Thursday, May 27, 2004
Community Boards, your quality of life watchdogs
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Let's talk about Community Boards, groups of volunteers who are willing to worry about the quality of life and the environment in which we live. A community Board is a city agency serving one of 59 defined districts. Each board is composed of 50 unsalaried community members appointed by the Borough President in consultation with localCity Council members.. They must reside, work or have a significantinterest in the community they represent, and they better not transgressthe Conflict of Interest law.The CBs do get involved in the nitty-gritty of local problems - street repaving, treeplanting, sidewalk maintenance. In an advisory role, the CB will impactcity and state applications, such as land use and zoning, sidewalk café s,liquor licenses, street activity (fair, block party) permits, newsstands, the Citybudget and municipal service delivery.If you have matters to complain about, you can address your CityCouncilmember, Assembly member or the Mayor, but for making your case inpublic, your best forum is your CB. Call the office, find out whichcommittee handles you complaint and where it meets, and go there. You willget a hearing , a discussion and eventually, perhaps, a resolution, to bepassed to the decision-making authorities. Hey, that's democracy.If you want to be part of the CB, it is possible. You must be willing tospend the time, every month, to attend meetings and work on committees. Youwill start as a Public Member, and will gain appointment later. If all youwant is to work on a limited issue, such as landmarking and protecting anarchitectural treasure, public membership works. Jack Taylor, the city’s champion preservationist, and Jon Schachter, who worries about public safety and transportation, are both public members of the two CBs impacting the T&V readership.Community Board 6, covers the territory from 14th Street to 59th, east ofLexington Avenue-Irving Place. The District Manager’s office is at 866 UN Plaza, Suite 308,NY, NY 19917, mgr. Toni Carlina (212-319-3750). The District Manager is a salaried city employee, keeping the Board’s books, fulfilling requests, accepting routing our complaints, protecting the privacy of board members and maintaining liaison.CB6 covers Gramercy Park, Murray Hill, Turtle Bay, Rose Hill, Phipps Houses, ST/PCV, and the United Nations, an international responsibility. If Kofi Annan parks onyour street and blocks your driveway, you can call CB6. Its territory also covers six major hospitals- BI, Joint Diseases, Bellevue, Cabrini, Vets and NYU, and five BIDs - Grand Central Partnership, 34th Street Association, 14th Street-Union Square,East Midtown Association and 23rd Street Association.Community Board 5 , the more glamorous sister, covers Times Square and thetheatre district. Its boundaries are, again, 14th to 59th Streets, east ofEighth Avenue, with cutouts- from 14th to 26th Street it goes West only to 6thAvenue.To give you a flavor of the activity, here's a summary of CB6 April 14thMonthly Meeting minutes, as they pertain to the T&V community, taken fromthe board's website, Cb6Mny.org. Minutes are made public a month late, after the subsequent monthly meeting has adopted them. Please note that the minutes are condensed and statements are abbreviated. The writer apologizes, in advance, for a any misinterpretations and requests that CB members identify errors, particularly those of form, for future reference.
The meeting is held at NYU Medical Center, everybody is welcome. The event starts with a Public Session, then goes into a business session, in which the committees report on activities and offer resolutions.In the former, CM Margarita Lopez reported on the 23rd Street VeteransHospital, stating that all the community letters have convinced AnthonyPrincipi, Secretary of Veteran Affairs, to scuttle the recommendations ofthe C.A.R.E.S. Commission to transfer the hospital to Brooklyn. It would becatastrophic to the 350 Manhattan veterans who are patients of the hospital, many of them homeless, and many suffering from mental illness. The mayor and several major hospitals have also formed a committee to fight the proposal. Six more speakers wereheard.In the Business Session, Housing & Homeless Committee offered a resolutionto open a Task Force to consider Section 8 housing for the homeless. HumanServices Committee opposed the change of hot meal delivery to the aged,introducing a pilot delivery of seven days worth of frozen meals, becausethe recipients lack storage and microwave facilities. Also, it supportedthe extension of the senior citizens' rent support (SCRIE) program.The Transportation Committee recommended a parking lot closure, on 34th andEast River, and proposed to integrate the space into the Manhattan Greenway (pedestrian and bikeway) program. It also recommended a car service proposal at 2nd Avenue and 19th Street, and elimination of advertising in pay phone booths..Larks, Landmarks & Cultural Affairs recommended denial of an alterationpermit to 22 Gramercy Park, due to the failure of the applicant to appear,The Murray Hill Historic District extension was reported as approved.The only sidewalk café and bar issue in our area was Rodeo Bar, Third Aveat 27th Street, which was automatically opposed by the Board, because ofthe owner's non-attendance.That's all for now Next week, look for a CB5 report.
