Why do we have a City Charter? Why is this administration investing $50 million to launch a new Office of Mass Engagement while simultaneously dismantling the engagement processes we already have?

The answer, it seems, is purely performative. While the administration touts “engagement,” it is ignoring the City Charter and steamrolling neighborhoods. Instead of adhering to the rules and procedures required by law, the city is doing whatever it wants, without giving New Yorkers a say in the future of their own blocks.

I am a member of a community group in the East Village that recently lost a court case to stop the city from placing an in-take center for hundreds of homeless men on our residential block. We sought to force the city to follow its own standard procedures. (We have filed a notice of appeal.)

We didn’t lose because our concerns were invalid; we lost because the city........

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