Community Boards, AI Disclosure, Prediction Markets and the Staten Island Flag

(00:00:16)

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the New York City Council hearing for the Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation. At this time I would like to remind everyone to please silence all devices and at no point during the hearing approach the dais. If you wish to testify at today's hearing, please see a sergeant at the back of the room to fill out a testimony slip, even if you have already registered previously online. Chair, we are ready to begin.

(00:00:43)

Thank you very much. I am Gale Brewer. I am the Chair of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation. I want to thank everyone who is here. I know that there are those who are going to be speaking from Campaign Finance, the Borough President's Office, the Civic Engagement Commission and the Conflicts of Interest Board, as well as members of the public who are very interested in community boards and other topics.

We are going to be talking about community boards. I think you know they are the most local form of government. I certainly know that they are intentionally designed to give people who live or work in the neighborhood a voice in governing. They provide valuable feedback to agencies and other government bodies on how services are being delivered. They also provide local policymakers with information on how their decisions could affect a local community district. I think I have been to more community board meetings than any other human being I know.

Borough presidents — and I was one of them — appoint all community board members. Half of the members must come from nominations made by the local Council member or members. Each borough president has their own method for selecting members, but generally applicants must fill out an online application and appear for an interview by a representative from the borough president's office. A 2018 ballot proposal imposed a requirement that the borough president seek out community board applications from diverse backgrounds. Council members do not directly appoint members, which I think is a good thing. They can only nominate members, who may then not be appointed by the borough president. Actually, I think that is how it should stay.

Community board members are all volunteers. They are unpaid. Monthly board meetings — I used to remove people who did not attend. In addition to serving on at least one committee, most of them meet monthly. Board members serve two-year terms. The 2018 ballot proposal also imposed term limits on board members. I thought that was a terrible idea. No members may serve more than four consecutive terms. The first members subject to these new term limits will need to be replaced by 2027, which is a brain drain. While this will create room for newer members, it will also mean the loss of longtime members with significant knowledge about complex issues, particularly land use.

We want to make sure that the community boards themselves, along with borough presidents and the Civic Engagement Commission — Benjamin knows how I feel about that — are all prepared for this unprecedented turnover. I did vote against that in the Charter, just so you know. District managers, who are full-time paid employees, are responsible for the day-to-day operations of the community boards. Their duties include processing complaints, presiding over the district service cabinet and other duties assigned by the board. District managers are responsible for organizing both committee and full board meetings.

The Civic Engagement Commission, created by the 2018 Charter Revision Commission, was formed to provide assistance to community boards. That assistance seemed to come primarily in the form of Zoom trainings designed for community board members, with some additional trainings that appeared to be designed for the boards' executive leadership. Past trainings available on the website have included parliamentary proceedings, the budget, land use and equity planning. As the borough president knows, I did all of that — just so you know.

In addition to doing oversight, we will also be hearing five pieces of legislation. We will be hearing Proposed Int. No. 12-A, sponsored by the Speaker, which would require the disclosure of digitally altered content in local elections. Also Int 0320-2026, sponsored by CM Morano, which would codify the official flag of Staten Island — I think that is a good idea. Int 0322-2026, sponsored by CM Morano, which would give Council members the power to make appointments to community boards — you know how I feel about that. Proposed Int. No. 501-A, sponsored by CM Williams, which would alter the terms of employment for district managers — I do not like that one. And Int 0951-2026, by CM Thomas-Henry, which would prevent policymakers and their relatives from trading on prediction markets using insider information. Thank you.

I would like to thank the following staff from the Governmental Operations Committee: Djuhari Fraser, Erika Cohen and Seymour Hamid, and everyone working in the background. I would like to first call on CM Frank Morano, who is also the Chair of the Veterans Committee and needs to go, so he should start first in terms of his comments.

(00:05:40)

Thank you very much, Chair, for the opportunity to speak. As much as I would love to stay and devour every minute of today's testimony, I am chairing a meeting that began ten minutes ago, so I am going to run next door and then hopefully come back if this meeting goes on a bit. I appreciate the Chair's generous introduction and I also appreciate the open-mindedness with which you are approaching all the pieces of legislation today. I certainly concur that there is not a human being alive that has attended more community board meetings than Gale Brewer.

I do want to say a bit about Int 0320-2026, which is my bill, sponsored by the entirety of the City Council delegation from Staten Island and a good portion of the City Council as a whole, which would give Staten Island an official flag. Currently, while every borough has at least an unofficial flag, there are only two boroughs that have official flags codified in law. Those are Brooklyn and the Bronx. The Staten Island flag, which has been our unofficial flag since 2019 — and we are really honored to have the Director of Visual Design from the Staten Island Borough President's Office, Micah, here to speak about how this flag was created, some of the incredible imagery, some of the symbolism...

This bill has been in discussion for over a year. The resounding complaint against it — and really the only one against it — is "do you not have anything better to do?" A complaint from everybody about everything. But the answer really is no, and I will tell you why this bill is so meaningful to Staten Island and to me in one stroke. Namely, adopting and giving us a flag, this City Council has the ability to do two things: one, celebrate and recognize borough identity, and two, make Staten Island feel like we are actually a part of this City. I can tell you both of those things from time to time are in short supply. We will get into why, and I am eager to hear Micah — Staten Island's Betsy Ross — in his testimony a bit later.

Then Int 0322-2026, 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 board members. Why is this important? Well, I think it is important for a few reasons. On a practical level, we have seen borough presidents in multiple boroughs — not just mine — simply refuse to act on community board nominees from Council members. The people in many...

(00:08:47)

...cases dedicated community activists that are nominated by the Council members are never told that they are accepted or 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 — adding people from these neighborhoods that understand the unique concerns they have, rather than simply allowing the only binding appointment to be a borough-wide voice, it adds to a diversity not just when it comes to gender, race or age, but a diversity of experience and worldview, which is sorely lacking now.

The best thing about this bill, if the Council adopts it, is that all it does is give the voters the right to choose for themselves whether Council members should have this appointment process. To me, that is 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 the borough president should get to appoint everybody make their argument. Let the voters decide. So I am very excited about both bills being heard today. I am grateful that dozens of my colleagues in the Council, in both parties and all five boroughs, have sponsored both bills, and I am eager to see them voted on by this body and by the Council as a whole. Thank you, Chair.

(00:10:14)

Thank you very much. I just want to talk about your second bill, to point out that the borough president — if they are good, and they are not all — has a process that says this person is qualified, this person is not. I worry that I, Gale Brewer, if given the opportunity, would not have the ability to put that person through a process because I do not have the staff to do it. That is my concern — that they are not vetted. That is why I have a concern. Now, if the borough president has no process, that is a different story. Maybe they should be mandated to have one. So I am concerned about people who are not vetted and who are politically convenient to the Council member. That could happen to me and I want that not to happen to anybody. So that is where my concern is. I have great respect for you, sir, I will tell you.

CM Thomas-Henry, please give a statement on your bill, Int 0951-2026.

(00:11:03)

Good morning and thank you, Chair Brewer. Thank you for holding today's hearing. We often think of insider information in the context of the stock market, but as technology evolves, so do the ways that privileged information can be used for personal gain. Prediction markets and event-based trading platforms have created a new frontier where individuals can place financial wagers on the outcome of elections, policy decisions, regulatory actions and other events that can be influenced by government activity. The question before us today is straightforward: should public officials or policymakers be allowed to profit from information that the public does not have access to? I believe the answer is no.

Public service is built on trust. New Yorkers expect that decisions made by elected officials and government policymakers are guided by the public interest, not by personal financial opportunities tied to nonpublic information. That is why we are here today. Int 0951-2026 would help our ethics laws keep pace with the times. This bill would prohibit elected officials, policymakers and their immediate family members from using nonpublic government information to profit through prediction markets and event-based trading. Because public service should never come with a private advantage.

New Yorkers trust us with information, responsibilities and decisions that impact their lives every day. They deserve to know that the people serving them are not also looking for opportunities to personally profit from information that the public does not have. While prediction markets may be new, the principle behind this legislation is not. We already understand that insider trading undermines trust. We already understand that public service carries a responsibility to avoid even the appearance of self-dealing. This bill applies those same basic values to a rapidly emerging marketplace.

At a time when trust in government is fragile, we should be doing everything we can to strengthen it. That means being proactive. It means anticipating challenges before they become problems. It means ensuring that our laws reflect not just what is legal but what is expected from those who serve. This legislation is about fairness. It is about transparency. It is about protecting the integrity of public service. I want to thank Chair Brewer and the members of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State & Federal Legislation for hearing this issue today, and I look forward to hearing from all the witnesses. Thank you.

(00:16:50)

Yes. We certainly affirm the importance of public servants not trading on government information or using their City positions to violate the public trust for their own financial benefit. The legislation that is proposed regulates conduct that is already prohibited by the Conflicts of Interest Board. The legislation has two components to it. The first of which Ethan Carrier, the Board's General Counsel, will speak to in more depth.

(00:17:22)

Address this conduct that is already prohibited by the Conflicts of Interest Law. The second component — changes to the City's annual disclosure law — would reflect a dramatic expansion of the reporting requirements that reflects nothing comparable currently in the annual disclosure law and create a burden on people way beyond those who are regulated by this conduct.

Substantial policymakers reflect just a fraction of people who file annual disclosure reports and the reporting that is proposed in this legislation would impact people way beyond those that are arguably covered by the proposed legislation. So let us first discuss how this law is already addressed in the current Conflicts of Interest Law. Thank you. This is an incredibly important subject. This is a real risk and something that needs to be addressed. We believe that the law that already exists does address it.

First, the City Charter has a remarkably robust provision prohibiting the disclosure or the use of confidential City information by public servants. About those two sections of Charter prohibition: the first part is the prohibition against public servants disclosing confidential City information and this is a remarkably broad prohibition. It really prohibits public servants from disclosing confidential City information for any purpose, regardless of whether there is any benefit or loss or anything else. It does not matter who they are disclosing the information to. The mere disclosure all by itself is a violation of the City Charter. So a public servant who disclosed confidential City information for their own purpose or somebody else's purpose related to making money on a prediction market would certainly be encompassed by that restriction, again regardless of to whom the disclosure is made.

The second part of the confidential information restriction is a prohibition against public servants using confidential information for their own private gain or for the private gain of associated parties. Associated parties include close family members and also people with whom they have a business or financial relationship — so a business partner, a roommate, someone to whom they owe money. These are all people whose interests essentially function as their own interests under the Conflicts of Interest Law. They could not use confidential City information to obtain any kind of benefit, again for themselves through a prediction market or for one of these associated family members or business or financial related parties.

To the extent that those two provisions do not cover a public servant's actions related to a prediction market, the Charter's prohibition against the use of the authority of their City office to obtain a private gain, again for themselves or an associated party, would cover the rest of it. That is, if you use your City position to obtain the confidential information that you would use, this would be a violation of the prohibition against misusing your City position.

The law as written has used as a definition — I am saying "confidential information" because that is an established definition within the Conflicts of Interest Law. This law uses the term "non-public information," which may be broader. But if a public servant were to use information that they obtained that was non-public, the misuse of position restriction would likely prohibit most if not all of the conduct related to obtaining or using that information for their own private gain or the private gain of those associated parties that I have just described.

So to the extent that the confidential information restrictions do not cover it, we think the misuse of position restriction would cover it. Again, we think this is an incredibly important new area that needs to be thought about. We think the law as it exists covers this concern and we believe the Board would robustly enforce this provision if a public servant were obtaining a private gain in any way related to this or disclosing confidential information, even again without a private gain for themselves or anyone else. I will hand it back...

(00:22:24)

...to Caroline to talk about the public disclosure piece. So the second piece of the legislation talks about a major change to the annual disclosure law where it requires the reporting of all transactions of $50 or more related to event contracts on prediction markets.

There is nothing — absolutely nothing — even comparable in the current annual disclosure law. For example, the closest thing would be the reporting of securities. A public or current public servant can buy and sell securities over the course of the reporting year. There is no reporting of the purchase or sale of any security, of who you bought it from, who you sold it to, when you made that transaction. The requirement currently is the assets that you hold on the final day of the reporting period.

Similarly, there is no requirement of reporting of any other kinds of gambling. You do not have to report when you placed a bet, what casino you placed it at, what the bet was for, what you earned. There is nothing comparable in the annual disclosure law. You just have to report your winnings on the final day of the reporting period and there is no reporting anywhere in the annual disclosure law of losses. This would be the first time that there would be any reporting of losses. So this would be a dramatic expansion of any kind of comparable reporting in the annual disclosure law.

