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A report from DFNYC's Dan Jacoby The Charter Revision Commission has submitted their proposals, and they left most of the Charter untouched. Even in their "final" report, they admit that there is a lot that they would like to do, but haven't done it. The commission also decided to lump all of their proposed changes into two ballot initiatives, because (they claim) the Board of Elections told them they had to fit everything on one sheet of paper—which isn't true. The first ballot initiative would return term limits to two full (four-year) terms, grandfather all current elected officials in (so they get three terms), and prohibit the City Council from changing their own term limits again (they could change limits for future Council members). A detailed analysis is available at http://www.grassrootsnyc.org/issues/charterrevision_termlimits.htm . The second ballot initiative is an agglomeration of nine separate proposals in three categories. Three of the nine proposals were on the ballot in 2003, and were defeated by over 65% of voters. There is a wide variety of opinions on each of the separate proposals; nobody seems to like all of them, or dislike all of them, and most people are trying to decide whether the good things are worth accepting the bad things as well. A detailed analysis of these proposals is available at http://www.grassrootsnyc.org/issues/charterrevision_the_rest.htm . Dan is the founding executive director of GrassrootsNYC and has been investigating the Charter Revision Commission and covering its public hearings. Last Updated ( Wednesday, 06 October 2010 )

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