Your city council acts as your local legislature, enacting laws and ordinances. They might decide where new parks go, whether your neighborhood can have curbside composting or ban DIY guns, and what the city does with its taxes. Councilmembers also get to create a vision for your city and determine its priorities. And if they disagree with your mayor, they can veto things she or he proposes.
Each proposed law takes the form of a bill that’s introduced by a Councilmember. Before a bill can be voted on by the full Council, it must be referred to the appropriate committee and heard in public, considered at a meeting and hearing, reported out of committee, and voted upon by the full Council. A bill becomes a law when it passes Council and is signed by the Mayor. Councilmembers meet in committees and caucuses, groups of Members with shared concerns or interests, to help them work together.
Councilmembers also hold oversight hearings on a variety of issues, from the city workforce shortage to the administration’s asylum-seeker response. But critics say that the council could be more aggressive in its scrutiny and oversight, particularly by using its subpoena power.
Most cities have a mix of partisan and non-partisan councilmembers. In New York, Republicans are only represented by a trio of council members: Minority Leader Anthony Matteo and Council Members Joseph Borelli and Eric Ulrich. But the council doesn’t operate as a partisan body, like Congress or state legislatures, and party affiliation doesn’t always matter much.