At a hearing of the City Council's Committee on Governmental Operations Thursday, issues of community board function will be taken up through bills to introduce term limits for board members and to add professional urban planners to board staff.
The term-limit bill, introduced by Council Member Daniel Dromm in December last year, would allow community board appointees to serve up to six consecutive two-year terms. Currently, there is no limit on how many terms a community board member can serve. The bill, co-sponsored by Council Member Ben Kallos, who chairs the government operations committee, would enact the six-term limit starting for members appointed in April 2016.
The bill provides exemption for current board members who would be grandfathered along current no-limit rules. Community board members are appointed by borough presidents; there are 59 boards in the five boroughs.
"This is just one of the areas in which community boards should be reformed," said Lauren George, associate director of good government group Common Cause New York. "In terms of increasing representation, this will be a big step in improving the way community boards represent the changing dynamics of the city. When experienced members basically get a lifetime membership, they tend to have entrenched interests. They don't reflect the neighborhood, age and ethnic diversity, or sometimes even gender diversity."
George also said recruitment to community boards is extremely challenging, which is especially true in certain parts of the city, and term limits could encourage new people to join.
25 comments:
Existing members should absolutely not be grandfathered in.
There's that " diversity" crap being thrown around again. Code word for " no whites allowed".
Get rid of the 6- figure salary too!
"Get rid of the 6- figure salary too! "
Huh???!! Community Board Members are volunteers with out pay...
Members are also appointed by City Council... and I, too, wonder about that "6-figure salary"...
Maybe this will help, but most of us will never see it.
12 years? if Jesus could get everything needed in 3 years lets give tha' boys 6 because they are not nearly so smart.
and why grandfather? you could have people another 40 years on the board.
why is everyone oblivious to this?
Term limits sound good on the surface, but what about adding "professional planners!"?
Who will they be ...some deveoper's stooges?
Most likely, yes!
'Grandfathered in' - are you fucking kidding me? 6 2 year terms?
Fuck all of that. 8 years should be the limit, period. We have CBs full of developer lackeys who have been in place for 20, 30 sometimes 40 years.
Real term limits would barely fix the problem. What's really needed are arrests.
Some say you can't have term limits because there aren't enough people who want to be on the boards. You'll end up with vacancies. Guess there's a lack of civic virtue out there.
Maybe six-figure guy was thinking of district managers?
The District Manager gets up to and over 6 figure$$$$$$
"The District Manager gets up to and over 6 figure$$$$$$"
Bullshit! Prove it...
$ 74,540 dollars is district managers average total annual salary
Some say you can't have term limits because there aren't enough people who want to be on the boards. You'll end up with vacancies. Guess there's a lack of civic virtue out there.
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People want to participate in government - look at the outpouring of interest in participatory budgeting until everyone found out it was a sham.
That is the problem. They HAVE to let you participate (after all it is part of the American myth) but they do everything to make the process as empty and meaningless as possible.
If they put some real teeth into community boards that would give them some freedom from the suffocating grip of the machine and party (is there any difference?) then people would knock down the doors to be engaged.
Eliminate community boards completely. Assign extra staff to each council member . They hold the monthly public hearings. The votes will be more than advisory window dressing. The council member can then be held directly responsible for the good or bad in his community, with no hiding behind the decisions of the community board as a buffer zone.
Think of the money saved. Marilyn Bitterman gets $90,000+ a year and look at the crappy shape that Flushing is in.
They used to be called community planning boards. Now they are just called community boards. Their real title should be community plotting boards. At least that's what CB7 appears to be. What do you think Mr. Charles Apelian?
Collusion, corruption, crookery is what a lot of boards are all about! Shake hands with a developer and get a free trip to Taiwan.
Who went to Taiwan?
Screw term limits
Firing squad,yes,now I'm listening.
In the early 1980s Tommy Huang, a few city officials and one or two CB7 members went to Taiwan. Why? You guess why they went.
Didn't Congressman Gary Ackerman go too?
Didn't everyone return with a smile on their faces?
Somebody from a certain shady community board , and her husband went to Toronto. Wasn't the trip "arranged" by some Taiwanes American former community board member?
Go figure! Sorry, I cannot divulge any more.
CB members get perks. What they might be ....recorded or unrecorded...they get perks beyond volunteering.
Isn't it an "honor" to be serving your community?
I'm laughing so hard that I just farted uncontrollably.
Pardon me.
How long has the Chuck &Gene show been running at CB7? Too damn long! Apelian should have been dismissed years ago for a conflict of interest. Ah, but that interest served the Democratic county organization.
Let's call the Dem clubhouse what it really is....La Cosa Nostra....their thing!
Vallone and Apelian are ass hole buddies. Literally?
No, that would be more honest, and certainly, more colorful gossip.
CB7, like a lot of other boards, have their dummies, hand me downs, bobble heads and downright crooks. There has to be a retirement age for CBs.
Some of the members are fossils.
Thanks for the information on the Taiwan trip.
Guess I didn't know because it was 30 years ago. Think I was more into hot wheels than politics then.
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