Originally published in the New York Post.
Mayor de Blasio and the City Council are forming separate commissions to revise the City Charter, with taxpayers left holding the multimillion-dollar tab.
The council held a public hearing Friday to move ahead with its plan. But the mayor beat them to the punch a day earlier by naming the chair of his panel, Cesar Perales, a veteran of city and state government.
“I don’t think it’s an accident,” said Public Advocate Letitia James, who is co-sponsoring the bill permitting the council’s panel.
“My concern is the cost of two commissions, and I am hoping the mayor would join us in an effort to look at how democracy works.”
By law, both the mayor and council have the right to form commissions to recommend changes to how the city should be governed. Voters then get to vote on those recommendations.
But the mayor goes first, so his commission’s ideas will be on the ballot this November. The council must wait until 2019.
Taxpayers will be footing the bill. In 2008, a commission formed by former Mayor Mike Bloomberg cost $3.4 million.
De Blasio’s commission is expected to focus on campaign finance reforms, while the council is looking to examine “a wide swath of issues — including a more transparent budgeting process, more robust community engagement in land use, and a more independent Law Department,” according to Council Speaker Corey Johnson.
Ethan Geringer-Sameth, public policy director of Citizens Union, said two commissions create the impression city officials are working toward opposite goals.
“Ideally, they should be working together,” he said