|
|
| Re: Why 2 Terminals for Q1? (345336) | |||
 |
|||
| Home > BusChat | |||
|
[ Read Responses | Post a New Response | Return to the Index ] |
|
||
|
Re: Why 2 Terminals for Q1? |
|
|
Posted by BusMgr on Wed Apr 20 03:44:59 2022, in response to Re: Why 2 Terminals for Q1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Tue Apr 19 21:51:28 2022. Not quite . . . it is a bit more complicated than that. The council itself, originally referred to fully as the "common council," later became known as the "municipal assembly," a bicameral legislature with an upper house known as the "board of aldermen," and a lower house known as as the board of assistant aldermen (or just "board of assistants"). Later, the council would become unicameral with just a "board of aldermen," become eventually becoming the modern "city council." The "board of estimate," or more fully the "board of estimate and apportionment" has never been part of the city legislature, but has been quasi-legislative with its members being a collection of citywide elected officials from the executive (mayor, etc.) and legislative (president) branches, plus borough presidents. It was abolished for the reason stated (though it might have been retained by fixing the constitutional problem).A "franchise" is in most general meaning is a right not universally granted to all the people. Another way to put it is that rights come from God, while franchises come from the government. In the a food chain or a store, it is the owner of the larger enterprise that gives a right to certain individuals to use their name and business processes, and so in that context the giving of that right is a franchise from the larger enterprise. Same general idea, but with a private company, rather than the government, giving a particular right. At its heart the power to grant of franchises is vested in the sovereign, which in the case of New York is the state legislature. The earliest franchises were, in fact, direct acts of the legislature, and that's how the New York and Harlem Railroad and Fifth Avenue Transportation Company were initially chartered and given franchises for the services they would provide. Most states, including New York, delegate the power to grant franchises to local governments, and that power is exercised by the local legislatures . . . in the case of New York, by the common council, municipal assembly, board of aldermen, or city council, depending on what the legislature is named at any given time. The problem in New York City (and other cities, too) was that the aldermen were corrupt. This is where Boss Tweed played his games, and the nickname "forty thieves" was given the board of aldermen. Franchises were granted by the aldermen to the person who the most to the personal accounts of the individual aldermen. A few methods were tried to dispel the corruption, but eventually state legislation was enacted in 1913 to remove the power to grant franchises from the board of aldermen to the board of estimate. A provision was added to the city's charter that required franchise from the board of estimate--not the board of aldermen--as a condition for operating bus routes in the city. (That provision was later moved from the charter to the administrative code, and it still exists there at section 6-202, requiring a franchise from the board of estimate for the operation of a bus line.) When the board of estimate was abolished in 1990 (the charter was revised in 1989, but the board of estimate continued through the following year) the power to grant franchises reverted back to the city council. But the framers of the revised charter were still concerned about corruption, so they added provisions in the revised charter to prevent the council from actually deciding upon individual franchisees and granting them franchises. So under the current charter, the council council continues to set policy, gets to write all the terms and conditions of a franchise, and decides on the process by which a franchisee is selected. But since the council cannot, itself, select a franchisee, the council must adopt a resolution authorizing an administration agency (in the case of bus line franchises, the Department of Transportation) to select a franchisee, using the process specified by the council for making the selection, and then granting the franchise itself. In this way the framers hoped that there would not be corruption among the council members (but could there be corruption in the administrative agency instead?!). All of this is, of course, meaningless because the only bus line franchise now being exercised is for the largely insignificant B110 route. A lot of time, money, and effort being invested in charter revision and establishment of processes for very little return! |
|
|
|