetings and find listening to complaints, from infrastructure issues to City of Yes concerns, invigorating. But most of those complaints could not be addressed by the city charter.

And that is one issue with the mayor’s quickly-announced charter review commission, a request his team says came from the community. What if the community doesn’t show up to talk about the changes that can be made? What if those changes are like, as one person called it, live 311? 

Right now there’s a race in government to see what initiatives can get on the back of November’s ballot. The council on Thursday voted for their change, which would broaden which commissioner and appointee positions they have to approve. 

The mayor has broadly discussed a desire to focus on public safety and budget issues. But what does that mean exactly?

On Friday, my colleague Greg David wrote about a third option. Comptroller Brad Lander introduced his own charter revision suggestions, focused on the budget. One idea would require the mayor and the council to establish a formula under which budget reserves would be increased when the tax dollars are flowing.

Both the mayor and the council have resisted this for years, but creating a mandate could force them to act, Lander told THE CITY.

And he touched on the “petty political agendas” that seem to have prompted both the council and the mayor to try to get initiatives on the ballot.  

Three more public hearings have been announced, this time with themes. And they’re in the evenings this go around. 

You can read more about the Queens hearing here from the Queens Eagle

🚗HONK HONK🚗

Congestion pricing! 

I was asleep when POLITICO broke the news and have been trying to follow it all in the days since. Please read my colleagues if you too need to catch up:

On the MTA’s grand ambitions now in shambles [THE CITY]
On the angry business leaders [THE CITY]
”I don’t think there’s a Plan B” [CURBED]

Other interesting stories

🔶“He had such a love of life that it’s still hard to believe he’s gone.” [CHALKBEAT]
🔶Migrant women, eager to work, turn to construction [THE CITY]
🔶The latest at Con Sofrito [THE CITY]
🔶What “Espresso” has in common with a genre of music I love [SLATE]

🌴SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT🌴

Have you signed up for my other newsletter, Summer & THE CITY, yet??????

Maybe you missed this great story of the Department of Buildings elevator inspectors who make sure your carnival rides are safe.

Or a profile on the people dressing everyone for Pride.

I even talked about the newsletter and SUMMER on THE BRIAN LEHRER SHOW today!

🎧LISTEN🎧

P.S. Weekly is a student-produced podcast, and I was lucky enough to speak with their team about swimming access. Listen to all of their episodes from the first season.

Thanks for reading!