By Kathianne Boniello
Little Neck’s Community Board 11 brought the public’s access to government to a new level with a recently established Web page that is among the first such site in the city.
At the moment the new Web site, www.cb11.org, is bare-bones, featuring basic information about the board, including members’ names and the group’s expenditures, CB 11 Chairman Jerry Iannece said.
Former civic leader Iannece, who took the helm of CB 11 in March after longtime Chairman Bernard Haber was forced out of the head post by term limits, said he sees the Internet as the next step for the progress of the city’s 59 community boards.
“I kind of think it’s the wave of the future,” said Iannece, who was president of the Bayside Hills Civic Association for several years before becoming chairman of CB 11. “It’s been up a couple of weeks.”
Community Board 11 covers the communities of Bayside, Little Neck, Douglaston, Oakland Gardens, Hollis Hills and Auburndale.
While Iannece has pushed for the creation of a community board Web site since taking over the board last spring, CB 11’s new presence on the Internet would not have been possible without help from Izhak Sirota.
Sirota, a Great Neck resident who lives on the city line, has been helping nonprofit and community groups in Little Neck and Douglaston to foster a presence on the World Wide Web since 1999, when he began the Web site www.littleneck.net.
“I wanted to create a Web site for Community Board 11,” said Sirota, who creates Web sites for a living and considers his work with nonprofits a showcase for his abilities. “I didn’t really know who to contact.”
After meeting with Iannece and other board members, Sirota established the Web site as it now stands — what he calls “a work in progress.”
Iannece said he hopes to make the site as interactive as possible.
“This is so that people would be able to log on to their own computer and get that night’s agenda,” he said. “I foresee people e-mailing their complaints, and we’ll be able to go in and respond and post the result.”
While www.cb11.org could provide an example for other community boards to follow, for Sirota it is a form of public service.
“I want to serve the community,” said Sirota, whose www.littleneck.net has created Web sites for several local groups and provides links to many others. “I feel this is one way I give for free.”
In the more than three years since he created www.littleneck.net, the site has served groups such as the Little Neck Pines Civic Association, the Little Neck-Douglaston Youth Club, Udalls Cove Preservation Committee, the Little Neck-Douglaston Lions Club, the local chapter of the American Association of Retired Persons, and the Queens County Bird Club.
The site also provides a link to www.cb11.org, and has helped make Sirota a popular resource for nonprofits struggling to gain a presence on the Internet.
“When someone wants a Web site and the organization is one that cannot afford a Web site, there’s nothing wrong with me offering my services,” he said. “I hardly say no.”
Reach reporter Kathianne Boniello by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