I should also note that the regulatory regime covers substantial policymakers and substantial policymakers comprise about a third, if not less, of people who report under the annual disclosure law. For example, every candidate for elective office in the City has to file an annual disclosure report. This provision would apply to those people — many of whom are not public servants at the time they run for office. So they are having to report conduct which is totally fine, not prohibited, thus potentially deterring them from seeking public office because they have to report conduct which is in no way prohibited and would not reflect a conflict of interest or anything like that.

So there are, I think, a lot of ways in which this is maybe more than what is necessary given the current state. It is a brand new field — prediction markets. Why this particular robust reporting regime, where there is not anything similar, seems to be disproportionate to the concern. We are happy to take any questions.

(00:25:01)

CM, do you want to go ahead with questions? Why do not you go ahead. Thank you. So I have a couple of questions. You mentioned that this may be more than what is necessary, so...

(00:25:12)

Given that this is a rapidly changing environment, has your team looked at what would be needed or should be added to make sure that we deal with this?

(00:25:27)

Generally, there are always two things. Education, because the goal is not to sort of catch people after the fact but to prevent violations before they occur. So our focus is always on public servants — to try to educate them about their obligations under the Conflicts of Interest Law and to protect confidential City information. We do that all the time. We are very rigorous in trying to reach out to public servants in every way we possibly can about protecting confidential City information. There are all kinds of confidential City information that one might not place an event contract on — confidential information about someone's public assistance benefits, about child abuse and neglect investigations, things that public servants hold incredibly private, that we have for decades ensured...

(00:26:17)

...that that information is kept confidential. The annual disclosure law is a particularly difficult way to regulate that conduct because it has to do with things that happened almost a full year prior. So the Council has just reported recently on conduct from 2025. The effective way to restrict and change people's behavior is forward-looking — it is the advice and education context and not in the annual disclosure realm.

So when we talk about the annual disclosure, because arguably there are certain things that are not necessarily conflicts, especially when you are running as a candidate, but that pertains to anything in the annual disclosure — earnings, owning property, defining where your spouse or any other family member works. There are multiple layers of what is already disclosed. So I am not understanding why it would be difficult to add this one more section, because there are several sections in the annual disclosure. It does take some time, and there are some things that are not excluded, so why disclose them? Why disclose the things that are currently in the disclosure?

(00:27:33)

Well, I would argue — and I am sorry, there is a conflict — certainly there is holding real estate. These are assets that you hold over the course of the reporting year or on the final day. The current prohibition, or the current reporting regime that is being articulated, covers event contracts that have been closed. This is conduct that is being reported versus...

(00:28:01)

...your assets and liabilities on the final date of the reporting period. So there is a distinction. And there is nothing about when someone is a candidate for elective office — just for that example — one might want to know what assets they hold because that is going to impact the kinds of things that might be interests of theirs as a public servant. In other words, if I have an affiliation with a particular business or own ten buildings in a particular community, that might impact my concerns about how a certain community is regulated.

But here, these are in-and-out contracts that could happen in a day or two, where someone could be reporting zero or could be reporting a hundred event contracts. There is just nothing comparable to it in the annual disclosure law.

Suppose it does pass — there are multiple penalties that a person violating the law could have assessed on them. Have you looked at and do you feel these penalties seem sufficient, given the potential of a policymaker to use prediction markets to enrich themselves based on the events they control?

(00:29:13)

We have looked at the penalties that are in the proposed legislation. They mirror the penalties that the Board has in its normal enforcement context, with a couple of important differences.

One of the differences is this would allow the Board, if I am reading it correctly, to remove a public servant from office. That is not a power the Board has ever had before and we do not think it is a power the Board should have. That is a power that should be reserved for the entity that is in fact employing that public servant.

The other distinction here is about the scope of the enforcement, which is that the Board has never had the authority to engage in enforcement against people who are the family members of public servants before. We are honestly not sure what all the ramifications of that might be. In thinking about conflicts of interest — which is, you know, sort of the core function of the Board — we are thinking about people who have duties as public servants. So we are always thinking about how the law applies in all respects, but maybe particularly in the enforcement respect, with regard to where those public duties conflict with private interests.

So it is unfamiliar and maybe problematic territory for us to get into engaging in enforcement against the family members of public servants. That being said, we also think that the confidentiality restrictions capture the use of confidential information or disclosure of confidential information by a public servant to a family member, or in the case of disclosure to anyone, in a way that would capture that family member concern. But the onus is on the public servant who actually has that public duty to maintain public trust — as you were describing as one of the fundamental values underlying your proposed legislation and the Conflicts of Interest Law in the City.

So that is an incredibly important value. We are a little concerned that maybe we have drifted beyond that when we get to actually engaging in enforcement against family members of public servants.

(00:31:44)

Gotcha. Go ahead. Okay. Going back to the example — when we go back to the annual disclosure, I think you used real estate as an example. Holding large amounts of real estate within an area could potentially affect their governing. Do you think prediction markets could have the same negative effect on government decision making or other aspects of running the City?

(00:32:10)

Could prediction markets as a general matter? Certainly. Whether my personal view about whether people engage in online gambling or buy event contracts is... it is hard to even assess that. I think it is way too early to determine that. The goal is to ensure that once people enter public service they are focused on serving the public, and I think that is distinct from conduct that occurred before they entered public service.

(00:32:49)

Overall, do you have any particular concerns, or do you not have concerns at this moment about the widespread use of prediction markets?

(00:33:02)

A lot of concerns about the involvement of public servants in prediction markets that have anything to do with their public duties or confidential information. The subject matter of your proposed legislation is incredibly important. We are entirely on board with the values that you are articulating here. Largely what we are saying here is we think we have got you covered — we think the City's Conflicts of Interest Law, which is based in those same values that you articulated when you were providing your introductory statement about your Bill, I could not have said it better myself. But we just think that the law as it stands is sufficient and that ultimately what this would be is essentially redundant with the existing law. We think, as I said, we think Chapter 16 of the City Charter has this covered and that the Board has the ability and certainly the willingness to enforce the existing provisions to address the concerns that you have articulated.

(00:34:10)

Thank you. That is all I have, Chair. Thank you very much.

(00:34:14)

CM Wilson has joined us. Thank you.

(00:34:15)

One quick question. Has this issue ever come up — if you are able to state, and in some cases you can say you are working on cases — but is this something that has come across your desk at all? I mean, there are many people who are corrupt, I get it, and they have their own issues, but is this particular one...

(00:34:34)

So we have not — I mean, certainly as you are alluding to, complaints to the Board are confidential. But certainly at least in general reporting, I have not seen reporting about City public servants utilizing their public information or their City positions to engage in prediction markets. The committee report identifies public officials in other areas of government who have been entangled in certain arenas. That does not mean it has not happened here. We just have not seen it yet.

(00:35:06)

Okay, but now you are on notice. Yes. Okay. Yes. And I think the annual disclosure piece — just to say it — we are very cognizant of the burdens. As you identified, there are a lot of concerns about why do I need to report this, and we want to just make sure that the reporting requirements are as tailored...

(00:35:31)

...to the situation as they possibly can be. Thank you, CM, for bringing this up. Thank you very much. All right, you are finished for now. Thank you.

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Campaign Finance Board — Paul Ryan, the Executive Director. Now go ahead. Hold on, I have to sort them in. Oh, I am sorry, I always forget. They always tell the truth. All right, we will now hear from the Campaign...

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All right, you may begin when ready. Good morning, Chair Brewer and members of the Committee on Governmental Operations. Can you turn on...

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Good morning, Chair Brewer, the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation and other Council members. My name is Paul Seamus Ryan and I am the Executive Director of the New York City Campaign Finance Board. Joining me today is First Deputy Executive Director Amanda Melilo. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today regarding Proposed Int. No. 12-A of 2026.

The CFB is an independent nonpartisan City agency dedicated to strengthening local democracy. The CFB reduces the influence of big money in politics by amplifying the power of small dollar contributions from everyday New Yorkers through our matching funds program. We work to eliminate barriers to participation by equipping New Yorkers with the information and resources they need to get out to vote and run for office through our NY Votes initiative. The CFB engages directly with voters and provides resources to make voting more accessible.

Proposed Int. No. 12-A, sponsored by Speaker Julie Menin, would require disclosure to the Campaign Finance Board when candidates for local elected office or entities making local election-related independent expenditures create political materials or advertisements using artificial intelligence software capable of generating synthetic content. The CFB previously provided testimony on an earlier version of this Bill, Int 0012-2026, on December 4, 2024.

The CFB acknowledges the Council's efforts to protect the integrity of our local democratic process. As artificial intelligence technologies advance, the CFB has a unique perspective on this topic rooted in our dual mandate to serve candidates and voters. We sympathize with the perspective of both. We wholeheartedly share your concerns about the ways that technology could be used to spread false information, to intentionally mislead or deceive voters about Council members and other City candidates and officeholders. At the Campaign Finance Board we have placed a priority on learning about artificial intelligence.

Ms. Melilo and I recently completed the Harvard Kennedy School AI in Action certificate. We have an agency-wide AI working group and we are learning more every day. Nevertheless, technology is evolving at such a rapid pace that we cannot say with certainty how best to regulate its use in elections. To that end, we appreciate that the amended version of this legislation meaningfully addresses our most significant legal and implementation concerns shared at the hearing in December 2024, by shifting from a prohibition to a disclosure model and naming the CFB as the agency in charge of these disclosures, as well as naming the CFB as the agency responsible for implementing the new disclosure regime. The Council eliminated the greatest vulnerabilities to First Amendment legal challenge and clarified administrative and enforcement responsibilities. The CFB is well qualified to administer and enforce the requirements of Proposed Int. No. 12-A. We receive disclosure reports from all campaigns running for City office and all independent spenders active in City elections, and we impose fines and penalties for violations of our campaign finance rules and laws.

Importantly, this Bill casts the CFB in a role we have already played as a disclosure administrator, receiving, processing and making public the information reported to us. Not as a content regulator. For that reason we are relatively confident in our ability to implement this new mandate, though significant resources and time will be required.

Shifting the strategy to a disclosure model means the Council would be placing an entirely new administrative and enforcement mandate onto the Campaign Finance Board. We want to be realistic about the timeline and resources that would be required to implement this legislation. We are still researching the exact technology and staffing costs associated with implementing the Bill, but we anticipate that the cost would be steep and that it would take at a minimum a year to implement after Bill passage. This estimate includes both updating our existing candidate and independent spending reporting systems and building an entirely new internal system to receive and to make public the provenance data and other similar information we would be receiving from candidates and independent spenders.

As noted moments ago, the legislation's shift from a prohibition to disclosure largely mitigates the First Amendment risks present in the original draft. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld disclosure requirements against constitutional challenges over the past half century, including in Citizens United, McConnell v. FEC, and in the Court's seminal 1976 campaign finance decision in Buckley v. Valeo. Over and over the Supreme Court has recognized the governmental interest in providing the electorate with information necessary to make informed choices in the political marketplace. Proposed Int. No. 12-A serves this interest.

To even further strengthen Proposed Int. No. 12-A, the Council should consider narrowing the law's application in several ways. Proposed Int. No. 12-A incorporates by reference a definition of synthetic content creation systems in the State Stop Deep Fakes Act. The most recent version of that legislation, which was passed by the Assembly on June 4, defines the term to mean "a class of generative artificial intelligence system capable of generating wholly synthetic content."

This is a very broad standard, encompassing not only ads that contain synthetic content but also ads generated or modified using a system capable of generating synthetic content, even if such synthetic content was not incorporated into the ad. The earlier version of the Stop Deep Fakes Act that was passed by the State Senate on June 3 exempted from this definition technology such as red-eye filters and other technologies that are only capable of making minor changes to existing content. We will return to the significance of this legislative language in a moment.

Another aspect of Proposed Int. No. 12-A's broad scope is its application to "any literature, advertisement or other communication." Combined with the Stop Deep Fakes Act definition of synthetic content creation systems, Proposed Int. No. 12-A would seemingly require a campaign that uses generative AI or generative text software like ChatGPT or Claude to draft or edit a fundraising email, for example, to report this communication to the CFB.

A third element of Proposed Int. No. 12-A's breadth is that its candidate disclosure requirements are triggered when a candidate makes, publishes or publicly distributes a covered communication. This language would seemingly encompass instances where a candidate or a campaign staff member reposts someone else's content on a social media platform like X, Instagram or TikTok without spending any money and perhaps with no knowledge of whether the content was created or modified with a synthetic content creation system. The Council should look to the federal Transparent Elections Act, principally sponsored by Senator Amy Klobuchar, for an example of a

(00:43:30)

narrow scope of regulatory coverage. First, rather than covering all forms of communication such as fundraising emails created or edited by ChatGPT or Claude, the federal AI Transparency in Elections Act applies only to an image, audio or video that was substantially generated by artificial intelligence. Second, it is narrowed further by exempting images, audio and video that have only minor AI alterations, including cosmetic adjustments, color editing, cropping, resizing and other immaterial uses that do not create a fundamentally different understanding than a reasonable person would have from an unaltered version of the media.

