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PRESENTATION
Law Department presentation on the organization and key chapters of the Charter
1:05:32
·
4 min
Brenda Cooke outlines the organization of the NYC Charter into chapters.
She explains that early chapters detail the powers and duties of elected officials (Mayor, Council, Borough Presidents, Comptroller), followed by chapters covering fundamental government processes like budgeting, city planning, and procurement. Cooke notes there are over 40 chapters dedicated to specific city agencies and highlights several key chapters governing processes like administrative rulemaking (CAPA), elections, open meetings, term limits, conflicts of interest, and community district structures.
- Chapters cover elected officials, key government processes (budget, planning, procurement), and specific agencies.
- Key process chapters include: Ch 45 (Rulemaking/CAPA), Ch 46 (Elections), Ch 47 (Open Meetings), Ch 50/50A (Term Limits), Ch 68 (Conflicts of Interest), Ch 69 (Community Districts/Coterminality).
- Coterminality (aligning service districts) was a focus of the 1975 commission.
Brenda Cooke
1:05:32
So looking now at the sections of the charter and the chapters and how it's organized, the beginning chapters are mostly, organized in elected officials.
1:05:41
Chapter one generally covers the power of the mayor, chapter two, city council, chapter four, borough presidents, chapter five, the controller.
1:05:51
These chapters, each of them generally explain how the official is elected, what term they serve in office, what their powers and duties are, how they can be removed, how they could be succeeded if they are not able to serve, what kind of staff or deputies they can hire to appoint them and help them fulfill their office responsibilities.
1:06:11
And I'll mention this because someone is eagle eyed and and might wonder why I skipped chapter three.
1:06:17
I skipped chapter three because chapter three has been repealed.
1:06:19
Chapter three, it used to address the board of estimate, which, in 1989 as part of, the elected process was removed, from its charter section.
1:06:33
There are many chapters, in the budget.
1:06:43
There are many chapters that set forth the basic processes of city government, in the charter as well.
1:06:48
Those are budgeting, spending, administration of city property.
1:06:53
There's a chapter about the expense budget.
1:06:55
There's a chapter about tax appeals and city planning and capital projects, budget process, the independent budget office, financial obligations of the city, procurement, and that covers contracting and purchasing by the city, franchises, and city property generally.
1:07:13
There are chapters on almost everything you can imagine in the charter.
1:07:17
And you as I told you, the charter is considered to be a short form document compared to documents of our charter previously.
1:07:26
And there's the remainder of the charter, which we haven't yet addressed, and there's more than 40 chapters that each cover a different agency.
1:07:33
Similar to those chapters, they cover elect as elected similar to the chapters that cover elected officials, those chapters cover topics of appointments to the agency, the agency's authority to promulgate rules, and in many cases, the power of those agencies to issue subpoenas and enforce the laws within the scope of their authority.
1:07:53
You're in luck, though, because I'm not going to go through 40 chapters in, any further detail.
1:08:01
There are some chapters I do wanna highlight, more specifically, to cover processes and requirements applicable to city officials and agencies, but, we'll touch briefly upon them.
1:08:13
Chapter 45 is, the City Administrative Procedure Act, sometimes referred to as CAPA, which is the rulemaking, procedures for, city agencies enacting those rules.
1:08:24
Chapter 46, is elections and voter assistance.
1:08:27
Chapter 47, public access to meetings.
1:08:31
I'll pause here to say that this one is a chapter that, I will will speak a little bit about because that addresses, public access under the state's open meetings law.
1:08:41
And you will hear reference to that throughout your work.
1:08:44
We've heard it here already today because this is a public body that is governed by open meetings law.
1:08:50
Chapter fifty and fifty a are term limits and qualifications.
1:08:55
Chapter 54 covers collective bargaining.
1:08:59
Chapter 68 is the conflict of intersection, which was just covered, in in very energetic detail, by my colleague.
1:09:08
Chapter 69 was added, covers community districts and coterminality of local services.
1:09:16
Section 27 within that chapter is the coterminality of service districts, which of note was added in, after charter revision commissions in 1975 and was intended to address what had previously been a, very disparate patchwork of, not at all, overlapping or intersecting, service districts for various city agencies such as police, parks, fire.
1:09:41
And so the 1975 Charter Revision Commission attempted to reconcile to the to the greatest, extent possible overlay so that those service districts for regardless of which agency were were aligned more aligned with each other geographically.
1:09:57
And now I will turn, the presentation over to, my colleague, Ben Miller, who will give you a little bit more information about how you're gonna do your work to amend and propose amendments to the charter.
1:10:07
Thank you.