REFORMING COMMUNITY BOARDS TO IMPROVE THEIR CAPACITY AS VENUES FOR COMMUNITY-BASED PLANNING

By

Stephen Dyer Miller

© 2015 Stephen Dyer Miller

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science City and Regional Planning

School of Architecture Pratt Institute

May 2015

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REFORMING COMMUNITY BOARDS TO IMPROVE THEIR CAPACITY AS VENUES FOR COMMUNITY-BASED PLANNING

By

Stephen Dyer Miller

________________________________________________________Date___________ Thesis Advisor ________________________________________________________ Thesis Advisor Name ________________________________________________________Date___________ Thesis Advisor ________________________________________________________ Thesis Advisor Name ________________________________________________________Date___________ Chairperson ________________________________________________________ Chairperson Name

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Thank you to my advisors, Eva Hanhardt and Eve Baron, and the individuals who gave time for interviews and informal advice. Most importantly, thank you to the people who

help me get through it all: Susie Willis and my parents, Mary and Jeff.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 6 Introduction 6 Issue Statement 6 Goal of Thesis 7 Objectives 7 Methodology 8 Potential Audience for Thesis 8 Literature Review 9 Theory of Participation and Governance 9 Theory in Action at New York City Community Boards 12 History of Community Boards in New York City 16

CHAPTER 2 19 What the City Charter Says About Community Districts and Boards 19 Service Delivery and Community Districts 20 Community Board Appointments 22 Duties of Community Boards 26 Friends-of Groups 28 Current Reform Efforts 29 Related Forms of Participatory Engagement in New York City 32 Local Advisory Governance Models From Other U.S. Cities 34 CHAPTER 3 36 Case Study: Manhattan Community Board 9 36 About Manhattan Community Board 9 38 Manhattan Community Board 9 By-Laws 39 District Needs Statement 42 197-a Plan 43 Interviews 46 List of Interviewed Individuals 46 What Attracts People to Community Boards 47 Joining the Community Board 47 Impressions of the Community Board Process 48 Improving Staffing 49 Keeping the Public Involved 50 Balancing Politics and Service 52 Improving the Appointment Process 53

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CHAPTER 4 56 Findings and Recommendations 56 Improving Appointments and Membership 56 Standardized Application Process 56 More Information on Applicants and Appointees 57 Reform Council Member “Recommendations” 59 Open “Public Recommendations” to Other Elected Officials and Groups 59 Standardized Training for Board Members 60 Term Limits 61 Consider Longer, Staggered Terms 62 Appointments and Membership: For Further Study 63 Should Board Members and Staff Review the Quality of Applicants? 63 Should Community Districts Be Remapped? 64 Should Community Board Members Be Elected, Rather Than Appointed? 64 Providing Adequate Staff and Technical Assistance to Community Boards 65 Community Board Budgets 65 Planners and Interns 65 311 and Other City Data 66 Centralized Outreach 66 Give Responsibility to Boards for Contributing to City Policy 67 BIBLIOGRAPHY 69

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Issue Statement

Community boards were created in the 1975 City Charter revision to connect local

residents to municipal government service delivery as well as to provide a sounding

board and advisory planning mechanism for the New York City’s neighborhoods.

Members, appointed by the borough president, must weigh issues that affect the entire

district in which they serve, usually containing over 100,000 people with a diverse set of

needs.

Community boards serve an important role in New York City government. Often, they

are the only forum for a neighborhood’s public to interface with municipal bureaucrats

and policymakers on a granular level about initiatives and projects affecting their

neighborhoods.

However, community boards do not always live up to their purpose as described by the

Charter. Undercut by their very advisory nature and their political home under the

borough presidents, who have themselves seen diminished power since the 1989 Charter

revision, they are severely underfunded and usually unable to engage in the proactive

planning and broad outreach necessary to serve their constituents. Boards can feel

inaccessible to the surrounding community – more of a political club home to imperious

infighting than a welcoming and deliberative body.

This thesis grew out of my work as a reporter at Streetsblog, an advocacy journalism

outlet focused on reducing automobile use in urban environments. As part of my job, I

attend community board meetings across the city where street redesign projects are

presented and discussed by the Department of Transportation. I have seen community

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boards as both effective venues for community feedback that can improve and strengthen

projects and as roadblocks to projects, even in the face of community need and support

from local residents.

Often, the ability of a community board to work with a city agency and secure the

changes its constituents need depends on the quality of board leadership. Sometimes, a

project can stall because of a lack of communication. Other times, political interference

plays a role in whether a project moves forward.

As a student of city planning and a believer in planning that balances community-based

approaches with the broader needs of New York City – such as equity, safety, or

sustainability – I found community boards to be one of the edges where local and

citywide interests intersect. In this thesis, I seek to – irrespective of my personal opinions

on transportation projects I’ve covered at countless community board meetings –

determine what makes community boards work and what keeps them from working

effectively.

I hope to use this knowledge to make recommendations that can help improve the role of

community boards in serving as an interface between New York City’s neighborhoods

and its local government.

Goal of Thesis

Offer a series of immediate, intermediate, and long-term recommendations to improve

the ability of community boards to serve as the most local form of government in New

York City, both as a forum for community planning and as a mechanism to connect local

residents with government service delivery. These recommendations will aim to ensure

high-quality board membership, improve citizen participation, and give boards the

resources they need for effective planning and community service work.

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Objectives

• Research and understand the nature of public engagement and participation in

local government.

• Examine the history of community boards and their role in New York City civic,

government, and political life.

• Understand past and present reform proposals.

• Speak with New Yorkers involved with and knowledgeable about community

boards across the city.

• Make recommendations to improve the role boards can play as advisory bodies

and venues for community-based planning in New York City government.

Methodology

To achieve these objectives, this thesis examines research on participation in local

government, both in New York and across the United States. It analyzes the New York

City Charter to understand the role of community boards in the city’s government. In

order to understand the experienced reality of community boards, it examines Manhattan

Community Board 9, which covers West Harlem. Interviews with, among others,

longstanding board members, new board members, and a local City Council member

informed how that board functions both as a connection between community members

and local government and as a political venue in the neighborhood. This base of research,

from previous literature and interviews, informs the recommendations in the thesis.

Potential Audience for Thesis

This thesis is directed at borough presidents and their staff, mayoral staff in charge of

funding and assisting community boards, council staff, staff of the public advocate, civic

reformers, non-governmental organizations in New York City, and any individual

interested in advisory local governance.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

Theory of Participation and Governance

The desire for citizen involvement and control over government decision-making is

fundamental to American government and is rooted in the nation's founding documents.

This impulse was observed just decades after the United States declared independence by

Alexis de Tocqueville in 1835's Democracy in America, where he marveled at the

American impulse to involve oneself in town affairs and participate in town meetings and

discussions. “To get involved in the government of society and to talk about it,” he wrote,

“that is the greatest business and, so to speak, the only pleasure that an American knows”

(de Tocqueville 1835, 397).

A common modern theoretical base

for understanding what

“participation” means is Sherry

Arnstein's ladder of citizen

participation from 1969. There are

eight rungs on the ladder, from the

least inclusive and involved to

complete citizen control. The rungs

start with non-participation, with

manipulation at the bottom, followed

by therapy. Then the rungs move up

to tokenism, escalating through

informing, consultation, and

placation, before reaching citizen

power, which includes, in ascending order, partnership, delegated power, and citizen

control.

Arnstein noted that citizen committees, such as community boards, ultimately keep the

Figure 1. The ladder of participation (Arnstein 1969, 217).

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final decision-making power away from those committees. “They allow citizens to advise

or plan ad infinitum but retain for power holders the right to judge the legitimacy or

feasibility of the advice,” she wrote (Arnstein 1969, 220).

Arnstein's ladder is a strong theoretical base for understanding the degree to which

citizens have control over the municipal decision-making process. The theory, however,

unfolds upon a varied terrain. Participation is not uniform between communities, even if

the avenues for participation are designed identically. For example, community boards

have identical structures as dictated by the New York City Charter, but have different

levels of community involvement.

One obvious factor in determining citizen participation is the wealth and resource level of

the community, but a less obvious factor, and one that is important for understanding

local-level participation in large cities like New York, is that participation varies based on

the size of a municipality. Using a 1990 survey of political participation across the United

States, Oliver controlled for education, age, income, length of residence, marital status,

homeownership, race, and sex to compare citizen participation with municipality size and

found a dispiriting result: “People in big cities are less likely to be recruited for political

activity by neighbors and are less interested in local affairs. These differences occur

irrespective of the size of the surrounding metropolitan area and demonstrate the

importance of municipal institutions for fostering civil society” (Oliver 2000, 361). This

is particularly relevant for New York City, which is, of course, the largest municipality in

the nation, and Oliver's finding lends credibility to the old adage that New York City is

“too big to govern.”

Yet even in large cities like New York, the impulse identified by Alexis de Tocqueville

continues. In 1961's The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Jane Jacobs writes of

watching the public speak at Board of Estimate meetings at City Hall: “The proceedings

are heartening, because of the abounding vitality, earnestness and sense with which so

many of the citizens rise to the occasion” (Jacobs 1961, 407). However, Jacobs also notes

that the sheer scale of a big city like New York makes meaningful participation by the

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populace on a broad range of issues difficult and time-consuming. “Citizens of big cities

are forever being berated for not taking sufficiently active interest in government,” she

wrote. “It is amazing, rather, that they keep trying” (Jacobs 1961, 415).

Setting the stage for later developments, Jacobs, like other civic reformers before her

proposes dividing the city into uniform administrative districts, with service delivery and

citizen participation coordinated to those districts. “Administrative districts in a big city

would promptly begin to act as political creates, because they would possess real organs

of information, recommendation, decision and action,” she wrote. “This would be one of

the chief advantages of the system” (Jacobs 1961, 422).

As Jacobs notes, the disinclination of residents of large municipalities to become

involved in local affairs can be mitigated by local districts, which at their best form a

more accessible municipality, creating a manageable forum for residents to engage on

service delivery and community planning, and to exert political pressure. But community

boards are not, in fact, municipalities, and are appointed boards. Their local focus is not

necessarily enough to jump-start citizen participation; for that, these boards must be run

effectively, or citizens will see these advisory bodies as a waste of time.

Effective board governance and leadership, whether a community board or some other

advisory body, are central to its success. Lachapelle and Shanahan developed, delivered

and studied the impact of a curriculum for members of boards, commissions, and

advisory bodies in Montana. While that state deals with obviously different issues than

New York City, the lessons of board governance are widely applicable, if not always

universal.

Lachapelle and Shanahan found that when boards fail, it is not because of the individual

members but because of the board's overall approach to governance and understanding of

its role. This can weaken legitimacy and faith in government. Boards often fail, they note,

because there is a lack of training and evaluation for citizen boards. “Poorly run public

boards increase apathy toward and mistrust in government, thereby decreasing effective

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public participation,” they wrote. “Effective citizen boards offer an opportunity to

increase public participation, dissuade apathy, enhance trust, and create more robust and

well-functioning democracies” (Lachapelle and Shanahan 2010, 404).

Theory in Action at New York City Community Boards

So, the question for New York City's community boards becomes: How can they be

effective boards that increase participation and enhance democracy? Research from

Arnstein, Oliver, and Lachapelle and Shanahan is not specific to New York City, but the

lessons to which they point can be seen at play in research and dialogue about local-level

citizen participation in New York.

The primary challenge in New York is that it is both a city of vibrant neighborhoods with

distinct and diverse needs, and a command center for the global economy. Tom Angotti

has studied the conflict between these two versions of New York, and notes that working-

class and low-income neighborhoods struggle to assert themselves against the capital and

political power of the city's economic elites, especially in the realm of real estate. In

many ways, this tension was clearest when Angotti published New York for Sale in 2008,

when Mayor Michael Bloomberg epitomized the domination of the pre-Great Recession

financial elite over the city's central levers of power (Angotti 2008).

