Community Board Term Limits Draw Fire As Mayor Stumps For Them

NEW YORK — With just five days until voters decide their fate, Mayor Bill de Blasio stumped Thursday for three City Charter amendments that he says will bolster democracy. But a group of City Council members urged New Yorkers to strike one of them down, calling it a power grab.

De Blasio appointed a Charter Revision Commission this spring to propose changes to the city's governing document with a focus on campaign finance and civic engagement issues. The 15-member panel produced three ballot proposals: one to lower campaign contribution limits for city elections, one to create a so-called Civic Engagement Commission, and one to establish term limits for community board members.

De Blasio rallied Thursday with labor leaders, political activists and other elected officials in support of the measures, which will appear on the back of ballots in Tuesday's midterm elections. They'll help get money out of politics and empower people and communities who get shut out of the system as it is, he argued.

"That’s what this is all about this Tuesday: Opening up the doors, making democracy work again, letting everyday people decide — not the wealthy, not the people who can write the big checks," the Democratic mayor said.

(Read more about the Charter Revision Commission proposals here.)

De Blasio campaigned for the measures over the weekend and has put $1.1 million in taxpayer money toward an advertisement supporting them, according to Politico New York.

But the proposal to eventually limit members of the city's 59 community boards to eight years of service drew fire Thursday from five City Council members, who worry it could undercut a check on city government.

Forcing longtime neighborhood advocates off community boards would strip the bodies of their institutional knowledge and possibly make it easier for developers to ram big projects through, the lawmakers argued.

"Term limits happen by the elected officials who are responsible for putting smart voices on the community board and knowing enough not to take the ones who support the neighborhood, who have longstanding knowledge of the neighborhood — not to take those people off the community board," said Councilwoman Helen Rosenthal (D-Manhattan).

Community board members are appointed by borough presidents with input from council members. The ballot proposal would limit them to four two-year terms, with implementation of the measure staggered to prevent a massive turnover at one time.

The proposal is an effort to make community boards, which play a largely advisory role in city government, more representative of the neighborhoods that they represent.

But Councilman Bob Holden (D-Queens) said it's looking to address an "invented" problem. There are 49 vacancies on community boards in Queens, he said, but there hasn't been a surge of applications to fill them.

De Blasio, though, said the term-limit measure "is simply a way of saying, 'Let's give everyone a chance to participate.'" He called community boards "the most grassroots form of democracy."

"If the door is not open, that’s not democracy," the mayor said. "Community boards have to be for everyone. Every community, every background, young, old — everyone needs a chance to serve."

(Lead image: Voting booths and crates of polling station supplies are seen in the Bronx in November 2016. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)