Good morning, everyone, and welcome to today's New York City Council vote for the Committee on Government Operations, State and Federal Legislation.

At this time, please silence all electronic devices, and no one may approach a day as at any time.

Chair Brewer, we are ready to begin.

Thank you very thank you very much.

I am Gail Brewer, Chair of the Committee on Government Operations, State and Federal Legislation.

Thank you for joining us today.

I would like to welcome my council colleagues who have who are here, Councilmember Morano, Wilson, Zwang, Felice, Dinowitz, and Carr.

Carr's here because he's from Staten Island.

Today we will be voting on Councilmember Morano's bill, intro 32A, which would codify the official flag of Staten Island.

Currently, only Brooklyn and the Bronx have codified their flags.

I don't know what's wrong with Manhattan.

The flag that will be codificated.

I have an idea.

The flag that will be codified by Councilmember Morano's bill has been in use since 2016, replacing a flag that was roundly disliked by Staten Island residents.

I think Jimmy Otto has something to do with this.

This bill simply codifies a flag that the borough already uses, which will allow it to be used at official events.

I'd like to thank the following people from Government Operations Committee, Johari Frazier, Erica Cohen, and Senior Hamid.

And for my office, Cynthia Honig and Jane Blue, who's here today, and he's from Staten Island.

Everyone working in the background to make this hearing run smoothly is much appreciated.

I will now turn it over to Councilmember Morano to give a statement on the bill.

I think we also have Councilmember Stevens on Zoom.

I'll now turn it over again to Councilmember Morano, who's from Staten Island and loves this flag.

Thank you, Chair Brewer.

Uh thank you to all my colleagues on the government operations committee for considering intro 320 today.

Uh Staten Islanders, as all of the Staten Island City Council delegation will tell you, has never needed a law to tell us to be proud of our borough.

But after today, hopefully our flag will finally have the law on its side.

For nearly a decade, as the chair indicated, Staten Islanders have embraced this flag.

It was commissioned by then borough president James Otto and designed by Amel Micah and his team to give our borough a symbol worthy of its history.

And there's a lot of history on this flag.

There's a woman on the flag, you'll see, uh, who represents New York City.

She's standing on Staten Island and looking out over the narrows.

Uh we see Henry Hudson's half moon, Native Americans and Dutch settlers, symbols of peace, and the dates 1609 and 1898.

In other words, this isn't just a nice design.

It's a history lesson you can raise on a flagpole.

But despite all that, our flag has never actually been official under New York City law.

As the chair indicated, only the Bronx and Brooklyn currently have their borough flags codified.

So intro 320 changes that for Staten Island.

And I think there's a larger message here because so many people have asked me, oh, isn't there something more important that you should be worried about?

And the truth is Staten Islanders sometimes feel a little removed from the rest of New York City, both geographically and otherwise.

Sometimes we're happy to be a little farther removed.

But borough pride and city pride aren't competitors.

I believe the more connected New Yorkers feel to their neighborhood and their boroughs, the more connected they feel to the city as a whole.

It's not about putting Staten Island above any other borough.

It's about putting Staten Island alongside them.

I'm particularly proud that our entire Staten Island delegation came together on this in a nonpartisan fashion.

Majority Whip Hanks, Minority Leader Carr, and I may represent different districts and sometimes different points of view, but we share a tremendous love for the borough, and we're privileged uh to represent it, and that's why we're all on this bill.

And I especially want to thank my brother Minority Leader Carr.

Uh David has been a friend, a colleague, and a partner on this effort from the beginning.

There aren't many things in this building that bring Democrats and Republicans together quite as easily as Staten Island Pride, and I'm grateful to both David and Camilla for making this a true delegation effort.

I'm also grateful to Speaker Menon and Chair Brewer for their support for this entire process.

And from my colleagues outside Staten Island who joined us and everyone who recognizes that these symbols of site civic identity really do matter.

So today we're taking something Staten Islanders have already embraced and simply saying officially and permanently, this is our flag.

And I look forward to the day when Camilla David and I can stand together as this flag is raised for the first time as the official flag of the borough of Staten Island.

So I hope everybody votes yes.

Thank you very much.

I'll now turn it over to the clerk, who will soon there he is, uh, to call the roll.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, William Martin, committee clerk, committee on governmental operations, state and federal legislation, proposed introduction 320A, Chair Brewer.

I vote aye, thank you.