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REMARKS
Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. on the commission's mission and interim report proposals
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3 min
Chair Richard R. Buery Jr. opens the public hearing, outlining the Charter Revision Commission's goal to improve city government with a focus on the housing crisis and low voter turnout.
He introduces the five proposals in the interim report and one still under consideration.
He also stresses the commission's independence and its dedication to considering a wide range of public testimony.
- The commission's mission is to make city government more transparent, responsive, and effective.
- Key areas of focus are the city's housing crisis and low voter turnout in local elections.
- The interim report includes five potential proposals: fast-tracking affordable housing, simplifying land use review, creating a land use appeals board, modernizing the city map, and moving local elections to even-numbered years.
- The commission is also considering a proposal for open primaries.
- Buery emphasizes that the commission is independent and values public input.
Richard R. Buery Jr.
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Welcome to this public hearing of the Charter Revision Commission.
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My name is Richard Beury.
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I have an honor of serving as the chair of the commission.
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I wanna thank you all for joining us this evening.
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As everyone knows, our mission as a commission is to look at ways to make city government more transparent, more responsive, more effective, with a particular focus on the city's housing crisis.
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We're also taking a close look at the problem of chronically low VORDO turnout in city elections.
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We, the city, despite the vibrancy of our city, suffer from consistently low turnout for local elections.
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And so that's also something that we've begun to tackle in our view.
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We have the responsibility to review the entire charter and suggest changes for voters' consideration, but, ultimately, those are only recommendations.
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Only if the voters agree to those changes at an election would any changes to the city charter go into effect.
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To that end, last week, we released our interim report with five potential proposals to reform the city charter, plus one which we continue to consider.
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Those reforms are fast tracking affordable housing development, a new simplified land use review procedure for modest housing and climate infrastructure projects, an appeals board for land use proposals that that would replace the mayor's veto, modernizing the city map, and shifting local elections to even numbered years.
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We also continue to consider whether to shift to open primaries as I know everyone here is aware.
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The interim reports can be found along with the modified charter text can all be found on our website at nyc.gov/charter.
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I know that I speak from my fellow commissioners, and this has been an honor to do this work.
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We've been committed to hearing from a broad spectrum of New Yorkers throughout this process from every borough, putting nine hearings prior to this one and hundreds of submitted written testimony.
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And those, testimony, both written and oral, have really driven what we are considering.
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The important thing also I wanna mention to remind everyone that this is an independent commission.
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In making our recommendation to the city's voters, we are bound only by our judgment and by our values.
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We have really striven to pursue ideas regardless of who propose them, regardless of who supports them, and regardless who oppose them.
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Joining me on this task are my 12 fellow commissioners, our vice chair, chef Greenberger, our secretary, Lisa Bozorg, Grace Bonilla, who is in transit, Shams DeBaron, Anita Lermont, doctor Lizette Nieves, Anthony Richardson, Julie Samuels, senator Diane Sabino, Carl Weisbrod, Valerie White, and Katherine Wilde.
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Testimony at this hearing is on any topic, so you're not limited to the topics I described before.
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And before we get started, I just wanna say a few things about how this will unfold.
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Members of the public are asked to testify for no longer than three minutes.
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We will call for testimony from three people at a time, followed by a question from the commission.
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I'll ask commissioners to hold their question until an entire panel is finished.
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We have a full house tonight.
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I'm expecting lots of testimony both in person and online.
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So I'm gonna really work hard to keep us to our allotted time.
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So I'm gonna ask you to place your time.
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I don't wanna interrupt or cut you off, but I will if we need to because I wanna make sure that everybody had the chance to speak.
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We are scheduled to go until 8PM.
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In the event that we don't get to hear someone's testimony, I wanna remind you that you can also submit written testimony to the commission by emailing chartertestimony@citycharter.nyc.gov.
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That is chartertestimony@citycharter.nyc.gov.
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You can also submit online on our website as well.