This approach is similar to the version of the State's Stop Deep Fakes Act passed by the State Senate on June 3, an exemption that was removed from the version passed by the Assembly on June 4. Finally, the federal Act applies only when a person makes a disbursement for the purpose of financing a covered communication, effectively exempting from the law candidate reposts of social media content. As an alternative or a complement, the Council could apply the disclosure requirements of Proposed Int. No. 12-A only in instances where candidates know or should reasonably know that the media they are distributing contains AI-generated content.

Narrowing Proposed Int. No. 12-A in these ways might better serve the public interest. As currently written, Proposed Int. No. 12-A requires disclosure not only of malicious synthetic content but of all political communications that were in whole or in part created or modified using software that is simply capable of generating synthetic content. Given the ubiquitous incorporation of generative AI capabilities into design and other software, and the widespread use of ChatGPT, Claude and other text generation software, Proposed Int. No. 12-A could require disclosure of nearly all political communication. The CFB could end up with a database filled with information about innocuous, immaterial uses of AI, muddying the water for journalists, law enforcement and members of the public seeking information about malicious use of artificial intelligence for deep fake images, audio or video.

We would inadvertently bury the needle of information the public wants and needs in a haystack of information that serves little or no public interest. Limiting the disclosure law's coverage in the ways I suggested moments ago would help reduce the volume of extraneous information. Even with the refinements we suggest, we want to be clear-eyed about the practical limitations of this regulatory approach, so as not to create unrealistic expectations. The combination of low-cost, high-quality deep fake technology and social media platforms enables bad actors to spread disinformation in elections with speed and effectiveness unfathomable just a year or two ago.

Earlier this month the New York Times ran a disheartening profile of the world's leading deep fake expert, Professor Hany Farid, who has given up on his own ability to distinguish deep fakes from reality and moved from the Bay Area to a cabin in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Unstated in the Times profile is that Professor Farid is an advocate for digital provenance systems of the sort reflected in Proposed Int. No. 12-A. However, the real utility of digital provenance systems is enabling people to trust verified images as true and to dismiss unverified images as untrustworthy. Digital provenance systems serve as a sort of digital media nutrition label. Candidates would likely comply with the disclosure requirements of Proposed Int. No. 12-A and that is a good thing. Unfortunately, even with the enactment of Proposed Int. No. 12-A, the public will still have access to the equivalent of digital junk food created by bad actors who will be unlikely to comply with the nutrition label-like disclosure requirements of Proposed Int. No. 12-A.

The increasing difficulty of distinguishing deep fakes from truthful media offered by social media platforms and other internet-based communications streams present enormous enforcement challenges for the CFB. Nonetheless, we remain deeply committed to working collaboratively with the Council to ensure this becomes an effective piece of legislation. While we have outlined specific concerns today, our ultimate goal is to partner with you and to provide realistic guidance on resources and funding needed, refine and improve the legislation and deliver a Bill that truly serves New Yorkers. The CFB is committed to ensuring our City's elections are transparent and secure. Thank you for your time and your leadership on this issue. Amanda and I are available to answer any questions you have.

(00:48:03)

Thank you very much. Excellent testimony, Mr. Ryan. I have to say, very current, and I appreciate it. A lot of thought went into that. My two questions: one is, I think already some of our candidates have used AI and then other campaigns found out about it and then they pulled it down. Some guy jumping up and down on a platform — I was pretty impressed until I learned it was AI. I saw that.

My question is twofold. Just quickly, and then I will turn it over to my colleagues. One is, will this require an outside vendor to help figure it out? That is question one. The second is, you have been excellent in trying to close the gap and finishing the audits, and I did not know this would add to the time that it would take to finish the audits. So those are my two questions.

(00:48:49)

My deputy, Ms. Melilo, leads our technology work and I invite Amanda to comment on your first question.

(00:48:57)

Thank you so much. As to your first question, yes, I do believe we would need the support of an outside vendor for two reasons. One, in order to be able to expand on our current databases and build out our public website to make this data both collectible and available to the public, we would likely need to bring in outside support from a vendor in order to speed that build out. But I think our larger concern would be around building the expertise necessary to continue this ongoing monitoring of potential deep fakes or use of AI that perhaps goes undisclosed to us.

We recently, for example, spoke to our colleagues in Connecticut at the State Elections Enforcement Commission. They had contemplated similar legislation in Connecticut. They spoke to federal counterparts who do this for a living and they basically said a couple of things. One, there is no existing software today that can effectively spot fakes anymore. I think we are just in a place where the technology is evolving so rapidly that any sort of detection tools cannot effectively keep up. So there is nothing that we could purchase to allow us to monitor this in an ongoing way. We would need to rely more heavily on both proactive disclosure from campaigns and independent spenders, complaints from the public and then building expertise on our own staff. The other thing that we heard from our colleagues in Connecticut is that those staff members do tend to be expensive. This is highly specialized knowledge that only a few people have, so we would need some time to be able to build that out, to come up with a true cost estimate, and we would likely need to rely on outside expertise in order to build our internal knowledge.

As to your second question about the pace of the audits, I am going to separate out what we are doing for previous elections and what we are doing for future elections. For previous elections, we essentially are tackling our audits on three tracks right now. We have our older election cycles of 2021 and 2023. We have a team in our audit staff that is basically clearing out any outstanding audits from those prior election cycles. I probably did not mention this but I got my role and transitioned into it in 2024, only a few months before the 2025 election cycle. Realistically there was not a lot we could do from a technology perspective. We sort

(00:51:41)

of had to treat our existing technology as baked in. So we took a look at what processes we could implement independent of the technology in order to look at how we could speed up our post-election audits. I think we have mentioned before this Committee that we have a 2029 goal to complete 90% of audits within one year of the election. We set ourselves an intermediate goal for 2025 to complete 50% of audits within one year of the election. The way that we did that was by sending out our initial document requests and kicking off the post-election audit process much earlier than we ever had before. So for any campaigns where the candidate lost in the primary election and did not move on to the general election, we started issuing those initial document requests in July 2025 through October 10 to begin kicking off that process. I am very pleased to say that we are at the same point now today where we have closed out 8% of post-election audits that we were at after 2023, which was a much smaller election.

So that was looking at what we could do within the constraints of our existing technology. I am giving that information to set up what we are truly doing to prepare for 2029, which is making significant investments in essentially replacing and rebuilding all of our underlying technology within the next two years. This will include streamlining and improving the front-end experience for candidates and campaigns. That becomes very important in how it intersects with this Bill, because then we will look at how we can accept AI disclosure and provenance data as part of that system.

But we are also right now, before we even begin to build the back-end technology that powers our entire audit process, taking a look at whether there are ways we can simplify and streamline our existing processes from a high level without sacrificing rigor, accuracy or the things that we know the public relies on the Campaign Finance Board to provide. The reason I think that is important is because the very same people who are doing that work will also need to figure out how to implement this legislation. So just as a little bit of background, between now and the end of this year we are working very intensively between my division, audit leadership and our legal team to take a look at: if we want to administer this program in a much more effective way for 2029, if we want to completely rebuild systems and move away from our legacy technology, how do we redesign the process from the beginning to improve it for campaigns, for candidates, for our own staff and for the public at large? I want to be realistic about that when we are looking at the implementation timeline of this Bill, because our team working on that will also be working on what we need to do to really stand this up, both from a rulemaking perspective, from a process perspective and from an expertise-building perspective in building our technology.

(00:55:01)

Thank you very much. I appreciate the response. I am joined by CM Shanel Thomas-Henry for questions. Thank you, Chair. I have a question about the audit.

(00:55:16)

Have you guys considered... because as you are going through a campaign you have multiple disclosures, I think they are like every six, two, eight weeks or something. So as a recent candidate, the assumption is when you go through the disclosure process you are asking for all the information that is missing that you need to include. So then when you get after post-election, you get this detailed audit request of all these... is there any way to include it in the disclosure to make the audit that much more timely and less of a

(00:55:51)

headache? Let me start with what I think we have learned over the years. One, the process can feel very, very painful for campaigns, especially because when you are in the heat of an election you have to disclose a lot to us, and then when the election is over we come back to you and we say, hey, we need all of this other documentation, or what was this receipt for on this date? The response we often get is that was six months ago, I do not remember what that $10 receipt was for, or whatever it was that we are asking for.

I want to spend an intensive amount of time in the next six months or so redesigning our process. If we are ever going to hit 90% of audits within one year of the election, what we will realistically need to do is to create a lot more real-time back and forth between ourselves and the campaigns, so that we can be looking at things closer to the time that they were disclosed to us, that we can be getting information out to the campaigns so that they can correct it in a more timely and responsive way, and then we can lighten the post-election load.

Essentially what is happening now is that so much of our technology is very, very old and a lot of our audit processes are very manual. So our audit staff are really spending the time before the election to actually review and validate all of the matching claims, and this eats into their time to be able to look at the expenditure documentation that we mainly focus on in our post-election audits. So what we are seriously looking at right now is how can we lighten the load of validating those matching claims to create more space for our audit staff to be able to pull the post-election expenditure work into the pre-election period, so that campaigns are much closer to being done by the time election day rolls around.

So I think it is to everyone's benefit for us to be able to do this closer to real time. We are looking at ways to redesign the whole candidate experience to make it just a more user-friendly experience and to make it less painful after the election. I think I can go ahead and say that all ideas are on the table. We have actually been working with campaigns for the first time ever in sort of user research sessions to hear from campaigns what those experiences are like, to understand what are the barriers, what are the things we think we are explaining very well — and it turns out that we are not. What are ways that we can make this just a little bit more intuitive? That research is going to be ongoing up until the 2029 election and beyond. I will say credit is due — having the representative work alongside you has been very helpful. I have had two and they have both been amazing, just staying on top of things. So I do not know how

(00:58:48)

when you added that feature, but that is a great feature. One more audit-related question: how do you decide when to gather certain expenditure information from particular campaigns? Because having, again, coming off a campaign, consultants would be like, I have to get all this information from another candidate, and I am like... so how do you decide which candidate, when, and what information you need

(00:59:16)

from a particular candidate? Yes, absolutely. So I will just start out to clarify: the campaigns are able to submit expenditure documentation before the election, but we do not require expenditure documentation before the election. So some campaigns are continually submitting it, but as I mentioned before we often do not have the capacity to look at it until after the election.

But one thing that our audit leadership team began doing for this election cycle — because one of the things that we implemented for 2025 was more defined and limited extensions on both audit and enforcement, so that both sides can actually plan a little bit better, and we no longer give out unlimited extensions, but we still give out generous extensions because we know that sometimes campaigns need more time to get their responses together — so what our audit team began to do was take a look at: if we kick off... for us, our clock begins with the initial document requests. That is when the post-election clock

(01:00:26)

officially starts. Once we get the documentation, we have a certain defined period of time to complete a draft audit report and a final audit report. What our team took a look at — and we can get more information after this hearing — is essentially how do we plan it so that we can have a balanced workload across audits, which is why we did stagger the release of some of the initial document requests. So some candidates might have gotten it that first week I mentioned, around July 25, some candidates might have been a little bit later, on October 10. I do not have exact details today on how that was determined, like who goes where and in what order, but the intention there was to ensure that we can complete our audits in a timely way once we start requesting that documentation, and that our staff time is sort of maximized throughout the entire process.

(01:01:17)

Now I want to take this opportunity to note one more difficulty in the process on our end, which is that it is not uncommon for candidates to not respond to the initial document request, and that dramatically increases the amount of work our auditors need to do to produce a draft audit report without effective documentation. It is also quite common, unfortunately, for campaigns not to respond to the draft audit report, which in turn makes it much more difficult — much more time-intensive — for our auditors to produce the draft final audit report that they then refer to the legal team to decide whether or not this matter goes to enforcement for violations or instead gets closed out.

We have no ability as an agency — the Board has no ability — to impose a penalty on unresponsiveness in real time. When a campaign does not respond to the initial document request, when a campaign does not respond to the draft audit report, to the extent they get penalized for that it comes at the end of the road. Oftentimes campaigns then do show up for the hearing before the Board and they say, yeah, we know we did not respond to the initial document request or to the draft audit report, but we do have these receipts — here they are. That requires both our legal team and our audit team to redo the audit and reconsider the matter for enforcement. It is a lot of rework, which is a form of waste in our system that we definitely need to cut down on in order to speed up our audits overall. So candidate cooperation, as well as perhaps an amendment to the Act that will allow us to impose some penalties in real time to better incentivize responses to the initial document request and to the draft audit report.

