Testify to COGE, call for a City agency for maritime

COGE = the Commission of Government Efficiency, a Charter Revision Commission created by Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

UPDATE #3 ABOUT THE DEADLINE! Deadline for written testimony is 9am, Thursday 7/23/26. We confirmed that with COGE staff after reporting some day/date confusion they have now fixed.

The change NYC needs on the waterfront

NYC needs a pro-growth maritime policy “a waterfront that works for all.”  A way to get that is create a new City agency for maritime. An agency can be created by changing the City charter via COGE.

Here's the COGE website, and the direct link to their "submit written comment" form is here

We provide several options to help you testify.

• Option 1 is a short template calling for a pro-maritime policy and new City agency for maritime without justifying why this is needed.

• Option 2 is longer and explains what NYC maritime is to justify this change. Use instead of Option 1, if you prefer.

• Option 3 is a list of problems with the current maritime management system that you can append to your testimony (using Option 1 or 2) or just read as a reference to understand why change is needed.

• Red Hook neighbors, if you want to sign a short petition instead, click here. You have to do that by 8am, Thursday, 7/23, so we have time to download the names and email them to COGE before 9am.

PortSide’s written testimony to COGE is here.

At bottom, see the video with our ED Carolina Salguero testifying in person on 6/30/26, and the second video with her answering questions from the COGE commissioners. If you want to see it on the full, official recording, go here. PortSide testimony starts at 1:34:19. Q+A with PortSide starts at 1:39:40 and concludes at 1:44:08. 

Why do we need a City agency for maritime?

If you are not a maritime person directly experiencing how hard it is to do maritime things in NYC, please see our webpage Advocacy for a description of what NYC is missing in terms of maritime and the dysfunction and impediments to maritime activity. Or read the documents Option 2 and 3 above.

The fix is putting maritime people in charge of planning, designing, and managing NYC’s maritime assets and ensuring that they influence waterfront design around the City. If that solution seems obvious to you, know that is not how NYC has been doing it for decades since the City shut down, in 1991, a maritime agency it had for over 100 years under changing names.

Written testimony submitted to COGE

The following isfrom the webpage https://www.nyc.gov/site/charter/meetings/public-comment.page

• View Written Public Testimony (July 18-23)

• View Written Public Testimony (July 4-17)

• View Written Public Testimony (June 20-July 3)

• View Written Public Testimony (June 2-19)

More about COGE via the COGE dashboard created by a guy on Reddit odysseusSaintLaurent.

PortSide testimony on 6/30/26 to COGE.

PortSide ED Carolina Salguero responding to comments from the COGE commissioners.