Adventures of Urban Life

Katherine Pimentel
Community Board 12 encompasses the neighborhoods of Inwood and Washington heights in Manhattan; it takes up the northern most tip of the island of Manhattan. According to the community board website, the area’s citizens are mostly Hispanic with a 74% of the population, the majority of Dominican descent. 13% is White mostly jewish, and about 8% of its residents are black. Community board 12 also has the largest concentration of children residing in Manhattan. In 2002 the median household income was reported to be about $52,000 which demonstrates a sharp increase in part due to the gentrification that the neighborhoods are experiencing. The majority of the housing is rented and only about 5% of those who live in the area actually own their homes. Due to gentrification housing has become a major issue in the community because the property values are increasing and many of the residents find that they can no longer afford to live there. CB 12 focuses on a wide array of issues in the community as seen from the many committees that they have. The committees cover many areas from, aging, public safety, economic development, transportation, youth and education, housing and many more.
The meeting that I went to was held at a venue other than the actual building designated for the community board. Instead it was held in a research building owned by Columbia University hospital, who ironically enough is trying to kick the community board out of their building to use it for something else. When I walked in they asked me if I wanted to speak I had to sign in before hand. As the people started pouring in I noticed that most of them were regulars because they knew each other and spoke about personal matters. The board members who sat in the front spoke to the citizens and everyone knew each others names. The main speakers, such as those from specific organizations or those involved in the NYC government had ten minutes to speak, while the citizens had three minutes to speak. One of the CB members took it upon herself to bring colored sheets of paper with the words 1 minute, 30 seconds and stop on them. She regulated the amount of time they spent talking and if they went over a few seconds she scolded them. I though this was pretty amusing because she did not care about how important what they said was. The meeting was very structured and one was not allowed to deviate from it. The people represented in the meeting was a fair representation of the neighborhood, it included Jews, Dominicans and a few African Americans.
The chair of the board did the introductions and told people when they were being out of order. The first person to speak was the commander of police for the neighborhood precinct. He spoke about the two homicides that have occurred in the year thus far and crime rates in general and how he believes they are slowly declining. Now that summer is approaching their main concern is motorcycle disturbances because they diminish “quality of life” and are disruptive to the elderly and violence that stems from alcohol in bars and lounges. I thought the issue of the motorcycles was rather petty in comparison to other issues that are of more importance in the neighborhood such as the drug problem and gang related activities. UNIDOS , community coalition spoke regarding their services for teens as well as representatives for senators and councilors.
One hot button topic in the meeting was that of the closing of the neighborhood public library for a year and a half. This had many of the community board members angry because they felt that the community was already lacking these resources and now it would be gone all together. On of the older women voiced her concern that she feared the library would never be reopened because that is her experience with other things in the community. Another man suggested that they extend library hours in the neighboring libraries to compensate for the one that is closing and he was concerned for those who work in the library and would be jobless for over a year. The representative for the New York Public Library reassured everyone that that library will be reopened after its renovation, and there are certain things that will not be possible such as more hours for other libraries due to a lack of funding. Overall the CB was not happy and many shook their heads in disapproval.
I felt like the Community Board 12 was very much involved in all of the aspects that affect the Washington heights and inwood neighborhoods. They even had good relationships with those who actually had the power to make some type of change. In relation to Arnstein’s Ladder of Citizen Participation the members of the community board would fall under the “partnership” category. Those with the power listen to the members of the board and try to find a way of alleviating their concerns. They tell them the information they know regarding a certain topic and get back to them when they have more or better answers. Those in power positions reinforce the notion that they need the communities help in order to truly be successful and encourage active participation. The fact that they even know them by name shows how the relationship has developed and become and intimate one. As far as the other citizens who come to observe the meeting but are not members, their level of participation to me would be under “consultation”. This is because they get their chance to speak and voice there opinion but no one really knows just how serious this is taken. The citizen get their tree minutes to speak and then they go back to their seats and no one ever comes back to them for more information or a contact number of some sort. It is like Arnstein states in page 238 “what the power holders achieve is the evidence that they have gone through the required motions of involving those people.” In return the people feel like they have done something helpful yet they will never really know.