(01:02:58)

Thank you. One more question, okay.

(01:03:00)

As it relates to Proposed Int. No. 12-A, there is a $10,000 per violation penalty if there is no disclosure. Do you think that is sufficient given the amount of money that is involved? Because honestly... no. Okay. I want to be clear that my Board has not taken an official position on a policy recommendation to increase the penalty cap, but if the Council is amenable to considering an increase in the penalty cap, I am sure my Board would be happy to discuss it and develop a formal policy position on it. But that cap of $10,000 is in the law — it is in the Campaign Finance Act — for any violation. The Board cannot penalize more than $10,000. If you have a multimillion dollar independent expenditure campaign, they very well may consider a $10,000 fine a year or two after the election to be little more than the cost of doing business in elections. So we are bound by the statute, by the Campaign Finance Act, and how we can penalize violations of every variety, including a failure to file a disclosure report of the sort that would be required by Int 0012-2026.

(01:04:09)

I would also jump in to note that after every citywide election we are required by the City Charter to publish a post-election report where we take a look at how the program worked, how well we administered it, and also make recommendations to improve that. This very issue is a live issue under debate at our agency right now for inclusion in that post-election report, which we expect to publish soon. We expect to come before the Council again and speak about all the recommendations that we have, but this is certainly one of the big ones that has come up. As Paul mentioned, we are discussing it internally with good government groups and advocates about their concerns in this area as well. It has some intersection with this Bill because right now we are capped at $10,000, but theoretically that could change. Okay, thank you.

(01:05:39)

ready. Okay. Thank you, Chair Brewer, and members of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation, for holding this hearing and for the opportunity to submit testimony about the work of the Civic Engagement Commission, or CEC. Thank you in regard to community boards. My name is Dr. Sarah Saeed and I am the Chair and Executive Director of the Civic Engagement Commission. I am joined by Benjamin Solitaire, Senior Adviser.

(01:06:13)

To begin, I would like to give you an overview. The CEC consists of 15 commissioners, eight of whom are appointed by the Mayor, two by the City Council and five by Borough Presidents, with broad authorization to increase civic participation, enhance civic trust and strengthen democracy. Our mandates include citywide participatory budgeting, language assistance at poll sites complementary to the Board of Elections, and assistance to community boards, a task force for racial inclusion and equity, a tree neighborhood initiative, a coalition building program that began during the COVID-19 pandemic and continues to strengthen community engagement. Our vision is to create dynamic civic engagement processes where communities who have been excluded from government are heard and affirmed in their civic power.

Today we are specifically discussing our work with community boards. Some of our accomplishments include: since September 2025, the CEC has held 29 workshops on 11 topics, for which we had 703 board members registered and 298 attended, and we will have four more workshops on upcoming topics. Topics included parliamentary procedures, motions and amendments, nominations and elections, committees and efficient meetings, de-escalation, affordable housing, how to use artificial intelligence, social media, how to use the open data portal and disability voters' rights. After hosting these sessions we post many of them to our CEC channel and currently have had 22 videos posted with a combined 12,890 views.

To remain responsive to the evolving needs of New York City's diverse population and to support community boards in language access, we provide yearly training on best practices for implementing language services as well as how to request language services from agencies. We do receive requests from boards from time to time for translation services, which we accommodate as budget allows, and for interpretation services we refer them to the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs or one of our trusted vendors. Finally, the CEC continues to make over-the-phone interpretation available to all community boards through our paid contract with Language Line.

We work to make training more accessible and responsive to board members' needs and interests. We offer workshops at different times and days to meet members' busy schedules. We also provide more personalized service for individual boards, including parliamentary

(01:09:05)

procedure topics of their choosing and exclusively for their own members. We are in regular communication with the Future of Community Boards Working Group, discussing ways to improve services to boards, including exploring approaches to the upcoming member term limits. At the request of Brooklyn Community Board 4 and Council Member Gutiérrez's office, we are in the process of organizing a workshop on how boards deal with liquor licenses, that will consist of a panel of board members who have expertise in that area. We expect that to occur in the fall of 2026.

Lastly, we began a partnership with the National Civic League and Perfect City called Better Public Meetings. This has included conducting surveys and interviews at six community boards, including Brooklyn 4, Queens 6, Manhattan 3, 11 and Bronx 7 and 9, working with the Borough Presidents' offices. We are conducting a survey of all boards asking for their best practices and policies on public meetings. This coming fall we will be hosting a public forum to discuss what we have learned so far and how we can implement the learnings. We will also work to form peer learning groups with community board members and staff. We look forward to reporting back on that work in the future. Thank you so much.

(01:10:31)

Thank you very much. CM Wilson.

(01:10:34)

Thank you, Chair. Thank you for your testimony. So we have two Bills before the Committee that we are considering today. Has the CEC taken a position on either of

(01:10:46)

these? We have not. Is there... particularly with the intro that would set a term limit for district managers, I am curious if you think that there would be a burden on boards that are anticipating a changeover from their members with the term limits for existing members, and then also pondering a Bill that would do that for district managers. Is there concern about the institutional knowledge and the ability of the boards to function with these changes? Briefly, I think any transition requires support and making sure knowledge is transferred for the institution to continue. So regardless of how that transition happens, whether it is through a term limit or not, I think for the institution to continue to serve the public it is very important that a knowledge transfer is arranged for that.

(01:11:51)

That is my opinion on that. Benjamin, do you want to add anything? You mentioned you are working to assist the boards with the transitions for the term limits for the members. Are there certain practices that you are looking to help them with to maintain that knowledge on the board?

(01:12:11)

So far we have just been talking about... I will let Benjamin comment as well. We have just been talking about opportunities for people who are well versed to share their best practices and how we can arrange those kinds of forums, in our role in support, working with the Future of Community Boards. But Benjamin, do you want to add anything?

(01:12:38)

We have discussed potential citywide gatherings or borough-wide gatherings with board members who are leaving, to share knowledge with the incoming members. We have talked to the former Borough Presidents who were available to help convene things. So I think all parties are working towards that goal of helping the transition go well. We are just trying to work with them and the board members themselves to make it smooth and effective.

(01:13:00)

One question I have is: do the district managers and the community boards themselves reach out to you, or do you reach out to them? The reason I say this is, as Borough President, with all due respect, looking at the list with Dr. Alden Bonino in charge...

(01:13:18)

we had every single one of those forums in terms of trainings, except... because we did not have any at that time. Everyone we had

(01:13:25)

in the other boroughs — do they get confused about reaching out to you for training, or do they go to the

(01:13:34)

Borough Presidents? How do you coordinate all that? We had all those trainings.

(01:13:37)

Benjamin, do you want to answer? I know I will ask you all my questions, of course. Any questions, Council Member, and

(01:13:44)

Benjamin, very... well, I like Benjamin but I do not agree with this. Go ahead.

(01:13:51)

Yes, we consult with the Borough Presidents' offices, your office when you were there, and it was

(01:13:57)

a superstar — superstar for sure. So yes, you offered a lot of those trainings. Not all... look at that list, Benjamin, every single one. Something... go ahead, I get it.

(01:14:06)

I get it. Not every board does that. You see, we are mandated to do a lot of land use trainings, but that is something that the Borough Presidents do across the board. So we offer occasional ones, but we know not to be duplicative. So we are asked to do certain trainings, we look at the board members, we ask surveys from them about what they want to do and we try to fulfill those needs. We had heard that the... we have heard that it was being used poorly, so we implemented that. The parliamentary procedure training, which was one that we offered a lot, is now required to be held by the Borough Presidents, so we have stopped offering that one.

(01:14:47)

You know, there are only so many trainings we can offer every year. All board members are busy, they have a lot of meetings. We would basically offer sort of one a week, I think, if I did the math, based on what the members are asking.

(01:15:03)

Okay. And then in terms of... I know you are not taking positions on these Bills, but do you have any sense of whether or not each Borough President has a process? I know

(01:15:19)

Manhattan does for implementing — I would say quality community board members versus just in the old days it was political. It was a bad situation. So that has changed in Manhattan. I assume elsewhere you have some sense of how it works across the board, or you do not pay attention to.

(01:15:34)

That — no, no, we talked to them about that. I mean, certainly... process... sorry, no, no, go ahead. Yeah.

(01:15:42)

They all do the interviews, that I know of. I do not deal as much with Staten Island — we do not talk to them as much, but happy to. We just do not. But they do an interview process to get the applications. We talk to them about where the applications are coming from.

(01:15:55)

I feel that they do all have a process that is pretty robust. OK, because it seems to me that as a Council member, staff to do something similar. So that is why I feel very strongly that the process is important. Otherwise you will have people who are just friends and have not gone through vetting. Well, it is a...

(01:16:14)

Well, your take on these bills — you are not going as far as you know.

(01:16:18)

You are talking about the commission. Yeah, let us see. So okay, there is some reason why not... why not two, or I...

(01:16:27)

I think it is up to the Council to decide, and not this easy. I think it is — yeah, there is no specific reason. I think it is beyond the scope of what we are asked to do. So yeah, okay. And...

(01:16:39)

The Future of Community Boards Working Group — what does it achieve? I just do not know.

(01:16:44)

That is my ignorance. They convene on a regular basis. They obviously issued that report a while ago. They helped do the term limits session two years ago that you were part of and that we helped fund. They meet regularly to make recommendations for things. I think they have called for increased funding, they have called for better land use, but I am not aware of the tangible achievements.

(01:17:10)

OK, and I find them very useful. I will see them as a group to talk to. OK.

(01:17:15)

And who is on that? Is that community board members and...

(01:17:18)

So on district manager. OK.

(01:17:21)

And the other question I have is: do you get a lot of requests for language? Do you have to go to MOYA quite a bit? How does that work?

(01:17:29)

Did not know. Yeah, I mean, I do not think we are getting a lot. We do get them occasionally. Benjamin, do you want to... we get one or two a...

(01:17:41)

...month of asking for interpretation or translation services. Yeah, we should be doing more, because then that would bring more people...

(01:17:46)

...in. I think that is one of the biggest frustrations that boards have is the lack of ability and funding to do that, to do the outreach before that. OK.

(01:17:54)

And do you advocate for community boards to get more funding? That would be something that would come out of a different process. That would not be what I would do. That is a different process. Different process. OK.

(01:18:06)

My other question is: are you finding that there is a good... you gave some good numbers of those who are participating in your trainings. Do you find that all the community boards are getting trained? Is it some that do more than others? How do you feel about the trainings? Is it across the board that people participate? Are they all Zoom? Are they in person? Just give me a better sense of the...

(01:18:33)

...trainings. The trainings are all virtual, and I think that the attendance really varies by topic and by board as well. I think we are seeing that over time there are board members who are coming to multiple trainings, interested in different topics. We do provide some in person — like tonight I am going to the Borough President of the Bronx, we are doing an in-person de-escalation training. We used to do the parliamentary procedure in person before that was handed off. I think we have dedicated followers. I do not think every board shares it with whatever board members directly — we allow them to use their emails when they sign up. But I do not think every board does, and we do keep track of every board that attends. So we would like more, obviously.

(01:19:33)

OK, and then this issue of term limits. So obviously a board member can come back after a year if they still choose, or if they get reappointed — that is the other issue. I do not know if that is going to happen much, to be honest with you. But my question is this notion that you can share data — or shared not just data but information, particularly on land use. I think it is a bit false, because it just does not work like that. When the developers are there to negotiate, as I have done 215 times in terms of ULURP, nobody else has done that. So you have to have somebody there to say, you know, this AMI is no good, or whatever.

So what plans do you really have to try to share the data, or share the expertise, that is going to be lost with this Charter revision? I hate term limits for community boards. I hate...

(01:20:25)

I think that again, sort of working off the peer learning — I mean, that is one directive: in-person conversations. But we really want to support what the borough presidents and the boards themselves want to do, so we will be working on that over the next several months.

(01:20:39)

OK, so you do not know yet what the process will be for doing...

(01:20:43)

...that. Not the exact process. All right. I do not have any other questions, so thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

(01:20:58)

We are going to take public testimony now. Our first testimony is from Alex Camarda, Reinvent Albany, and also Ben Weinberg from Citizens Union. You have three minutes, but you can talk longer because I know you both can. Come on up.

(01:21:35)

I am not supposed to say that on the record, but go ahead. Thank you. Good morning. Wait, where is my... here we go.

(01:22:06)

Good morning, Council Members. Thank you, Chair. My name is Ben Weinberg. I am the Director of Public Policy at Citizens Union, the nonpartisan good government group that works to advance honest and accountable government and fair and open elections in New York. Thank you for holding this hearing.