But no matter who is in control at the mayor's office, there will always be a conflict

between central control and local influence. John Mudd, in examining the tension

between central and local control in large American cities, with a focus on New York,

was evaluating ways to elevate community decision-making without seeking total local

control. While “citizen control” is the top of Arnstein's ladder, Mudd argued that it wasn't

always the best outcome. He said that the best types of community-level engagement had

an advisory role to the centralized government to inform decision-makers, since “most

community residents do not appear to want control over (and responsibility for) their

sanitation departments or their parks maintenance crews,” he wrote.” They want clean

streets and usable parks” (Mudd 1976, 117).

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With the Charter revision, New York adopted this model, preferring local advisement to

local control. A few years later, Joseph Zimmerman looked at how well New York's

attempt to decentralize aspects of service delivery through the community board and

community district system was working. The bottom line, he found, is that success or

failure depended on the quality of interactions between community board chairs or

managers and representatives of city agencies, reinforcing points made in Montana by

Lachapelle and Shanahan. “Should boards engage in only critical rhetoric and fail to

support the administrators, the boards will be of no value as advisory mechanisms,”

Zimmerman wrote. “The results of the new approach to citizen input into the city's

decision-making process undoubtedly will vary from district to district and will depend

upon the competence of the boards and district administrators” (Zimmerman 1982, 19).

In 1989, Robert Pecorella offered a clear-eyed evaluation of community boards after a

decade of experience. “If the board system has not evolved into community control in

New York City, neither has it left the pre-charter status quo undisturbed,” he wrote. “The

boards are merely advisory bodies, but they have opened the land-use process in New

York City to public scrutiny; the boards can neither raise revenues nor allocate resources,

but they have influenced the central-city process that does so. And even though the

boards have been unable to coordinate service delivery within their communities, district

managers serve as local ombudsmen for community residents” (Pecorella 1989, 108).

Pecorella noted that the ability of board members and staff to be effective is limited by

the resources of that community, which is especially tragic since community boards were

intended, in large part, to strengthen the voices of residents in low-resource

neighborhoods in city affairs. “It will be ironic indeed if the very communities whose

activism is most responsible for the movement toward decentralization in American cities

continue to be the communities least well served by the reforms,” he wrote (Pecorella

1989, 108).

While resource levels were and continue to be destiny to a large degree at community

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boards, there is a hopeful counterpoint. Roger Sanjek's field work at Queens Community

Board 4, covering Elmhurst-Corona, from 1983 to 1996 showed not necessarily that low-

income communities can exceed the limits imposed by resource deficiency, but that new,

immigrant low-resource populations can be successfully integrated into the power

structure of a community board over time. Sanjek tracks the interaction between the

black, white, and Latino and Asian immigrant populations at CB 4, beginning with white

resistance, leading to entry of newcomers, innovations by female civic leaders, and

ultimately acceptance of shared quality of life goals. “Without a community board there

would have been no public forum at which white, black, Latin American, and Asian

leaders had a place to interact,” Sanjek wrote. “Each racial and ethnic group in Elmhurst-

Corona would have confronted mayoral and permanent government power directly,

without the power of numbers and lubricatory expertise that CB 4 made possible. The

board was pivotal to the still-ongoing creation in this diverse neighborhood of... a

political 'community'” (Sanjek 2000, 769).

Outcomes among community boards in districts with diverse and evolving populations,

however, are far from uniform. In 2003, Bass and Potter examined land use issues at

Harlem's three community boards, in ascending order of outcome quality:

• In CB 9, Columbia University took an as-of-right dormitory project to CB 9

because of the history of resident opposition to expanded institutional uses in the

neighborhood. The community board opposed the plan, but it was fractured and

disorganized. This made the process more difficult at the community board but

ultimately did not succeed in stopping construction.

• In CB 10, a market-rate residential tower on a stalled development site requested

a variance from the Board of Standards and Appeals. Community members

opposed height of the proposed tower, and the council member opposed the

inclusion of market-rate units in the project. The community board had proposed

downzoning the area before, but the Department of City Planning balked at the

idea and CB 10 rejected assistance from CIVITAS, a planning and advocacy

group from East Harlem, just outside CB 10. However, the community board had

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an idea of what it wanted for the site and could negotiate with developer for a

smaller, more contextual building. This set a precedent for future variances.

• In CB 11, DCP had proposed rezoning East Harlem to protect against out-of-scale

towers. CIVITAS was on board and funded an inclusive planning process. DCP

went ahead with a less robust version of what the CIVITAS report recommended.

Each case, Bass and Potter explain, illustrates the varying outcomes from the community

board process – even on boards within close proximity to each other. In all cases, the

community board's will is restricted by its advisory nature. But the ability to work with

other groups (for example, if CB 10 had accepted help from CIVITAS) and the ability to

hold organized meetings so the board can speak in a cohesive, clear voice (if CB 9 had

not been fractured) result in better outcomes that more closely match community interests

(Bass and Potter 2003).

Perhaps the most important observation about community boards, decentralization, and

local-level citizen participation in New York comes from John Mudd: “The Achilles heel

of the New York approach to urban decentralization is its dependence on the active

backing of the chief executive,” he wrote. “With his support it can function; without it,

the system will flounder” (Mudd 1976, 129). In the end, while he can be strongly

influenced by local political pressure generated by the boards, City Council members, or

other elected officials, the mayor is still in charge of service delivery and the city budget

determines the resources given to community boards.

New York's system of local advisement, instead of community control, means the buck

ultimately stops at the mayor's desk.

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History of Community Boards in New York City

1947: Citizens Union outlines administrative districts

1951: Borough President Wagner’s Community Planning Councils

1963: Charter (under Mayor Wagner) establishes Community Planning Boards

1965: City Council defeated Mayor Lindsay’s “Little City Halls” proposal

1971: Lindsay’s Office of Neighborhood Government (ONG) demonstration districts

1972: ONG abolished by Mayor Beame

1975: Charter establishes Community Boards

1989: Charter reforms: ULURP, 197-a, needs statements, and Fair Share provisions

Community boards in New York City arose from a desire to standardize the delivery of

city services, provide a neighborhood-level exchange between city agencies and citizens,

and provide an outlet for civic engagement among city residents. They arose not just out

of a desire to rationalize the city's bureaucracy, but to give local communities more

control over (or at least input regarding) central bureaucracies. It's no accident that the

rise of community boards in the 1960s and 1970s coincided with a time of crisis in the

city, when the faith of residents in the central bureaucracy was failing and urban

communities, especially low-income communities and communities of color, felt their

needs were not sufficiently represented by the city government.

In 1947, Citizens Union first suggested and mapped out administrative districts as a

model to rationalize the delivery of city services (Jacobs 1961, 420). That concept was

picked up by Manhattan Borough President Robert F. Wagner in 1951, when he

established 12 Community Planning Councils, consisting of 15 to 20 members each and

covering areas matching service delivery zones already determined by the Department of

City Planning. These councils were created to advise the borough president and the

mayor on local planning and budget issues. In 1963, during Wagner's third term as

mayor, the Charter was revised to create 62 Community Planning Boards across the

entire city for appointees to advise the borough presidents (Office of Manhattan Borough

President 2010, 3).

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In 1965, Mayor John Lindsay proposed “Little City Halls” to act as a point of access for

local communities to city government, but the plan was killed by the City Council, which

viewed it as an attempt by the mayor to build local political machines. Five years later,

Lindsay said 1970 was “the year of the neighborhood” and the following year established

the Office of Neighborhood Government. This office created eight demonstration

districts headed by managers appointed by the mayor, who were in charge of

coordinating service cabinets with representatives from various agencies. While

Community Planning Boards continued to live on, ONG was short-lived. In 1972,

Comptroller Abe Beame issued a report claiming that ONG misused city funds. ONG

was abolished when Beame became mayor (Office of Manhattan Borough President

2010, 4).

The setbacks for the Lindsay-era Little City Halls and ONG did not stop the trend toward

strengthening community-level planning boards. In 1975, voters approved a Charter

revision that replaced Community Planning Boards with the current community board

system of 59 districts, with members appointed by the borough presidents. The 1975

Charter revision also established the Uniform Land Use Review Process, giving

community roles an advisory role in that process, and established Section 197-a, allowing

community boards to put forth their own non-binding comprehensive plans (Office of

Manhattan Borough President 2010, 5).

The Charter was revised again in 1989, addressing shortcomings that hamstrung boards

during their first years after the 1975 Charter revision. The 1989 revision established

clear standards and procedures for 197-a plans, and put more of the onus for evaluating

the plans on the Department of City Planning. It also gave community boards a seat at the

table during environmental review scoping meetings between the city and a developer,

and required community boards to write annual district needs statements (Office of

Manhattan Borough President 2010, 5).

The 1989 Charter revision did much more than modify the duties of community boards: It

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also restructured New York City government in the wake of the decision by the United

States Supreme Court in New York City Board of Estimate v. Morris to rule the Board of

Estimate's voting composition unconstitutional. The Board of Estimate was comprised of

the mayor, the comptroller, and the City Council president, all of whom were elected

citywide and had two votes; it also included the borough presidents, each of whom had

one vote. The Court found that the equally-weighted votes of each borough president on

the Board of Estimate violated the constitutional doctrine of “one person, one vote.”

After the 1989 Charter revision, the borough presidents found themselves with much less

power than before, and with even less power after the Board of Education was abolished

in 2002 and with it, the power of borough presidents to make appointments to the board.

Like the community boards, the most significant role of a borough president is to

advocate for their borough, to weigh in on land use matters – and, of course, to appoint

members of the community board (Friedlander).

In 2003, the mayor introduced 311, which handles public information and service

complaints through a phone line and an online site launched in 2009. The service, which

was initially created as a non-emergency police line, broadened to become an all-purpose

portal to city government. Now, if a resident has a service delivery issue, 311 can handle

much of what community boards were designed to do (City of New York). While

community boards, especially district managers, continue to handle constituent service

issues – particularly ones that are knottier than the average 311 call – the community

planning functions of community boards have become even more important than in the

past.

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CHAPTER 2 WHAT THE CITY CHARTER SAYS ABOUT COMMUNITY DISTRICTS AND BOARDS Community boards are legal creatures of the city's Charter, making it a natural place to

look for guidance on the boards and their roles. Before we can get to community boards,

however, we must first examine community districts. Community boards and community

districts are coterminous and related creatures. While boards are advisory governance

structures, districts form geographic boundaries for service delivery by city agencies.

Figure 2 A map of New York City’s 59 community districts (Brooklyn Community Board 13).

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Service Delivery and Community Districts

Chapter 69 of the New York City Charter, “Community Districts and Coterminality of

Services,” establishes “districts to be used for the planning of community life within the

city, the participation of citizens in city government within their communities, and the

efficient and effective organization of agencies that deliver municipal services in local

communities and boroughs” (New York City Charter, Section 2700). While these

districts are not the same as community boards themselves, and were created with a focus

on service delivery from city agencies, they share the same boundaries as community

boards and are integral to understanding the roles of the boards.

The districts are required to be “nearly equal in population with each other” and limited

to no more than 250,000 residents each. Every ten years, beginning in 1994, the mayor

may propose changes to the map of community boards and must consult with “borough

presidents, city planning commission, community boards and other civic, community and

neighborhood groups and associations” before submitting it to the city council for

approval (New York City Charter, Section 2702).

