Borough President

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Borough President (informally BP, or Beep in slang) is an elective office in each of the five boroughs of New York City.

The offices of borough president were created in 1898 with the formation of the City of Greater New York. Prior to 1898, the city was conterminous with New York County. In 1898, Brooklyn (Kings County), Queens (Queens County) and Staten Island (Richmond County) were added to a city that had consisted exclusively of what is now Manhattan and the Bronx. To balance local authority along with the centralization of government, the Office of Borough President was established with a functional administrative role derived by having a vote on the New York City Board of Estimate, which was responsible for creating and approving the city's budget and proposals for land use. The Board of Estimate consisted of the Mayor, the Comptroller and the President of the New York City Council, each of whom were elected citywide and had two votes, and the five Borough presidents, each having one vote.

In 1989, the Supreme Court of the United States, in Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris declared the New York City Board of Estimate unconstitutional on the grounds that the city's most populous borough (Brooklyn) had no greater effective representation on the board than the city's least populous borough (Staten Island), this arrangement being an unconstitutional violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause pursuant to the high court's 1964 "one man, one vote" decision (Reynolds v. Sims). [1].

The city charter was revised in 1990 and the Board of Estimate was abolished. The Office of Borough President was retained but with greatly reduced power and budget which reverted to the mayor or the New York City Council. A BP has a small discretionary budget to spend on projects within the borough. The last significant power of the borough presidents—to appoint a member of the Board of Education —was abolished, with the board, on June 30, 2002.

The two major remaining appointments of the Borough President, is one member of the city Planning Commission and one member of the Panel for Educational Policy. Borough Presidents generally have projects they push while in office. Post-1990, Borough Presidents are seen mainly as ceremonial leaders of their boroughs and borough cheerleaders. Officially they advise the Mayor on issues relating to each borough, comment on all land use items in their borough, advocate borough needs in the annual municipal budget process, appoint Community Boards, chair the Borough Boards, and serve as ex officio members of various boards and committees They generally act as advocates of their boroughs at the mayoral agencies, the city council, the New York state government, and corporations.

Borough presidents are elected to four-year terms.

As of 2007, the borough presidents are:

Contents

[edit] Borough Boards

Each Borough has a Borough Board consisting of the Borough President, the City Council members from the borough, and the chair of each of the borough's Community Boards. The Borough Boards meet monthly to serve the needs of the local communities. They may hold public hearings, make inquiries into the performance of public services, and make recommendations about city owned land use and sales within the borough.

[edit] Community Boards

New York City is divided into 59 administrative districts, each served by a Community Board. Community Boards are local representative bodies that serve as advocates for New York City residents and communities. Each Board has up to 50 voting members, with one half of the membership appointed each year for two-year terms; there are no term limits. Additionally, all city council members whose council districts cover part of a community district are ex-officio Board members and may participate in all Board activities. However, council members may not vote on Board issues. Borough Presidents appoint the voting Community Board members, with half of the appointees nominated by council members representing the district in proportion to the percentage of the community board's population they represent. Broadly assigned by the city charter to "Consider the needs of the district which it serves," the Boards have been limited in their ability by ineffective local communication channels, minuscule budgets and archaic technology. As a result, many residents have concluded that they have little impact on the operation of their communities or their lives. The BeyondVoting Wiki and the Community-Based Planning Task Force have begun to address the limitations. See Community Board 3, Queens' website and Livable Neighborhoods Report[dead link] to learn more about a typical Board's operation and how these efforts hope to make improvements in the future.

[edit] List of Bronx Borough Presidents

[edit] List of Brooklyn Borough Presidents


# Name Party Term
1 Edward M. Grout (unknown) Democratic 1898–1901
2 Edward J. Swanstrom (unknown) unknown 1902-1903
3 Martin W. Littleton (1872-1934) Democratic 1904–1905
4 Bird S. Coler (1867-1941) Democratic 1906-1909
5 Alfred E. Steers (unknown) Democratic 1910-1913
6 Lewis H. Pounds (1861-?) Republican 1913-1917
7 Edward J. Riegelmann (1870-1941) Democratic 1918-1924
8 Joseph A. Guider (unknown) Democratic 1925-1926
9 James J. Byrne (unknown) Democratic 1926-1930
10 Henry Hesterberg (?-1950) Democratic 1930-1933
11 Raymond V. Ingersoll (1875-1940) Democratic 1934-1940
12 John Cashmore (1895-1961) Democratic 1940-1961
13 John F. Hayes (1915-2001) Democratic 1961
14 Abe Stark (1894-1972) Democratic 1962-1970
15 Sebastian Leone (unknown) Democratic 1970–1976
16 Howard Golden (unknown) Democratic 1977–2002
17 Marty Markowitz (1945-) Democratic 2002–

[edit] List of Manhattan Borough Presidents


# Name Party Term
1 Augustus Peters (unknown) unknown 1898-1899
2 James J. Coogan (unknown) unknown 1899-1901
3 Jacob A. Cantor (1854-1921) Democratic 1902–1903
4 John Ahearn (1853-1920) Democratic 1904–1909
5 John Cloughen (unknown) unknown 1909
6 George McAneny (1869-1953) Fusion/Democrat 1910–1913
7 Marcus M. Marks (1858-) unknown 1914–1917
8 Frank Dowling (unknown) unknown 1918–1919
9 Edward Boyle (unknown) unknown 1919
10 Michael Loughman (unknown) unknown 1919
11 Henry H. Curran (unknown) unknown 1920–1921
12 Julius Miller (1880-1955) Democratic 1922–1930
13 Samuel Levy (unknown) Democratic 1931–1937
14 Stanley M. Isaacs (unknown) Republican 1938–1941
15 Edgar J. Nathan (-1965) Republican 1942–1945
16 Hugo Rogers (1899-1974) Democratic 1946–1949
17 Robert F. Wagner, Jr. (1910-1991) Democratic 1950–1953
18 Hulan E. Jack (1906-1986) Democratic 1954–1961
19 Edward R. Dudley (1911-2005) Democratic 1961–1964
20 Constance Baker Motley (1921-2005) Democratic 1965–1966
21 Percy Sutton (1920-) Democratic 1966–1977
22 Andrew Stein (1945-) Democratic 1978–1985
23 David Dinkins (1927-) Democratic 1986–1989
24 Ruth Messinger (1941-) Democratic 1990–1997
25 C. Virginia Fields (1946-) Democratic 1998–2005
26 Scott Stringer (1960-) Democratic 2006–

[edit] List of Queens Borough Presidents

[edit] List of Richmond/Staten Island Borough Presidents

  • George Cromwell 1898-1913
  • Charles J. McCormack 1914-15
  • Calvin D. Van Namee 1915-21
  • Matthew J. Cahill 1922
  • John A. Lynch 1922-33
  • Joseph A. Palma 1934-45
  • Cornelius A. Hall 1946-53
  • Edward G. Baker 1953-54
  • Albert V. Maniscalo 1955-65
  • Robert T. Connor 1966-77
  • Anthony Gaeta 1977-84
  • Ralph J. Lamberti 1984-89
  • Guy V. Molinari 1990-2001
  • James Molinaro 2002-

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Cornell Law School Supreme Court Collection: Board of Estimate of City of New York v. Morris, accessed June 12, 2006

[edit] External links

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