Testimony Of NYC Comptroller Scott M. Stringer Before The City Council Government Operations Committee Oversight Hearing On Best Practices For Recruitment And Appointment To Community Boards
Good afternoon, Chairman Kallos and members of the committee. Thank you for convening this hearing on best practices for community board recruitment and appointment. Community boards play a central role in shaping neighborhood development and advising government on the needs and interests of our communities. As the pace of development in New York City continues to expand, our boards’ mandate as community planning entities is more important than ever. I commend the Council for examining ways to strengthen and support community boards in fulfilling their mission.
Community board reform and empowerment was a signature effort of my eight years as Manhattan Borough President. This testimony will share some of the ideas we tried, which I hope will be useful as the current Borough Presidents and Council Members consider this process. But make no mistake; many ideas are required to unleash the full potential of community boards. Our current Borough Presidents and Council Members have creative, new ideas and will put their own stamp on the appointment process. Thanks to leadership of Speak Mark Viverito, participatory budgeting is taking off citywide, further transforming the way municipal government operates in New York. I am eager to see how community boards will grow and gain strength under this new leadership.
Community boards have always held the potential to be truly influential neighborhood institutions. However, all too often unchecked conflicts of interest, unfilled vacancies, and a lack of training and support undermine their success and reputation. Our vision was to work with Manhattan’s City Council delegation to restructure the appointment and training process to ensure that community boards were comprised of well-qualified members who were selected on their merits—not their connections—and to equip them with the skills and knowledge necessary to navigate the complex issues facing their communities.
Many New York neighborhoods are undergoing rapid redevelopment of commercial and residential areas. The City Charter mandates that community boards exercise specific powers and fulfill prescribed responsibilities including long-term community planning (197-A planning) and Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). In order to do this effectively, boards not only need strong, effective members, but the resources that will allow them to meet their planning responsibilities. Yet their current resources are woefully inadequate. Boards should have full-time urban planners on staff, but with paltry budgets that have not been raised in over twenty years, they cannot afford it.
That’s why our office created the Community Planning Fellowship program which places graduate urban planning students in community board offices. This program enhances the ability of community boards to undertake research, analysis and mapping, allowing them to better evaluate development proposals and provide sounder recommendations. Over the past few years, planning fellows created a community-based zoning proposal for the East Village within Community Board 3, analyzed residential conversion of Class B office space in Community Board 5, and helped Community Board 10 in Central Harlem to update their 197-A proposal. We also offered training in land use and zoning, conflicts of interest law, the city budget, and parliamentary procedure to all community board members on a regular basis. This continuing education and support helped appointees build their knowledge base, better preparing them for the work on the boards.
Community Board Recruitment
Recruiting qualified community board members is a challenge for every Borough President. Many New Yorkers are unaware that community boards exist, let alone that they are eligible to serve. As a result, Borough Presidents and City Council Members devote a considerable amount of time to public education and outreach. As Manhattan Borough President, my outreach and recruitment strategy was comprised of four key components: individualized recruitment plans for each community board, broad outreach to community organizations, public information sessions, and using all forms of new and established media—from television and radio to newspapers and social media—to reach the public.
The individualized outreach and recruitment plans were developed through consultation with Community Board Chairs, City Council Members and other elected officials in an effort to ascertain the strengths, needs and priorities of each board. This individualized understanding, along with an examination of the census data for each district, allowed my office to create targeted plans to recruit applicants who represented the diversity of their neighborhoods and possessed the skills and experience that particular boards might be lacking.
For example, the 2000 Census showed that 35.2 percent of Community Board 3 identified as Asian or Pacific Islander. Yet in 2006, only eight percent of the board, or four of the fifty members, were Asian American. This meant that the recruitment strategy for Community Board 3 needed to focus on aggressive outreach within the Asian American community. As a result of this focused outreach, we were able to steadily increase Asian American representation on the board, tripling it to 24 percent, or 12 members, by 2011. While there is more to be done, it was a marked improvement from 2006.
Community Board Appointment
Our office not only focused on transforming the community board recruitment process, but also on reforming the appointment process. When I entered office, Manhattan community boards had dozens of vacancies, were rife with conflicts of interest, and in many cases were governed by the same appointees year after year, allowing limited room for new voices and views.
The centerpiece of these appointment reform efforts was the creation of an “Independent Screening Panel” comprised of leaders from good government groups, civic associations, and community-based organizations. Members included Citizens Union, NAACP, Hispanic Federation, NYPIRG and the League of Women Voters, to name a few.
The panel had two major functions. First, it helped to assure the public that appointments were merit- based. Applicants were screened by the committee using a uniform set of criteria, and only those who received a recommendation from the panel advanced in the selection process and received an interview. Second, panelists actively partnered with my office on recruiting applicants from their organizations, constituencies or communities, essentially serving as ambassadors for community board reform. These efforts broadened the scope of our outreach significantly.
All applicants, including those who had previously served on the board, were required to complete an application and interview with my office, effectively ending automatic re-appointments. Attendance and participation were taken into consideration for all re-appointments, and those with poor attendance were often replaced by new applicants who brought unique perspectives and renewed vigor to their service.
While we endeavored to appoint committed candidates, mid-term vacancies invariably arose. Vacancies hurt the boards by leaving them with fewer members to perform their duties. Equally troubling was that the lack of an automatic system for filling vacancies left the door open for Borough Presidents to appoint members at politically convenient times. That’s why our policy was to fill every vacancy within 30 days. By and large we met this goal, and while some vacancies took longer to fill, we were committed to ensuring that vacancies were filled as quickly as possible.
These reforms to the appointment process were only possible due to the support and buy-in of every member of the Manhattan Council delegation. The Council members were true partners in the implementation of these reforms, with many committing staff resources of their own to recruit candidates and conduct interviews, and all members agreeing to appoint only applicants who had passed the independent screening panel.
Results, Challenges and Next Steps
Community board reform in Manhattan yielded meaningful results. Over eight years, 715 new appointments were made to the borough’s 12 community boards, giving hundreds of New Yorkers the chance to participate in shaping the future of their neighborhoods. Planning fellows completed a wide range of meaningful projects that boards would never have had the capacity to undertake alone. African American, Latino, Asian American and LGBT representation on community boards increased by over 40 percent. And while some results of community board reform are harder to measure in numbers; my office received consistent positive feedback from community board members concerning the improved quality of appointments and capacity for operations that have been possible as a result.
After seeing these positive effects, I advocated for expanding our best practices citywide. In 2010, I submitted a series of recommendations to the New York City Charter Commission including a section devoted to community boards. Recommendations included: 1) a written application process and interviews for all appointees, 2) substantial public outreach conducted by the Borough Presidents, 3) annual reports on the composition of community board membership, 4) specific timelines for appointments following term expirations and vacancies, and 5) the appointment of a full-time urban planner to every community board. Although these recommendations were ultimately not adopted, I continue to believe they merit further exploration in venues such as today’s hearing.
I am proud of our successes, but challenges still remain. The greatest challenges facing community boards today are insufficient budgets and a lack of consistent, dedicated land use expertise. It is essential that community boards are able to hire full time urban planners to further their work. Without this resource, boards will always struggle to keep up with the review and analysis of land use projects that come before them, and will be inhibited from doing the robust, forward-looking planning that our neighborhoods so badly need.
Community boards are one of the most dynamic and vital parts of municipal government. Their value cannot be underestimated, which is why it is so important to attract and retain talented, committed local leaders and provide those members with the necessary training and support to do their jobs well. I commend the current Borough Presidents and City Council for their commitment to elevating the work of community boards and I look forward to seeing the results of your collective efforts in the coming years.
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