[Spotted on Avenue C and Seventh Street]
As you may have heard... the midterm elections are today... and in NYC, polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. The Board of Elections has this site for you to find your polling location.
Aside from all the various races — WNYC has a guide to the candidates here — there are three ballot measures for NYC voters:
Proposal 1: Campaign Finance
This proposal would lower the amount that a candidate for city office may accept from a contributor to their campaign, increase the amount of public funds available to participating candidates, and make public funds available earlier. Candidates in the 2021 election would have the choice of whether or not to have the new limits apply to them.
Proposal 2: Civic Engagement Commission
This proposal would create a Civic Engagement Commission that would centralize civic engagement initiatives, create a citywide participatory budgeting program, assist community boards, and provide language interpreters throughout the city on Election Day.
Proposal 3: Community Boards
This proposal would change how community boards throughout the city are run, by imposing term limits on appointees, changing the application and appointment process for community board members, and require the Civic Engagement Commission (if Question 2 is approved) to provide resources to community boards.
Term limits for Community Boards is of particular interest... Curbed has an explainer here looking at the argument for and against term limits. (FWIW: The Orchard Street Block Association is for term limits.)
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UPDATED 11/7: All three ballot measures were approved by voters.
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For inspiration, longtime New Yorker contributor Roger Angell is 98 and legally blind, and he's voting today. Read his latest essay here.
And lastly... there are numerous voting-related deals today ... including a free day pass from Citi Bike (if you download the app) ... or 10-percent off (with an I Voted sticker) at Academy Records on 12th Street and Limited To One Record Store on 10th Street... or a free coffee at Black Seed Bagels on First Avenue... at the UCB Theatre on Avenue A, you can show your I Voted sticker to their box office staff to get in for free to any show tonight (subject to venue capacity)...
14 comments:
Vote no on all 3 proposals. Remember de Blasio is behind them, the guy who organized a PAC fund in city hall in his first few years of his term who took donations/bribes from nefarious businessmen leading to sweet favors and city services for them, which is enough reason to shoot it down.
Don't vote. It only encourages the bastards.
--P.J. O'Rourke
Unless you're in Chicago, where they Vote Early, Vote Often.
"The only constant in New York City life is change — except on community boards. Over time, demographics in all neighborhoods change — and those changing demographics reflect the shifting desires, needs, perspectives and values of growing segments of the population."
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2018/11/05/endorsement-vote-yes-on-ballot-question-3/
CB3 is great but all around the city community boards suck.
Please vote yes on measure #3
In the 66th district there is a nice rare opportunity to cast a vote not to the incumbent, 19 term assembly member Deborah Glick. Voted into office in 1990, ran unopposed in multiple elections.
Today I can cast my vote to Cynthia Nixon who will run on the WFP line. If Nixon wins she will resign from her office and the WFP will be able to fill in the position, a rare opportunity to break the Democratic Party corrupt political machine.
Yes on term limits! They still get to serve 8 years and just have to step away for 2 years before they can be reappointed again. During these 2 years, they can still participate and provide input during public comment or as public members to specific committees. Our community boards are much whiter and older than the communities they supposedly serve; it's time to open up some of the spots to new voices and ideas. It's insulting to say that there's nobody else borough presidents can appoint who wouldn't be a developer puppet; come on. There are millions of people in this city.
I am independent but voting all democrat this time, specifically to send a message to the fat cats in Washington.
Vote(d)
1 Yes
2 No
3 No
There are no term limits for land use lawyers.
As a former Community Board member, I say vote YES on Prop 3. When I got on the board in the mid-1990s there were people who had been on it since the late 1970s; they tended to form factions and cliques and vote in their own best interests rather than the overall neighborhood's (Grand Street, I'm looking at you). They were still there when I left in the early 2000s, and some of them are STILL on the board, even though they're in their dotage. Shaking it up with the infusion of fresh blood on a regular basis can only be healthy for the EV/LES as a whole. (But definitely vote NO on 2, that's the one DeBlahblahblahsio wants most, let's deny him.)
Do you know who else is for term limits on Community Board members? REBNY. Big real estate would love this. They know that it takes years for new board members to learn the ins and outs of land use/real estate laws, and their lawyers will be able to run circles around less experienced board members .This is a giveaway to the real estate industry, whose lawyers, as !0:12AM so aptly points out, do not have term limits. Vote NO on 3.
It doesn't matter who you vote for, the cashless society which is PURE TYRANNY is coming regardless. Not one candidate said a word against it. When the State controls your money, you have no rights. But the volk is obsessed with having an identity.
@10:49 am: I don't understand that reasoning. It seems to me that as much as the community board knows about liquor licensing it hasn't stopped endless license approvals. How do conniving lawyers convince board members to make certain recommendations (not a rhetorical question)?
The machine didn't work right so my vote was lost - this was voter theater, like the TSA is security theater. or was it purposeful sabotage to force introduction of phone based apps next time?
@Anon 6:26am
PJ stole that from Harlan Ellison.
Harlan used this as an audience goose-er when things weren't lively enough beginning in at least the early 70s.
Cute, but even then I felt it was stooopid!
VOTE EARLY!
VOTE OFTEN!
I got a free coffee at Joe on West 8th street, and a "will vote" sticker—I already had.
I've always tended to vote against term limits. Every time that an election rolls around, we get to decide if that representative/judge/board member/etc has served us well. If we don't think so, we get to vote for someone new. But if I think that I have been well-served, why shouldn't I have the right to keep that person there for as long as I wish?
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