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Q&A
Discussing the political dynamics of member deference and potential reforms
0:48:17
·
4 min
Commissioner Diane Savino discusses the political pressures on local council members regarding development and questions if involving Borough Presidents would change the outcome. Howard Slatkin argues the current system unfairly burdens local members with citywide decisions and that reform should ensure all parties fulfill their respective roles in balancing local advocacy and citywide needs.
- Savino highlights the political reality that local council members face consequences for decisions unpopular locally, even if beneficial citywide.
- Slatkin contends the issue isn't 'good guys vs bad guys' but a flawed process where the local member assumes responsibility for citywide interests because others effectively defer.
- He advocates for a system where the full Council and other bodies actively reconcile local input with broader needs, rather than leaving the local member isolated.
Diane Savino
0:48:17
Please.
0:48:17
Thank thank you.
0:48:18
Thank you for your, testimony.
0:48:20
I see we've been joined by the Brooklyn Borough president, and that made me reflect on the on the fact that I may be, on this panel, the only person who's ever served as an elected official, though, in the state senate, but he served in local government as well.
0:48:32
And I know there's a lot of discussion around the issue of member deference.
0:48:37
And I think you hit you said it perfectly.
0:48:39
They are the one person in this chain that has to worry about getting fired for a decision that's made, even when it may be the right decision for that community or for the development of housing and for the future of the district.
0:48:50
But they live in short spurts.
0:48:51
Right?
0:48:51
Four years at a time.
0:48:52
Sometimes it's two years at a time.
0:48:55
But they are also the person that that community, that district elected to protect the neighborhood around them.
0:49:02
And whatever they however they think that means, whether it's the development of housing or the of or stopping housing or or and the most important thing is people don't like change in their neighborhood.
0:49:11
They like to say, this is the store I I shopped in when I was six, and it's still there on the corner.
0:49:16
And, of course, that's not reality.
0:49:18
You can't you can't develop a city that way, and you can't plan for housing that way either.
0:49:22
But that one person, that member, has to answer to the 60,000 people in their in their council district or, you know, a congressional member, and everyone is drawn into it.
0:49:33
So you said something interesting about maybe broadening the decision making from just a single member or that council member to maybe include the borough president, and or others.
0:49:44
But wouldn't they more likely reflect each other's opinion and have this and come to the same conclusion about that development?
0:49:50
And I'm just playing devil's advocate.
Howard Slatkin
0:49:51
Understood.
0:49:52
And and I think, you know, I'd really like to come back in the future to the commission with some more specific
Shams DaBaron
0:49:57
Mhmm.
Howard Slatkin
0:49:57
Recommendations about mechanisms that you could use to achieve this.
0:50:00
But I think I think that an important thing about looking at this process and the way you're describing it too is that there are not, like, good guys and bad guys in this process.
0:50:09
Everyone has a job, and they have the responsibility to discharge their the the job that they were elected to, you know, to to do or, you know, or, you know, it they have to discharge that responsibility, but so does everyone else.
0:50:26
And the problem that emerges is that not only is that member responsible for advocating for what they're hearing from their constituents, they're also made responsible for advocating for what's best for the entire city because no one else steps into that process to do that.
0:50:42
The the idea is that the city council is a body of citywide that they act in all other respects as a body, that, you know, deliberative body where members come together, debate, and then they vote on actions that are not strictly local.
0:50:56
In this case, everyone else leaves the room.
0:51:00
Like, literally, this is what happens in the hearings.
0:51:03
Everyone else leaves the room, and the local member is left there with all of this weight on their shoulders.
0:51:08
And whether they like, as you said, whether they don't wanna see new housing or whether they do wanna see new housing, they're being asked to do a job that isn't really the job they were elected to do.
0:51:20
They're they're there to advocate for their constituents, and there are 50 other members who are there to advocate for the other things that are in the interest of the city.
0:51:28
But that part of the process just doesn't work on local actions, and so that's why we need to find these these fixes.
Diane Savino
0:51:34
We'll turn the clock back to 1970 I
Howard Slatkin
0:51:37
mean, you know, the one of the things that I don't want to suggest is restoring the board of estimate.
0:51:41
That is not the the the proposal here.
0:51:44
But the concept, which is that at the end of the day, the decisions I mean, another thing about, you know, as when I was talking about nimbyism, I think everyone, if you ask them their opinion about what should happen right around their home, maybe there are some people who are better than me or other people that you know, we all have a that same perspective.
0:52:06
It's important to not give us that decision.
0:52:08
That's not our decision.
0:52:09
That's a decision that our our views should be heard and integrated with an understanding of what's best on the whole.
0:52:17
And that is a difficult process.
0:52:18
That is what the process is all about.
0:52:20
It's about striking that balance and reconciling those two things.
0:52:24
So I'll I'll have some more specific ideas.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
0:52:28
I wanna know before we continue questioning that we were joined not only by borough president Antonio Reynoso, who will have to join us in a few moments, but also by commissioner Shams de Baron, who's joined us.