These districts are used for service delivery by city agencies. Services required to have

delivery organized at the community district level are: parks, recreation, street cleaning,

refuse collection, and social services such as community development and youth services.

Other services are allowed to operate at a larger scale. Those required to be coterminous

with one or more community districts are housing code enforcement, highway and street

maintenance and repair, sewer maintenance and repair, and health services other than

municipal hospitals. Agencies that are not subject to the requirement of hewing to

community districts must still organize local service delivery “as closely as possible to

the boundaries of the community districts.” The council and the mayor may also require

other city services to be delivered coterminous with community districts (New York City

Charter, Section 2704).

The Charter requires police patrol services to operate at the community district level, but

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allows the mayor, in consultation with the police commissioner, to disregard that

requirement if he determines that it “would be inconsistent with the most effective

delivery of such services.” The council has the ability to override this decision, but only

within 60 days after first being notified of the decision. (New York City Charter, Section

2704)

The Charter also directs agencies to put staff, not just boundary lines, behind service

delivery at the community district level. Each agency is required to assign a manager at

the district level, with the ability to direct agency resources. Each agency is also required

to assign borough-level commissioners with “line authority over agency programs.”

Borough commissioners are required to regularly consult with borough presidents and

serve on the borough service cabinet. Borough presidents may issue annual reports

evaluating service delivery, but these are not required (New York City Charter, Section

2704).

The Charter establishes service cabinets for each borough, chaired by the borough

president and comprised of borough-level agency staff. Its role is to coordinate service

delivery, facilitate interagency coordination, and consult with residents about their needs

(New York City Charter, Section 2706). Service cabinets are also established at the

district level, comprised of local agency staff responsible for services in the district,

council members within the district, a representative from the Department of City

Planning, and the community board's district manager and chairperson. The district

service cabinet has the same roles as its borough equivalent (New York City Charter,

Section 2705).

If requested by borough boards or community boards, city agencies are required to

prepare annual statements by August 15 that outline their service objectives, priorities,

programs and activities for each community district and borough, made in consultation

with district service cabinets and community boards. Agencies must also report

expenditures within each service district no more than four months after the end of each

fiscal year (New York City Charter, Section 2707). Agencies must also provide

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information to the borough presidents, as well as each community board and borough

board, “current information on its operations and programs within each community

district and borough” (New York City Charter, Section 2708).

The Charter required the mayor to appoint a task force evaluating community district

service delivery by December 1990, comprised of appointments recommended by the

council, comptroller, public advocate, and borough presidents. Twice a year, the mayor is

required to report to the council with an evaluation of local service delivery and

recommendations for changes (New York City Charter, Section 2704).

Community Board Appointments

After establishing community districts, the Charter continues with Chapter 70, “City

Government in the Community,” which establishes community boards for each of these

community districts. The boards are comprised of no more than 50 volunteers, each

serving a two-year term beginning on April 1. Half of appointments are made in even

years and half in odd years. Members are appointed by the borough president, with at

least half of the appointees nominated by local council members. The number of

nominations from each council member is in proportion to the percentage of the district's

population each council member represents, as determined by the City Planning

Commission after council redistricting is performed once every ten years. Council

members themselves sit on the boards as nonvoting members. “Community boards, civic

groups and other community groups and neighborhood associations” may submit

nominations to the borough president (New York City Charter, Section 2800).

Borough presidents have wide discretion in determining who sits on a community board.

Board members must have a “residence, business, professional or other significant

interest in the district.” The Charter says that no more than 25 percent of a board's

membership can be city employees and that the borough president must ensure “adequate

representation from the different geographic sections and neighborhoods within the

community district” and consider whether the appointed board “fairly represents all

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segments of the community” (New York City Charter, Section 2800).

Although an application process for community board appointment is not mandated by

the Charter, each borough president has an application available to the public for new

members and those seeking another term. Each borough president has a different deadline

and process for soliciting community board appointment requests, though all have

application deadlines typically in January or February in advance of community board

terms beginning April 1. The Queens application is the least thorough. The other

applications are more substantive, with the Manhattan application taking a slight edge in

its comprehensiveness. All the boroughs other than Queens require similar information

from applicants, though there is no standard for questions asked, response formats, what

is required to be answered, and what notices are made on the application form by the

borough president's office.

With each borough having a different appointment process and different requirements for

applicants, there is the potential for great variability both in the quality of applicants and

appointees and in the expectations borough presidents might have for the people they

appoint. This leads to a great variation between the boards, leading to different levels of

citizen participation and different types of interaction with city agencies.

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Table 1: Requirements of Applications for Each Borough President Bronx Brooklyn Manhattan Queens Staten Is. 2015 deadline for applications Feb. 6 Feb. 15 Jan. 30 Feb. 7 Not avail. Contact information Required Required Required Required Required Employment information Required Required Required Required Required Character references Required Required Required Required Age Optional Optional Required Disability status Optional Optional Military service Optional Required Gender Optional Optional Required Race or ethnicity Optional Optional Required Educational background Required Required Required Required Required Organizational affiliations Required Required Required Required Required Public service prior to CB service Required Required Areas of Interest for committees Required Required Required Required Required Resume or biography Required Personal statement of interest Required Required Required Required Identify whether the applicant resides or works in district Required Required Required Required

Convicted felon? Required Required Hours per mo. applicant can dedicate to CB Required Required Has applicant attended CB meetings in past year Required Required

Has applicant served as a public member Required Length of residence in borough and district Required Required Member of a trade organization or union Required Required Type of housing (NYCHA, Mitchell-Lama, private rental, owner) Required Required

Asks if applicant is employed by city Required Required Required Required Asks if employer of employers of family might come before the CB Required Required

Social media profiles Optional Party to a lawsuit against the city or its agencies Required

Indiciate whether the applicant has read the district needs statement Required

Indicate whether applicant attended CB training sessions Required

Information on conflicts of interest rules Yes Yes Yes No No Notifies that application subject to FOIL No Yes Yes No No Community board application requirements (Office of the Bronx Borough President, Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, Office of the Manhattan Borough President, Office of the Queens Borough President, Office of the Staten Island Borough President).

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Because the Charter gives significant discretion to the borough presidents, the

appointment process can be opaque. For example, when a newspaper asked about her

appointment process in 2014, a spokesperson for Queens Borough President Melinda

Katz replied: “It is our office’s policy not to comment on the process of how community

board members are selected” (Trangle 2014).

Former Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer implemented a series of appointment

reforms beginning in 2006 that have been continued and slightly modified under his

successor, Gale Brewer. Using Census data and consultations with community board

leaders and council members, Stringer's office developed recruitment strategies for each

board based on that board's “strengths, needs and priorities,” and recruitment was often

aimed at increasing the diversity and expertise of board membership. Stringer cites an

increase in Asian American representation on Manhattan Community Board 3, bringing it

closer to the demographics of the district's population, as proof that his recruitment

efforts are working (Office of New York City Comptroller 2014, 2).

One of Stringer's most significant reforms was the creation of an “independent screening

panel” comprised of “good government groups, civic associations, and community-based

organizations” including “Citizens Union, NAACP, Hispanic Federation, NYPIRG and

the League of Women Voters.” In addition to serving as recruitment arms, organizations

serving on the panel screened applications to ensure that only qualified candidates

proceeded to the borough president's consideration. All qualified applicants, including

members looking to be reappointed, were required to fill out an application and interview

with the borough president's office. The goal was to eliminate automatic reappointments,

in which existing board members have terms renewed without scrutiny, and Stringer's

office took “attendance and participation” into consideration when evaluating whether to

reappoint a board member. Because half all board members are appointed at the

recommendation of local council members, Stringer pointed out that their participation in

the reforms were key to their success, including devoting staff time to interviews for all

qualified applicants before making recommendations to the borough president (Office of

New York City Comptroller 2014, 3).

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The selection process is entirely up to the borough president, and there is no reporting

requirement to ensure that a board's membership matches the Charter requirements.

Because of this, the public relies on information voluntarily released by the borough

presidents about their appointments, such as a press release from Manhattan Borough

President Gale Brewer announcing information about her appointments (Goldston 2015).

The Charter says a board member may be removed for cause, including “substantial

nonattendance at board or committee meetings over a period of six months” as

determined either by the borough president or a majority vote of the community board.

Vacancies must be filled “promptly” by the borough president. It's important to note that

“substantial nonattendance” and “promptly” are not clearly defined in the Charter (New

York City Charter, Section 2800). Stringer introduced a policy that he will appoint

someone to fill a community board vacancy within 30 days, a policy that has gained

support from Citizens Union (Office of New York City Comptroller 2014, 3).

The Department of Investigation can conduct inquiries into allegations regarding misuse

of a community board title. As public officers, board members are also subject to conflict

of interest laws (New York City Charter, Section 2800). Recently, two members of

Manhattan Community Board 2 have been fined by the Conflicts of Interest Board for

accepting gifts from a luxury club with business before the board (Greene 2015).

Duties of Community Boards

The Charter spells out 21 duties of community boards, beginning with considering “the

needs of the district which it serves.”

The board may hold public or private hearings, but can only take action at public

meetings. Meetings, which must include a period to hear from the public, must be held at

least once a month, except for July and August, and must be “available for broadcasting

and cablecasting.” The board may create committees, which can have “public members”

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who are not members of the board but either live in or have an interest in the district,

though only board members can chair committees. Meetings of committees must be open

to the public (New York City Charter, Section 2800).

A majority of appointed board members must be present for there to be a quorum, and a

majority vote of the board members present for a quorum shall be considered the act or

determination of the board (New York City Charter, Section 2801).

The board must elect officers, though only a board chair is required under the charter.

Boards must also create their own by-laws, determine the duties of the district manager

and other staff, can hire consultants, and must ensure that minutes and other documents

are available to elected officials and the public. The district manager (who, interestingly,

can also be a member of the board so long as this person does not participate in the

selection process for a district manager) is responsible for processing service complaints,

presiding at meetings of the district service cabinet, and performing other duties as

prescribed by the board (New York City Charter, Section 2800).

The Charter also requires boards to “cooperate with, consult, assist and advise” agencies

and elected officials in manners concerning the district, including its capital needs. The

board must also request the attendance of agency representatives at meetings and prepare

“comprehensive and special purpose plans” on district growth and improvement. Boards

are required to send an annual report to the mayor, city council, and borough board. In

addition, they are required to compile an annual district needs statement that includes

recommendations for programs or activities from city agencies, assist agencies in

preparing agency service statements, and evaluate how well agencies are providing

services (New York City Charter, Section 2800).

In its listing of duties of community boards, the Charter focuses on capital projects.

Boards have duties to consult with agencies, conduct hearings, and provide estimates to

the mayor on the district's capital needs. The board shall also assist in the planning of

individual capital projects and review the scope and design for each capital project within

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30 days of receiving it. Boards must also evaluate the progress of capital projects based

on updates from agencies (New York City Charter, Section 2800).

Boards are authorized to designate representatives to help shape the requirements of

environmental impact statements mandates for any projects in the district, conduct

hearings and provide recommendations to the City Planning Commission on land use

applications within the district, and “conduct substantial public outreach” that includes

maintaining a publicly-available list of community organizations (New York City

Charter, Section 2800).

Friends-of Groups

A few boards have established “friends of” 501(c)3 non-profits to supplement funds

provided by the city. One example is Friends of Brooklyn Community Board 6,

established in 2003 (Mooney 2005). It “provides planning, advocacy, research and

administrative resources” and has worked with the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial

Development Corporation to study the creation of an Industrial Business Improvement

District in Gowanus, partnered with Sustainable CUNY’s NY Solar Smart to bring solar

panel programs to the district, and received a grant to complete a Brownfield Opportunity

Area study for two areas in Gowanus. The group is chaired by Gary Reilly, the chair of

CB 6, and its unpaid executive director is Craig Hammerman, who serves as district

manager of CB 6 (Friends of Brooklyn Community Board 6).

