CARIBBEAT: Borough presidents eye teens for NYC community boards

There’s an urgent push to get some new, young blood in the city’s important — but under-utilized — community boards system, and the initiative is being championed by children of Caribbean immigrants, who’ve become borough presidents.

Laws already allow high school and college-aged 16-to-18-year-olds to join the city’s vital community boards, but Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso is making the inclusion of teenagers a 2023 priority.

“If we’re going to build a Brooklyn that reflects the people who live here, we need community boards that are truly representative and working on behalf of local residents,” said Reynoso in his 2023 State of the Borough address last month. A former city councilmember, Reynoso — the son of immigrants from the Dominican Republic — was elected Brooklyn Borough president in 2021.

In the address, Reynoso explained that “Nearly one quarter of Brooklyn is 18 years old or younger, but most applicants and appointees to community boards last year were age 45-64. Right now, our community boards team is working hard to seat at least two members between 16 and 18 years old on each of our 18 community boards.” Brooklyn community board applications are being accepted through Feb. 23.

In Queens, the deadline for community board applications ended last week, but Borough President Donovan Richards — whose father was a Jamaican immigrant — is continuing his push to “correct long-standing demographic inequities across Queens’ 14 community boards,” said a spokesperson for his office. And prospective applicants are urged to attend board meetings and apply next year for seats on Queens boards.

“I look forward to building on the progress we’ve made to diversify and strengthen our boards over the last two years,” said Richards, a former city councilmember, who took the borough presidency in 2020.

In neighborhoods across the city, the unsalaried community board members are appointed by their respective borough president and local city councilmember. The board members investigate complaints from community residents, manage special neighborhood projects, and perform other duties. The boards also execute an important “advisory role” — weighing in on land use and zoning changes, consulting with other city agencies conducting working in the neighborhood, and addressing community-wide issues, “from a traffic problem to deteriorating housing,” according to the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit.

In Brooklyn, Reynoso has focused on getting teenagers more involved. “One of our main priorities is getting younger people interested in serving on their community boards since current membership skews older than the communities they represent,” confirmed Isabel Shepard, Reynoso’s press secretary, adding that Trinidad-born Carol-Ann Church, Brooklyn’s director of Community Boards, is working hard to get Brooklynites — 16-to-18-year-olds, as well as 18-to 44-year-olds — to apply for seats on the boards.

Even though, “community boards sometimes feel like New York City’s best kept secret,” wider involvement helps the whole neighborhood, said Church. “You know, encouraging age diversity and civic engagement is really important to how we shape our communities, because the younger people have a stake in what their community looks like,” said Church, noting that there are other options besides board membership.

Members of the public can volunteer to participate on the board’s various committees — such as arts and culture, environment, public safety, transportation — which advise the board members.

And the boards are a good fit for Caribbean newcomers. “Immigrants have something very special to bring to community,” said Church. “Even though they’ve left their nation home, they bring with them their own sense of community and are willing to be engaged.”

For more than 40 years, WABC-TV, Channel 7′s Gil Noble covered the length and breadth of the Black experience — from current issues and American personalities to historical figures and the examination of Africa’s past, present and future. And in honor of Noble and his accomplishments, the New York station will be establishing the “Gil Noble Vault” section of the station’s streaming app and website.

Sunday at noon, the station’s “Here & Now” show, the Sandra Bookman-hosted public affairs show, will host “a one-hour-long retrospective of the life and career of Noble, who was born in Harlem to Jamaican immigrant parents.