Good Government

Banks and related financial companies have accumulated more than $3 million in unpaid fines for failing to clean up dirty properties around New York City, the I-Team has found.

Many of the properties are foreclosed homes that spiraled into disrepair after the housing crisis of 2007 and 2008.

Helene Van Clief lives across the street from one of the derelict buildings. The property at 637 East 182nd Street in the Bronx is a boarded up multifamily building with broken glass and empty liquor bottles in the front yard.

Since HSBC foreclosed on the property last year, the New York City Environmental Control Board has issued the bank seven tickets for violations, including dirty sidewalks and a rodent infestation.

According to city records, HSBC has yet to pay those fines -- and more than $787,000 owed for violations related to garbage, debris and unsafe conditions at other buildings.

HSBC told the I-Team it is not the landlord of most of those properties but rather a "trustee" for the real owners, investors who bought mortgage bonds associated with the buildings, and is therefore not responsible for addressing the violations in those cases.

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Council Member Ben Kallos, an Upper East Side Democrat, has sponsored four bills to give the Department of Finance more tools to help collect environmental fines.

"The reality is, if you're a bank and you own a property you have to maintain it,” Kallos said.

Kallos blames a sort of corporate shell game for difficulties collecting on violations issued to financial institutions. Although banks may have central offices with well-known Manhattan addresses, when they act as trustees, they often list the addresses of each foreclosed property on city filings.

At a hearing of the City Council's Committee on Governmental Operations Thursday, issues of community board function will be taken up through bills to introduce term limits for board members and to add professional urban planners to board staff.

The term-limit bill, introduced by Council Member Daniel Dromm in December last year, would allow community board appointees to serve up to six consecutive two-year terms. Currently, there is no limit on how many terms a community board member can serve. The bill, co-sponsored by Council Member Ben Kallos, who chairs the government operations committee, would enact the six-term limit starting for members appointed in April 2016.

Other members presented specific concerns: Jumaane Williams was troubled by funding levels for the NYPD, Jimmy van Bramer complained of insufficient money allocated for libraries—which Fuleihan indicated would be altered in the revised capital budget—and Ben Kallos questioned the growth and overall cost of the city's debt.

However, New York City Councilman Ben Kallos, who chairs the Committee on Governmental Operations chair, said the $12 million mentioned in Ryan’s testimony seemed like a lot of money for compliance.

“I'll be working closely with them and with our Law Department to make sure that we are minimizing the cost associated with the federal court order and trying to be as efficient as possible,” Kallos said. “We will be looking very closely to make sure that they are not over-budgeting and then coming back with a surplus because that’s millions of dollars we could be spending on social service programs and education.”

Kallos positively cited the elimination of voter cards, listing voters' ages in poll books, the board's adoption of City Time, its subscription to the Social Security Death Master File Index, implementation of electronic detection of write-ins and the purchase of high-speed printers to print various types of ballots as needed.

Council Member Ben Kallos has long been advocating for more efficient government, especially now as chair of the Committee on Governmental Operations. In the last few months, he said, the legislative process has sped up. "I think that we have a lot more legislation being introduced and a lot of legislation that's passing, and having the support of a drafting unit is really helping the Council adjust to a new pace of things where legislation and the legislative process and our city is really moving quickly so that it can be more progressive as soon as possible."

Kallos is on the same page as NYPIRG's Russianoff and Citizens Union's Fauss. "What's interesting is with everyone criticizing Albany, one of the things it does do right is it has a legislative bill drafting commission," Kallos said.

It is a City Council in transition, moving toward more transparent and efficient procedures. Kallos said he will continue to advocate for increased funding for the independent bill drafting unit until all bills can be drafted there. Till then, the existing committee counsels will continue to play a major role in the drafting process.

City Council members hope to improve public engagement with the legislative process through tech, as civic technologists aim to expand and step up their efforts.

Councilman Ben Kallos, chair of the Governmental Operations Committee, said he planned to focus on implementation of the laws requiring online publication of the city's laws and of the City Council technology plan that was part of rules reforms passed last year.

"We've already gotten so much more accomplished in the first year than anyone may have ever expected and I think a lot of the focus in 2015 will be around implementation, beta-testing and learning from our first roll-outs and implementations," Kallos said.

In connection with those efforts, Kallos suggested that the Council could look toward the model of the State Senate's web platform, new tools for engaging with constituents and public-private partnerships incorporating other cities and civic technology groups.

Term limits are important to ensure democracy. That’s why I am proposing to limit community board members to serving six, two-year terms for a total of 12 years.

I recently introduced legislation, co-sponsored by Council Member Ben Kallos from Manhattan, that would set term limits for community board members at six two-year terms or 12 years in total.

Members currently serving on boards would not be affected by this legislation. Only new members elected after April 1, 2016 would be limited. In any government or decision making body it is important to be challenged and checked by new points of view.

I have great respect for our neighbors that have volunteered on community boards for decades but I believe that communities change and so should community boards. A larger turnover of members will ensure that new ideas, cultures and backgrounds will be represented.

The City Council on Wednesday confirmed Councilman Ben Kallos as its appointee to the Commission on Public Information and Communication, one day before Public Advocate Letitia James plans to hold a hearing on the commission.

Though often invoked by city open government advocates, the commission, which aims to improve access to city information and data, has held only infrequent meetings and has had little influence in recent years.

In remarks before the rules committee on Wednesday morning, Kallos said that the "great commission" was one reason he had wanted to become chair of the Governmental Operations committee, which has oversight over COPIC.

"It has been slightly dysfunctional and hasn't been meeting," he said. "We have a great leader in our public advocate, Tish James, and I'm looking forward to having the opportunity to ... [work] with our public advocate to get the word out on all the information and all the great things this government does."

Want to know who is getting a city contract to reconstruct the pavement around Brooklyn Borough Hall, what new rules the Taxi and Limousine Commission is considering or what Request for Proposals the city has issued in Brooklyn?

The City Record has published that sort of information -- procurement, public hearings, disposition of public property and hiring -- every day in print since 1873 and online for the last couple of years. But the data is in a format that can’t be easily searched or analyzed, stumping those who need historical information or a big-picture understanding of the city’s operations. 

On Thursday, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed a bill that will bring the city’s municipal data archives into the 21st century.

Councilmembers Brad Lander (Cobble Hill, Carroll Gardens, Park Slope, Kensington) and Ben Kallos (Upper East Side) sponsored the bills.