Borough President Helen Marshall is accessing how new technology can help citizens stay in touch with their government. Online And Loving it While Podcasting community board meetings is a relatively new concept – CB3 would be the first board in the city to bring their minutes to residents’ ears – boards across Queens and throughout the city depend on Web sites to get their information out. In 1998 CB3 came online with its Web site offering residents of Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst and North Corona various means to reach local municipalities and voice their concerns. The site puts the public in contact with board members, the Mayor’s office, City Council and the borough president as well as offering a calendar of meetings, meeting minutes archives, assorted maps of the district, community organizations and civic groups among other resources. CB 8 District Manager Diane Cohen agrees with Lowenhaupt that Web sites are becoming a crucial tool in linking residents with their community boards and hard to find information. “Our Web site gives the public a listing of the meetings, tells about the board and information that is helpful,” said Cohen. “Everything is at their fingertips.” “With the technology offered today, there is no excuse for not being in tune with what your local government is doing,” Cohen said. Faulty Connection Community Boards 3 and 8 may be sharing the same data stream as their residents, but for hundreds of thousands in other districts across Queens, access to community boards is limited. In Manhattan all 12 community boards have an operating Web site, as do all 12 community boards in the Bronx. But in Queens only five out of 14 community boards are online while a greater percentage (2 out of 3) in Staten Island are online. Five years ago former Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and Con Edison co-sponsored the 12 Web sites to increase communication between residents across the Bronx and local community boards. “Former Bronx Borough President Ferrer and Borough President (Adolfo) Carrion are both technology savvy and it is important to them for information to be accessible to the public,” said Thomas Lucania, director of community boards for the Bronx Borough President’s office. “Whether you are at home, school or the library information should be available. And as the local government, community board information should certainly be accessible.” Like CB3’s Podcasting plans, the program sponsored by the Bronx Borough President’s office sets another precedent for the city’s local government – involvement at the Borough President level. Of the five community boards in Queens that do operate a Web site, Cohen said the responsibility to start one and maintain it is up to each individual community board, whereas in the Bronx the only responsibility the board members have is feeding information to the Borough president’s office. Taking on a community board Web site system like the one in the Bronx does have an appeal to the community boards in Queens, but Lowenhaupt said he would prefer better quality – similar to CB3’s Web site. “It wouldn’t be that expensive, it would actually be rather cheap for the city to offer web space to each community board,” he said. “ It would cost roughly $10,000 to cover all of Queens each year.” Lowenhaupt added that even a training session through LaGuardia Community College or Queens College would be helpful to at least one member of each board. Marshall Logs On “I am all for getting information out there and to the public,” Queens Borough President Helen Marshall said. “But we have to make sure we are doing it the right way. As soon as Community Board 3 agrees on the new technology and I see how it works first hand I think a lot of people will be interested.” Marshall, who once served on CB3, said she is impressed that Queens citizens are volunteering at the local government level and working to get neighbors in touch with much needed resources. She admitted that her community boards need to take better advantage of the technology offered today. “I encourage the use of Web sites; some of our boards have remarkable Web sites that they have started on their own. Each board does have access to a computer, but there are costs that we need to look at,” she said of both Web sites and Podcasting. Lowenhaupt added that Podcasting meetings would be almost as cheap as setting up a Web site. The audio software typically comes with the computer and a pair of tabletop microphones cost $80. The advancements of CB3 seem more than interesting Cohen said, but she is not sure whether or not it is a project her community board would take on or how quickly other boards will sign on it. To learn more about Web sites serving the population of Queens go to www.nyc.gov or www.queensbp.org.

[Feature Archives]