Deputy Speaker Williams round 2: Mangin on open meetings law and charter revision theory

I'm now going to pass it over to our Deputy Speaker, Williams.

I'm back.

I know I said I wasn't going to talk about your writings, but I just have follow-ups from your questions with Council Member Banks.

So I know, and I know when we met you said the same thing around when you wrote those articles, you were referencing some local New Jersey statutes.

Around open meetings law?

This was one of the...

I'm not sure that I was referencing any particular open meetings laws, but just categories of open meetings law that don't exist in New York City.

Okay, because as you know, I did read the articles and I was reminded that

in that same article, like most of the examples you gave were New York examples.

So just wanted to know what were the New Jersey examples, because I know a part of what you said today is like your comments around open meetings law wasn't necessarily in reference to how New York City manages open meetings law and land use decisions.

So just wanted to know like,

What are the Jersey examples?

Because in the same article, you only kind of like reference primarily New York.

New York, D.C., San Francisco.

Thank you for the question.

I would say that the article itself like emerges from my work in New Jersey.

The frame that I was trying to use there was everybody understands exclusionary housing when we're talking about the suburbs, you know,

Haddonfield or Mount Laurel or Cherry Hill or whatever, these areas that have very intentionally zoned to keep out lower income people and people of color.

You know, a one acre lot minimum, single family home only, you know, there's not a lot of low income folks who are going to be able to live in that jurisdiction.

Everybody understands fair housing.

exclusionary housing through a suburban lens.

And it was just an attempt to apply that in an urban lens to neighborhoods and places like San Francisco or DC, where, you know, I spent all my time in DC working in Southeast and Northeast, whereas

You know, Northwest was full of leafy green single-family neighborhoods where it was hard to build any multifamily or affordable housing.

So it was just trying to take a thing that everybody understood and apply it in a somewhat novel context in order to make a point that we should be concerned about building enough housing to ensure we're providing for the needs of the full range of residents of.

Various urban areas around the country.

Yes, and in doing that, your opinions about open meetings law, if you just further clarify that.

Gotcha.

Thank you for the opportunity.

Yeah, because I think in your, because I was listening to the exchange with Deputy Leader Banks, and I think in your,

explanation, you kind of just say like, well, New York doesn't do it like that.

And so it wasn't really applicable or you didn't see it applicable to New York.

But again, in the same article, you pretty much reference a ton of New York examples.

So just want to understand like how you reconcile like what you said and then your opinions about open meetings law, especially considering, you know, BSA does.

Right, right.

No, that's a great point.

So we're all very familiar with how Euler

ULRP works in New York City, and we're all very familiar that for big projects, small projects, projects in between,

council members are often talking to applicants before ULRP, during ULRP, and then especially at the end of ULRP in order to come to agreements on how to make a project work for a community.

And that might be, you know, modifying the zoning district.

It might be negotiating some additional affordable units like Councilmember Brewer just did around DeWitt Clinton.

It might be negotiating a package of infrastructure improvements like you did around Jamaica.

In some jurisdictions, those conversations would be illegal.

During the process.

You would not be able to talk to a developer at the end of a ULERP in order to try to get what you needed in order to make those projects work for the community.

And the point there is, if you can't have those conversations, what do you think is going to happen?

I think a lot of those projects would just get turned down.

Like, if you can't have those conversations to make a project work,

You're just going to say no.

Or maybe they get through with far fewer community benefits than they could in a system like New York where you can have those conversations.

And so I was merely criticizing perhaps overly restrictive open meetings laws that prohibit the types of conversations that lead to community benefits agreements.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

So one thing that we did.

Mention I just wanted to say is that the charter revision of last year, again, which is still a very sore topic for many in the council,

especially council members who are a part of those 12 community districts, the residential zonings, which, you know, affect

close to like 25 council members.

And for those projects, the council is, well, those members and those community boards are kind of like cut out of the process significantly.

And the Charter Review Commission and their report in defense of that was sort of around some of the conversations we've been having around decisive local input defeats affordable housing.

And so just wanted to know if you can explain why and how this theory would potentially be put into practice.

If you were a BSA chair, I know that the fast track isn't necessarily under the auspices of BSA, but I do think

Although they are very constrained within BSA, there are some theoretical underpinnings that could potentially be put into practice through BSA.

So just wanted to understand your own opinions about how you would put that particular theory into practice.

As BSA chair, and just overall,

your thoughts on what it means to be accountable to the public.

And so I agree that, you know, certain communities can be quite difficult when it comes to housing.

I live in one, represent one.

But I do believe that as a lover of a failing democracy, that input does matter and input across.

The spectrum, not just the people who show up to the community board meetings, but to make sure that there is even diversity within opinions within a community, but that in fact that local input does matter.

Yes, absolutely.

You know, at every stage in my career, I feel like

Public participation in these processes is incredibly important.

I tend to see, you know, when input is too narrow, when it excludes voices that are affected by those actions, that that can be a problem in terms of fairness, and that type of process can lead to less than ideal outcomes as well.

So it's incredibly important at BSA or through any process to try to ensure that the full range of voices is heard to these decisions.

I think improvements have been made around other aspects of the process as well.

Community board input is part of everything at BSA.

Community board input remains part of the affordable housing fast track that you just mentioned as well.

And attempts to make community boards more representative of their communities has been another really important aspect.

aspect of this that we haven't discussed over the last five or ten years.

And I think that will also make these processes work better and be more representative of actual community sentiment around some of these projects.

Okay, thank you.