Council Member Morano explains no vote on John Mangin BSA appointment
A council member explains voting no on John Mangin's nomination to chair the Board of Standards and Appeals, citing Mangin's role as an architect of ballot proposals that took land use authority from the Council, and arguing the BSA chair matters even more now that the BSA has greater authority.
Permission to explain my vote?
Permission granted.
Thank you, Majority Leader.
I'm voting no today on the nomination of John Mangin, and I want to explain why, because it is absolutely not personal.
John Mangin is a very smart guy.
He knows land use probably better than most people in this building.
I met with him when he was here for his hearing, and I like him.
I found him to be a genuinely nice guy.
If this were simply a question of intelligence or credentials, this would be a very different vote for me.
But we're not hiring a professor of land use.
We're conforming the chair of the Board of Standards and Appeals.
And I keep coming back to what happened in this city and in this council just last year.
This council led an entire campaign urging New Yorkers to vote against ballot proposals that would take land use authority away from their elected council members and diminish the public's voice in the process.
We told New Yorkers that local input mattered.
We told them that these decisions shouldn't be moved farther away from the communities affected by them.
I agreed with this council then, and I agree with it now.
So I have a very difficult time understanding how we go from campaigning against those proposals
one year to putting one of their principal architects in charge of the BSA the next.
Those ballot proposals passed.
That's democracy.
I accept the result.
But precisely because the BSA now has greater authority, who sits in that chair matters even more.
The BSA is supposed to be an independent body.
It can grant variances, hear appeals, and make decisions that can fundamentally change what happens on someone's block.
And if you're the homeowner living on that block, where do you go?
You don't have a lobbyist.
You don't have a land use attorney on retainer.
You may have taken a day off from work just to come down there and be heard.
I worry that we're creating a system where the public gets less of a say, the council gets less of a say, and then we put somebody who helped design that system in charge of one of the institutions receiving that power.
And that's a bridge too far for me.
And that's why I'm voting aye on all with the exception of M88 and accompanying resolution 639 and M89 and accompanying resolution 640.
Thank you.
Gutierrez.
I vote aye.
Thank you.