Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PRESENTATION
Law Department presentation on the Charter's history and balancing functions
1:00:11
·
5 min
Brenda Cooke discusses the history of the NYC Charter, starting with the detailed 1897 version after city consolidation and the shift to the current "short form" structure in 1936.
She mentions various revision commissions over the years, including recent ones and the existence of a concurrent council-appointed commission. Cooke describes the charter as a hybrid document resulting from laws and past revisions, designed to balance inherent tensions within governance, such as community versus centralized power, checks between branches, and the trade-offs between government efficiency and public accountability.
- First NYC Charter was in 1897; current "short form" structure dates to 1936.
- Numerous Charter Revision Commissions have occurred since.
- A separate, council-appointed commission is also currently operating.
- The Charter balances tensions like: community input vs. central control, executive vs. legislative power, efficiency vs. public participation.
Brenda Cooke
1:00:11
Now we'll talk a little about the history of the charter.
1:00:15
The concept of charters, in The United States is quite old and dates back to colonial times, but I won't go deep into that.
1:00:23
So, thank thank for that.
1:00:26
The first charter in New York City is, we now think of it, however, was adopted a long time ago in 1897.
1:00:33
That was following the creation of Greater New York, which was formed by combining the cities of Brooklyn and New York and some other municipalities that are now generally the city as we understand it.
1:00:45
That charter was very long, had a tremendous amount of detail, and much more than our current charter.
1:00:52
Amendments were made to that charter along the way by state law in the early nineteen hundreds, and it got a little longer and more detailed until what we have today.
1:01:04
The charter today is what we refer to as a short form charter, and that means that the charter that we have that was implemented in 1936 by a charter revision commission much like yourselves created a charter that was more focused reflecting the kind of broad structure, and the more detailed provisions were moved into the administrative code.
1:01:27
And that was administrative code was adopted shortly after that 1936 charter.
1:01:32
There have been a number of charter revision commissions over the years ranging from ones in 1961 through several in the nineteen eighties and the early two thousands.
1:01:43
And most recently, just last year, as, was mentioned.
1:01:47
And Diane, was the executive director of where mayor Adams appointed a commission where proposals were approved by the voters in November, 2024.
1:01:58
Something to note, while most recent commissions, including this one, were created by the mayor under municipal home rule law 36 subdivision four, the two thousand nineteen Charter Review Commission was actually created pursuant to council local law.
1:02:14
And, some of you also may be aware that city council passed another local law in 2024.
1:02:19
It's local law 01/21.
1:02:21
And the council has, in fact, also instituted a charter revision commission under that local law, and that commission will work, separately and, distinctly from the work of this commission.
1:02:32
And that is, of note, and we wanted to address that here.
1:02:39
Our charter, before we get into the next section of the chapters, take a little step back and describe this hybrid document, which you'll hear more about from Ben.
1:02:49
But it includes, as I mentioned, a compilation of a patchwork of state laws, laws passed by city council, and the results of petitions and proposals by charter revision commissions like yourself.
1:03:03
All of those things come to form this document that much like the constitution of The United States is a broad document based on a democratic process that's balancing tension and ideas as many commissions have gone before you have done.
1:03:18
The things that the charter holds together intention and balance are things like community, autonomy, and centralized government.
1:03:28
So we might think about this as the continued existence of borough presidents and community boards.
1:03:34
Well, we in New York City have a centralized government led by the mayor, an elected official, and city council elected officials.
1:03:42
Those borough presidents and community boards where presidents are directly elected and appoint community boards that have important responsibilities for aggregating perspectives and viewpoints of the constituents in those boroughs.
1:03:55
But their power comes through mostly modes of persuasion rather than more direct power like the mayor or the council will have.
1:04:03
The charter also attempts to strike a balance between the executive represented by the office of the mayor and the legislative branch as well as other elected officials like the public advocate or the comptroller.
1:04:14
So for instance, the comptroller has the role to audit the financial affairs of the city, but it's the mayor who sets out the city's budget and city council who adopts the budget.
1:04:24
The charter attempts to strike that balance to make sure there is oversight and democratic representation in the process and an executive in charge of carrying out the functions of city government.
1:04:35
And thirdly, I would want to call your attention to the balance between government efficiency on the one hand and accountability and public participation on the other.
1:04:45
The charter compels the production of a lot of reports, and people may have varying views on whether anyone reads those reports.
1:04:54
But it brings information into the public view.
1:04:57
It brings information to the public so they can make informed choices about how government works, and it provides places for the public to attend city meetings, deliberative bodies, and city bodies who are making decisions about how to allocate resources.
1:05:12
That's all the what the charter essentially does.
1:05:16
It protects public participation in the process while recognizing, as has been mentioned today, we have 8,000,000 people, more than 8,000,000 people in the city, and it's hard to imagine that we could get much done by direct participation in everything.