Moray-Pernet CB6 Bronx on budget increase and 501

Good morning, Council Member and Council.

My name is Rafael Moray-Pernet.

I'm the District Manager for Community Board 6 in the Bronx.

I'm here representing the Community Board who adopted this position at a board meeting.

We would like to ask the Council for a baseline budget increase to Community Boards.

The responsibilities of community boards have grown over time.

We recently opined on several citywide zoning tax amendments, which created a new universal affordability program, which is

creating more as of right development while still including community board review of that development.

We are now pining on open dining permits, retail cannabis licenses.

We are pining on open street applications, city charter amendments, as well as our ongoing regular duties of responding to constituent complaints of agency service delivery,

ULERP actions, liquor licenses, and traffic redesign projects.

So if the various recent legislative changes to the scope of the community boards have increased the amount of work that the boards are responsible for doing, it would make sense that the council would allocate more funding to community boards to support this work.

Most of our budget is used for a salary to support someone answering the phone when a constituent calls the office about a pothole or a tree, et cetera, et cetera.

We ask that the council consider this and push forward in the current budget process.

The council has shown time and time again that you value community input and that what the city is attempting to streamline and centralize land use procedures and other processes, that community input is valuable.

And in order for community input to be valuable, community boards need to be properly staffed to field those complaints and hear from the community on local issues.

And then lastly, my personal capacity, I want to just reiterate that Intro 501A is an attempt to politicize the district manager position and is very much antithetical to the value of community input at a local level.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next.