As the voice of New Yorkers, the Public Advocate is the perfect position to provide oversight and help improve New York City government’s civic participation programs.
In 2017 New Yorkers voted overwhelmingly to establish a “Civic Engagement Commission” (CEC) to “enhance civic participation.” As an entity consisting exclusively of mayoral appointees, we know the CEC will put the interests of the politicians in front of the people.
As Public Advocate, I will assemble civic engagement experts and organizes into a coherent community, give them cutting-edge transparency and participatory democracy tools and help them organize sensational civic engagement experiences to the public that can’t be ignored by the mayor, city agencies, CEC and media.
I’ll also:
- Create a directory of all the city’s existing public participation processes and the agencies, division and staff involved with them.
- Maintain a website that analyzes these programs’ characteristics, metrics and outcomes.
- Publish recommendations for how these programs can be improved.
- Offer trainings and resources to agencies and staff to improve their capacity to implement quality participation programs.
- Deliver information to the CEC to enhance their effectiveness.