CB4 meeting

Brownstoner today wonders if Brooklyn’s Community Boards are on their way out, given their ineffectualness and ever-deepening lack of funds. The commenters on the post are (as of this writing) unanimous in their acceptance and even cheer at the approaching demise of the CBs. They complain of “NIMBY seniors” who are “out of touch” with the new realities of their neighborhoods. These descriptions and more resemble Bushwick’s Community Board 4.

At one point my partner, Luis, was interested in participating in the CB. One summer night we walked down to the senior center, where the meetings are held, at the sprawling Hope Gardens housing projects. “I wonder if they hold them in the projects to keep certain people from attending,” Luis joked. I nodded, at that moment not thinking he was that far off. We took our seats among the Sunday-hatted elderly women in attendance, and I could immediately spot who was who — in one corner, activist types. In another, reporters. There, social workers. All we needed was for the entire thing to be about welfare benefits and affordable housing initiatives, and my expectations for the night would be complete.

Unfortunately, I was not disappointed. At one point, someone complained that an affordable housing development was not affordable enough. I quite agreed — $500K for a two-family, uh, you can buy that on the market right now — and was outraged with the people in attendance that the developer got cheap city land in the deal. The board then announced some openings on the city’s Section 8 voucher list. They then moved on to a presentation about the health of Bushwick’s babies, and a program wherein the city basically has decided that all black women who give birth in New York City need to be visited by social workers because they are probably unfit mothers — with one woman’s concern about privacy rather unartfully dodged by the health bureaucrat. They finished the night with a surprisingly raucous 30-minute debate about holding a retirement party for a former Board president. For this we rushed to finish work early?

Luis is now buried eye-deep in his new job, so his desire to get on a committee or even the Board has waned. Considering the above along with the Board office’s off-putting inaccessibility and the CB’s continuing refusal to approve residential uses of unused manufacturing properties, the Bushwick Community Board seems to be a waste of what little money it is budgeted. They are hopelessly out of touch with their new constituency — Central American immigrants and artists/hipsters/yuppies alike — and are holding the fort for the establishment of decades past.

Time to diversify or disband.