This is so great, and I enjoyed tuning in virtually to the ONY session about Community Boards the other week. As a newish parent, a renter, and an artist/freelancer with 18 years of NYC life under my belt, I feel especially invested in having a voice on the local scale, but it's ironically all those same factors that also prevent me from easily committing to those long, boring, bureaucratic meetings 3x a month 😕
Yay I'm so glad you joined the Open New York session last week!
And yes, totalllyyy-- joining the community board is a huge time commitment. At the same time that I learned so much from my time on the community board, I really don't think it's the right option for everyone. It's just too much time. Since I left the community board, I've been focusing more on my advocacy with other organizations (like Open New York) and that's been more manageable and felt more productive.
I am def still curious about the possibility of joining a committee as a layperson rather than a full CB member! I'm sure the meetings will still be bureaucratic and time consuming, albeit fewer in number -- I feel like it's maybe just the price you pay for even a small seat at the table 🙃
Love this post and the idea of incentivizing community boards to find creative ways to engage younger/new audiences!
You mentioned running a bootcamp for how to get engaged in local NYC politics. Any way you could share some resources? I recently moved to New York and am looking for ways to get involved. Appreciate any insight you can share!
The LEARN and BUILD COMMUNITY sections are a great place to start-- they're easy actions that are great for new New Yorkers, like subscribing to a local news outlet and making a WhatsApp group for your building.
The way that I started learning about NYC housing issues was by joining Open New York-- they have social events and new member meetings each month: https://www.onyeducation.org/membership/
Abundance New York is another great org to start-- they have monthly happy hours that pull together 50+ people so there's always new faces and regulars: https://www.abundanceny.org/
This was such a great piece! I loved your ideas to incentivize engagement between the Mayors office and community boards. The Mayor could also pop up at community board meetings every once in a while to speak with members and hear about those hyper local issues. Can also help build support for projects he wants to get done in that neighborhood
This is so great, and I enjoyed tuning in virtually to the ONY session about Community Boards the other week. As a newish parent, a renter, and an artist/freelancer with 18 years of NYC life under my belt, I feel especially invested in having a voice on the local scale, but it's ironically all those same factors that also prevent me from easily committing to those long, boring, bureaucratic meetings 3x a month 😕
Yay I'm so glad you joined the Open New York session last week!
And yes, totalllyyy-- joining the community board is a huge time commitment. At the same time that I learned so much from my time on the community board, I really don't think it's the right option for everyone. It's just too much time. Since I left the community board, I've been focusing more on my advocacy with other organizations (like Open New York) and that's been more manageable and felt more productive.
I am def still curious about the possibility of joining a committee as a layperson rather than a full CB member! I'm sure the meetings will still be bureaucratic and time consuming, albeit fewer in number -- I feel like it's maybe just the price you pay for even a small seat at the table 🙃
Oh -- And thank you for your advocacy! It's made a big difference to my civic engagement over the past year!
I’m so glad! 😀
Love this post and the idea of incentivizing community boards to find creative ways to engage younger/new audiences!
You mentioned running a bootcamp for how to get engaged in local NYC politics. Any way you could share some resources? I recently moved to New York and am looking for ways to get involved. Appreciate any insight you can share!
Definitely! The Bootcamp Action List is my best rec for where to get started. https://nycpolitics101.substack.com/i/157937513/bootcamp-actions
The LEARN and BUILD COMMUNITY sections are a great place to start-- they're easy actions that are great for new New Yorkers, like subscribing to a local news outlet and making a WhatsApp group for your building.
The way that I started learning about NYC housing issues was by joining Open New York-- they have social events and new member meetings each month: https://www.onyeducation.org/membership/
Abundance New York is another great org to start-- they have monthly happy hours that pull together 50+ people so there's always new faces and regulars: https://www.abundanceny.org/
This was such a great piece! I loved your ideas to incentivize engagement between the Mayors office and community boards. The Mayor could also pop up at community board meetings every once in a while to speak with members and hear about those hyper local issues. Can also help build support for projects he wants to get done in that neighborhood
Definitely! Building that two-way communication helps the mayor with his agenda, and helps community feel heard.
Great post! Actually, one of my first posts was about CB meetings being too long and not run well.
Maybe Zohran could add a ParliPro competition for better run meetings!
https://open.substack.com/pub/newyorkabundance/p/community-board-meetings-are-too?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=n8i7
how did I miss this post??? A gem!
Love the idea of using community board competition to spur engagement and leveraging the Mayor’s significant cultural capital as a reward
yeah! cultural capital is not free, but I like that it's also not expensive haha