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 need to make sure that the CEC advances the interests of the public, not the politicians.
As such, we will advocate for the development of high quality public participation processes and help city agencies implement them by doing the following:
- 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.