There is a risk that organizations and individuals with business before the board will

make contributions to the board's non-profit fundraising arm. Manhattan Community

Board 1 began a friends-of group in 2001, which received $484,497 that year to

supplement the board's $175,000 annual budget from the city. In a news article from

2004, board members questioned whether donations from architects and developers

working on the World Trade Center could pose a potential conflict of interest when

WTC-related issues came up at the community board. The article noted that as a 501(c)3

non-profit, the “friends-of” group is not required to disclose its donors (O’Brien 2004).

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Current Reform Efforts

There have been discussions about changing the community board system since the 1989

Charter revision, but few changes have been passed into law. The latest round of reform

discussions can be traced back to 2010, when the city last established a charter revision

commission. Numerous elected officials and good government groups urged the

commission to consider changes to the community board system (New York City Charter

Revision Commission 2010, 87).

There is general agreement among board members, district managers, city planners,

elected officials, and civic reform organizations that submitted recommendations to the

Charter Revision Commission that community boards suffer from a lack of resources,

could stand to have improved membership and operations, and are generally limited by

their advisory nature. While there is some agreement over specific reforms that are

needed, there are a few areas of disagreement.

In 2010, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer recommended the Charter require

each board to have a full-time planner, improve the appointment process by creating a

citywide application standard that includes a written application, require annual reports

from borough presidents on their appointees and outreach efforts, and mandate specific

timelines for appointments to fill a vacant seat. Stringer also recommended the Charter

more clearly describe the responsibilities borough presidents have to provide support to

community boards and require written responses from agencies regarding each board's

district needs statement (Office of the Manhattan Borough President 2010).

Tom Angotti seconded Stringer's recommendation for a professional planner to be on

community board staff, and also urged the commission to set the total community board

budget at at least one percent of the city budget, effectively increasing it 500 percent from

current levels. Angotti urged term limits for board members, regular training for board

members from the mayor's Community Affairs Unit, changes that would make it easier

30

and more worthwhile for boards to undertake 197-a plans, and unspecified expansions of

the role of community boards in ULURP and budget processes (Angotti 2010). Many of

these suggestions were echoed by Citizens Union, Common Cause New York, and other

groups like the Pratt Center for Community Development and the Campaign for

Community Based Planning (New York City Charter Revision Commission 2010, 87).

Despite these recommendations, reforms to the community board process did not come

out of the commission and go before voters. Instead, the commission left larger changes

to government structure, including community board reforms, up to future discussion.

The issues resurfaced again in early 2014, when the City Council's Committee on

Governmental Operations, chaired by Council Member Ben Kallos, held hearings and

issued a report on community board reform. Many of the same issues were brought up by

many of the same parties that made recommendations to the Charter Revision

Commission four years prior. Stringer made recommendations in his capacity as

Comptroller, and his successor as Manhattan borough president, Gale Brewer, offered

recommendations that echoed many of the suggestions Stringer made in 2010.

Recommendations from Common Cause New York and Citizens Union were nearly

identical to the changes they had made in 2010, as well.

The report made a number of recommendations to improve outreach and recruitment,

standardize the application process, and “restore the public trust” by improving rules

governing appointed board members. In the year since the City Council committee issued

its report, three issues have come before the committee as potential changes to the

community board system, based on the recommendations of advocates, elected officials,

community board staff, community board members, and the results of the report: the

ability to appoint 16- and 17-year olds to community boards without special permission,

hiring city planning staff for community boards, and instituting term limits (New York

City Council 2015).

The least controversial of these changes is the appointment of 16- and 17-year olds to

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community boards, which had been prohibited by the New York State Public Officers

Law. A bill amending the law passed the City Council and the state legislature in 2014,

and was signed into law by Governor Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio (Malesevic

2015).

The second recommendation from the report to come before the City Council

governmental operations committee came in the form of Intro 0732-2015, which would

make urban planning professionals available to community boards through the office of

each borough president. At a hearing on the bill in April 2015, staff of Manhattan

Borough President Gale Brewer were joined by Citizens Union and Common Cause New

York in supporting the bill's intent to provide the boards with technical expertise but

expressed concern that providing staff to boards through the borough president's office

may create the potential for conflicts of interest, particularly on ULURP and other land

use issues where the boards and the borough president are supposed to offer separate

opinions. The groups urged the committee to consider ways to allow the community

boards themselves to hire technical staff. Gene Russianoff of the New York Public

Interest Research Group noted at the hearing that not all boards have the same needs for

city planning and land use technical staff, and may choose to use budget allocations for

city planning staff in a way that better suits their needs (New York City Council 2015).

The most controversial reform proposal to come before the committee, however, is a

proposal to enact term limits for community board members. Intro 0585-2014, from

Council Member Daniel Dromm, would apply a six-term, or 12-year, limit for new

members of community boards to hold voting positions on the board. It would not impact

people who currently sit on community boards. Nevertheless, it garnered a united front of

opposition from Brewer, as well as community board members and staff who testified

before the committee in April 2015. Opponents of the bill feared that it would decimate

institutional knowledge on the boards, particularly on difficult issues like land use, and

would penalize volunteer board members who would like to continue serving but would

be prohibited from further holding a voting seat. It was also pointed out that some

community boards are not presently operating at the full level of 50 appointed members

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and struggle to attract new members, a challenge that would likely only be exacerbated if

existing members are term-limited out. Brewer’s staff noted that a strong and well-

functioning appointment process renders term limits unnecessary (New York City

Council 2015).

The term limits bill was supported by Common Cause New York, Citizens Union,

Transportation Alternatives, and the New York Public Interest Research Group. The

organizations argued for an even stronger term limits bill that included a shorter term

limit. They noted that term limits can help board membership reflect the current makeup

of a neighborhood, an issue that is particularly important in areas with significant

demographic turnover, including immigrant neighborhoods. Term limits also provide an

opportunity, the groups said, to remove board members who may not be serving the

board particularly well yet are politically difficult to remove otherwise (New York City

Council 2015).

Related Forms of Participatory Engagement in New York City

While community boards are a prominent form of advisory, volunteer governance that

encourages citizen participation in New York City, they are not the only game in town.

Three other forms of neighborhood-level governance and advisement are products of city

government and play roles that both complement and overlap with those of the

community board.

Community education councils: Created by state law, CECs are constituted every two

years, in odd-numbered years. There are 32 community education councils, which are

advisory bodies with 12 volunteer appointed members each: Nine parents selected by

PTA leadership, two local residents or business leaders appointed by the Borough

President, and one non-voting high school senior who lives in the district and is

appointed by the Community Superintendent (New York City Department of Education

2015). Each CEC represents kindergarten through 8th grade public, non-charter school

students within its district, must meet once a month, and advises on, among other matters,

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educational programs in the district and approving school zoning boundaries. There are

also four citywide education councils, on high schools, special education, English

language learners, and District 75, which works with children with severe challenges,

such as autism, cognitive and emotional hardships, or multiple disabilities (New York

City Department of Education 2014).

Precinct community councils: First Established by the NYPD in 1943, these 86 volunteer

councils advise each local precinct and public housing Police Service Area. Meetings are

held once a month and provide an opportunity for the public to engage with the

commanding officer and community affairs officers for each precinct. Membership on the

council is open to anyone who resides, operates a business, or is a member of a local

civic or religious organization within the precinct's boundaries. Every two years,

community council membership in good standing elects an executive board to operate

meetings and lead the council. Executive board members are term-limited to four two-

year terms. Councils have established committees on elections, public safety, event

planning, fundraising, and recruitment, and may raise funds independently but are limited

to $50,000 per year. NYPD also offers a neighborhood watch program called “Civilian

Observation Patrol” and a ride-along program where community members shadow

officers on duty. Precinct commanding officers can also nominate members of the public

to participate in the 14-week Citizens Police Academy, an in-depth training on a the

breadth of police work (New York City Police Department 2015).

Participatory budgeting: Begun in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1989, participatory

budgeting as implemented in New York City allows the public to vote on how a portion

of City Council discretionary capital funds are spent in participating districts

(Participatory Budgeting Project 2015). PB began in New York City in 2011-2012 with

four City Council districts; in 2014-2015, 24 of the City Council's 51 members launched

PB programs with at least $1 million on each district's ballot. Members of the public

volunteer as “budget delegates” to work with Council and city agency staff in developing

and honing a list of projects, such as upgrades to parks, schools, and streetscapes, that

will ultimately be placed on a ballot. Voting is over multiple days and open to all district

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residents above age 16 (New York City Council 2015).

Local civic associations, tenants groups, religious groups, unions, and advocacy

organizations: These groups are meaningful conduits for civic life and often both

interface with and overlap with community boards, but are not established by the City of

New York as official mechanisms for community engagement and advisement.

Local Advisory Governance Models From Other U.S. Cities

New York is not the only city with local advisory governance. Other cities established

similar systems, typically beginning in the 1970s, to provide a “bottom rung” to local

government. Here are three examples:

• Washington, D.C.: The District of Columbia has Advisory Neighborhood

Commissions (ANCs), which were created after the Home Rule Act of 1973 gave

increased power to locally-elected officials in the District. ANCs are drawn as

subdivisions of Council wards, with four to six ANCs per Council district. Each

ANC is subdivided into Single Member Districts, covering an area representing

approximately 2,000 people. ANC members are nonpartisan officials elected to

two-year terms (District of Columbia Board of Elections 2015). ANCs offer

advisory opinions and testimony to the mayor, Council, local commissions, and

federal agencies on a range of issues, including transportation, recreation, liquor

licenses, zoning, economic development, and policing (Government of the

District of Columbia 2015). Compared to Council and mayoral elections, ANCs

do not often receive significant attention from voters. “A strong incumbent system

and a general lack of interest among potential competitors means that even the

worst advisory neighborhood commissioners can hang onto their seats for

decades,” wrote Will Sommer in the Washington City Paper (Sommer 2013).

• Seattle, Washington: Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods was established in

1987. Its director is appointed by the mayor and approved by the City Council,

and is in charge of coordinating and providing technical assistance to 13

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neighborhood districts. Each district has a District Council, comprised of

appointed representatives from local non-profits, civic groups, and business

groups (Leman 2013). Each District Council also sends representation to the City

Neighborhood Council, a citywide advisory group (Seattle Department of

Neighborhoods 2015). This neighborhood advisory governance system contrasts

with Seattle's City Council, where all nine seats have been elected at-large.

Looking for a City Council more responsive to local issues, voters passed a ballot

measure in 2013 that changes the City Council to nine district seats and two at-

large seats. The change goes into effect in 2015 (Seattle Office of the City Clerk

2015). It leaves open the possibility of changing the boundaries of neighborhood

districts to match those of City Council districts.

• Los Angeles, California: Established by a City Charter revision in 1999,

neighborhood councils are self-organizing bodies that must receive the approval

of the Board of Neighborhood Commissioners and the Department of

Neighborhood Empowerment (Los Angeles Neighborhood Council Coalition

2015). They vary in size, from 7 to 30 members. There are 96 Neighborhood

Councils in Los Angeles, representing a minimum of 20,000 people and an

average of 38,000 people. Each Neighborhood Council receives $45,000 in city

funds each year (Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition 2015). The councils form

alliances around particular issues or geographies to speak with a louder voice; for

example, there is an alliance of Neighborhood Councils on river issues, another

focused on the Department of Water and Power, and another focused on

sustainability, among other issues (Los Angeles Department of Neighborhood

Empowerment 2015). The Department of Neighborhood Empowerment offers

trainings for Neighborhood Council members and administers elections for each

council.

