Activity #5 - Community Boards

Lorraine O’Connell
Activity # 5 –Community Board

I went to Community Board 6 meeting which is the Community Board for Rego Park and Forest Hills. I live in Rego Park and I work in Forest Hills so it was an ideal meeting to go to. The meeting was located at 73-05 Yellowstone Boulevard, Forest Hills, NY 11375, it was basically a store front which I found normal because I've been there plenty of times before but it is an odd image for a prestige thought like a community board. But the meeting went the same as it always did, the same people showed up and the same result came of the meeting, nothing.
I have to attend these meetings for work since I work under the Queens Borough President, so I am accustom to them and know the regulars who attend the meeting. So it wasn’t a new experience and there was probably one new person out of the fifteen people who were there including the board members. The Communities of Forest Hills and Rego Park are the communities that are represented and they are prominently white communities, on the richer side for the most part and of the older age. Forest Hills is a privatized community and is composed of white, Jewish, rich small families or elders. While Rego Park is the middle class section that is composed of whites, Hispanics and Russians. The two areas clash and this is always an issue within the community board meeting.
The Community Board meeting was two hours, which is the normal length, and it was about the new construction of a high school within the neighborhood of Rego Park. The school is under construction and has been a debated issue more than once. It is a heated issue because the surrounding neighborhood is afraid that the property value will go down around the school, the streets will become infested with bad teenagers and that there will be a higher rate of violence and added distributions within the area. This was easily understood coming from older people, because those are the people who make up the board and who make up the meeting not including myself and three other people in our teens or twenties. The argument became extremely heated when it turned into community versus community, because Forest Hills already has a high school and knows the impact of the teenagers who go there, but Rego Park is unaware and careless to the whole thought on it until now. But Rego Park is finding all ways to rid themselves of the high school. The argument continued and got nowhere within the meeting. Although other people brought up other issues like unfixed large pot holes that were causing accidents, and the continued running of red lights on Woodhaven Boulevard but the High School was the main and largest of concerns.
I being from Rego Park understood that the school would have an impact on the neighborhood but I didn’t take it as a bad impact I thought it would bring more business and culture to the neighborhood but I was told I only thought that way because I was young and naïve. Which coming from the elders of my community, who had seen neighborhood grow, was a compliment. They thought my thoughts on the matter were to positive and liberal. They understand that I am nineteen and are use to my opposing thoughts on the many issues they bring up in the meetings so it didn’t come as a surprise that I would oppose and debate with them, they didn’t expect anything less.