Brewer Asks Why Mayors Would Avoid Convening Commissions

The question I have is,

Do you think that mayors, I guess you felt strongly, could in fact or would in fact, even council speakers and councils, would in fact feel like this is too much work to have the commission, this is nicer to take our salary.

You were quite strong in that feeling.

So I just was wondering.

What you base that on.

I mean, because I must admit, having listened to this, I didn't realize this is embarrassing for me because I've been in office since all these folks didn't have these commissions.

I think I'm the only one who's been in the whole time.

I didn't pay attention to it, to be honest with you.

So then I think, no, though, because there's such...

Interest and pressure, like you must have a commission, then I think it will happen.

However, it couldn't.

You know, down the line, who knows?

So I just want you to talk about that a little bit.

I think for us, we're basing this on what we've seen happen over the last decade.

decade where we had Mayor de Blasio convened the last quadrennial commission.

He would have been able and was sort of legally required to convene a second one during his term.

He did not do that.

Then we had Mayor Adams, who never convened one during his term.

So we have seen...

In recent years, a reluctance to move forward with this.

My sense is that it may be viewed as a politically dicey or challenging endeavor to pursue, despite the fact that it is legally required.

And so given the reluctance already,

to create these commissions, we're concerned that if the option of an inflation-adjusted pay raise exists, then there will be no appetite at all by

our political leaders to ever have a commission again.

Yeah, I think our view is very similar that, you know, as I said in my testimony, it does seem the path of least resistance to just not do it.

You know, there's always press interest in the salaries.

And then I would add that there are other ways to require to.

Maybe make it so that this commission, there are other backstops.

And I know that Citizens Union mentioned the comptroller, you know, in our previous testimony to the council.

Back in 2025, we suggested alternative means of appointing the commission so the mayor doesn't hold all the cards.

I think the issue is the mayor holds all the cards in appointing the commission and can hold that over the council.

So another way other than an automatic increase would be to have a commission appointed by the mayor, the council, the comptroller, the public advocate, different officials so that it's more likely to be formed.

Since it's advisory, I think it's something for you to look into in terms of whether it requires a charter commission approval from the voters.

Maybe it does.

I know the commission looked at this, but there are other ways to have a backstop, and one of them is to not have the mayor have unilateral power over the commission.

Okay.

Councilman, was there another question?