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CHAPTER 3

CASE STUDY: MANHATTAN COMMUNITY BOARD 9 Despite having the same Charter-mandated responsibilities, New York City's community

boards vary widely. Some deal with significant land use and development issues; others

struggle with acute housing affordability problems; some deal with a heavy burden of

particular issues, such as liquor licenses; while others are regularly confronting

environment problems. The way the boards operate varies greatly, as well: Some have

well-resourced members who provide a wealth of technical knowledge and funding for

projects, while others struggle to keep board members engaged and educated on current

issues. Some boards have strict, regular schedules for committees and term limits for

chairs, while others meet on an as-needed basis and have a less formal environment.

Manhattan Community Board 9 deals with a wide variety of issues. Of particular note, it

engages with large educational institutions on a regular basis, struggles with affordability

and housing problems, welcomes a significant immigrant population, and faces

environmental justice issues. It has also taken advantage of the Charter's provision for

community boards to undertake their own non-binding comprehensive planning process,

known as 197-a plans. While it is not a high-resource board in a wealthy part of

Manhattan, neither is it anemic and struggling for community involvement. In other

words, CB 9 is a good case study because it has taken on a variety of tasks while striking

a happy medium between high-octane, resource-rich boards and more relaxed, informal

boards.

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Figure 3: Map of Manhattan Community District 9 (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

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About Manhattan Community Board 9

Manhattan Community Board 9 has 50 members and covers 1.5 square miles in the West

Harlem area: Morningside Heights, Manhattanville, and Hamilton Heights, between

110th and 155th Streets. Its eastern border runs along Manhattan, Morningside, St

Nicholas, Bradhurst, and Edgecombe Avenues, which form the boundaries of a string of

parks: Jackie Robinson Park, St. Nicholas Park, and Morningside Park. Its western border

is the Hudson River (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

The district is home to City College of New York and Columbia University. It also

includes New York City Housing Authority properties: Grant, Manhattanville, and

Audubon Houses.

On its western shore, the district is home to Riverbank State Park, Riverside Park, the

North River Wastewater Treatment Plant, and the former 135th Street Marine Transfer

Center, which was closed in 1999 and awaits redevelopment (Ransom 2014).

Environmental justice is a longstanding issue in the neighborhood going back to the

establishment of the North River plant, which began planning in the late 1960s before

opening in 1986. Two years after the plant opened, local activists founded West Harlem

Environmental Action (WE ACT), which went on to produce its own plan for West

Harlem's riverfront in the 1990s (Angotti 2008, 136). The neighborhood's challenges

have created a vibrant ecosystem of community organizations that take on their own pro-

active planning processes, WE ACT chief among them.

The district is home to 110,193 people, according to the 2010 Census, and like many

New York neighborhoods has a majority non-white population, with a population that is

24.6 percent black, 23 percent white, 6.9 percent Asian or Pacific Islander, as well as

42.7 percent of Hispanic origin. More than 87 percent of occupied housing units are

rented (Department of City Planning 2012).

39

Figure 4 Race and ethnicity of Manhattan Community District 9 (Department of City Planning 2012).

Manhattan Community Board 9 By-Laws

Many of the rules laid out in the board's by-laws echo the rules and requirements as laid

out in the city Charter. However, the by-laws also include details and responsibilities that

are not specified in the Charter.

The board's by-laws were adopted in 1986 and amended six times, the latest in 2013. Its

by-laws take advantage of the Charter provision allowing boards to designate “public

members,” who are appointed to sit on committees by the CB 9 chair in consultation with

the committee chair. CB 9 by-laws require that the non-binding committee votes of

public members be entered into the minutes. The by-laws also add local state legislators

and Congressional representatives as ex-officio non-voting board members, in addition to

the City Council members that are designated non-voting members by the Charter

(Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

The by-laws specify that board members must serve “in their capacity as private citizens

only” and “shall not be instructed by, or responsible to, any other organization or person

with which they may be affiliated.” Board members who have “a self-serving purpose or

conflict of interest” must state it before speaking on an issue and are disqualified from

voting (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

Board members speaking in public are speaking as individuals and cannot make public

statements about the board's position unless formally approved by the board chair to do

so (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

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The executive committee can remove a member for cause, including for poor attendance.

Board members can be excused from meetings by the chair of the meeting or the chair's

designee, and can be excused only for illness, employment obligations, death in the

immediate family, military service or other compulsory government service, religious

observance, or planned vacation. After three excused absences, board members may

request to be excused for up to six months. If, after six months the member cannot or

does not return, a vacancy will be declared. If within a 12-month span, a member has

three unexcused absences or a total of five absences, excused or not, the executive

committee may remove the board member. The executive committee must review all

vacancies each quarter and send recommendations for appointment to the borough

president (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

All meetings must be audio recorded. Profanity, threats, insults, physical confrontation

and/or intimidation are grounds for immediate removal from a meeting. Votes must be

taken by roll call, and board members differing with an official board position may issue

a “minority report” but must decide to issue such a report within 30 days after the board's

vote (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

General board meetings include reports from the chair, treasurer, district manager, the

borough president, committees, board members appointed to represent the board on

outside commissions or panels, followed by the public session, which includes reports

from elected officials and their representatives. This is followed by the board's business

before the meeting is adjourned. The meetings are governed by Robert's Rules of Order

and can be taken into executive session, from which the public is barred so the board can

discuss prescribed sensitive matters, with a majority vote of members (Manhattan

Community Board 9 2014).

The board shall have the following officers: Chair, First Vice-Chair, Second Vice-Chair,

Secretary, Assistant Secretary, Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer, serving for two-year

terms beginning July 1. The Chair, Secretary or Treasurer can serve or no more than four

41

consecutive years; the Assistant Secretary and Assistant Treasurer can serve for no more

than five consecutive years. Officers are elected by the board and can be removed at any

time by a majority vote of the board. If the Chair's seat is empty mid-term, the First Vice-

Chair will ascend to the position. If any other officer position is vacant mid-term, a

special election must be held within 30 days, administered by a five-member elections

committee. Each officer has duties prescribed in the by-laws, and are elected at the June

meeting of the board (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

The board has nine standing committees (Manhattan Community Board 9 2015):

• Arts & Culture

• Health & Environment

• Housing, Land Use & Zoning

• Landmarks Preservation/Parks

• Senior Issues

• Safety, Uniformed Services, & Transportation

• Strategic Planning (Ad Hoc Committee)

• Economic Development

• Youth & Education

It also has an executive committee, comprised of board officers and chairs of each

standing committee, which is required to meet once a month and is in charge of the

board's internal budget spending and makes recommendations to the full board regarding

the city's capital and expense budgets. The executive committee can act on behalf of the

board in emergency situations, in which action is required before the next regularly

scheduled board meeting (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

In addition to the elections committee and the executive committee, a five-member ad

hoc rules and ethics committee shall address ethics and parliamentary issues, with the

board chair serving as parliamentarian (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

Committee chairs are appointed by the board chair. One week before each full board

42

meeting, they must submit to the board records of committee meetings, including board

member and public attendance, resolutions adopted with a vote tally, and minutes of the

committee meeting. If 25 percent or more of a committee's membership is dissatisfied

with the committee chair's performance, they can raise the issue with the board chair,

followed by the executive committee, followed by the full board.

Board members appointed to represent the board on outside commissions and bodies are

chosen by a vote of the full board, with terms renewed annually.

The district manager, appointed by the board, has responsibility for hiring, reviewing, and

firing staff in consultation with the executive committee. The district manager must

preside at meetings of the district service cabinet, handle service complaints from

constituents, supervise the district office, oversee the board website, including the posting

of agendas, minutes, reports, and resolutions, present budget and financial reports to the

board Treasurer, and direct information to the appropriate committee chairs (Manhattan

Community Board 9 2014).

District Needs Statement

Each community board is required by the Charter to produce a district needs statement

each year to inform the city's budget priorities. CB 9's most recent needs statement, from

2014, is a 20-page document that covers the following subject areas: housing, economic

development, waterfront redevelopment and access, arts and culture, health and human

services, seniors, policing, sanitation, fire, parks, education/libraries, adult education and

literacy, environment, and transportation (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

Housing is both the first issue listed and the one where most attention is paid, followed

by economic development. The district has struggled with a loss of housing units since

1990, and is the community district with the smallest number of new units built from

1991 to 2001. In its statement, the board is concerned that the city is not developing city-

owned property for affordable housing quickly enough. It is also concerned that tenants

43

in many privately-owned buildings are not receiving needed repairs quickly enough, and

while the board supports city programs to encourage action by private property owners, it

questions whether the programs are effective at getting results for tenants. The board cites

concerns about displacement, and notes that a significant portion of the district's

population is “rent-burdened,” paying at least 30 percent of income for rent, and 23

percent of households are severely rent-burdened, paying at least 50 percent of income on

rent. The board also urges the end of vacancy decontrol, which makes it easier for

landlords to remove apartments from rent stabilization, and urges the preservation of

existing affordable units, including Mitchell-Lama and NYCHA properties within its

borders (Manhattan Community Board 9 2014).

The district needs statement urges additional job training for the district's unemployed

and underemployed adult population, and urges the city to work more closely with new

businesses (particularly large developments and chains) in the district to hire local

residents. It also calls for more city support of arts and cultural organizations, more pest

control units to address the district's rodent problems, and additional Department of

Sanitation pickup. From the parks department, it asks for improved parks maintenance,

additional Parks Enforcement Patrol officers, more street trees, additional lighting,

recreation center staff, and other amenities. The needs statement also makes specific

requests for road repaving and expanded bus service from the MTA (Manhattan

Community Board 9 2014).

197-a Plan

The Charter authorizes boards to develop advisory neighborhood plans in consultation

with the Department of City Planning and the City Planning Commission. CB 9 first

began work on a 197-a plan in 1991, and submitted a plan to DCP in December 1998.

The department returned the plan to CB 9 after preliminary review and it was never

adopted (City Planning Commission 2007, 1).

In 2003, CB 9 once again began the 197-a process, studying the entire community

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district. CB 9 worked with the Pratt Center for Community Development to create a 197-

a plan that was approved by the board in October 2004 and submitted to DCP in August

2005. In October 2006, DCP determined that the plan met the basic threshold

requirements to proceed. CB 9 revised the plan in response to comments from DCP and

city agencies, and it was later sent out for public review in June 2007. It was approved by

the CB 9 full board in August 2007, 35-0, with no abstentions. CB 9 submitted its revised

197-a plan in September 2007, which included substantial changes focused on

community facility use near Columbia University. It was approved by the City Planning

Commission in November 2007 (City Planning Commission 2007 , 1).

The plan includes an introduction and a report on existing conditions, looking at

“population; land use and zoning; urban design, open space and historic preservation;

transportation and transit; economic development; environmental protection and

sustainability; housing; and community facilities.” It concludes with recommendations

for each of these subject areas. Recommendations include adoption of contextual zoning;

affordable housing preservation and creation mandates; forbidding using eminent domain

to convey private property to another private owner; establishment of a community

benefits agreement or a community land trust paid for by developers; development of a

park on the West Harlem piers; expanded landmark and historic district designations;

reuse the Amsterdam Avenue MTA bus depot for municipal parking; establishment of a

Zero Waste Zone and green building standards for new large developments in CB 9;

identify sites for new public schools and other community and cultural facilities. The plan

also has specific recommendations for a new special zoning district in Manhattanville,

including three sub-districts, with the goal of fostering light manufacturing uses and

maximizing waterfront access (City Planning Commission 2007).

