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Community Board Responsibilities |
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New York City’s voters created Community Boards when they approved a new City Charter in 1975. The Board’s creation was the culmination of a 25 year drive for local governance.
The following discusses the 21 areas of responsibility outlined for Community Boards in the Charter. Language from the Charter is presented in quotes. To see the full text from the City Charter, click here.
"Consider the needs of the district which it serves."
With these words the City Charter empowered each Community Board to set its own direction, based on the needs of its district. Boards typically focus on social, economic, health, and safety issues. But Boards occasionally use this "empowerment clause" to express an opinion on state, national, and foreign policy issues.
Board membership and the issues facing a community are ever-changing. To learn about a particular Board's current concerns and activities, one must review its reports, by-laws, committee structure, recent activities, and speak with its chair, the members, and district manager. A general overview of the Board’s formal roles as presented in the City Charter is provided below.
Communicators and Coordinators
Community Boards are the most local unit of city government and serve as a communication link between their communities and the broader city government. Information is to flow up from residents through the Boards to the appropriate city agencies and from city agencies through the Boards to residents. The Charter charges the Boards to, “Cooperate with, consult, assist, and advise any public officer, agency, local administrator of agencies, legislative bodies, or the Borough President with respect to any matter relating to the welfare of the district and its residents."
Speaking of the government-to-people communication process, the Charter says the Boards are to, "Assist City departments and agencies in communicating with and transmitting information to the people of the district." Traditionally, Boards provide residents with this "agency information" through contacts with as many community groups as possible: block associations, civic, religious, business, and other voluntary groups.
An important role for Community Boards is sponsoring meetings on issues of concern to the community. At their discretion, Boards "hold public or private hearings or investigations with respect to any matter relating to the welfare of the district and its residents, but the Board shall take action only at a meeting open to the public."
Cooperation between Community Boards is often necessary and one mechanism to facilitate such contacts is the Borough Board. All Board Chairpersons sit on their Borough Board, which is charged with dealing with matters involving more than one Board or the entire borough.
Often two or more Boards will need to act on land use questions, such as those concerning housing developments or parks that straddle two or more districts. Boards sharing these Joint Interest Areas (such as Flushing Meadow Park or Columbus Circle) cooperate with one another through the creation of a Joint Committee.
Until recently, Board members and staff connected with community organizations by telephone, fax, mailing lists, posters, meetings, word of mouth, and the local press. But with the arrival of the Internet and its websites, email, conferencing, etc., Boards are experimenting with new communication channels. How the new medium changes institutional relationships is a closely watched development.
Oversight
Boards may "Request the attendance of agency representatives at meetings of the Community Board." But without subpoena power, they must rely on goodwill and persuasion to attract agency representatives. Occasionally a Commissioner appears at Board meetings, but most often an agency's local service chief (e.g., a police precinct captain), having the most intimate knowledge of the community, attends committee or other Board meetings.
The local service chiefs are responsible for an agency's operations within the district. If an answer from a service chief is not forthcoming or considered inadequate, then higher authorities may be sought - the borough supervisor, commissioner, etc.
Planning
Boards have broad planning responsibilities. These include preparing "comprehensive and special purpose plans for the growth, improvement, and development of the community district." The Charter allows Community Boards to institute comprehensive planning with regard to their district’s by developing a 197-a Plan.
In addition, the Boards may prepare comments on the City's plans with regard to other matters affecting the district.
Reporting
Boards are required to prepare several reports. A key responsibility is to "Render an annual report to the Mayor, the Council, and the Borough Board within three months of the end of the year and such other reports to the Mayor or the Borough Board as they shall require." For our latest annual report click here. Boards must also "Prepare and submit to the Mayor an annual statement of community district needs, including a brief description of the district, the board's assessment of its current and probable future needs, and its recommendations for programs, projects or activities to meet those needs." For our latest District Needs Report click here. [These links will be activated soon.]
Boards must also "Consult with agencies on the capital needs of the district, review departmental estimates, hold public hearings on such needs and estimates and prepare and submit to the Mayor capital budget priorities for the next fiscal year and three succeeding fiscal years." For our latest Capital Budget Request click here. [This link will be activated soon.]
The Boards participate in "budget consultations" with many City agencies. The Charter directs them to "Consult with agencies on the program needs of the community district to be funded from the expense budget, review departmental estimates, hold public hearings on such needs and estimates, and prepare expense budget priorities for the next fiscal Year." Agencies are expected to respond to Board budget priorities.
During district level budget consultations the Board has the opportunity to plan for improved local services and to learn what expense budget recommendations will support those plans. The discussion on Budget Consultation has more on this.
Monitoring
All capital projects in a district are subject to review by the Community Board. Each project's scope and design has to be evaluated and its progress monitored, with the sponsoring agency charged with furnishing progress reports. Boards maintain contact with project officers to remain informed about both progress and obstacles.
Boards are "…authorized to assign a representative to attend any meeting held by a city agency to determine, in advance of drafting, the form and content of any environmental impact statement required by law for a proposal or application for a project in such board's district." Additionally, they may "Exercise the initial review of applications and proposals of public agencies and private entities for the use, development or improvement of land located in the community district, including the conduct of a public hearing and the preparation and submission to the City Planning Commission of a written recommendation." Read the discussion on the ULURP process for more on this.
Boards also "Evaluate the quality and quantity of services provided by agencies within the community district" and "assist the agencies on the preparation of service statements of agency objectives priorities, programs and projected activities within the community district and review such statements."
The Boards prepare agency evaluations based upon their meeting these performance standards. Over time the District Manager, Board members, and committees build up a body of knowledge about city agencies. These agency evaluations may be circulated throughout the community to enhance residents' understanding of the agency operations.
Board Organization
To fulfill their many responsibilities, Boards organize themselves by electing officers, forming committees, and hiring a professional staff. The Charter says each Board is to, "Elect its own officers and adopt, and make available for reasonable public inspection, by laws and statements of the duties assigned by the board to its district manager and other professional staff, keep a public record of its activities and transactions, including minutes of its meetings and majority and minority reports and all documents the board is required by law to review which shall be made available in accordance with law to elected officials upon request and for reasonable public inspection."
New York State's Freedom of Information Law controls the activities that must be recorded in minutes and who may have access to them.
The Chair
The duties and rules for selecting a Board’s chair person are set in its by-laws. At Queens Community Board 3, elections are held each January for the Chair, First Vice Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, Treasure, and At-Large members. All elected positions have three year term limits. The Board Chair presides over the monthly board meeting, appoints committee chairs, and oversees the operation of the district office.
District Manager & Staff
Community Boards hire a District Manager and support staff (typically 2-3 people) to serve as the Board's secretariat, to help resolve city service delivery complaints, and help fulfill the myriad responsibilities outlined above.
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