Forest Hills, Rego Park Community Board Introduces 13 New Members

FOREST HILLS, QUEENS — Over a dozen new members will join the group of residents that represent and assess the needs of New Yorkers in Forest Hills and Rego Park, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards announced Wednesday.

Thirteen new members will serve a two-year term at Community Board 6, joining 17 others who are currently serving in the group that represents the two Queens neighborhoods.

“They bring new life and new energy to the board,” Community Board 6 District Manager, Frank Gulluscio, told Patch. “We have very active committees and I hope all of them participate in the civic engagement that we do.”

More than 360 people were appointed to serve under the Richards administration on 14 community boards across Queens.

Boroughwide, 116 of those members are newly-appointed and do not currently serve on a board. Of the freshmen members, 50 percent are under the age of 45, and nearly 25 percent are between the ages of 16 and 35.

About 20 percent of the new cohort identified as Latinx/Hispanic, an increase of 4 percent from the previous group of new members. African American members make up 21.6 percent of the new appointees, while 13.8 percent and 7.8 percent identify as East Asian/Pacific Islander and South Asian, respectively.
“The historic 2023 class of community board appointees represent the best of Queens,” Richards said. “I’m immensely confident in this diverse, dedicated and determined group of public servants and I look forward to the great work they will do on behalf of their neighborhoods over the course of their term.”

Richards's office received 938 applicants, which is just slightly lower than the borough’s record of 941 applications in a single year set in 2021.

The appointments for the 2023-2025 term to the Queens Community 6 are:

1. Michael Arcati
2. David Aronov (NEW)
3. Salua Baida (NEW)
4. Kavish Batra
5. Peter Beadle
6. Healther Beers-Dimitriadis
7. Miriam Berfas
8. Howard Birnbaum
9. Danny Bowens (NEW)
10. Heidi Chain
11. Gina Chen (NEW)
12. Latrice Davis
13. Keith Engel
14. Vallon Ellison (NEW)
15. Matt Fernandez Konigsberg (NEW)
16. Giovanni Gioia (NEW)
17. Bruce Grossberg (NEW)
18. Marcelle Lashley-Kabore (NEW)
19. Jack Medina
20. Renee Mehrra
21. Steven Metz
22. Patricia Morgan
23. Elizabeth Newtown
24. Gladys Sandoval
25. Matthew Salton (NEW)
26. David Schantz (NEW)
27. Martha Tucker
28. Edwin Wong
29. Ephraim Zakry (NEW)
30. Katherine Zapata (NEW)