The 197-a plan set the stage for the community board's work during the Columbia

University expansion proposal. During public scoping for the Columbia proposal, CB 9

requested that the 197-a plan be included as an alternative in analysis for the project's

environmental review. The 197-a alternative and a modified 197-a alternative were

included in the DEIS, completed in June 2007. CB 9 altered its 197-a alternative in

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September 2007, and the revised alternatives were included for analysis in the FEIS.

In many regards, the rezoning requested by Columbia University conflicted with the

proposals laid out in the 197-a plan. The City Planning Commission referred both the

197-a plan and the Columbia rezoning to public comment on the same day: June 18,

2007. In its report on the 197-a plan, CPC said: “The Commission believes that it has

been presented not with two radically different visions of land use in Manhattanville, but

instead with two different approaches toward how Columbia University can, and should

grow in Manhattanville. Based upon careful examination of the two plans during the

public review process, the Commission has modified both plans to make them more

consistent with each other with regard to how Columbia University can grow in the

future” (City Planning Commission 2007, 14).

The 197-a plan also set the stage for a contextual rezoning of much of West Harlem,

between 125th and 155th Streets, which was approved by the City Planning Commission

and the City Council in 2012 (Department of City Planning 2012).

While development continues in West Harlem, particularly around Columbia’s

Manhattanville sites, many of the big decisions have already been made through the

rezoning and other land use actions. Construction on streetscape and private development

projects is underway in the neighborhood, and a new generation of board members who

didn’t participate in the rezoning and land use debates of just a few years ago are

beginning to make their mark on the board.

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Interviews

While civic advocacy and reform organizations, as well as many elected officials, have

issued reports, provided testimony, or made on-the-record statements about the

community board process and potential reforms that have already been covered in this

thesis, the voices of local community board members are not as prominent in city-level

discussions about boards themselves. For that reason, I interviewed people who are either

members of Manhattan Community Board 9, appoint its membership, or are involved in

neighborhood work that intersects with the board, to gain their perspectives – from the

ground level – on the roles the community board plays, what it does well, and what it

doesn't do well.

The interviews lasted between 30 and 120 minutes. Most interviews began with questions

that focused on each individual's personal history and interest in community boards, their

involvement with CB 9, and their assessment of the board's strengths and weaknesses,

before concluding by asking their thoughts for how community boards could be improved

or completely reconstituted.

List of Interviewed Individuals

• Mark Levine, City Council District 10 and former Manhattan CB 12 member

• Michael Levine, Manhattan CB 1 planning consultant and coordinator of the

community board fellows project at the Fund for the City of New York

• Rev. Georgiette Morgan-Thomas, Manhattan Community Board 9 chair

• Eutha Prince, Manhattan Community Board 9 district manager

• Brad Taylor, Manhattan Community Board 9 member

• Carolyn Thompson, chair of Manhattan Community Board 9 uniform services and

transportation committee

• April Tyler, chair of Manhattan Community Board 9 housing, land use and zoning

committee

• Martin Wallace, Manhattan Community Board 9 member

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What Attracts People to Community Boards

Each interviewee had a different path to joining the community board, but all of the

interviewees first interacted with boards because they were interested in community

affairs or to reach out to community members about a specific project. Michael Levine

first began attending Manhattan CB 2 meetings as a representative of the Department of

City Planning; he later joined the board as a neighborhood resident. Mark Levine, for

example, first started attending Manhattan Community Board 12 meetings in the 1990s as

a way to reach out to community members as he began a community development non-

profit credit union. Georgette Morgan-Thomas first started attending Manhattan CB 9 and

CB 10 meetings in the early 1990s on behalf of the non-profit supportive housing

developer she worked for. Carolyn Thompson began attending 30th precinct community

council meetings in the early 1980s because she was concerned about crime in the

neighborhood. This led her to community board meetings. For Brad Taylor, it was his

involvement in the Friends of Morningside Park that first brought him to CB 9.

Joining the Community Board

A second-place finish in a 2001 City Council race left Levine wanting to stay involved in

civic affairs and local politics. People involved in Upper Manhattan politics strongly

encouraged him to seek a seat on Community Board 12, and he thought being a CB

member might be a good way to prepare for a potential future run for office.

Others joined without higher political aspirations. Morgan-Thomas, for example,

attended so many community board meetings on behalf of her employer – whether they

had business before the board or not – that during a vote on a resolution at one board

meeting, board members asked her why she hadn't voted yet. She reminded them that she

was not a board member. Then-Borough President C. Virginia Fields asked her to serve

on CB 10, but Morgan-Thomas felt more connected with CB 9 and felt CB 10's meetings

were too dysfunctional, so she was appointed to CB 9 instead.

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Similarly, joining the community board was a natural outgrowth of work Thompson was

already doing. Beginning with her work on the precinct community council, she became

more involved in neighborhood organizations, and was ultimately appointed to CB 9 in

the early 1990s.

Impressions of the Community Board Process

All interviewees had reservations about the board process, and most concerns hinged on

the personalities and behaviors of individual members. Mark Levine noted that board

meetings are “pretty imposing to a novice” and that while they may have the trappings of

power, boards have little actual power. Board members can feel protective of turf, or

easily offended by perceived slights, leading to a quagmire of inaction. Thompson and

Morgan-Thomas both said that CB 9 meetings in the 1990s often went for hours, driven

by members who believed that their appointment to the board gave them power to stop

projects or to raise a stink, rather than to cooperate with other members and come to a

mutually agreeable solution.

Mark Levine said this type of behavior on CB 12 quickly made him, in his words,

“cynical” about boards. Thompson and Morgan-Thomas both seemed frustrated by this

problem but less willing to become jaded about the community board process as a result.

Martin Wallace came to CB 9 because he had an idea to reduce the number of alternate-

side parking days that had already been implemented in CB 12. His first encounter with

the board was negative, he said, with long-time members finding reasons to dismiss his

idea rather than encourage it. Wallace signed up for the community board's email list, but

found he didn't start getting emails until months later. Wallace ultimately decided to join

the community board to make it more accessible to interested members of the public.

Not everything about boards is negative, of course. During his time on CB 12, Mark

Levine saw the board raise issues of concern to local residents to the attention of elected

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officials and agencies, such as repeated noise problems. The board also represented the

opinions of local residents, he said; for example, it fought against a drug patient

rehabilitation center and opposed high-rise residential development in the neighborhood.

But the board was more than just forum to say “no” to projects, he said. A group of

Inwood residents came to the board to request bike lanes in the neighborhood, he said,

and that plan was eventually adopted by DOT.

On CB 9, Morgan-Thomas and Thompson both point to the board's work on the West

Harlem waterfront and the 197-a plan as leading examples of positive, proactive board

work. April Tyler pointed to park and environmental gains along the West Harlem Piers,

and affordable housing projects at 155th Street and St. Nicholas Avenue and at P.S. 186

on 145th Street, as examples of positive proactive work by the board. Eutha Prince

pointed to the board's work on youth issues, particularly involving young people from

Grant and Manhattanville Houses.

Improving Staffing

Boards are restricted in their ability to both engage the public and perform pro-active

work due to limited budgets, which results in limited staffing. The total budget for

community boards is 0.02 percent of the city budget (Angotti 2010, 15). Most boards

have a full-time district manager, and usually one or two assistants on staff. Manhattan

CB 9, for example, has a district manager, who supervises a community associate and a

community assistant. None of the staff have training in land use and housing

development issues, which are a primary concern for the board and the neighborhood.

Instead, the staff is tasked with the day-to-day operations of the board, such as

disseminating agendas, minutes, and constituent calls. There is no planner on staff.

“We are Davids and we equip ourselves with slingshots, but it takes effort and it takes

dogged determination,” said April Tyler. She is constantly looking for student interns for

the board, but often finds there isn't sufficient staff capacity to manage the interns.

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Mark Levine noted that boards with wealthier, better-educated members often don't have

a need for non-administrative staff assistance. For example, in his capacity as chair of the

City Council parks committee, he has worked with members of Manhattan CB 5 on

issues related to shadows from skyscrapers near Central Park. They do not have

professional planning staff assisting them, but CB 5 members are knowledgeable and

skilled in the area. (For example, Raju Mann, the former chair of the CB 5 land use

committee, worked at the Municipal Art Society before taking a job leading the land use

unit at the City Council and stepping down from CB 5).

“Information is power,” April Tyler said. “Not just money, not just resources.”

CB 9 and many other boards typically don't have such sophisticated members leading

their committees. Particularly when it comes to land use, boards are often at a

disadvantage when it comes to technical firepower, compared to other ULURP parties,

such as the developer, the Department of City Planning, and the borough president's

office, which has its own planning staff. A bill from Council Member Ben Kallos would

staff the boards with dedicated city planners to help with ULURP and other land use

issues, but it's an open question right now as to where the planners would be housed and

how they would be assigned. One option is to have them work as employees of the

borough president, and to rotate to community boards based on need. While this is a more

flexible arrangement than simply hiring a planner for an individual board or a group of

boards, it raises potential conflicts between the interests of the community board, which

have their own say in the ULURP process and for whom the planners are working, and

the borough president, who has her own say in the process and would be the employer of

the planners.

Keeping the Public Involved

Community boards are meant to be advisory liaisons between communities and city

government. “The purpose of community boards is to inform the city fathers about on-

the-ground sentiment,” April Tyler said. “That's part of why they were created.” Yet

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while more than 100,000 people live in CB 9, it's common to see the same faces over and

over again at meetings. How can a board overcome this challenge to make sure it is

adequately connected to the community it serves?

The answers from Thompson and Morgan-Thomas were similar and simple, yet they

strike at the heart of what makes a community board effective or ineffective: The board

members themselves are the mechanism for involving the public, they said – that's a big

part of why people are appointed to a board in the first place. Successful board members

are connected to other neighborhood social and civic networks beyond the board itself.

When an issue comes before the board that affects a certain part of the neighborhood or is

a topic of interest to particular residents, it's up to the board members who are connected

to those networks to reach out to members of the public who might be interested.

Thompson pointed to a recent issue before her committee as an example. DOT is

proposing a change to traffic flow on the Riverside Drive viaduct, changing that portion

of the street from two lanes in each direction to one lane in each direction to reduce

speeding and crashes. Key board members, including Thompson and committee member

Ted Kovaleff, are opposed to the change because they fear it will lead to traffic

congestion. There was little public turnout at the first committee hearing on the topic.

Thompson, who lives at Riverside and 150th Street, and Kovaleff, who also lives near

Riverside, but to the south, knew they had to reach out to tenants associations and co-op

boards along Riverside to make sure residents were aware of the proposed changes. They

posted notices in lobbies, spoke to individuals on the street, and sent out emails – and

turnout at the next meeting was far higher, with most residents in attendance opposed to

the change.

Kovaleff and Thompson were both opposed to the change, so it's not surprising that the

individuals they reached out to were also opposed. About 30 people attended the second

committee meeting on the topic; while this was an improvement over the first meeting

and showed the value of outreach by board members, it's an open (and to a large degree,

unanswerable) question whether the views of the 30 meeting attendees accurately

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reflected those of the thousands of affected residents.

Balancing Politics and Service

Unlike Kovaleff and Thompson, Council Member Mark Levine is a supporter of DOT's

proposal for Riverside Drive and made his opinion publicly known. His decision to

publicly support the plan while the board is still deliberating speaks to the political nature

of boards.

Mark Levine said that during his time on CB 12, he saw elected officials pressure board

members to vote a certain way on particular issues, such as liquor license approvals or

elections for board leadership. He said that, now that he is a council member, he will

make his views publicly known but will not call up individual board members to ask

them to vote a certain way. “Its a balancing act,” he said. “The line's not entirely clear.”

