A new CB 11 for the New Year

A new CB 11 for the New Year

Beginning the year with a fresh start, Community Board 11 will be reformatting their committees to encompass specific regions rather than issues.

During the Thursday, December 18, meeting CB11 members were asked to vote on instituting a six month pilot program for a new board, dissolving a majority of the issue committees and creating five geographic committees: Bronx Park East and Olinville, Allerton, Pelham Gardens, Morris Park and Van Nest, and Morris Park and Indian Village.

Certain committees will remain intact, such as Land Use, chaired by Joe McManus, and the newly combined committee of Youth and Education, chaired by Joseph Carfora.

“We had to keep those because they run a gamut through the whole board, they are uniform throughout the district,” said district manager of CB 11, John Fratta.

The board also kept the Community Development and Budget Priorities committee, which meets once a year.

“We still do have necessary standing committees to service the entire area, and anything we need to vote on we do as the whole board,” said Joe Thompson, chair of Section One. “I think it’s an excellent idea and we have expertise in each section, but if we need more we can get assistance from other sections or the city. We have a very talented board, we have people that are housing experts, crime experts, architects, computer experts, we are going to make sure we use all those talents and this is one way we can do that.”

The goal of the new organization is to get more involvement from board members with a better concentration on each area. Board members will be assigned to committees in the area where they reside, generating a greater interest of their own community’s needs.

“It’s a very good idea because the people that are in those areas know more than anybody else if there is a need in that section, the people living there will know best,” said Al D’Angelo, chair of Section Four. “We will still be working together but the input will be from a more localized constituent, members will have a more vested interest.”

Each new committee will have a chair and co-chair to assist in overseeing all the new responsibilities and transformations, as well as make up a new executive board, which will hold their introductory meeting Monday, January 12. Other chairs include, Rabbi Moshe Fuchs, Section Two, Joseph Thurston, Section Three, and Michael Carriere, Section Five.

“This is something we are going to have to wait and see, now everyone has their own sections of expertise,” said Vinny Prezioso, first vice chairman and chairman of executive board committee of CB11. “We weren’t happy with what was going on with board, a lot of things not being discussed, so we decided to reconfigure the whole board. It’s going into effect for six months, then in June we will review it and if everyone is satisfied keep it, or revert back to the old way of doing business.”