BK boards see surge in applicants
BY ROSE ADAMS
More people applied to
serve on Brooklyn’s community
boards in 2021 than in
any year since at least 2017,
with some boards seeing up to
a 58 percent jump in applications
when compared to 2020.
The borough’s 18 community
boards — which issue
recommendations on hyperlocal
issues such as transportation,
education, and land use
— received more than 1,200 applications
for 2021, according
to fi gures from Borough Hall.
Community boards are comprised
of up to 50 non-salaried
members apiece — all of whom
must live, work, or have some
stake in the community, such as
a child in a local school.
This year’s numbers mark
a signifi cant increase over the
981 applications for 2020 year
and the 809 applications in
2019, according to the data.
The civic boards in northern
Brooklyn generally received
the most applications. Community
Board 1 in Williamsburg
and Greenpoint; Community
Board 2 in Downtown Brooklyn,
Brooklyn Heights, and
Clinton Hill; and Community
Board 3 in Bedford-Stuyvesant
all saw over 100 applicants between
COURIER L 14 IFE, APRIL 9-15, 2021
March 2020 and March
2021 — more than any Brooklyn
board had received in at
least three years.
One board leader attributed
the uptick to the fact
that meetings have gone virtual
because of the COVID-19
pandemic. “It’s truly because
of virtual meetings. Now
they’re more engaged,” said
Community Board 3 District
Manager and City Council
candidate Henry Butler. “Now
people sitting at home have
the opportunity to join community
board meetings.”
Community Board 3 logged
108 applications between
March 2020 and March 2021 —
the second largest number in
the borough behind Williamsburg
and Greenpoint’s Community
Board 1, which received
111. The board also had
one of the largest increases
in applicants year over year,
with 57 percent more people
applying in 2021 than in 2020.
The board’s popularity
could be because of its particularly
seamless transition to
WebEx and its usage of social
media, Butler said. Community
Board 3 has more Facebook
followers than any other
board in the borough, and
posts updates about upcoming
meetings and events daily.
To minimize interruptions
and technical diffi culties,
Community Board 3 makes
each meeting a webinar,
which allows board members
to speak while other attendees
stay muted. The board, which
uses WebEx to stream its gatherings,
also hosts webinars
regarding education, mental
health, and childcare, said
Butler, who added that he’d
like to continue hosting virtual
meetings indefi nitely.
“That’s my recommendation,”
he said, adding that the online
meetings have allowed parents
to become more engaged.
“People worked. They had kids;
they didn’t have time to physically
come to a meeting.”
While ten of the borough’s
18 boards saw a signifi cant increase
in applicants, others
were less lucky. Five boards received
about the same number
of applications as they did between
2019 and 2020, and three
received fewer. Community
Board 18 — which encompasses
Canarsie, Bergen Beach, Flatlands,
and Marine Park — received
16 fewer applications
from March 2020 to March 2021
than it did in the same time period
the year before, with applications
falling from 82 to 66.
The general increase in applications
comes months after
some civic gurus reported a
jump in attendance because of
their transition online.
“We saw community board
meetings go from what would
normally be, maybe, 100 people
in a room, to consistently a
couple-hundred people coming
to full board meetings,” said
Noel Hidalgo, the executive director
of BetaNYC, an organization
supported a number of
city community boards in their
transition online, in December.
To increase their reach, many
boards have also streamed their
meetings on YouTube, where
the public can access them after
they’re fi nished. Other organizations,
such as BetaNYC,
have sought to make the civic
groups more accessible by creating
databases for boards and
by sending newsletters with the
highlights and a transcription
of recent meetings.
Borough President Eric
Adams, who receives all the
applications for the borough’s
community boards and ultimately
makes appointments,
praised the surge in community
board engagement.
“The upward trend in applications
to our community
boards is a promising sign,
and is thanks in part to steps
our offi ce has taken over the
years to promote civic engagement,”
said Adams, adding
that his offi ce accepts applications
on a “rolling basis” and
that anyone interested may
still apply.
The borough’s 18 community boards received
more than 1,200 applications for 2021,
according to figures from Borough Hall.
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