While Thompson and Morgan-Thomas both said they are motivated primarily by

community service goals, and not political ambition, they recognize that boards

necessarily engage in the political process, even if they as individuals are reluctant to

participate in that arena in a formal way. Sometimes, boards serve the political goals of

those who make the appointments. One example Thompson cited: One person had

complained to CB 9 about illegal hotel rentals facilitated through online services like

Airbnb – hardly an overwhelming outcry in the neighborhood, Thompson said – but the

board only passed a resolution against the practice after a request from Borough President

Gale Brewer, who has taken on illegal hotel rentals as a political issue.

Martin Wallace noted that certain elected officials have more sway at the board than

others. He cited Assembly Member Herman “Denny” Farrell, Jr., as an example. Often,

the Assemblyman or his staff will attend meetings and voice an opinion on a particular

issue that board members will then follow.

Brad Taylor and Morgan-Thomas, who had both been involved in a contest for chair, saw

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the board as being comprised of various political factions bumping up against each other.

In CB 9, Taylor – initially appointed by Council Member Inez Dickens but eventually

picked up by Council Member Levine – is closer to the whiter, wealthier faction centered

on Morningside Heights, while Morgan-Thomas is more closely tied to the African-

American population around Hamilton Heights and West Harlem, which is more

connected to Harlem's black political establishment. These two factions often bump up

against each other in contests for leadership or on votes on particular issues. Notably,

there is little representation on the board from the area's Latino immigrant population.

Improving the Appointment Process

Political pressure from elected officials is a factor because board members are appointed

by the borough president, half at the recommendation of local City Council members. In

reality, however, the council members send a list of appointments to the borough

president that is almost always approved without question. Borough presidents and

council members are given great freedom by the City Charter in how they make

appointments, and any processes put in place by the Manhattan borough president do not

always apply to the council members.

Both Thompson and Morgan-Thomas expressed frustration with and skepticism about

board appointments by council members, saying many are often appointed primarily

because they are political supporters of the council member and not because they have

community service as a primary goal. Morgan-Thomas said one of the most difficult

board members she ever encountered was a council appointee; this person kept disrupting

meetings and being difficult with other board members, never wanting to seek a solution

to issues before the board. Morgan-Thomas wrote a letter to the council member and the

borough president arguing against this individual's reappointment, but was unsuccessful

in her pleas.

Not all pleas to elected officials are well received. Brad Taylor wrote an email to then-

Borough President Scott Stringer in 2011 urging for more appointments from

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Morningside Heights and for younger appointees to the board, which he argued were

under-represented. He later found that the email had made its way from Stringer's office

to other board members and was used against him during a race for board chair.

Eutha Prince expressed frustration that she as district manager – and other individuals, as

board members – had no formal mechanism to inform the borough president about how

effective an individual board member might be. After all, she said, district managers and

board members are the ones closest to the ground and can see whether an individual is

fulfilling his or her duties as a board member.

Mark Levine described his appointment process as a council member as “super, super

informal.” He gathers a list of names of people who have expressed interest to his office

and who he thinks would make good board members. There's no application process and

no interview process. While Levine says he does not pressure board members on specific

issues or votes while they are serving, he does look at a member's stance on particular

issues before appointing them.

“Maybe it should be more formalized,” Mark Levine said of the council member

appointment process. The process in place at the Manhattan Borough President's Office is

worth considering, Levine said. He also pointed to an analogous process at the City

Council, where members apply to the Speaker's office for discretionary funds. While

members make their own applications, the various caucuses also make supplemental

recommendations, which can give a boost to specific requests. Council members could

also play a similar role, sending applicants to the borough president's process and

providing a supplemental recommendation when the borough president considers the

application.

A proposal from Council Member Ben Kallos to enact term limits for board members has

run into resistance from borough presidents and community board members (Miller

2015). Thompson, Morgan-Thomas, and Michael Levine are all opposed to term limits

because they fear it would wipe out institutional knowledge on the boards. Mark Levine

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was unsure about term limits. There are some advantages to term limits for board

members: While it may hurt institutional knowledge, it also keeps the boards from being

long-term bastions of power for some appointees, and may allow for the retirement of

board members that would otherwise be too politically challenging for elected officials to

decline to reappoint in the absence of term limits.

Perhaps bringing in additional sources of appointments could dilute the impact of

individual elected officials on the actions of board members. Michael Levine, Morgan-

Thomas, Tyler, and Thompson all saw community boards as fitting well within the orbit

of borough presidents, since both are largely advisory and relatively local in nature. Mark

Levine mused that bringing in appointments from State Senate, Assembly, and U.S.

Congressional elected officials might be beneficial, but would likely face opposition at

the city level.

In addition to the borough president, another largely advisory city-level elected official is

the public advocate. Michael Levine cautioned against appointments by the public

advocate, however, because unlike the borough president, the public advocate is a city-

wide elected office and is not as in touch with local issues as a borough president or

council member would be. Michael Levine also cautioned against an additional role for

the Mayor's Office or its Community Affairs Unit, which is both understaffed and

focused on putting out local political fires for the mayor – an already-powerful position

whose interests could overwhelm local concerns at the community board.

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CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

There are no easy fixes to improve the community board system. Most obviously, boards

are limited by a lack of resources, a lack of expertise, sometimes-dysfunctional board

meetings, and even by their very advisory nature. Many of these issues have roots in the

city's political structure, and face significant hurdles to implementation. Nevertheless,

they are worthwhile to pursue if community boards are to live up to their potential as

venues for community-based planning and as liaisons between city government and

neighborhood residents.

Some of these recommendations have roots in suggestions already made by elected

officials and civic reform groups, including in testimony to the City Council and the

Charter Review Commission. Others are based on the results of interviews conducted for

this thesis, reflect lessons from the literature review and borrow from local governance

structures in other cities.

The recommendations are split into two categories: reforming the appointment process

and providing adequate staff and technical assistance to boards. This thesis does not

seriously consider recommendations that change the fundamental nature of boards by, for

example, suggesting that they should have anything more than advisory power. Rather, it

is focused on improving the boards so they can better fulfill their missions as advisory

bodies to local government.

Improving Appointments and Membership

1. Standardized Application Process: Presently, the City Charter grants borough

presidents great latitude in whom they can appoint and how they can structure the

appointment process. Changing the City Charter to require a standardized,

citywide application and interview process for all new and returning appointees,

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in all boroughs, would significantly improve the appointment system and help

ensure that boards do not suffer from reduced quality due to an appointment

process that relies on each borough president to create his or her own set of

standards. Such an application process should cover appointments made directly

by the borough president and those made at the recommendation of local council

members, to ensure that politically-motivated and sub-par appointments don't slip

through a “backdoor” process of rubber-stamped council member nominations. A

centralized, citywide application process could be administered by the mayor's

office or the public advocate, which could launch a coordinated advertising

campaign to encourage and collect applications before the applications are handed

off to the borough presidents, who would conduct interviews and make

appointments. There are advantages and drawbacks to centralizing the application

process in either of these offices: the mayor has more budget authority to provide

adequate staff and launch a public awareness campaign, but also controls agencies

that regularly go before the boards. Giving these responsibilities to the public

advocate aligns more closely with the spirit of that office, but also threatens the

quality of outreach since the public advocate has no direct control over budget

allocations.

2. More Information on Applicants and Appointees: At present, borough

presidents do not have to meet a specific standard for their board appointments.

Instead, the membership must merely have a “residence, business, professional or

other significant interest in the district,” have “adequate representation from the

different geographic sections and neighborhoods within the community district,”

and must “fairly [represent] all segments of the community” (New York City

Charter, Section 2800). While data on board membership is not always readily

available to the public from the borough presidents, it's clear to most people who

attend community board meetings around the city that board membership is often

not representative of a neighborhood's demographics. Due to the nature of their

positions as volunteer government appointees requiring knowledge of local affairs

and time to participate, board members tend to be wealthier, older, and more and

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better educated than the neighborhood at large. While this isn't always the case, it

does often warp the point of view of boards when they weigh requests or

proposals before them, and segments of the population can be entirely left out of

discussions. Remedying this by applying specific standards to board appointments

– for example, requiring the geographic or demographic distribution of

appointments to meet a specific mathematical equation – is risky because it may

engender resentment among board members who are currently demographically

over-represented on the board and are threatened with removal due to their

demographics or place of residence. Rather than proscribing a set of

demographics for the board, the best solution in this case may be to bring more

sunshine. Annual reports should be required, releasing the names of all applicants

and appointees. (The information is already public record and subject to the

Freedom of Information Law.) The reports should collect and aggregate

information on the demographics of both applicants and appointees, including

location of residence and/or employment, age, race/ethnicity, income, residence

tenure, automobile ownership, employment status, and other information

collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. These reports should be required to be

issued after each round of appointments, and must compare the demographics of

both applicants and appointees with the demographics of the district population at

large. While the borough presidents would be required to issue these reports under

the current system, if the mayor's office or the public advocate were given

responsibility for a citywide application process, that office could take over the

responsibility instead. Issuing the demographics report from a citywide elected

office, rather than from a borough-level elected office, would elevate the profile

of the issue of community board demographics among the press and the public

and create a productive tension of checks-and-balances by having one elected

official release a report watchdogging the work of another elected official. These

reports would also highlight areas in need of additional outreach in order to

ensure that underrepresented groups are not left out of the community board

appointment pool.

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3. Reform Council Member “Recommendations”: Presently, half of all board

members the borough president appoints are at the recommendation of the local

council member. In reality, the vast majority of council member appointments are

handed over to the borough president on a list and accepted without question. This

nomination process is opaque, and lends itself to potential deal-making between

the borough president and the council member. It also encourages council

members to stack “their section” of the board with politically or ideologically

advantageous appointments. Nominees from council members should always go

through the standardized appointment and interview process, like the other

applicants. The council member recommendations shouldn't be a rubber-stamped

list. Rather, these recommendations should take the form of a “public

recommendation' by the council member as part of the standardized application

process described in the first recommendation. A “public recommendation” would

require the council member to view the list of applicants and select individuals he

or she endorses for the borough president's consideration. The council member

can recommend people who have already applied, and can encourage individuals

to apply, but cannot submit his or her own list of names. As required by the

Charter today, half of all members the borough president appoints must come at

the recommendation of local council members, with each council member making

a number of recommendations proportional to the percentage of the community

district covered by his or her council district, a ratio already calculated by the

Department of City Planning. Applicants and appointees publicly endorsed by the

council member would be reported in the post-appointment report on board

demographics, so the public can track which board members have the backing of

the local council member.

4. Open “Public Recommendations” to Other Elected Officials and Groups:

This “public recommendation” process should be extended to not just council

members, but also local state legislators, many of whom take an active interest in

their local community boards. The Charter could be amended to require a

percentage of board members to be appointed at the recommendation of area state

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legislators, though this might hamstring the ability of borough presidents to

appoint boards of their choosing and introduce too much political interference

from legislators. Instead, these public recommendations could be non-binding and

would simply make public some of the recommendations that are already made

behind closed doors. Non-binding public recommendations could also be allowed

by citywide elected officials – the mayor, comptroller, and public advocate – but

this might dilute the local nature of community board appointments. Public

recommendations could also be opened up to civic groups, non-profits, and

individuals, allowing appointees to lobby organizations and individuals for public

recommendations that could influence a borough president's appointment

decisions. While this will not eliminate backdoor lobbying by elected officials or

special interests for a specific appointee, it will create a public process in which a

version of this lobbying can take place.