I will largely comment on Int 0951-2026 on prediction markets. The Campaign Finance Board provides a pretty thoughtful testimony on Proposed Int. No. 12-A, the one on AI-generated campaign content. So on Int 0951-2026, we commend CM Thomas Henry for recognizing the ethical risks posed by prediction markets. When public officials can profit from outcomes they influence, or know about before the public does, there is a clear risk of conflicts of interest and abuse of insider information, as the prominent examples mentioned before and in the committee's report indicate.

However, we believe much of the conduct the Bill seeks to prohibit is already covered by the City's conflicts of interest law. Chapter 68 prohibits public servants from using their positions for financial gain and from disclosing confidential information to advance their private interests. Those provisions apply to all public servants, not just policymakers as the Bill does. For that reason, we recommend addressing any remaining gaps through Chapter 68 rather than creating a separate regulatory framework. Building on the City's existing ethics laws and its definitions would make enforcement clearer and more effective.

We also recommend removing provisions that would impose penalties on relatives of public servants. The obligation to protect the integrity of public office should rest with the public servants. Extending the Board's enforcement authority to spouses, parents or siblings would raise practical and legal concerns.

Now, if the Council does determine that existing law is insufficient in addressing the new risks posed by prediction markets, it could consider other alternatives. Our written testimony offers some options. For example, one could prohibit public servants from participating in prediction markets when the so-called event is related to their official duties. The North Carolina Governor issued a similar executive order recently. One could tailor a specific definition of nonpublic information that is relevant to this context, if the current definition of confidential information does not cover all cases related to prediction markets. You could also require written affirmation of existing restrictions, so that every public servant would have to sign that they acknowledge that restriction, and that provides a way to enforce that — basically signing that form later on.

I am actually done with that one, so I am happy to take any other questions.

(01:25:12)

Good afternoon, Chair Brewer and members of the Council Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation. My name is Alex Camarda. I am a Senior Policy Adviser for Reinvent Albany. Reinvent Albany is a watchdog organization that advocates for open and accountable government in New York.

Reinvent Albany supports the intent and spirit of both Int 0012-2026 and Int 0951-2026, but believes the Council needs to better account for how these proposals intersect with existing law. Regarding Proposed Int. No. 12-A, Reinvent Albany supports disclosure of when political communications are created by artificial intelligence or altered by it. The advent of social media and artificial intelligence have made it very challenging for New Yorkers to discern between truth and fiction in digital media related to candidates running for office and political and public policy discourse. Social media platforms are awash in communications where the sources are not clearly identifiable and facts and untruths mingle together. The growing use of artificial intelligence compounds this already significant problem, with video, sound and pictures reflecting reality altered to create a false impression, with the viewer often unaware of the manipulation.

Proposed Int. No. 12-A takes a first step in addressing the growing challenges to voters making informed choices about candidates, by requiring provenance data — underlying metadata indicating when political communications were altered and by what tool — to be disclosed to the New York City Campaign Finance Board and...

(01:26:49)

...made available to the public online. While not explicitly indicated in the Bill language, it is to be implemented in concert with the Campaign Finance Board's disclosure regime and its rules, and subject to the existing enforcement procedures and penalties, the latter of which is referenced in the Bill's summary.

While Reinvent Albany commends the Speaker for tackling this issue, it is also imperative that the Bill at minimum clarify that disclosure is required in the communication itself — that simply states "this image, video or audio has been manipulated" — consistent with New York State election law. Reinvent Albany will only support legislation that contains this disclosure in the communication itself, because it ensures that voters are informed in real time and can adequately process the message to make an informed consideration of the candidate running for office.

Beyond the recommended disclosure in the communication, there are several other issues that the Council should clarify or consider before passing this Bill, some embodied in the Governor's Fiscal Year 2027 budget proposals and contemplated in briefs on the issue by national experts like the Brennan Center for Justice. Specifically, the Council should clarify in the Bill summary or legislative intent how this legislation builds on or intersects with New York State election law Section 1406, which also requires disclosure of "material deceptive media" with few exceptions. Adequately define "synthetic content creation system" and "provenance data" as the Bill references Section 1550 of the New York State General Business Law, which currently does not exist. In determining these definitions, the Council should consider whether to include personal identifying information — for example, as part of the provenance data, such as an internet protocol address. Charge synthetic content creation system providers like OpenAI and others with a tool for the public to read provenance data in political and policy-related communications, as is mandated in the New York State Fiscal Year 2027 Executive Budget proposals.

Prohibit the creation or publication of a deepfake within 90 days of an election if the publisher knows or should know it was fake, it was intended to impact the election, and was made without a candidate's or individual's permission if they are featured in the deepfake, as was done in the Executive Budget proposals. This will require examining constitutional issues. Clarify whether copies of communications will be provided to the Campaign Finance Board and made public with prominent disclosure for communications sent by candidate committees. It is our understanding that unlike independent expenditure committees, candidate committees are not required to submit originals or copies of their campaign communications until the post-election audit process, and are not posted publicly in the search database. If provenance data is not provided until well after voters have cast their ballots, or is provided without a copy of the communication a voter can reference when reviewing the data, the utility of this disclosure requirement will be greatly diminished. Lastly, amend Section 1 of the Bill to not only reference new additions to the campaign...

...Finance database this Bill requires, but also other disclosures beyond contributions and expenditures of the campaign's authorized committee.

Regarding Int 0951-2026, we support the intent of this Bill to clarify that public officials not use confidential insider knowledge gained from public appointment to profit in prediction markets. Governor Hochul recently enacted Executive Order 60 that prohibits state employees from profiting from inside information that they learned while working as public servants. We supported that ban because it clarifies the state code of ethics, Public Officers Law Section 74, and provides clear guidance to public servants serving under the Governor.

Int 0951-2026 in its current form would create a diverging regime outside of Chapter 68 of the City Charter — the City ethics code — which, as referenced already, prohibits using confidential information for personal gain under Section 2604. We urge the City Council to rework this legislation to ensure that it does not create a different enforcement regime from other prohibited conduct. Chapter 68 already prohibits profiting from confidential information in Section 2604. If the City Council wishes to explicitly include prediction markets in this prohibition, it should amend that section rather than include a new section of law in the Administrative Code with different definitions and covered individuals.

Specifically, Section 2604 provides that public servants cannot disclose confidential information of such public servant which is not otherwise available to the public, and they cannot "use any such information to advance any direct or indirect financial or other private interests of the public servant or of any other person or firm associated with the public servant."

Int 0951-2026 would create a new Chapter 12 in Title 3 of the Administrative Code of the City of New York that diverges from some of the standards in Chapter 68 of the City Charter and Section 12-110 of the Administrative Code, the annual disclosure law. Specifically, it creates new definitions of "policymaker" and "relative." Chapter 68 applies to all public servants and defines those associated with public servants, including children, spouses, domestic partners and persons with whom the public servant has business or financial relationships. Int 0951-2026 only includes policymakers and their relatives. Relatives under this Bill include all those listed in Chapter 68 under "associated" but add stepparents. It would impose fines upon the relatives of policymakers who profit from inside information in prediction markets. Chapter 68, in contrast, only provides penalties for public servants. The Bill adds new reporting requirements for financial disclosure statements, requiring a listing of all transactions of $50 or more in prediction market transactions and event contracts. Currently the thresholds for reporting income start at $1,000.

We also note that the Bill excludes event contracts issued on platforms regulated by the New York State Gaming Commission. While this is likely an attempt to differentiate authorized New York State betting from betting related to City government or political actions that are regulated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, we caution that New York should decide at some point to regulate these markets. Thank you, and I...

(01:33:22)

...welcome any questions you have. Thank you both. I think you are both saying something similar to what the agency stated — basically, you know, that the Amy Klobuchar Bill in Washington sounds like it is what we are aiming for. That was one thing that came out. And then secondly, you know, you like the concept — obviously we all do — that public officials should stay within the law and not try to break it. But I think that you do not think relatives should be involved. Reinvent Albany was saying that. Our overarching recommendation is...

(01:34:04)

...that the Bill needs to align with existing law, which does not include relatives.

(01:34:11)

Yeah, I mean, I am commenting generally, but I asked the Council — if the Council wants to add prediction markets to the existing law, we think it should amend the sections that relate to existing law rather than creating a separate enforcement regime. As far as the relatives question goes, I do not think we weigh in specifically as to who should be included as relatives, but I think we are more focused on just alignment.

(01:34:40)

OK, yeah. I will just say relatives are included in existing provisions to the extent that they profit from something that the public servant does. The enforcement and the investigation is directed towards the public servant. The assumption is that they had...

(01:35:00)

Have something to do with the gain that their relative had, so the enforcement in that case would remain the same. And I think you are both stating that in terms of the issue of AI, the image, video and audio is where we should stick and not go into the campaign fundraising letters and so on and so...

(01:35:23)

...forth. Right, I would agree with that.

(01:35:26)

Yeah, I would say for Proposed Int. No. 12-A, the principal question really to the Council is how does this intersect with existing New York State law. There are the provisions that are referenced in the testimony that relate to a disclosure of material deceptive communications. Those are pretty narrow. I think they align with a lot of the recommendations that the CFB made in their testimony. So if the disclosure of the communications is meant to align with State law, I think that will address a lot of the concerns that CFB had. But that is not clear to us from the Bill if that is the intent. But that is what we think it should work off of.

(01:36:07)

And there is a larger question of enforcement related to that law — State law that requires candidates and campaigns to basically stamp "this was generated by AI." Because enforcement of election law is a difficult matter. It is conducted by the State Board of Elections and by the Division of Enforcement within the State Board of Elections, and both of these bodies have been prone to delays and other issues with enforcement. The law actually allows candidates to petition the court to do something about it if AI is part of that campaign or that ad. But that law still applies to New York City candidates and campaigns, so in that sense there would not be much of a...

(01:36:53)

...difference. Yeah, the CFB said to answer that, to do it they would have to have a vendor and they would have to have expertise and they would have to hire people who are paid more for that expertise in this area. So I thought they were honest about what is involved. If they are really going to do the investigation and keep people accountable, it is not as easy as one might think.

(01:37:16)

That is right. You know, this is similar to the post-employment restrictions. It is difficult, almost impossible, for the regulating agency to find all cases where someone violated the post-employment restrictions because they are not monitoring the actions of thousands and thousands of people. So it is based on reporting of violations.

(01:37:41)

And in that case, that would probably look the same.

(01:37:44)

OK, thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you. Jonathan Weinberg, Manhattan Borough President's Office.

(01:37:53)

You have to be sworn in.

(01:38:26)

When you are ready. Thank you. Thank you, Chair Brewer, and thank you to the other members of the Council and the members of the public gathered here today. I am here on behalf of Weinberg. I am General Counsel to the Borough President and I am here to enter into the record official testimony in opposition to Int 0501-2026 on behalf of Borough President Hoylman-Sigal. This written testimony is also signed on to by Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and Queens Borough President Donovan Richards.

Borough President Hoylman-Sigal has significant concerns regarding Int 0501-2026, which as drafted would undermine the institutional effectiveness of New York City's community boards. Int 0501-2026 would impose term limits on community board district managers. District managers are professional public servants whose institutional knowledge and long-standing relationships with residents, agencies and stakeholders are indispensable to the effective operation of community boards. These positions are not political appointments nor should they be treated as such. At a time when land use and service delivery issues are becoming increasingly complex, community boards benefit from experienced administrative leadership. Mandatory turnover would unnecessarily weaken continuity, diminish expertise and impair the ability of boards to effectively serve their communities.

Community board members have universally told us that district managers are quite literally the glue that hold community boards together. We have heard nothing whatsoever from our constituents on the performance and dedication of these district managers. So why disturb something that is working so well? We know Chair Brewer and other members of the Council understand firsthand the important role that community boards play and that district managers specifically play in New York City's civic life. We therefore urge the Council to reconsider the Bill in its current form. Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.

(01:40:23)

Thank you very much. I appreciate your testimony and will take it under consideration.

(01:40:30)

Thank you, Chair Brewer. We appreciate your time and attention.

(01:40:33)

Thank you. The next speakers: Susan Stetson, Community Board Three; Marc Diller, Community Board Two; Raphael Maury, Community Board Six in the Bronx.

(01:41:00)

Whoever would like to begin. Thank you for being here. Thank you, I will go first. My name is Susan Stetson. I am district manager for Manhattan Community Board Three and I just want to mention that we are actually a City agency, not the public. I want to thank you for this opportunity to share concerns regarding proposed legislation and budget. Because of the limited time I will speak to Int 0501-2026, which is the most pressing. The Community Board Three Executive Committee voted last Thursday to oppose legislation Int 0322-2026 and Int 0501-2026. This will be voted on tomorrow night and submitted to the Committee as testimony.

