CityHallNews.com

“Outer Borough” Presidents Bristle at Stringer’s Reforms
Molinaro, Markowitz, Marshall and Carrion say their challenges are not Manhattan’s

By Carla Zanoni

As new Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s (D) plan to “reform and empower” Manhattan’s community boards has started taking shape, the four other borough presidents are sticking to their own plans of action. They dismiss Stringer’s plan for reform, calling Manhattan a unique borough that is not reflective of their borough’s needs. But those familiar with community boards across the city are not quite convinced.

Community board appointments and oversight are two of the only official powers left to borough presidents.

Stringer, whose first term began in January, began tackling the issues he says make community boards struggle the most, searching for a system that makes members accountable for divulging conflicts of interest and the lobbying attempts at members, reducing the role of politics in the appointment process and staff hiring, and standardizing funding to reflect the population served. He also said that he will introduce new methods of accountability for community board performance, push for the inclusion of an urban planner on each community board staff and encourage each community board to create a 197-A, a neighborhood plan built by community consensus.

“We want to make the community board meetings the real town hall meeting where people can shape and mold their communities,” said Stringer.

Borough Presidents James Molinaro (R-Staten Island), Helen Marshall (D- Queens) and Marty Markowitz (D-Brooklyn) maintain that they are interested in making the community boards function at optimum levels, but that the issues presented by Stringer have little to do with their respective boroughs. Carrion did not comment on Stringer’s proposal.

All four are in their second terms and barred by current term limits from seeking reelection in 2009, though Markowitz and Carrion have made clear their interest in higher office. Stringer, meanwhile, is widely expected to seek citywide office by 2013, if not by 2009.

The other borough presidents said that Stringer faced different challenges than they did.

“In Manhattan, you’re dealing with people not knowing each other or the people you are dealing with,” said Molinaro. As for Staten Island, he said, “We don’t need any reform. It’s fine the way it is.”

Markowitz echoed these sentiments for Brooklyn, and Queens Deputy Borough President Karen Koslowitz said that she has never heard of any community boards in the area having problems with conflicts of interest, lobbying or lack of training.

“Our board members take their jobs very seriously and would be offended if lobbyists tried to invade the community boards,” she said.

Mark Davies, executive director for the Conflicts of Interest Board, disagreed with this assessment.

“Conflicts of interest potentially could arise at any community board,” he said. “It’s difficult because community board members have built in conflict of interests, because they have ties to the community and that’s why you want them there.”

Eight Democratic City Council members and 12 community boards from every borough but Staten Island, along with numerous civic organizations, endorsed the “Campaign for Community-Based Planning.” This community board reform plan was drafted by the Municipal Arts Society, a private urban planning consortium.

Though boroughs have individual needs—stadiums, waterways, airports, landfills, to name a few—the mechanism for addressing the needs should be uniform, said Eve Baron, director of the Municipal Arts Society.

“I’m not saying that each board needs to be identical,” said Baron, “but they need to be standardized.”

In 2005, the Municipal Arts Society released a report chronicling the ways boards are impeded from functioning effectively. The report entitled, “Livable Neighborhoods for a Livable City: Policy Recommendations to Strengthen Community-Based Planning in New York City” outlined several of the same issues Stringer has adopted for his own use in Manhattan.

Baron said that her organization made the report available to all borough presidents and formally approached Carrion, Markowitz and Stringer, then a leading candidate in the Democratic primary for the job.

Stringer signed on to the plan for reform, as did Carrion.

While Stringer has put some of the recommendations into place, over a year later, Carrion said his office is “currently developing a program for all members to receive ongoing training and education on important issues.”

To date, Markowitz has done nothing to implement the proposal.

“Each community board is a self-governing entity, and I am confident that conflicts and issues of transparency are handled by every board accordingly,” he said.

Tom Angotti, a professor of urban planning at Hunter College and who was involved in the Municipal Arts Society plan, said community boards can only be effective if the city makes them accountable to and representative of the community they serve. Boards also need to be given the resources they need. Angotti said the city planning the boards are engaged in should be more connected to the city’s budget process.

“Right now the meetings are more like the 4H-Club,” he said. “In a period of four hours, every community board in the city gets to say a few words and then it’s over.” Council Member Tony Avella (D-Queens) agreed, adding that reform is imperative for the system to work in the long run, but that it will not work without the cash to run the boards.

“Community boards, which are supposed to be the eyes and ears for the community, constantly find themselves without resources,” he said.

On average, each board receives approximately $200,000 to operate. The monies go toward salaries, supplies and research costs.

Budgets were cut during fiscal year 2002 and have never reached their previous budget level. Some community boards that serve higher populations receive less than boards with fewer members.

One of the areas Avella said are in need of the most reform is the land use process.

Stringer said that his plans for in-depth training, on land use, budgeting and various other issues, are intended to “empower” the boards.

Several in the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) seem to be in support of Stringer’s reforms, with Deputy Mayors Ed Skyler and Dan Doctoroff each attending different community board training sessions.

“We want to give people the flavor of how deep they can go,” Stringer said.

But Molinaro said that he did not think community board members who attend six hours a month of meeting should have major power to make decisions for the community. “Community boards are an advisory committee,” he later said. “They are not to do the duties of the borough president.”