5. Standardized Training for Board Members: Lachapelle and Shanahan point

out that training is key to a successful board or commission (Lachapelle and

Shanahan 2010). Currently, there is no Charter or statutory requirement that

training be offered to new or returning board members. Instead, there is a hodge-

podge of orientations and trainings offered or required by individual boards,

borough presidents, and the Mayor's Office of Community Affairs. All board

members citywide should receive the same training, including instruction on the

role of community boards in New York City government, an introduction to city

and state agencies, a primer on procedures including ULURP and liquor license

applications, resolution writing, ethics, Robert's Rules of Order, and more. In

order for the appointees to all receive the same training, it should be administered

by the same body – the mayor's office or the public advocate – tasked with

overseeing the application process. Having this training administered by a

citywide office will also serve to further distance board members from the

borough presidents and City Council members who appointed or recommended

them, which can help foster independence amongst board members.

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6. Term Limits: While this is easily the most controversial proposal up for

discussion at the City Council right now, and faces strong opposition from

borough presidents, board members, and board staff alike, it is worth pursuing.

Although community boards are appointed bodies that serve only advisory roles,

they do contain significant review and political power. Interviewees for this thesis

pointed out that board members often become focused on the power of the seat

they hold, leading to petty conflicts with other board members, as well as an

imperious attitude towards agency representatives and members of the public that

come before the board. While there are many board members serving well as

volunteers, some board members can over time come to see a seat on the board as

something they deserve, and get upset if, for some reason, they are not

reappointed. This behavior is counterproductive and discourages members of the

public from participating in the community board process. Term limits solve this

problem, by guaranteeing that members and their ideologies do not become

ossified. Bringing in a constant stream of new members allows for fresh

perspectives and new issues to gain currency on the board. There are two main

objections to term limits, both of which should be taken seriously but are not

significant enough to disqualify term limits from being implemented.'

A. First, there is concern that, especially for boards that are not operating with a

full complement of 50 members, it will be difficult to find qualified

replacements for members who are term-limited. This is a red herring. Most

community districts have populations well above 100,000, larger than many

mid-sized cities. Even in low-resource neighborhoods, finding dozens of

qualified candidates interested in serving can be achieved with outreach and

cultivation of an applicant pool through involving the public in the board's

activities. In some ways, objecting to term limits because there is an

insufficient applicant pool is a self-fulfilling prophecy: In fact, there may not

be enough applicants in part because potential board members are turned off

by a body that is insular and difficult to deal with – an issue that term limits

aims to address. A common theoretical argument against term limits is that

“the voters are the term limits” and will remove officials who are not adequate

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for the job. In the case of community boards, the borough presidents fulfill

this role. While borough presidents have refused to renew a board member's

appointment, these are exceptions to the rule. Incumbency has its advantages,

particularly in an appointed position without significant scrutiny from the

press or the public at large, and when the borough president making the

appointment is granted significant discretion in how appointments are made.

B. The second concern about term limits is that it will decimate institutional

knowledge on the boards. This is a real threat, especially since boards rely on

volunteers and interact with agencies and corporations that are far better-

resourced. It's important to remember, however, that once a board member is

term-limited out, they are not banished forever. Instead, they simply no longer

have the power to vote at general board meetings. Individuals are still free to

attend and testify at board meetings, and can even be appointed as public

members of committees covering areas in which they have expertise. Term

limits also help ensure that institutional knowledge is passed along. Rather

than one individual being the board's best source of knowledge on a particular

issue for years or decades, term limits force the boards to pass that knowledge

and experience to other members who take their place.

While all board members – those already appointed and future members alike –

should be subject to term limits, a good place to start is to term-limit board and

committee chairs. These positions are particularly important, since they hold

power over agenda items and resolutions considered by the board. This thesis is

not making a recommendation on the specific number of terms allowed, but there

must be a balance between the time it takes for board members to become expert

and knowledgeable and the time it takes for them to become stagnant in their

positions. For those reasons, a term limit somewhere between 8 and 12 years

seems appropriate.

7. Consider Longer, Staggered, Terms: Currently, board members are appointed

to alternating two-year terms, with half of the board up for appointment each year.

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Appointees rarely outlast the last official who appointed them, and elected

officials making appointments have the opportunity to dramatically reshape the

board, if they see fit, within the span of two years. To address these threats of

political interference, longer terms for community board members should be

considered as part of a discussion about term limits. If, for example, board

members served staggered four-year terms, only a quarter of the board would

come up for appointment each year, and a larger share of board membership will

be able to serve after the elected official who appointed them has left office.

Appointments and Membership: For Further Study

8. Should Board Members and Staff Review the Quality of Applicants? Right

now, there is no formal mechanism for district managers, community board staff,

chairs, or rank-and-file board members to offer feedback on the performance of

board members up for reappointment or to weigh in on the quality of new

applicants with whom they may already be familiar. Board members, staff, and

chairs can and do correspond or speak with the borough presidents directly, but

this is an informal and opaque system which favors the opinions of those who are

already politically connected to the elected officials in charge of making

appointments, and may silence those who are not as well-connected. Just as the

mayor's office or the public advocate could act as a gateway for applications

before handing them off to the borough presidents, so too could either one of

those offices act as a venue for collecting reviews of applicants from board

members and staff using a standard report card or online poll. Individuals would

not have to rank all the applicants, but only those about whom they have an

opinion. That information could be anonymized, so participants can feel free to be

honest, before being handed off to the borough presidents to inform their

decision-making about appointments. However, it could also lend itself to

anonymous attacks by board members or staff against each other and should be

considered only with extreme caution.

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9. Should Community Districts Be Remapped? According to the Charter,

community districts are required to be “nearly equal in population with each

other” and limited to no more than 250,000 residents each. Every ten years, the

mayor may propose changes to the map of community boards and must consult

with “borough presidents, city planning commission, community boards and other

civic, community and neighborhood groups and associations” before submitting it

to the city council for approval (New York City Charter, Section 2702). In reality,

the districts have remained static. They serve not just as community board

boundaries, but as service districts for city agencies. One alternative regime for

determining community district boundaries could be to make them coterminous

with City Council districts. This would have the benefit of reducing overlapping

bureaucracies, but would mean that only one local council member could make

recommendations for appointment. It would also mean that city service districts

align with council districts, creating a stronger link between service delivery by

city agencies and the constituent service functions of a council member and the

overlapping community board. This could create a risk of duplication between the

council member and the community board, and deserves consideration in future

work.

10. Should Community Board Members Be Elected, Rather Than Appointed?

Finally, there should also be consideration of whether community board members

could serve in elected, rather than appointed, positions. This model would be

similar to the Advisory Neighborhood Commission system in Washington, D.C.

While it is tempting to think of democratically-elected officials as a panacea to

the issues that plague community boards, the experience in Washington, where

ANCs are regularly involved in power struggles, parochial politics, and ethics

scandals, shows otherwise. Making community board membership into an elected

position would, however, help promote independence from higher-level elected

officials. If even a portion of board membership were elected at-large from across

the community district, those members may be able to create political power

bases that could rival, but would be unlikely to exceed, those of City Council

65

members. If board membership were elected from districts, it would incentivize

accountability of board members to local constituents but also promote hyper-

local decision-making prone to “Not In My Backyard” concerns. There is also the

question of election administration, which would have to be performed by the

Board of Elections for thousands of districts across the city. If community board

members are elected, they may also be subject to the city's campaign finance laws

and could qualify for matching funds, a potentially significant expansion of that

program. Like the previous recommendation, elected board members would be a

radical change to the community board system as it exists presently, but it

deserves further examination.

Providing Adequate Staff and Technical Assistance to Community Boards

11. Community Board Budgets: A typical community board budget is between

$200,000 and $300,000, far less than other governmental bodies. The aggregate

budget for all community boards is about 0.02 percent of the city's budget (Paul

2014). Citizens Union recommends tying the budgets of community boards to be

equal to 30 percent of the City Council's budget, or about 65 percent of the total

funding for borough presidents. This is a recommendation this thesis supports.

Otherwise, community boards will continue to be subject to budget cuts because,

like the public advocate, they are government bodies without a significant voice

in the budgeting process.

12. Planners and Interns: Bass and Potter showed that community boards can

achieve results desired by their membership and the public if they have sufficient

technical assistance, like CIVITAS provided to Manhattan Community Board 11

in the East Harlem rezoning (Bass and Potter 2003). At the moment, the City

Council is considering Intro 0732-2015, a bill that would require the borough

presidents to provide city planners to perform work for each board, either through

a pool or by providing one planner per board. This bill has the right intentions and

would give boards resources they currently lack, but would create a conflict of

66

interest since the planners would be employed by the borough president yet work

for the community boards, both of which have a role in the ULURP process. In

addition, some boards do not deal with many land use issues and would not have a

need for a planner. The Fund for the City of New York currently operates an

internship program for city planning students to work on a project with a

community board, a program that is worthwhile but limited in the capacity it

offers to community boards. This report recommends creating a pool of planners

and other technical staff that can be dispatched to individual community boards as

needed, paid for through the budgets of community boards and administered by

an external body, such as the public advocate's office or the Fund for the City of

New York. This arrangement would reduce the potential for conflict of interest,

since the staff would be paid by the community board and under the umbrella of

the public advocate or the Fund for the City of New York, neither of which has

the same involvement in ULURP as community boards and borough presidents.

13. 311 and Other City Data: Today, much of the city's service-related data, such as

311 complaints, is available on the Open Data Portal. While this information is

accessible to community boards, they do not have the technical capacity to use it.

While improved budgets and added staff, as recommended in the budgets above,

would help solve this problem, there are intermediate steps that can be taken. Just

as the Department of City Planning issues reports on the demographics of each

community district, the Mayor's Office of Data Analytics should also be required

to issue annual reports on the various service-related issues in each district,

starting with a comprehensive analysis of 311 data and including internal

information from city agencies. Such a document would provide a baseline of

knowledge that most community boards currently lack.

14. Centralized Outreach: Members of the public often do not know that

community boards exist. Even if they are aware of their local community board, it

can be difficult to get information about what's happening at the board. Board

members and staff are often stretched thin, and information such as meetings and

67

agendas can be woefully out-of-date. Instead of each board managing its own

website and email lists, much of this work can be centralized at a higher level.

While the work can be done by the borough president's office, in order for it to be

uniform across the city, it should be coordinated by a city-level office – ideally,

the same office tasked with coordinating the applications process. That way, there

can be a uniform citywide portal for accessing information about community

boards.

15. Give Responsibility to Boards for Contributing to City Policy: Boards are

often reactive to proposals that come before them from city agencies. When they

are proactive, for example through 197-a plans, their suggestions are often

ignored. This creates an often-unproductive tension between community boards

and other layers of government that have more power. Instead, community boards

should be used as venues to come up with suggestions in response to a citywide

policy. In 2014, for example, Borough President Gale Brewer asked community

boards to come up with a list of intersections and corridors in need of pedestrian

safety improvements as part of the de Blasio administration's Vision Zero agenda

(Miller 2014). This gave the boards a voice in the process, as opposed to feeling

put-upon when city agencies came with proposals as part of the initiative. This

type of consultation should be occurring more regularly and at the citywide level,

not just from the borough president's office. For example, boards should be asked

to come up with recommended locations for increased density and affordable

housing as part of a mayoral housing plan. While consultative planning doesn't

guarantee that there won't be conflict down the road, it can set the stage for more

productive discussions once an agency comes forward with a proposal to the

community board.

Some of these recommendations can be implemented immediately, while others will take

changes to local law, the City Charter, or agency procedures. Hopefully, these

recommendations can spur discussion and action on changes to that will improve the

ability of community boards to serve as the most local form of government in New York

68

City, both as a forum for community planning and as a mechanism to connect local

residents with government service delivery.

69

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