Morano on Intro 322 - council member community board appointments
Morano argues his bill would make council member nominations binding rather than advisory, citing borough presidents who ignore nominations and leave candidates in limbo. He says the bill would let voters decide the appointment process through a ballot question.
Then, intro 322, my bill on the community board appointment process.
This is basically just codifying what I believe was always intended to be
the law, where instead of council members recommending half of the community board members, council members would get to pick and nominate in a binding manner half of the community board members.
Why is this important?
Well, I think it's important for a few reasons.
One, on a practical level, we've seen borough presidents in multiple boroughs, not just mine, simply refuse to act on community board nominees from council members.
The people, in many cases dedicated community activists that are nominated by the council members, are never told that they're accepted.
They're never told that they're rejected.
They just stay in this perpetual limbo.
Additionally, by ignoring nominations from local council members, these are often the people that know the individual neighborhoods best.
And adding people from these neighborhoods that understand the unique concerns that they have, rather than simply allow the only binding appointment to be a borough-wide voice,
it adds to a diversity, not just when it comes to gender, race, age, or anything like that, but a diversity of experience, a diversity of worldview, which is sorely lacking now.
And the best thing about this bill, if the council adopts it, is all it does is give the voters the right to choose for themselves whether council members should have this appointment process.
And to me, that's the best situation.
Put it on the ballot.
Let those of us that think council members should have binding appointment make our argument.
Let those that think that the borough president should get to appoint everybody make their argument and let the voters decide.
So I'm very excited about both bills being heard today.
I'm grateful that dozens of my colleagues in the council in both parties in all five boroughs have sponsored both bills.
And I'm eager to see them voted on by this body and by the council as a whole.
Thank you, Chair.