I would like to say I actually agree with CM Williams that our terms of employment should be clarified, and I would like to suggest that the Council can go on our website under resources and tests and standards and see very detailed, lengthy descriptions of responsibilities that the board voted on for the district manager. It is on a managerial test and standards form provided by DCAS.

I would also like to say that I will not personally be impacted by this, as I have been in the position for 22 years and expect to be retired well within the next four years. The City Charter provides that each community board within budgetary appropriations shall appoint a district manager as it deems appropriate, who shall serve at the pleasure of the community board. There seems to be diverse opinions on whether this would require a Charter revision commission to allow borough presidents to terminate a district manager, as this would diminish the power of a City agency. There is no precedent in New York City government for an elected official to terminate a staff person at a different City agency outside of their direct line of authority.

The immediate and long-term impact of a four-year hire would be that district managers would leave community boards to find stable jobs. The board's ability to hire for the position would be materially impaired. District manager value is in long-term institutional knowledge of the community and the board, especially important as boards transition to member term limits. Community boards already have the usual human resource procedures to hire and fire district managers. We are subject to, as I mentioned, New York City managerial tests and standards. Boards can evaluate and when necessary terminate district managers. I would say I have been evaluated against the tests and standards by several chairs from my board, and several chairs have done this several times. So the process is absolutely in place. It is the same process used by agencies for all mid-level managers and the same process...

(01:44:19)

...used by elected officials for their staff. I will not go into what we do because you have already mentioned that. For borough presidents to have the power to remove district managers who are carrying out the wishes of their boards and the community at large would put district managers in a bind between carrying out the directives of their board and those of borough presidents when the directives and positions differ. I am not aware of any reason to treat district managers differently than any other City manager, and I am not aware of any borough presidents seeking the ability to remove district managers. I did not have time to talk about the budget but I would just like to add that community boards have not had an increase to their other than personal services budget in many years, and with the technology and training needed these days we are in dire need of additional funding. Thank you very much. Next.

(01:45:20)

Good morning, Council members and Council. My name is Rafael Maury. I am the district manager for Community Board Six in the Bronx. I am here representing the community board, who adopted this position at a board meeting. We would like to ask the Council for a baseline budget increase. Responsibilities of community boards have grown over time through several citywide zoning text amendments which created a new Universal Affordability Program, which is creating more as-of-right development while still including community board review of that development. We are now weighing in on open dining permits, retail cannabis licenses and open street applications. City Charter amendments as well as our ongoing regular duties of responding to constituent complaints of agency service delivery, ULURP actions, liquor licenses and traffic redesign projects.

So if the various recent legislative changes to the scope of the community board have increased the amount of work that the boards are responsible for doing, it would make sense that the Council would allocate more funding to community boards to support this work. Most of our budget is used for salary — salary to support someone answering the phone when a constituent calls the office about a pothole or a tree, et cetera. We ask that the Council consider this and push forward in the current budget process. The Council has shown time and time again that you value community input, and that when the City is attempting to streamline and centralize land use procedures and other processes, community input is valuable. In order for our community input to be valuable, community boards need to be properly staffed to field those complaints and hear from the community on local issues.

And then lastly, I want to just reiterate that Int 0501-2026 is an attempt to politicize the district manager position and it is very much antithetical to the value of community input at a local level. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next.

(01:47:32)

Thank you. My name is Marc Diller. I am the district manager of Community Board Two in Manhattan. I am also a former chair of a community board, so I bring two perspectives to the issues before this Committee. I thank you for the opportunity to testify. I have submitted on behalf of the community board our resolution from last year regarding what was then Int 1065, which has salient provisions virtually identical to Int 0501-2026.

My two colleagues have already identified many of the issues that I wanted to address, so I will try to streamline. There are two key aspects to a district manager's position — obviously some looking inward and some looking outward. Those looking inward are to support the board members in their work on things like ULURPs, which are increasingly rare because of actions like the Charter amendments and City of Yes, requiring ever more nuanced abilities to bring in legacy information. The removal of — or the creation of — as-of-right development opportunities makes the community board's work in trying to find benefits for the public more nuanced, more complex and requires history and legacy information to be brought to bear. Looking outward, being a resource for constituent services — I am three and a half years into being a district manager, which I thought I would know how to do having been a chair of a board, but it is quite different. It takes time to build those relationships in the community, to be trusted by organizations. My board has a very active constituency, and active sometimes means doubting, sometimes means you need to earn their respect and trust. I am on my way. Maybe two more years and I will be off probation. But that is something that is antithetical to the idea of a four-year term.

So Int 0501-2026 creates instability in a place where we need stability more and more, especially as board member term limits take effect. Switching to the issue of borough president termination — I have the greatest respect for the current Manhattan Borough President, to whom we look for guidance. But this is a long-term issue and, as my colleague has said, politicizing the office of district manager is not in the service of the community's needs. Finally, again to talk about the borough president role — the current Borough President has followed the Council member model in terms of enhancing the outreach and meaningful engagement of recruiting and discerning who should be a board member. Trying to replicate that across 51 Council districts is neither feasible nor is it a good use of public money. A better use would be the increase in the community board budget that my colleague just advocated. Thank you.

(01:50:40)

Thank you very much. I guess one question — I am glad you are all against Int 0501-2026. You did not talk much about the other Bill. I do want to ask about it. What would be the amount? Because I have been advocating for more money for community boards but I have not heard a lot of specifics. Is there an amount that you are suggesting? It is often about staffing. I laugh a little bit because Manhattan has had ULURPs, we have had street issues, we have had liquor issues for years and now every other borough is stuck with it too. My question is: are there some numbers that you can share?

(01:51:17)

My board has requested a $50,000 budget increase per community...

(01:51:20)

...board. OK, so that would be something. Do others have numbers or do you think that is a problem?

(01:51:26)

My board has not voted on a number but I would say it would have to be at least $30,000, and the reason for that is we need to keep a lot of our staff. There is not even equity within City government, so some of the money needs to go to pay the staff members as well as other than personal services for the boards. I would think $50,000 is on the low end of the spectrum, and the reason is that now you are talking to the two district managers who have the most liquor licenses in captivity, so...

(01:51:58)

...we need a whole other staff person. My State Liquor Authority committee — I have two of them, each of them meet once a month, and we typically get between 60 and 70 thirty-day notices every month. I need another staff person. By the way, I need the ability to use — right now I have consultants who I have to pay, but it requires Council member approval in order to move enough money to pay that person. So I need a whole full-time staff member. So $50,000 is kind of on the low end of what we would want to get, and as my colleague has mentioned, we do a great job of paying people to go work elsewhere.

(01:52:45)

That is very helpful. I will advocate for that but we probably need some more help in doing so. I am just telling you. Now in terms of Int 0322-2026, have...

(01:52:52)

...your boards voted on that? I know you have. Int 0322-2026 being the appointment...

(01:52:59)

...process. My Executive Committee voted on Thursday night unanimously to oppose it. The full board votes tomorrow. OK. Anybody else has not taken up that issue as of yet. OK. Board Six has not either.

(01:53:11)

In the Bronx. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it and we will work on moving forward with some of these issues. Thank you. Next is Camilo... Celestina Leon, Community Board Four in Brooklyn; Laura Singer, Board 15 in Brooklyn. Thank you. Weatherspoon, Brooklyn.

(01:53:53)

Thank you all for joining us. Whoever would like to start, whenever you are ready. Good afternoon. My name is Laura Singer and I am the District Manager for Brooklyn Community Board... Garretts Beach, Manhattan Beach. I am speaking in regards to Int 0501-2026.

What City agency manager has a term limit? What agency manager would take a job outside of perhaps an elected official if they could potentially lose it in four years' time? Not all of us have that calling to be an elected official, but we still want to serve our community, and so this is the path that we chose. By placing term limits on district managers, we wind up in actuality denying ourselves some truly talented people who would never consider a position with a potential term limit.

Currently, recruiting and attracting staff where there are very, very small salaries has been challenging. Now, with the caveat of not being extended past the four year term, this would only further turn potential hires off. Board members with historic knowledge are now being turned out, so you want to take a potential long-standing staff member with institutional knowledge and place them on the chopping block as well. To what end? With the potential for a constant turnover of district managers, you run the risk of having new hires using crucial time learning the job and focusing on procedures, giving them less time to devote to actually serving their community.

There is a natural progression and turnover that occurs. Limiting a person's capacity to serve will prove more of a detriment to those who truly care and want to make a positive impact. Boards have bylaws that determine how employees are hired and terminated. Giving an outside agency such as the Borough President's office, who does not resource or hire, the ability to fire a district manager seems quite frankly illogical.

Unfortunately, as of late, it seems to be open season on community boards, with legislation being created each and every day to silence that voice. This Bill is no different. It is just targeting another component of the community board — a key staff member that oversees management — which is just looking to further rip community boards asunder. As elected officials, you are entrusted to serve your communities to the best of your abilities. You should be visionaries to bring about positive change and amplify your community's voice, not silence it. This legislation just serves to incapacitate community boards further. I urge you, as champions for your communities, to let Int 0501-2026 go no further than this hearing. Thank you.

(01:56:25)

Thank you very much. Who wants to go next? Yes, go ahead.

(01:56:31)

Good morning, Chair Brewer and Council. I am Sala Sina Leong. I am the District Manager for Brooklyn Community Board Four, representing Bushwick. Coming to the community board for a professional opportunity was unexpected for me, but it was a way to come back and serve my community after my family was displaced from the area.

The community board that hired me in 2017 is not the same board that I work for now, as a result of the transition from gentrification, which is something that has repeated itself over time in the City, but it is still new to Bushwick. Through the Future of Community Boards Working Group, I was very eager to learn as a new district manager, and who better to learn from than my colleagues who have been doing this work for a very long time. I owe a lot of what I know now to them and to the board members who prepared me for this role. I was facilitating that group from 2019 to about 2026, this year, when due to capacity limitations — being the only full-time staff member — I was prevented from doing so, though empowered by my board to continue to do this work.

In regards to Int 0501-2026, while I can appreciate the need for structure, I believe the boards need consistent support and preparation to manage staff, especially as we experience term limits. There are inconsistent practices and access to information across the boroughs that change with each Borough President's administration. I ask: how are we retaining information or requiring transitional documentation to support incoming members and elected officials? This is something that has been discussed preliminarily with colleagues in the Civic Engagement Commission while preparing on a citywide level for term limits.

In reference to Int 0322-2026, for Council member appointments, to my knowledge the Borough President will have the ability to appoint when the Council seat is vacant. This is something that will address the situation that occurred in the past during the pandemic, when a Council member had resigned and half of the board was not reappointed when a special election was canceled, and so that vacant seat was filled, which impacted representation on the board. Alternatively, while the current appointment structure is long-standing, it leaves room for politicization. To consider alternatives or other amendments that further empower community members while holding them accountable, you will hear that our precinct community and clergy councils have a process, and also considering a civic lottery process in the future. I encourage and remain hopeful for greater collaboration with the board citywide.

(01:58:57)

Thank you. Who is next? Don Gaspar? Thank you so much.

(01:59:02)

Good afternoon, Chairwoman Brewer and members of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation, and those in attendance. My name is Ursa Weatherspoon, from Community Board Eight, and I thank you for the opportunity to provide my testimony at today's hearing.

On June 1, 2026, the members of Brooklyn Community Board Eight voted unanimously to oppose Int 0501-2026, the proposed local law that would amend the New York City Charter by imposing a four-year term on community board district managers, subject to reappointment. Brooklyn Community Board Eight believes that both provisions undermine the authority, independence and effectiveness of community boards.

Under the New York City Charter, district managers are City employees who are hired by and serve at the pleasure of their respective community boards. They are accountable to the boards that recruit, evaluate and supervise them, not to the City Council or Borough Presidents. By imposing arbitrary term limits on district managers, Int 0501-2026 diminishes the discretion of community board members and interferes with the ability to retain experienced and effective administrative leadership. Moreover, Community Board Eight's bylaws already establish clear procedures for evaluating performance, addressing concerns and, when necessary, removing a district manager for cause. These safeguards provide accountability while preserving the board's authority to manage its own personnel decisions.

The proposal to grant Borough Presidents unilateral authority to remove district managers is particularly concerning. Allowing an elected official to dismiss an employee whom they have never hired nor directly supervised is inconsistent with the structure, purpose and independence of community boards. Such authority would disregard the extensive time, effort and deliberation that boards invest in recruiting, selecting and overseeing qualified district managers.

