Cherished New York City voters, this midterm election, you are not only being asked to consider candidates. You are also being asked to consider ideas.
Are they the most exciting ideas you will ever hear? Absolutely not. But could they cause meaningful change to how the City operates? Yes indeed. You'll be voting on a series of tweaks to City law that will make it easier to reconfigure our roads for safety, efficiency, and leisure.
You'll also be deciding how the City puts money aside for a crisis scenario such as, I don't know, an AI bubble collapse.
Where did these proposals come from? In May, Mayor Zohran Mamdani convened a charter review commission led by Patrick Gaspard, the former diplomat, de Blasio advisor, and Democrat-whisperer. The commission heard testimony from more than 1,000 New Yorkers, including elected officials and advocates, and released their proposals in July.
Mayors frequently do this. Last year, New Yorkers voted yes on a series of complicated and extremely consequential housing ballot proposals (among others) from Mayor Eric Adams's charter commission that reshifted power to approve projects from the City Council to the mayor and the five borough presidents.
If 2025's major ballot prop theme was Yay Increase Multifamily Buildings Yugely (YIMBY), 2026's might be Fix All Streets and other Stuff Today (FASST).
This top-line message isn't subtle: Gaspard's charter review commission called themselves "the Commission on Government Efficiency (COGE)" as a somewhat puzzling reference to the reviled DOGE. And recently, Mayor Mamdani's office has released slick promos that very strongly suggest that these ballot propositions are good for the city.