Suggesting You Choose to Take A Survey

Community Boards (CBs) submit their District Needs Statements each fall, listing and explaining neighborhood priorities for the coming fiscal year. I used to be very skeptical of that process. The logic behind that skepticism basically said, “CBs, with no official authority other than being advisory, submit a list of things in October for a budget that’s voted on by the City Council and signed by the Mayor the following June? I’m not buying it.”

But I was wrong. Not wrong because I’d discovered that CBs had some latent power I wasn’t aware of, but wrong because I’d missed that this process is an opportunity to show what we, CB6, prioritize, what we want to invest in, and what we decide to put off for another day, to show and make clear to others in the budget process our priorities and choices.

Like any jurisdiction (district, borough, city, country, or continent), Brooklyn and CB6 exist because of choices. For example, if 277 fewer people had voted against consolidation in 1898, Brooklyn would not have become a borough of New York City; it would’ve remained the City of Brooklyn. Or, to keep references within the 19th century, if the Cities of Brooklyn and New York hadn’t chosen to allocate millions of dollars to their capital budgets starting in 1867, it would be harder to cross the East River, and the Gilded Age’s second season would lack a plotline because the Brooklyn Bridge wouldn’t have been built.

Of course, there are more recent examples of policy and budget choices, many of which we understandably take for granted, that affect New Yorkers’ lives every day. When I taught political science at Brooklyn College, some of my students, often taking one of my classes to fulfill a core requirement, would say something like, “This doesn’t matter to me, I’m a [fill-in-the-blank] major.” That always provided an opportunity to show, in that very moment, how policy and budget choices affect everyone in the classroom. For example, if the class had taken place before 1976, those students would not have been paying tuition. The decision to begin charging tuition at CUNY was, and is, a choice.

If you can believe it, there’s an even more recent and local example of choices being made right here in New York City. New York City’s adopted $115.9 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2026 (the fiscal year we’re still in) was unanimously approved by the Mayor and City Council and restored and strengthened funding for housing, early education, mental health care, libraries, sanitation, and parks. Those choices have a direct impact on daily life: more composting, longer library hours, new bike lanes, and cleaner parks. They also reflect the same priorities of housing, climate resilience, transportation, and social services identified in the Brooklyn Community Board 6 District Needs Statement.

The Fiscal Year 2026 Brooklyn Community Board 6 District Needs Statement began to shift my skepticism about this process. It wasn’t the document itself that changed my mind, but the work behind it and the people who made it meaningful. The Brooklyn Community Board 6 Budget Committee, including Chairperson Eric McClure, Land Use Coordinator Rebecca Kobert, Treasurer Dillon Shein-Cruz, and committee members Laura Osorio and Scott Middleton, along with every board member who has contributed, showed through their work that this process can matter. So did members like Mandi Spishak-Thomas, whose help in creating the Carroll Gardens Pop-Up Library showed how collaboration between community members and government can deliver tangible results and remind us that government can do good.

The government doing good things is especially important at a time when the federal government is literally shut down, when the current administration doesn’t just want to manage the public sector but to dismantle it and make it a thing of the past, which isn't some new feature of the Trump era but a stated goal of the country's right wing for decades. In that context, the everyday work of local government, from setting priorities to advancing neighborhood projects to the persistence of people who still show up, matters even more. It proves that government can still work, and that it can still work for people. Part of that is hearing from you. While we listen all year about various topics, right now we want to know which choices you’d make with the budget.

While I appreciate you reading to this point, the purpose of this piece is a bit of homework. The District Needs Statement and your input are an opportunity to influence a major project, the budget of the world’s greatest city. You don’t have to agree with any of our past preferences; all I ask is that you let us know. Whether you want the government to do bad, something in between, or the kind of good described in this piece, please take a few minutes to complete the survey at bit.ly/cb6survfy27.
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