Let's talk about Community Boards, groups of volunteers who are willing to worry about the quality of life and the environment in which we live. A community Board is a city agency serving one of 59 defined districts. Each board is composed of 50 unsalaried community members appointed by the Borough President in consultation with localCity Council members.. They must reside, work or have a significantinterest in the community they represent, and they better not transgressthe Conflict of Interest law.The CBs do get involved in the nitty-gritty of local problems - street repaving, treeplanting, sidewalk maintenance. In an advisory role, the CB will impactcity and state applications, such as land use and zoning, sidewalk café s,liquor licenses, street activity (fair, block party) permits, newsstands, the Citybudget and municipal service delivery.If you have matters to complain about, you can address your CityCouncilmember, Assembly member or the Mayor, but for making your case inpublic, your best forum is your CB. Call the office, find out whichcommittee handles you complaint and where it meets, and go there. You willget a hearing , a discussion and eventually, perhaps, a resolution, to bepassed to the decision-making authorities. Hey, that's democracy.If you want to be part of the CB, it is possible. You must be willing tospend the time, every month, to attend meetings and work on committees. Youwill start as a Public Member, and will gain appointment later. If all youwant is to work on a limited issue, such as landmarking and protecting anarchitectural treasure, public membership works. Jack Taylor, the city’s champion preservationist, and Jon Schachter, who worries about public safety and transportation, are both public members of the two CBs impacting the T&V readership.Community Board 6, covers the territory from 14th Street to 59th, east ofLexington Avenue-Irving Place. The District Manager’s office is at 866 UN Plaza, Suite 308,NY, NY 19917, mgr. Toni Carlina (212-319-3750). The District Manager is a salaried city employee, keeping the Board’s books, fulfilling requests, accepting routing our complaints, protecting the privacy of board members and maintaining liaison.CB6 covers Gramercy Park, Murray Hill, Turtle Bay, Rose Hill, Phipps Houses, ST/PCV, and the United Nations, an international responsibility. If Kofi Annan parks onyour street and blocks your driveway, you can call CB6. Its territory also covers six major hospitals- BI, Joint Diseases, Bellevue, Cabrini, Vets and NYU, and five BIDs - Grand Central Partnership, 34th Street Association, 14th Street-Union Square,East Midtown Association and 23rd Street Association.Community Board 5 , the more glamorous sister, covers Times Square and thetheatre district. Its boundaries are, again, 14th to 59th Streets, east ofEighth Avenue, with cutouts- from 14th to 26th Street it goes West only to 6thAvenue.To give you a flavor of the activity, here's a summary of CB6 April 14thMonthly Meeting minutes, as they pertain to the T&V community, taken fromthe board's website, Cb6Mny.org. Minutes are made public a month late, after the subsequent monthly meeting has adopted them. Please note that the minutes are condensed and statements are abbreviated. The writer apologizes, in advance, for a any misinterpretations and requests that CB members identify errors, particularly those of form, for future reference.
The meeting is held at NYU Medical Center, everybody is welcome. The event starts with a Public Session, then goes into a business session, in which the committees report on activities and offer resolutions.In the former, CM Margarita Lopez reported on the 23rd Street VeteransHospital, stating that all the community letters have convinced AnthonyPrincipi, Secretary of Veteran Affairs, to scuttle the recommendations ofthe C.A.R.E.S. Commission to transfer the hospital to Brooklyn. It would becatastrophic to the 350 Manhattan veterans who are patients of the hospital, many of them homeless, and many suffering from mental illness. The mayor and several major hospitals have also formed a committee to fight the proposal. Six more speakers wereheard.In the Business Session, Housing & Homeless Committee offered a resolutionto open a Task Force to consider Section 8 housing for the homeless. HumanServices Committee opposed the change of hot meal delivery to the aged,introducing a pilot delivery of seven days worth of frozen meals, becausethe recipients lack storage and microwave facilities. Also, it supportedthe extension of the senior citizens' rent support (SCRIE) program.The Transportation Committee recommended a parking lot closure, on 34th andEast River, and proposed to integrate the space into the Manhattan Greenway (pedestrian and bikeway) program. It also recommended a car service proposal at 2nd Avenue and 19th Street, and elimination of advertising in pay phone booths..Larks, Landmarks & Cultural Affairs recommended denial of an alterationpermit to 22 Gramercy Park, due to the failure of the applicant to appear,The Murray Hill Historic District extension was reported as approved.The only sidewalk café and bar issue in our area was Rodeo Bar, Third Aveat 27th Street, which was automatically opposed by the Board, because ofthe owner's non-attendance.That's all for now Next week, look for a CB5 report.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 6:10 AM 
