Resolution 2024-312 achieves unanimous passage but raises procedural question of how municipality learns of its own official distinction
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
CITY HALL, NEW YORK — The New York City Council voted unanimously Thursday to formally declare New York the best city in the world, passing Resolution 2024-312 on a fifty-one to zero vote following a fifteen-minute debate that consisted primarily of council members adding qualifying clauses to each other’s praise of the city, and subsequently scheduling a separate agenda item for its September session to determine the appropriate method by which the city should be formally notified of its own distinction, a procedural question Council Speaker Adrianne Vasquez-Kim described as “more complex than it initially appears” and which three council members said they had not anticipated when they voted for the resolution.
The Resolution
Resolution 2024-312, “Affirming the Preeminence of New York City Among Global Urban Centers and Formally Declaring Its Status as Best City in the World,” was introduced by Council Member David Fineman of the Upper West Side following what he described as “a visit to another city” that he declined to name but that made him “very aware of what we have here.”
The resolution’s whereas clauses run to four pages and include declarations that New York is home to “the world’s most diverse population,” “the planet’s most significant concentration of cultural institutions,” “an unparalleled culinary ecosystem,” and “a spirit of civic resilience demonstrated across multiple generations of crisis and renewal,” all of which are debatable but none of which was debated, because the resolution reached the floor with unanimous co-sponsorship from all fifty-one council members, giving it the quality of a predetermined vote on a predetermined question, which Council Speaker Vasquez-Kim said was “not a criticism of the process but a reflection of how obvious the answer is.”
The Notification Problem
The procedural complexity arose during the post-vote period when Council Member Jennifer Cho of Queens asked, in what she described as “genuine curiosity rather than a procedural challenge,” how the city would learn that it had been declared the best city in the world, and what mechanisms existed for a municipality to officially receive awareness of its own resolutions.
“The resolution passes,” Cho said. “We know it passed. The press knows it passed. But the city — as a collective entity, as the eight million people we represent — how are they informed? Is there a ceremony? A notification? Is it published somewhere that residents can access? Does it affect anything? Does it do anything at all beyond existing?”
Council Speaker Vasquez-Kim said these were “excellent questions” that the Office of the City Clerk was “best positioned to address,” and that a September agenda item had been added to “formalize the dissemination framework,” which she said would ensure that the resolution achieved “maximum civic resonance.”
The City Clerk’s office, contacted Thursday afternoon, said it was “aware of the resolution” and that resolutions of this nature were “published in the City Record and available on the Council’s public website” and that beyond this it had “no specific dissemination mandate for recognition resolutions,” a category that also includes seventeen previous resolutions declaring various New York foods, cultural practices, and sports moments officially superlative.
Previous Superlative Resolutions
The The City NYC‘s records show that the New York City Council has passed the following recognition resolutions in the past three years: New York Pizza Declared Best in World (2022), New York Bagels Declared Superior to All Competing Bagels Including Those of Montreal (2022), Central Park Declared Most Significant Urban Green Space in Western Hemisphere (2023), New York Fashion Week Declared Most Influential Fashion Event Globally (2023), and New York City Marathon Declared Most Prestigious Running Event in World (2024).
None of these resolutions produced any discernible change in the standing of the items they praised, which retain their existing reputations based on their own merits and which the Montreal bagel community has declined to acknowledge as diminished by the 2022 resolution, a diplomatic non-acknowledgment the Council has not formally responded to.
Public Reaction
Reaction from New York residents ranged from supportive to indifferent to one man in Jackson Heights who said he agreed that New York was the best city in the world but that his building’s boiler had been broken for three weeks and that if the Council had time to declare New York the best city in the world it might also have time to follow up on his 311 complaint, which had been marked “under review” since February.
The Council’s 311 liaison said the boiler situation was being escalated. The resolution, in the meantime, exists. New York has been declared the best city in the world by unanimous vote. The city is proceeding as usual. The subway is delayed. The rats are in the walls. The apartments are, officially, spacious. The Council meets again in September. They have a full agenda.
The September agenda item on disseminating the best-city designation is scheduled as item fourteen of eighteen on a session that also includes zoning variances, a sanitation contract renewal, and an emergency resolution regarding a pothole on Flatbush Avenue that a local council member has been submitting for repair since 2021. Council Member Cho, who raised the notification question, said she expected the September session to produce “a dissemination framework that is thoughtful and appropriately comprehensive” and that she remained committed to understanding how a city learns what its government has decided about it, a question she acknowledged was “possibly more philosophical than practical” but which she said deserved a serious answer. The boiler in Jackson Heights remains under repair. The 311 complaint has been marked “in progress.” The resolution exists. New York is, officially, the best. The September meeting will address how anyone is supposed to know.
Unanimously proud at The London Prat and Bohiney Magazine.
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SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/nyc-council-resolution-best-city-world-how-to-notify-city/