Banning Common Sense at City Hall

By Dominick Romeo

The main reason I decided to run for City Council in District 3 was due to the lack of representation for my neighborhood and particularly for my fellow building superintendents.  Today, there aren’t any buffers to prevent the tsunami of bad ideas that come from rambunctious politicians who seek to make a name for themselves, but who oftentimes inconvenience or outright ruin, an entire group of New Yorkers lives.  There is no voice for New Yorkers at City Hall and my desire is to change that if elected. 

One of my ideas is to create an innovative program that would appoint two community volunteers to each City Council committee. The Citizen Advisory Board (CAB) volunteers would work with City Council members to help perfect their legislation or object to it, before anything is passed that could eventually wreak havoc.   

In total, there are 35 committees in the City Council, which means that there would be 70 CAB members. These volunteers would be drawn from an application process, then vetted and selected by each borough president. Council members would then interview and vote on the prospective appointees — similar to how Community Board members are picked. 

CAB members would also work with the Public Advocate’s office and have the right to object to the effects of bad policies before they are rolled out (such as sending building superintendents back to work past 8 p.m. to trick a rat into moving to New Jersey).

Banning Rodenticides
City Council passed Flaco’s Law, which will soon ban rat poison, or rodenticides, in favor of distributing birth control pellets in an effort to reduce rats in a selected area.  The results of this pilot program will be announced in April of 2026.

You don’t have to be Nostra Dominque to predict what’s going to happen. Their data will be altered to show how great this program is or that the test area needs to be expanded.

The fact is, there are too many bad ideas coming out of these committees.  This is why a CAB is necessary.  To help push bad ideas back – but more importantly – to help push these advocacy groups back. They are in bed with our politicians, who help gather votes and fund their reelections.  These advocacy groups, which in reality are lobbying groups, go against the needs of New Yorkers in order to push forward their agenda by making it seem that New Yorkers want birth control for rats or more bike lanes, even though the majority of Citi Bikes are unused and left in their docks all day.

Those with deeper pockets should not be able to decide or override those of us with deeper roots here. 

Currently, the Office of the Public Advocate is organized like a self-will run riot that New Yorkers are unable to influence or utilize. My legislation would force the Public Advocate to work with the CAB and with our communities to influence legislation that directly affects our lives. This would give the Public Advocate little room to pick his or her causes to advocate for – as is the case today.

Banning Glue Traps
As a third generation building superintendent, using glue traps is the worst type of death to witness but they are necessary.  They are highly effective when dealing with or trying to prevent an infestation. 

I also use “humane” traps that catch mice and rats in cages, but I then must submerge these rats in a five-gallon container of water, while hearing them screech to their death.  I’d much rather use rodenticides, but I worry about pets accidentally eating this if not used carefully. 

Rodenticides stop cells in the central nervous system from producing energy.  The nerve cells swell and put pressure on the brain. Essentially, rodents bleed to death from the inside.  

I guess we must choose between being infested with rodents and the diseases that they carry, such as Salmonella, Rat Bite Fever, Tularemia, and Bubonic Plague, or something that makes us feel grossed out. This is the reality of pest control; something my residents don’t have to deal with on a regular basis, luckily, because their super does. Glue traps also help reduce roach infestations and other menacing bugs that could cause harm to our residents — like bed bugs. 

In Summary
We must start banning bad ideas emerging from City Hall. Creating a Citizen Advisory Board will help point these things out to our politicians who are being guided by advocacy groups. This includes Transportation Alternative and Riders Alliance, the bicycle lobbying group sponsored by Verizon, Lyft, and The Durst Organization (to name a few) who bankroll their causes and contribute to politicians’ campaigns to change the laws and the landscape of our city in their favor. They then have the audacity to tax us for the congestion that they helped create by turning four lanes of traffic into just two. 

There isn’t anything grassroots about these groups which is why we need representation at City Hall through the creation of a CAB. Our voices will continue to be drowned out by lobbyists, developers, and their corporate overlords without a strong Citizen Advisory Board for our city.