Of this enormous outlay, a sum aggregating $691,200.33, appears to have been incurred in the condemnation of land appraised at $277,007.50, and in purchases by contract amounting to $507,263.67. This vastly disproportionate expenditure is due to provisions of the statute creating the board, and revised legislation would fail of complete success if it did not prevent such excessive cost in the future. Local Boards. We recommend that there be but one local board. for each borough, to consist of the members of the council elected from it. This determination has been reached after thorough investigation and prolonged consideration, and we believe that the best interests of the localities will be subserved by the adoption of this course and the discontinuance of the large number of local boards now in existence. We also recommend that the borough boards shall have power upon their own initiative, without approval of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, to undertake local improvements not inconsistent with the general plan of city improvement, in all cases in which the cost of an improvement shall not exceed five thousand dollars - the cost to be assessed upon the area of benefit. Inferior Local Courts. No change is recommended in respect of inferior local courts, except that provision be made for the appointment of two additional justices of special sessions, seriously needed at the present time. A number of sections of the present charter devoted to the inferior civil and criminal courts will be carried into the administrative code, until the passage of a law respecting courts of inferior local criminal jurisdiction throughout the state and a new municipal courts act are enacted. The only fundamental change we suggest is the imposition upon police magistrates of the duty (now performed by coroners) of authorizing autopsies, and of conducting inquests. Pension Funds. The proposed charter deals in the first instance in a single section with all pension funds, continuing and preserving them intact. Different pension and retirement fund sections of the present charter are largely repetitious. We have believed it better, after a general provision for the continuance of these funds, to put all sections relating to their administration, into the administrative code. Board of Assessment and Award. Great care has been given to the clarification of sections of the charter regarding the constitution and functions of the board of assessors. Inasmuch as we propose an enlargement of the powers of the former board so as to permit it to make awards for damages for changes of grade (functions which it now performs under numerous special statutes), we have changed the title of the board. Such sections of the existing charter in respect to the board of assessors, not in the new charter, as we propose to retain, are incorporated in the administrative code, which provides also machinery for the collection of assessments. In this connection we may add that the administrative code makes adequate provision for the collection of arrears of taxes and of water rents. THE MUNICIPAL CIVIL SERVICE. Sections of general application have been placed in Title 1 of the administrative departments. The tenure of employees has been safeguarded by a requirement that in the removal of any employee holding a position in the classified municipal service subject to competitive examination, there shall, together with a copy of the charges forming the basis of his dismissal and the explanation of his removal, be filed a copy of his defense with the municipal civil service commission. This may have a tendency to check a practice which tends to reduce the civil service tenure to a farce where a department head makes a charge against an employee which is abundantly met by his answer but is treated as insufficient. We recommend a particular chapter on the municipal civil service in which are set forth the fundamental principles of the Civil Service Law as applicable to the city, but without repetition of general provisions of the State Civil Service Law. This brief chapter shows the precise place and function of the municipal civil service commission in the political organization of the city. CONGESTION AND CITY PLAN. By taking the control of the city map out of the hands of the borough presidents, and by vesting the Board of Estimate and Apportionment with the power to perfect it not only, but by imposing upon that board the duty of perfecting the map and conducting all future improvements consistently with a comprehensive scheme for the physical development of the city, intelligently and harmoniously, it will be possible for the first time to provide the administrative means whereby the cure for the existing congestion of population may be accomplished. It is impossible, consistently with the welfare of the city, that present conditions should continue, or that the city should longer be menaced with an intensification of the evil. The first remedial step is to impose upon some competent body the duty to study and investigate and the power to prepare such a stable and comprehensive plan as present and future necessities may dictate, and this we believe we have done in the grant of powers to the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. This should also be of the greatest value to the Public Service Commission in connection with its work of devising a comprehensive plan for the development of the transportation facilities in the city. CONCLUSION. The diversity and importance of the subjects treated in this report and codified in the proposed charter will enable the legislature to assess the magnitude of the labor of this Commission. It has attempted to formulate a comparatively brief charter out of a body of law reaching back to colonial days, and, since 1830, covering a number of municipal charters and numerous statutes. The charter of Greater New York, as its creators admitted, was not "a charter in general terms with concise sections comprehensive in character," but was an aggregation, more or less symmetrically arranged, of all provisions of law relative to the newly constituted municipality. The Charter Revision Commission of 1900 at the outset of its report declared that it had debated whether it would undertake the preparation of a charter "different in form from the existing charter, or whether it would embody its recommendations in the form of amendments to that charter." It decided that "the limited amount of time at the command of the Commission" rendered it impossible for it to enter upon an enterprise so vast. This work has devolved by law upon the present Commission. It has endeavored to obey the legislative mandate making it