A Citizens’ Assembly (“CA”) is a representative group of randomly selected residents (just like a jury!) who learn about an issue from experts and stakeholders, deliberate together, and make policy recommendations or decisions. Assemblies are structured, facilitated, and bound to policy and legal frameworks. A different group of citizens would rotate in and out. The randomly-selected process, ensuring true representation, is called sortition and a meaningful part of our plan.

In our initial phase, we advocate merging redundant city agencies and positions, starting with the 59 Community Boards, 5 Borough Boards, 5 Borough Presidents, and the City Planning Commission, into permanent Citizens’ Assemblies.

Our restructuring would cut red tape, reduce millions of dollars of overhead, and speed up timelines for critical projects like housing development and education reform by replacing fragmented bureaucracies with a single, citizen-led approval process.

Future phases of our plan continue to grow permanent CAs where applicable. This random selection practice (called sortition) ensures decisions reflect the whole citizenry, not a permanent ruling class.

We can reallocate from (1) the People’s Money fund, a CA-like experiment, (2) existing $20MM budgets for community boards, and (3) more from the other redundant agencies and positions.

No tax increases needed!

The People’s Money fund has laid important groundwork by incorporating randomized, representative participation in city budgeting. It shows NYC’s willingness to experiment with these changes. The program, however, is short-term and advisory, rather than permanent and with real decision-making authority, which our plan would implement. The existing program is also redundant with community boards still in place.

NYC politics is dominated by money, political tribes, career politicians, and fragmented agencies. Current systems like community boards and redundant agencies are slow, biased, and prone to corruption. CAs put everyday New Yorkers directly in the decision-making seat, what a real democracy should look like, so we can solve pressing issues like housing and implement democratic safeguards for a fast-changing future.

1 - True Democracy
Shifts NYC to real representation from everyday New Yorkers. The pursuit of genuine democracy and the freedom it promises is still unfinished business in America.

2 - Policy-Focus
CAs replace party reliance and cults-of personality with thoughtful, fact-based deliberation on the actual issues and specific policies.

3 - Efficiency & Cost Savings
Eliminates duplicative agencies and positions, streamlines approval processes (especially for housing), and saves money that is otherwise wasted on fragmented inefficiencies.

4 - Corruption Prevention
CAs help remove the incentives for campaign donations and political favors that drive much of today’s corruption — addressing the root cause through a realistic, structural reform.

5 - Informed Voters
Briefings from experts and stakeholders ensure decisions are based on facts and diverse perspectives, making voters informed on policy by default, rather than overreliance on a political tribe.

6 - Safeguard Against AI-Driven Technocracy
We are thinking long-term and CAs maintain a citizen-led decision process so democratic control remains even in an uncertain future.

7 - Public Trust
Transparent, peer-led decision-making can help restore trust in public institutions, which is critical as confidence and civility reach historic lows.

The Free City is a single, coherent restructuring of how our city governs itself. Our vision of permanent Citizens’ Assemblies (“CAs”) becomes the operating system of NYC’s democracy, replacing fragmented, outdated subsystems with a unified, citizen-led structure. Under this framework, CAs are the decision-making backbone that connects and coordinates housing, budgeting, education, infrastructure, AI safeguards, and more.

We advocate for a broader vision of democracy: building a strong foundation for freedom in America’s greatest city at the local level. Establishing Phase 1 of permanent Citizens’ Assemblies in NYC is our priority because it’s the single most impactful first step toward that vision: a governance model that can adapt, self-correct, and respond to future challenges as one integrated system.

You can read and learn about our additional initiatives to be written into the City Charter, incorporated into the permanent Citizens’ Assemblies oversight, and/or enacted through local laws to bind city agencies where applicable.