Photo: CB2 Committee Queens Meeting (Nathaly Pesantez)
Feb. 5, 2020 By Allie Griffin
Queens residents interested in serving on their local community board now have six more weeks to apply.
Acting Borough President Sharon Lee announced yesterday that the original Jan. 31 deadline for applications has been extended to March 13.
“The extension is to ensure that the pool of applicants is as robust as possible,” Lee said.
The makeup of the volunteer boards has long been criticized for failing to adequately reflect the demographics of the districts which they represent.
For example, while nearly a third of the population in Forest Hills and Rego Park are people of Asian descent, only about 13 percent of Community Board 6 members identify as South Asian or Asian American, according to a recent article in The City.
The borough’s 14 community boards play an important advisory role in considering land use and zoning matters in their respective districts. Boards also hold hearings and issue recommendations about the City budget, municipal service delivery and other matters that impact their communities.
Interested applicants should submit a completed, signed and notarized application to the Borough President’s office. Applications are available online here.
All community board members are appointed by the borough president, with half of the appointments nominated by city council members. Each board has up to 50 nonsalaried members, who each serve a two-year term.
All current community board members who wish to continue serving are required to re-apply at the conclusion of their two-year term and are subject to review and reconsideration. Virtually all are reappointed unless they have particularly poor attendance records.
For the upcoming round of appointments, the two-year term of service will begin on April 1, 2020.
One Comment
Things are becoming less and less based on merit.
Should the non-desired demographics even bother to apply?