More Immigrants, LGBT People Join Queens Community Boards: BP Office

QUEENS, NY — The community boards in the World’s Borough are shaping up to be just as diverse as the borough itself, according to the demographic report from Queens Borough President Donovan Richards’ Office.

Of the more than 90 new appointees, nearly 20 percent are immigrants, which is a two percent increase from 2021, and there are larger numbers of minorities and LGBT people in community boards, compared to before Richards took office, said the report.

Since taking office in 2020, Richards made it his mission to simplify the CB application process by digitizing it and prioritizing appointees from underrepresented communities, resulting in 884 applicants this year, the second-most in the office’s history, according to the BP’s Office.

“Borough President Richards’ initiative to digitize the community board application, launched in 2021, continues to be a major success in generating a deeper and more diverse pool of candidates for appointment to Queens’ 14 community boards,” the BP’s spokesperson said in a prepared statement. “Since 2021, over 1,800 people have applied to serve on their local community board, the majority of whom never served before.”

Of the 94 new appointees, nearly 48 percent are younger than 35, including three teenagers.
Prior to 2020, three quarters of sitting members were 45 and older, reported the BP’s Office.

The demographic shift among new appointees in CBs also include an increase in renters (36.8 percent) and school-age parents (21.3 percent). There was also diversity in terms of transportation via subway (52.1 percent); bus (42.6 percent); cycling or use of mircobility devices (17 percent); and walking (44.7 percent), said the report.

Forest Hills CB6 Chairwoman Heather Beers-Dimitriadis, is thrilled about the changes she sees to the board.

“I am very happy about the new appointments,” Beers-Dimitriadis told Patch. “They represented diversity that we haven’t seen on our board in sometime.”

Beers-Dimitriadis said that after seeing the recent Census data for the Forest Hills region, she reached out to Richards and Councilwoman Lynn Schulman about increasing the number of women and Asian representation for CB6 and felt heard with the new appointments.

“We felt that we were short in representation of women on the board and we were short in Asian representation within the diaspora,” Beers-Dimitriadis said. “I felt the Borough President responded and made our board more like our community and I couldn’t be happier.”

A record 11 women appointees were added to the board, added Beers-Dimitriadis.

There are also 8 AAPI and South Asian members in CB6, said the report.