One Brooklyn
January 14, 2016
BOROUGH PRESIDENT LAUNCHES FIRST-EVER DIGITAL APPLICATION FOR BROOKLYN COMMUNITY BOARDS, TARGETS PAPERLESS PROCESS BY 2017
BROOKLYN, NY, January 14, 2016: Today, Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams encouraged civic-minded Brooklynites to apply for a position on one of Brooklyn’s eighteen local community boards, inviting interested candidates to submit their application online for the first time in the borough’s history. Community boards, which have existed in their current form for 40 years following the Charter Revision of 1975, are the most local representative bodies of government in New York City; they are responsible for dealing with land use issues, assessing neighborhood needs, and addressing community concerns. Borough presidents are responsible for the appointment for each of their community board’s 50 unsalaried members, half of whom are nominated by local members of the City Council. Borough President Adams celebrated the long-requested move to digitizing community board applications, and additionally declared his target for a paperless process by 2017; applicants will still have the ability to submit hard-copy applications this cycle.
“Our community board members are critical to the conversation between the residents of each neighborhood, their city agencies, and local elected officials,” said Borough President Adams. “In a city of over eight million people, we cannot lose sight of the hyperlocal focus needed to solve problems and identify opportunities on every block and street corner. Community boards are the grassroots forums where ideas that will define the future of Brooklyn are introduced and discussed. With applications now available online, I hope to see an expanded applicant pool that is engaged and representative of the diverse identities and interests that make up our borough.”
Borough President Adams added that he is particularly interested in receiving community board applications from local teenagers. Last year, he used the authority granted under a new state law that gives borough presidents the ability to appoint two members who are at least sixteen years of age to each community board; as a result, teenagers were selected to join Community Boards 2, 3, 6, 9, 11, and 16. Borough President Adams has previously stated his goal to appoint youth members on every community board in the borough.
Applications for appointment and re-appointment for community boards are now available at brooklyn-usa.org. The application deadline for those interested in being appointed or re-appointed this year is Monday, February 15. Applicants must be New York City residents to serve on a community board; to qualify for a particular board, they must live, work in, or have a professional or other significant interest in that board’s district.
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