obligatory to present its report before the close of the existing session. This mandate has recently been emphasized by request from the Cities Committees of the Senate and of the Assembly that a report be presented by the Commission not later than March. Obedient thereto, the Commission submits its results. Mr. Madison in the summer of 1823 wrote in reference to the work of the great federal convention of 1787 that in the latter stages of its session "it was not exempt from a degree of the hurrying influence produced by fatigue and impatience in all such bodies." The Commission has no sense of impatience beyond the realization that a truly fit charter and administrative code would be the product of work upon which no time limit is set. The Commission has been sustained in its labors by the conviction that they cannot prove futile, but must contribute to the foundation upon which a satisfactory organic law and administrative code for the city may be established. With the administrative code will be submitted special bills in reference to the various sections of the present charter and of other statutes either repealed, modified or left in full force. We cannot too highly testify our appreciation of the valuable assistance which various heads of departments and bureaus have cheerfully and courteously rendered. Respectfully submitted, WM. M. IVINS, Chairman. E. R. L. GOULD, Vice-Chairman. GEORGE CROMWELL. J. HAMPDEN DOUGHERTY. GEORGE L. DUVAL. GEORGE MCANENY. HERMAN A. METZ. HARRISON S. MOORE. W. W. NILES. CHARLES H. STRONG. ALMET REED LATSON. While we have signed the foregoing as the report of the Commission, we have done so with the express reservation that we favor the election of a borough executive in each borough who shall be charged with local administrative functions similar to those now vested in the borough presidents in each borough, and a separate member of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and we dissent from the conclusions of the majority in that regard. HARRISON S. MOORE. To indicate our concurrence in the main with the views of our associates, we have signed the foregoing report but desire to note our dissent from the conclusions of the majority of the Commission in the matter of the administration of borough affairs, for the reason that we do not believe that the charter as proposed recognizes the principle of substantial home rule in local affairs. GEORGE CROMWELL. The recommendations of the Commission as a whole, acting through its majority, are contained in the foregoing report, which I have signed, yet I am constrained to dissent from its conclusions in certain particulars. 1. Borough Government.-- The wisdom of divorcing the legislative functions of the borough president from the administrative duties now exercised by that officer is conceded. It is equally apparent that there should be vested in the mayor that degree of centralization which would enable him to exact the proper administration of government in each borough. On the other hand, an appropriate measure of borough autonomy should be preserved and the danger of complete domination or permanent intrenchment by any one political party should be averted. Under the proposed plan the borough president is retained, his functions limited to a seat in the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, while the administrative or executive functions now exercised by the five borough presidents are transferred to a single commissioner appointed by the mayor. As a substitute for this plan, I recommend: a. That the elective office of borough president be retained, the incumbent to be vested with the present administrative functions of that officer only. b. That there be elected in each borough a representative to be known as "Member of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment," and that the present system of plural voting be preserved. c. That the mayor be vested with power of removal over the borough president, for cause, with power of appointment to fill the vacancy created, the person chosen to be a member of the same political party as the last incumbent of the office. 2. Police. So far as practicable the various departments should be administered in the borough of Brooklyn by officials of the same grade as those who administer the departments in the borough of Manhattan. This is particularly true of the Police Department. Under the recommendations of this report, while provision is made for the maintenance of a branch office in the borough of Brooklyn, the police commissioner is vested with discretion in the determination of the extent to which the police force assigned to that borough shall be commanded by a resident official. A mandatory provision should be substituted. The creation of a superintendent of police selected from the uniformed force meets with my hearty approval, but if provision were made that he in turn should appoint from the uniformed force a chief having control throughout the boroughs of Manhattan, Bronx and Richmond, and another having control throughout the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens, the efficiency of the entire force would be greatly increased, the existing discontent in the boroughs would be largely eliminated, and probably the commissioner would need but a single deputy in addition to the trial deputy. 3. Inferior Local Courts.-The appointment of city magistrates and justices of the Court of Special Sessions constitutes a notable exception to the principle of an elective judiciary which runs through the entire system of government in the state of New York. Experience seems not to have justified the retention of this exception. Any tendency to give to that important bench a political complexion would be greatly modified by adhering to the elective system. ALMET REED LATSON. NEW YORK, N. Y., December 12, 1908. TO THE GOVERNOR, SIR: In compliance with your request, we now have the honor to make the following report with regard to the constitutional borrowing capacity of The City of New York as of the 1st of November, 1908. At the request of the special committee of the Senate and Assembly now investigating the financial affairs of The City of New York, and also at the request of the Charter Commission, the Comptroller has prepared a statement upon the basis of calculation adopted for the Finance Department of the city, showing the margin of borrowing capacity, within the constitutional limitation, as of November 1st, to be $37,931,640. Ten per cent. assessed valuation of taxable real estate, 1908... Net funded debt (chargeable against constitutional lim itation)... Net contract liability (chargeable against constitutional limi $546,354,179 09 .$672,241,578 90 |