At a time when community board members themselves are subject to term limits, the importance of experienced district managers cannot be overstated. Long-serving district managers provide critical institutional knowledge, continuity and stability. They cultivate long-standing

(02:01:37)

relationships with City agencies, City elected officials, community-based organizations, houses of worship, local businesses and residents. These relationships strengthen the board's ability to advocate effectively for the communities it serves and ensure that important initiatives and concerns are addressed without interruption.

District managers are professional administrators whose performance should be evaluated by the community boards that employ them. Int 0501-2026 appears to treat these positions more like elected offices subject to periodic political review, rather than professional management roles grounded in expertise, experience and accountability to the board.

For these reasons, Brooklyn Community Board Eight respectfully urges the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation to oppose Int 0501-2026 and preserve the authority of community boards to select, supervise and, when necessary, remove their own district managers. Thank you kindly for your time and consideration.

(02:02:51)

Good afternoon, Chair Brewer and members of the Committee. My name is Robert Camacho. I am the Chair of Community Board Four. I am Celeste De Leon's boss — well, I do not call her my boss, I call her my friend. I have been on the board for 42 years, since I was 23. I am 65. I became chair in 2018. I am term-limited in 2027.

What the word means to me: I have been advocating for my community. My community was infected with drugs. Bushwick was burning and no one was there. Someone like me stood up. I still live there. Another important point: volunteers — that is their job. If you want the job, submit an application. Let them do their work, and if they cannot do the work, that is the responsibility of the board to address. They are term-limited for board members now, and they want to do it to district managers as well. Yet there is no bill to ensure members who are volunteers are represented to the manager as City staff.

The Borough Presidents are doing different things — one does this, one does not do that. You always want to take away the board's independence as an independent agency, to give the Borough President the ability to terminate a City employee at will. That cannot be legal. The manager is hired by the board, and the board has the sole responsibility for addressing the issue before terminating an employee, rather than doing it for political allies. The boards are discouraged from finding candidates for the position, and guess what — that weakens the board's ability to conduct business.

When members are gone, institutional knowledge is just gone. What do we do? Maybe at least encourage new ideas. And what happens to people who are underrepresented? What happens when we push out the bill for Council members appointed like the Borough President? It might help, or again, it depends. It is 2026. Are they not considering other options, like the precinct community council? You sign in, and that is how — every year they put a certain number of people who come in to the meeting, so if they meet ten times a year you have to have a certain percentage, and then the peers vote on those who are there. Or, if they know you know the position very well, it will not be politicized because they did not do their job.

I am getting termed out, so they needed to do their job. Because I represent my community, I am getting termed out because they did not do theirs. So they appoint — and it looks political to me. If you are not part of the clique, they turn around and say we do not need you now. But when the neighborhood was burning down and no one was living there, now they need members. It took me almost a year myself, voluntarily, to get 13 board members onto the board. I have been removing board members who have not been coming to meetings and we have not had a quorum. I have been doing my job. Now I am the bad guy because I did my job. It says we need a quorum, and if you want to work for this community and help this community, we need you here. We do not need you home. I did that, and if you look it up in the rules, I terminated with the board, with their recommendations, on the grounds that they had not been coming or we did not have a quorum.

Also, before I end, we need to scrutinize the Borough Presidents' appointments, because now we are having people with personal agendas because they are part of a clique. All the time I am constantly having to tell them it has to be for the community. Every community is different, every area is different, so you have to work with and have the public's opinion — the people that live there and that are going to be impacted by that area, whatever it is. They want that, and not personal agendas or bias, and that is what we are getting.

So please do not... I might just say, my manager — I always thought she was a gentle person. It is funny, I tell this to everybody. Then I realized when I saw this man that was there — I did not know it was her dad. I grew up with her dad. Her grandfather used to teach me

(02:08:54)

baseball. You have got to wrap up

(02:08:55)

a little bit. Go ahead. So I wanted to make sure that she knows our community very well, because she does, and we want to make sure that our managers that are here continue to stay here. I agree. Thank you.

(02:09:10)

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. One quick question though: you guys, generally your boards have opposed Int 0501-2026 — I got that. Did you take a position on Int 0322-2026, or did you not take a position on that one? Go ahead.

(02:09:25)

Our board has yet to take a formal position on that. They did not. Yes, did not.

(02:09:31)

All right. Do you have any sense in Brooklyn of the process for getting community board members on board? Because I just know the Manhattan process, so I am not familiar with the other process. Is there a process for that, or are you not familiar with it?

(02:09:51)

In other words, when you apply to the community board, you fill out an application. Then in Manhattan you go through a screening panel, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

(02:09:59)

Does something like that happen in Brooklyn, or do you not know?

(02:10:02)

That is a process, but we do not know the process. Hold on, I will come to you. Go ahead.

(02:10:06)

There is a process, but a lot of the members that I get have never even been to a community board. I have been District Manager for over 11 years and I am teaching them — it is their first time ever seeing a community board. So something is...

(02:10:17)

Okay, all right. That is helpful. Do you want to come in?

(02:10:19)

There is a process. Once you apply, interviews will be conducted, and most of the time it is interviewing of new applicants as opposed to people who have historically been on the board. But sometimes they will re-interview people who have been on the board, and that is how they make their determination. It is a variety of staff at Borough Hall that help out with that. Okay, thank you.

(02:10:34)

Did you want to say something? Go ahead. Thank

(02:10:41)

you. In addition to what has been said already, we find at Community Board Eight that our best board members are ones that have visited from the community and just sat in on our meetings. I just wanted to add that.

(02:10:54)

In Manhattan, if they had not been there, they were not getting on — that is what I can tell you right now. Thank you very much. The next is Sean Campbell from Brooklyn 14, Sandra Makin from Manhattan Six, Carl Henry Cesar from Brooklyn, Emil Mica from Staten Island and Dante Ardwine. Thank you.

(02:11:33)

Whoever would like to start. Good afternoon, Chair Brewer and members of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation. My name is Sandy McKee and I am the Chair of Manhattan Community Board Six. I am here to state Six's opposition to Int 0501-2026. Manhattan Community Board Six opposed

(02:11:56)

the earlier version of this measure at this Committee's oversight hearing last year, and our position has not changed. Int 0501-2026 is a solution in search of a problem. No one has shown a need for it, and what it would actually do is introduce instability into community boards and inject politics into a role that is meant to be free of it.

The strength of a community board comes from two things: its independence and the deep institutional knowledge built up in its district office and members over many years. That knowledge of the district's history, its agencies and its people takes years to build, and it is often the difference between a community problem that gets solved and one that does not. That institutional knowledge matters now more than ever, with term limits for community board members taking effect in less than a year. Members will soon begin turning over far more quickly, and the continuity that holds a board together will rest less and less on the members alone and increasingly on the district manager's shoulders.

Disrupting that continuity on an arbitrary schedule does not reform anything. It discards the very thing that makes the board effective, and it is the residents we serve who will pay the price. If there were real concerns somewhere about a district manager, we would want them addressed. But the remedy for an isolated concern is not an amendment to the City Charter that affects all 59 community boards. Int 0501-2026 reaches into every district in the City to solve a problem that we are not even aware exists.

A change of this magnitude to how community boards function should never be made without the boards themselves at the table, and we were not consulted. Manhattan Community Board Six urges the Committee to reject Int 0501-2026 outright and to work in partnership with boards rather than weaken the systems that support good government at the neighborhood level.

(02:13:50)

Thank you. Thank you very much. Who is next? Good morning.

(02:13:56)

Dante Arnwine, District Manager of Brooklyn Community Board Nine. First I just want to take the opportunity to thank my colleagues for their strong testimony so far.

A little bit about this — my story as District Manager is a little different than most. Prior to being District Manager, our board at Nine did not have a District Manager for five to six years. So what does that mean? Think about if your district did not have a voice — that your community, all the community conversations, whether it is about sanitation or transportation, all of those community conversations that community gets left out of. And that is what I walked into when I took the job as District Manager.

I can tell you after five years of being on the job, it has taken five years for me to gain the trust of not only board members who have come in and out of the board, but also the people that I serve. I know that because I can stand in a room now with people who used to sue our community board and our elected officials, and now I can speak to them and have that cordial conversation about how we get things done together to move the needle on things that we might not necessarily agree on.

I think that this position in itself is really about the trust of the community. Elected officials come and go, so do board members, but typically district managers are there for some time serving. There is no better feeling I get than when I get a constituent who comes into the office and says "I voted for you," and I get to say no you did not — this is not an elected position. So no matter who the person is, no matter what they think their political party is, we get to serve in a nonpartisan and a fair manner.

I ask that the City Council — for the members who do not know their district managers — reach out to your district manager. Ask them what they are going through, because I can tell you from my time as District Manager I have done it all. We are asking for support from this City Council, and it is for various things. Wild things happen in a community board office. One day the gate goes out — that is $10,000 — that literally just happened. These are small things we cannot just call and find a vendor for. These are small things we need help with. So I ask the Council to oblige all the requests to increase our budgets, and again, if you do not know your district manager, meet with them. Thank you very much.

(02:16:44)

Hello, Sean Ellis Campbell, District Manager of Brooklyn Community Board 14. I would just reiterate what my colleagues and their chairs have said today, and I would just reiterate the four previous times I have come to testify before this body. In fact, to save money, I found some hard copies of the last time I testified, so I have just updated the date and resubmitted that testimony.

One thing that has changed since reading that testimony back then is that I had at that time two community coordinators plus myself. I now have one, because we are at the point in our budgets at 14 where we were not able to offer a merit increase to anybody — not even a percentage. I have a staffer who left for a job where a raise was on her horizon.

I did want to speak to the question about how much, because the idea of at least $50,000 for a baseline budget increase — that figure derived from the idea that we wanted the annual budget increase to be tied to something so that we did not have to come begging annually, since it clearly does not work out for us very often. The $50,000 was pegged to the Borough President's budget increases over the years, or a full complement of staff — that is what would have made us whole a couple of years ago when we came up with that number. So that number would have to increase. I would encourage the Council to consider pegging a baseline budget increase for community boards to a formula or to another pegged budget increase, for a future ability to plan and continue to serve our communities. Thank you.

(02:18:34)

Thank you very much. Next.

(02:18:37)

Chairwoman Brewer and members of the Committee, good afternoon. Thank you very much for allowing me to testify. My name is Carl Henry Cesar. I am a current board member of Brooklyn Community Board 14. I am the former chairperson of the booking committee on Board 14, and I am testifying on my own behalf — I am not testifying on behalf of the board.

I am here in opposition to Int 0501-2026. As everyone said so eloquently before me, I think number one it is a reckless power grab. From the standpoint of Int 0501-2026, a council member's legislative aide could be fired by the mayor — there is no end to that.

Number two, I think it is operationally abusive, because as people have said before me very eloquently, term limits are coming, and that puts more stress on the district offices and more stress on the Borough President's offices to pick the right people. So I feel like given that forthcoming climate, it makes more sense and is a better use of their time to figure out how to pick better people, not to figure out how to fire district managers as well.

The third thing — because I am a fan of sports — there are many franchises across many sports that have languished for decades because their management meddles in the wrong things. The Cowboys have languished for decades because Jerry Jones meddles in the wrong things. Dan Snyder with the Washington Commanders meddled in the wrong things. If this Bill passes, you will have borough presidents meddling in the wrong things. That is it for me. Thank you very much.

(02:20:17)

Thank you very much. Go ahead.

(02:20:23)

Members, and particularly Frank Morano for inviting me

(02:20:27)

here to talk about this favorite project — some of that design of the flag for Staten Island, which I promise was not created with artificial intelligence. President James Otto brought it to me and said we have got to redo this, we are being represented poorly. So happily we got started on a brand new flag.

We began with the basics. There was some equity built into the Staten Island seal which existed, but as far as I was concerned it looked like it was squeezed out of a toothpaste tube, so it needed some freshening up and smartening up with crisp graphics. We began with pencil sketches, we had our colleagues pose for the illustrator with my partner, and then we took the step-by-step journey to a final design, which was this. We got a little bit of press — we got a story in the Staten Island Advance and a full page in the New York Times. So we were quite pleased. Thank you for allowing me to speak about it.

(02:22:03)

Thank you very much. I like it a lot. And then I learned from the briefing paper — thank you CM Morano — that Manhattan does not have it codified either.

(02:22:13)

Thank you. That was very interesting. I saw other boroughs do so, like Staten Island and Manhattan, and I said congratulations.

(02:22:23)

We have got great leadership with Frank Morano, and Jimmy Otto is my hero — he is a lot of folks' heroes. So anybody with questions, go ahead.

I have one question for Micah on the flag and then one question for the community board panel. Micah, thank you not only for being here today and spending hours here waiting to testify and giving some of the perspective and the history of the flag. I have a two-part question.

