By Ayala Ben-Yehuda
A secession movement is afoot in northeast Queens with civic groups calling on Mayor Michael Bloomberg to give the Bay Terrace, Whitestone and College Point areas their own community board.
The neighborhoods share Community Board 7 with Flushing, which Bay Terrace Community Alliance President Phil Konigsberg said receives the lion’s share of police resources from the 109th Precinct.
The civics’ proposal for a separate board came in response to a letter from Community Assistance Unit Commissioner Jonathan Greenspun asking for civic associations’ comments on the redistricting of boards.
The City Charter requires that such comments be considered every 10 years according to new census data, Konigsberg said.
“We’ve made that request and we’ll see where it goes,” said Konigsberg, a member of Community Board 7 who favors the establishment of a satellite police station at Fort Totten to service the Bay Terrace and Whitestone areas.
A Bay Terrace Community Alliance news release listed the Robinwood Homeowners Association, the Beechhurst Property Owners, the Greater Whitestone Taxpayers Association, the College Point Board of Trade and the Malba Civic Association as being in favor of the new community board.
“The population in Flushing is much higher than it is in the other surrounding communities,” Konigsberg said. “We understand that the resources are pulled wherever the highest demand is.”
Community boards and police precincts are generally but not exactly coterminous. The 111th Precinct covers some parts of Community Board 7’s area, for example.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean that if you get a new community board that you’re going to get a new police precinct,” Konigsberg acknowledged. “But if we had our wish list that’s what we would ask for.”
Community Board 7 Chairman Eugene Kelty said that based on official census counts, the board’s population stood at about 230,000, below the 250,000 maximum for a board, although he believed the count was below the actual number.
“We’re a big board and we have a lot of issues that are going on,” said Kelty, but “rather than reinvent the wheel I’d rather get the services.”
The chairman said he was not opposed to letting the board discuss its proposed breakup but was more in favor of getting the city to give Community Board 7 its fair share of services, such as road resurfacing.
And since Fort Totten has already been split between the city Parks and Fire departments, he did not know how the Police Department could establish a presence there.
“It has to be done so that it doesn’t take away from either one of the agencies,” he said.
College Point Board of Trade President Fred Mazzarello said his board as a whole had not yet decided to officially support the move.
While he agreed that Community Board 7 was “probably the biggest and busiest community board” in Queens, forming a new one would be “easier said than done.”
“They keep cutting the budgets on the community boards,” Mazzarello said. “They would have to budget a lot more money for (it) with staff and rent.”
Reach reporter Ayala Ben-Yehuda by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 146.
