Letters to the editor

Volume One, Issue 31, April 20 - 26, 2007

Straightening the record on C.B. 4 meetings

To The Editor:
Re: “Turn off that camera phone now!” (The Buzz, April 6)

Judging from your reporter’s note on C.B. 4’s proposed recording policy, I must have been particularly incomprehensible at last Wednesday’s Board meeting, for which I apologize. There is no question but that the public has the right to attend any of our meetings to observe and to participate, and that includes recording the proceedings in various formats. The request to film the Quality of Life Committee’s discussion of voting machines was the first we had received and raised some questions, so I quickly drafted a preliminary filming policy.

Our concern was that the filming could interfere with the ability of others to observe and participate in the meeting. For example, a large video camera on a tripod with multiple bright lights might make it difficult to conduct a meeting in the small conference room in the C.B. 4 office where the committee meets, as might someone trying to move about the narrow room seeking the best camera angles. That is why our draft policy specifically states that making appropriate accommodations is the reason for requiring prior notification. We did not have sufficient notice of the filming of the committee meeting to be able to accommodate it properly; in the future, we would try to find a larger room if it were needed and if we had adequate notice.

At the meeting of the Executive Committee we reviewed the draft I had written and decided to generalize the policy to include all forms of recording. We also discussed the necessity for releases, which some of us had signed for the making of an earlier documentary on the Jets Stadium issue. The legal guidance we will be seeking is not related to whether someone may record our meetings, but whether someone making a recording needs releases from those being recorded, especially if the use of the recording is for commercial purposes. Does someone have the right to film members of the public attending a C.B. 4 meeting and then use those images in a commercial film without their permission and without compensation to them? We felt that the responsibility for making this determination should lie with the person making the recording, which is what our draft policy requires.

C.B. 4 welcomes the attendance and participation of the public at all of our meetings, including Chelsea Now reporters with their digital recorders, camera phones and pencils. We do expect them to be courteous and respectful of others who are present, and, if a recording is to be made, we believe it is respectful of others to make their presence known, identifying themselves and the purpose of the recording.

J. Lee Compton
Compton is chairperson of Community Board 4

Follow the leader—all are not equal

To The Editor:
Re: “Robbing Peter to pay Paul” (letter to the editor, April 6)

Larry Penner and I don’t know each other, but I think I have seen prior Letters to the Editor of his. As someone who has been observing the City Council on and off since 1978, I can empathize with his feelings of frustration and outrage at some of the behavior of various current and past members. However, I think we all need to keep the “normal curve” in mind.

Mr. Penner is absolutely correct that the present, self-authorized base salary for City Council members, “supplemented by lulus ranging to $28,000,” gives them an “average salary for a part-time job” that is “five times that of a rookie police officer!” It also is true that some of the “member items” funded at the behest of some Council members are “pork-barrel” deals. However, it certainly is not true that “any police officer is worth any or all 51 NYC Council members combined” [emphasis mine]. Nor do I suppose that “most New Yorkers” think so.

Given the unreformed Democratic (and Republican) county machines, the voluntary and fraud-vulnerable nature of the public-campaign-finance system, and the apathy of so many citizens who may or may not be registered to vote, we are lucky to have as many excellent Council members as we do. Among the best longtime members are Gale A. Brewer and Robert Jackson (both Manhattan), John Liu (Queens), Maria del Carmen Arroyo and Helen Foster (Bronx), Charles Barron ( Brooklyn) and Michael McMahon (S.I.). Some newer members who are sure to join the Council’s “finest fifth” are Dan Garodnick, Melissa Mark Viverito,and Rosie Mendez (all Manhattan). Some of these people put in seven-day weeks, probably doing 70 hours of Council work. Several other Council members make up the one-third who are doing as good a job as can be expected, under the circumstances.

Those circumstances lead me to comment on the, to me, surprising fact that Mr. Penner did not mention Council Speaker Christine Quinn at all. It is she who arranged with Mayor Bloomberg for the 2006 Council salary increases. It is she who appointed the committee chairpersons and other lulu recipients. It is she who stated publicly, with a straight face (Nov. 8, 2006, and other times), that she never has seen a better group of legislators than the City Council. It is she who publicly praises Finance Committee chairperson Weprin, whom Mr. Penner seems to disdain, as a fine candidate to be the next New York City Controller. It is she who laughed long and loudly when I suggested that objective people should be appointed to rate each Council individual’s performance annually. It is she who still has not answered my August 11, 2006, typed questions about her policies as Speaker (the first question was about “member items”). It is she who refused, for months, to allow the full Council to vote to recommend that paper ballots, with optical scanners, be part of the new voting-equipment system, even though 43 of the 49 Council members sponsored that resolution.

It is Ms. Quinn who decides whom to invite to accompany her to Israel, Ireland and (I suppose next) Italy. It is she who plays negative “identity politics” to an extent that “Boss” Tweed never did. Take a look at the second sentence of her “capsule bio” on the Council Website. She claims to be the first female, the first openly lesbian, and the first Irish person to be Speaker. First, so what? Second, she’s only the third Speaker, so this is not worth comment. Third, City Council President Carol Bellamy (who was elected by the voters, not by Council members who owed or were promised favors) definitely is female and I think reasonably could be said to be openly lesbian. Fourth, Ms. Quinn may be more Irish-American than I am—she has at least one parent born on the Emerald Isle—but neither of us is Irish. (I was born in New York City and lived in the Bronx until I was18; she lived in Commack, L.I.)

Kathy Casey