One is: what does it matter what flag a borough has? Staten Islanders still have to pay the same taxes, they still have to deal with the same problems with the cost of living, crime, sanitation and everything — who cares what kind of flag we have?

Second, a lot of my colleagues in this Council, because of concerns about how things used to be in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and evolving trends in the treatment of groups — for instance, numerous groups that were formerly mistreated by European colonial settlers — they wonder what actually is in this flag and whether there is somebody or something in this flag that might be controversial. I am wondering if you can actually explain some of the symbolism and some of the images in the flag itself so my colleagues know what they are voting on.

(02:23:51)

We liked very much the original seal for its allegorical content. That is to say, Henry Hudson came into the Narrows in 1609, so his ship the Half Moon is portrayed there. He was greeted by indigenous Staten Islanders — there was no Staten Island yet, but they were farmers and fishermen who greeted him. This figure, an allegorical figure, represents the city. Her sword is pointed down indicating peace. Her shield contains two turtledoves who mate for life. So we thought there was great value in the imagery, brought into a contemporary feeling.

To what you have asked: I have been privileged to work as an art director and graphic designer all my life, most recently for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It has always been my goal in doing my work to communicate ideas, and for Staten Island to be proud of a flag that represents us. I think that has value. If we can bring it up to a level that somebody can look at and say "yeah, I feel good about that," then I think that was the purpose.

(02:25:36)

My one question on the community board front, for anybody that wants to answer it, is: what do you think of the idea of allowing council members to appoint half the community board members in a binding rather than an advisory manner? For anybody — just turn your mic on if you do want to respond.

(02:25:58)

I was going to say I am the chair of my local community board, and there is a really robust review that happens now. The community board actually has the opportunity to opine — to say, you know, this person has come to meetings, they are interested in the community, they volunteer. Especially for new council members, that information is just not available. So I really think it should be the current system that we have, where the Borough President works with the council members to determine from the pool of people that have applied who would be the best fit for that community. Our board has not taken a stand on this, so this is my personal opinion at this point. Thank you.

(02:26:44)

Anybody else have a personal opinion they want to share?

(02:26:48)

Well, I have the floor at the witness table.

(02:26:50)

Yes, so personal opinion — I agree with what the chairperson said. Just to reiterate: yes, I agree with that. The two things that would have to work would be a borough office that would be equally engaging with that city council member. Just because if one of those two were not participating fully, that would fall apart. My concerns would be not only some of the politicization, but also just the fact that you would need both parties to see who is paying lip service to coming to the community board meetings and engaging versus who is actually doing so. I think that partnership — if both parties are engaging in good faith with each other — then yes, I would have hesitation about doing it outright.

(02:27:47)

The last point I would make is that it would have a practical impact, because the Borough Presidents I have served under as District Manager — there have been three of them — have always honored the nominations. The only time there was a glitch in that system was when council members did not turn in names for their nominations, and then whose responsibility was it to fill those slots? Some Borough Presidents argued that without nominations those were going to be vacancies, and others understood the language of the Charter to direct them, because it says the Borough President shall — and I think the same applies to council members. I think that is where the glitch could continue, and even if this were to pass, the question is what happens if names are not forwarded by council members.

So I would, if the Council considers this, look at that potential gap. There is a theme today where there are some things already written into the language of the Charter and the law, and if it is not being enforced now and instead we are just introducing new laws on top of the ones that are not being enforced, then there is a systems problem that should also be considered. Thank you.

(02:29:05)

Thank you very much. Right, online okay. Thank you everybody, you are fabulous. I love community boards, I love district managers.

(02:29:23)

Now we will turn to the virtual panelists. A member of our staff will unmute you and the Sergeant at Arms will set the timer and give you the go-ahead to begin. Please announce yourself before delivering your testimony.

Now I have several names. First we are going to Wayne Rosenfeld.

Good morning, Chair and members of the Committee. I am here in support of Int 0322-2026. I am a former ten-year member of Community Board Three on Staten Island. Professionally I am the Executive Director of the East Midwood Jewish Center in Brooklyn. When I first joined, community board appointments were made through cooperation between elected officials — recommendations came from different voices, different perspectives and different parts of the community. The result was a board that better reflected where people had served. Today community board members are ultimately appointed by a single Borough President. While the Borough

(02:30:28)

President plays an important role, no elected official should have exclusive control over the composition of every community board in an entire borough. Community boards work best when they reflect the full range of voices within a community. No single elected official, regardless of party or philosophy, should be able to shape the membership of an entire community board on their own. Community boards are intended to represent neighborhoods, not the agenda of any one officeholder. A shared appointment process promotes independence, diversity of thought and better outcomes for the communities these boards serve.

Council members are directly elected by the communities they represent and often have the closest connection to neighborhood concerns and local stakeholders. Giving council members the authority to appoint half of the members creates balance, accountability and broader representation. New York City has 59 community districts — Manhattan has 12, Brooklyn has 18, Queens has 14, the Bronx has 12 and Staten Island only three. Each community has its own character, priorities and challenges. It is unreasonable to expect five Borough Presidents alone to determine the membership of all 59 boards.

This Bill does not eliminate the Borough President's role. It simply creates a shared appointment process, ensuring that more voices are involved and that community boards better reflect the communities they serve. For those reasons I urge the Council to support Int 0322-2026. Thank you for your time.

(02:31:56)

Thank you very much. Clifford Hazen — he waited for two hours but had to go back to his job as a teacher. Eddie Mark? Eddie Mark, yes.

(02:32:23)

Go ahead. Hi, my name is Eddie, District Manager for Community Board... down here in Brighton Beach. I am going to read my testimony to the members here.

To the members of the Committee and New York City Council members at large, thank you for the opportunity to submit this testimony in reference to Int 0501-2026, a local law to amend the New York City Charter in relation to the term of employment of the community board district manager — a four-year term with the possibility of reappointment — and to provide the Borough President with the power to remove the district manager.

With the magnitude of projects and situations that take place within a community board, it stands to reason that a four-year term is not sufficient time for a district manager to grasp the needs and issues of a diverse community. Community boards are now and have always been independent, non-mayoral city agencies. They are advisory bodies on proposals, permits, events and applications, and their overriding responsibility is to be a mediator between the community and the city agencies. The community board's independence must be preserved. Its function must be supported with a budget that works with inflation and with all city agencies and elected officials.

That the mayor or the Borough President can fire the staff of an independent city agency for no reason is without precedent and against all regulations of the City Charter. This proposal must be withdrawn entirely. Thank you.

(02:34:46)

Thank you very much. The next is — I am sorry — Sabrina Massey. Hi, can you hear

(02:34:58)

me? Yes. Well, good afternoon. Thank you for having me. My name is Sabrina Massey and I am here to say that I am against term limits for district managers. I am a community board member, and as a new community board member, CB 16 has a lot of challenges and a lot of issues.

If you put a term limit on the district manager, that is limiting the information that the board members are going to be able to receive. We already have the challenge of having board members show up. With the work of the district manager, who has to learn a wealth of information and pass it down to the board members, that is going to be a challenge. The board members will also suffer in terms of knowledge. It is going to limit people wanting to become a board member as well as a district manager.

So I am against it. I think that once the board members and the district manager form a relationship and try to have a successful board, that is going to be taken away if you put a term limit on it. That is my opinion.

(02:36:18)

Thank you. Thank you for your service. Annalisa Purdy is next.

(02:36:32)

My name is Annalisa J. Purdy. I am a board member also with Community Board 16. I work with Miss Massey in Ocean Hill Brownsville and I am the Legislative Chair.

I am also a fourth generation New Yorker and I would like to reiterate the opposition to Int 0501-2026, as has been mentioned by other community board members and district managers. This proposed legislation would actually limit the power that community boards have to make decisions about their community and would severely impact the work that is being done in the communities by replacing institutional knowledge and time spent, both with practical application of knowledge and the nuances that come with working with people within the community, with the potential for a disruption the ramifications of which we would not be able to see for years to come.

In a time when community members across community board districts across the five boroughs are looking for stability in their neighborhoods and the opportunities to voice their opinions and participate in the work of their district, district managers are an integral part of that. They are not just colleagues. They are people who we have grown close to and who have a very intense knowledge of the different issues facing the community, and that is knowledge that cannot be simply replaced or constantly turned over by disruptions.

We also want to ensure that people are encouraged to serve on their community board and maintain, as is mentioned by previous community board members, that sense of trust that is integral to how community boards work. Thank you for your time and I will be submitting written testimony as well.

(02:38:24)

Thank you very much. I appreciate that testimony. Amanda Wilkinson, hi, good...

(02:38:29)

...afternoon, Chair Brewer and members of the Committee on Governmental Operations, State and Federal Legislation. I really appreciate all of your time. I am a healthcare provider here in Manhattan, also a mandated reporter, and much of my concern, along with many parents, leaders, teachers, healthcare providers as well, and most importantly our students... our children, let us speak and ask for your support for further enforcing what I would suggest is a safety, transparency and accountability framework, however that could be implemented. Because at this time there is not much enforcement for leadership of schools to be transparent with parents or guardians when it comes to acts towards their children, when students are reporting certain incidents that are concerning their mental and physical health and any harm or threats. This includes sexual harassment, bullying, discrimination, threats, breaking of personal property and physical harm.

There is a lack of accountability. There is not transparency involved. Most often the students are silenced. Most often the parents are left out of any of the reporting itself until they find out through their children or other students or other parents. And when you come together as a community to try to hold accountability when certain behaviors and incidents continue to escalate, where there is physical harm, there are threats and there are ethical and legal disputes... that is not being accountable for anything taking place, for disciplinary action rightfully so, either with a student who is in question or with student leadership or staff members. And most often this is just silencing our students and leaving the parents and communities helpless when they...

(02:40:36)

...are reporting and asking for assistance in keeping their kids safe. When it comes to all...

(02:40:42)

No, keep going, keep going. This is not on the agenda today so we are letting you finish, but I just want to make sure you know that. Go ahead. I appreciate your time.

(02:40:50)

Absolutely, thank you so much. This is not just one time. This is across the board of our City. It is across the board of our state. It is across the board federally as well. There are acts in place, there are laws in place regarding bullying, yet there is no transparency and enforcement when things are not getting reported and children are at risk and are being harmed. Their safety is at stake. Another thing that I would like to mention is when we have youth officers on board with our schools, whether there is a staffing issue or for any reason that they get involved in a school... we thank you very much, we will go to the next. All right, but thank you very much.

(02:41:36)

For being here. The next is Justin... oh, good...

(02:41:44)

...afternoon. To the committee, Chair Brewer and...

(02:41:48)

...the rest of those that testified today. My name is... with Brooklyn Community Board 4. I echo the sentiments of the other community board members that have testified today. In the will of my district manager, Celestine Leon, and our chair, Robert Camacho, I am also lending my voice in opposition to Int 0501-2026.

Our district manager has the institutional knowledge that is valuable to our community board. Unlike other districts, we have waiting lists to join. That is not something that we are going to experience in Brooklyn Community Board 4, and it is not something that is experienced in other Brooklyn community boards, because of the loss that we are going to be experiencing next year with our chairperson who is now term limited. The passing of this Bill would severely cripple our community board because most of the people that are joining do not have any institutional knowledge, and the knowledge that they do have of city agencies, City laws and politics in general is minimal and very specific. We depend heavily on our district manager for information. He is always very quick to give us information, keep us informed and keep us accountable.

This intro really is kind of like a power grab and I just do not feel like it is appropriate for a borough president or anybody to have the ability to remove a district manager, because the process already exists to remove them at the community board level. It is unnecessary and I think that it would have implications and ramifications in the future that we would not even be able to anticipate right now. So I would hope this Bill also just stops here and does not move on any further, because again the processes already exist to remove a district manager.

If that happened in our Brooklyn Community Board 4, many of our knowledgeable members are also termed out next year. We will not have the authority or the efficacy to continue the work that we do on our committees. We will not have quorum. We will not be able to hold City government and City agencies accountable, especially in neighborhoods like ours. Bushwick is still experiencing gentrification, it is still experiencing hostility from landlords, it is having tremendous growth in nightlife concentrated in a single area, something that the state and local authority honestly does not give much thought about. Our borough president may be on his way to Congress. We do not know what state of politics we are going to be getting into in the coming years. It is really important that we continue to have our district manager at our community board.

(02:45:10)

Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I want to thank all the district managers, the community board members and of course the individuals who have spoken today on this topic, as well as people who spoke about Int 0951-2026 and Proposed Int. No. 12-A. Your comments were very well thought out and much appreciated, and thank you for taking the time to be here. That is also something that is very precious to you, as I know. Needless to say, I support what you are stating. Thank you so much. This hearing is now ended.