If you want to know why size matters, take a look at Community Board 7 in New York City's upper west side. Their board has 50 members and whew, I can't imagine what that means (well, actually, based on the article, I can get a glimpse). So, let's begin with board size but not stop there. Crazy in the making but read the rest of this West Side Rag story to get a glimpse of the many challenges a nonprofit board can experience.
Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Community Boards, But Really Should
By Carol Tannenhauser
To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield: Community Board 7 don’t get no respect. Those who know a little something about the board often claim it’s all talk with no power to act. Other Upper West Siders have no idea what CB7 is (according to an informal, random survey by WSR.)
“Community Board 7, Community Board 7…that’s the thing with Helen Rosenthal?” a woman guessed recently. (Actually, Helen Rosenthal was on the City Council and term limited out in 2021.)
In fact, as of October and for the next year, Community Board 7 is ‘the thing with Beverly Donohue,’ who won a contentious election to become its new chair. (Donohue’s campaign consisted of calling every one of the nearly 50 members of the board to introduce herself.) Drama erupted very publicly right before the vote, with one member verbally attacking Donohue’s opponent, drawing comparisons by another member to “reality tv.”
Those days are over, Donohue hopes. “If you have drama, you don’t have time to work,” she said in a recent interview at City Diner on W. 90th and Broadway. One of her goals is “to address the factionalized nature of our board,” but not through “draconian [methods],” she added. “I don’t think that develops the collegiality I would like to see. I’m planning to work differently: modeling behavior; developing opportunities for people to work together in real ways; solving turf disputes and things like that quietly and well before a meeting, so they don’t blow.”
Originally from Boston, Donohue, 78, moved to the UWS in 1973. She met her husband in college (he was at Harvard and she was at Radcliffe, before the two schools officially merged in 1999), after which a job offer (his) brought them to the city, where they raised two sons. Donohue, who taught middle- and high-school social studies, took some time off from work when they were young, then entered city government — where she rose to deputy director in the Mayor’s Office of Management and Budget. Later, she was chief financial officer for the city’s Department of Education, serving over the years under Mayors Koch, Dinkins, Giuliani, and Bloomberg. She then left government and served 15 years as vice president of the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools. Only after she retired in 2018 and was free of any potential “conflicts of interest”, did she apply to the community board, she said.
Conflicts of interest are a key concern of CB7. For example, you have at least two members of the transportation committee who are also serving on the advisory board of Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit whose stated mission is to “reclaim New York City from cars.” Should they vote on bike lanes? It’s a dilemma, Donohue said, because board members are chosen, in large part, for their expertise. Another member of the transportation committee is on the MTA board. “He understands the transit system like no one else on our board and perhaps other boards as well,” she said. “There’s so much talent on this board. Everyone brings something unique and important that I would like to see us utilize.” She explained that there is a city conflict-of-interest board that offers rulings about whether community board members should abstain from voting on certain issues, because of their other affiliations.
Donohue made two major changes in her first month as chair: she moved the community portion of CB7 meetings, when the public can voice questions, concerns, and opinions, to the beginning of the evening, “so they don’t have to wait till 10 p.m. to speak” — although they still follow the local politicians, who collectively take up a lot of time. And she replaced the co-chair of the transportation committee, Howard Yaruss, with Mark Diller, because, she said, “last June, the board adopted a revision to its bylaws that reduced the number of consecutive years a committee chair could serve from six to four. Howard had reached the four-year mark.” Yaruss is a member of Transportation Alternatives’ advisory board.
Community board members are appointed by the Borough President for two years. Fifty percent of them come from names submitted by a district’s City Council members, in CB7’s case, Gale Brewer and Shaun Abreu. The rest come through the application process, which is open now through March 17, 2023. In 2018, voters approved a ballot resolution limiting community board members to four consecutive two-year terms. The position is volunteer and unsalaried, and the application “takes some time to fill out,” still, Donohue said, “we’re told that CB7 always receives more applicants than any other board in Manhattan, because it’s so active.” CB7 generally meets on the first Tuesday of the month. (The next meeting is January 3, 2023, at 6:30 p.m. Watch for the registration link on CB7’s website.)
For more information about community boards, click here and here – and read Beverly Donohue’s answers to WSR’s follow-up questions below. They were sent by email and are unedited.