CB11 executive board debates committee communication, attendance and board email practices

Chair Cynthia Rodriguez and other members of the Bronx Community Board 11 executive board discussed persistent problems with committee participation, attendance tracking and board communications at their March 20, 2025 meeting.

The board’s chair, Cynthia Rodriguez, said committees are not consistently communicating with members about topics or meeting plans and urged greater collaboration between chairs and committee members. “I think our committee should be making every effort to communicate with the committee members, not just about having a meeting, but about what topics they feel might be important,” Rodriguez said.

The issue of how the board notifies members drew extended discussion. Jeremy (identified in the meeting as staff) said the board’s recent shift to text-message notifications produces some responses but is uneven across committees. “It’s generally good in terms of the responses. Not so great,” Jeremy said, noting that the executive board received two replies to its meeting notice while the leadership committee got eight replies.

Board members reported low responsiveness to emails as well. Sandy, a board member, said she emails committee members but “I don’t get answers back.” Several members said last-minute reminders — for example one or two days before a meeting — can improve attendance.

Rodriguez and staff also raised an information-security concern after an inadvertent disclosure of board members’ personal email addresses. Rodriguez said the incident was reported to the borough president’s office and urged members to create separate email accounts for board business. “I can’t emphasize this enough, like, strongly recommending create a new email, specifically for board business and to kind of cover yourselves,” she said.

Members discussed mechanics of tracking attendance. Jeremy said some committee chairs do not complete the attendance form the board uses and said he regularly records attendance to compensate. He identified several members with multiple absences: one member (Hazel) asked to be excused for the meeting, another member (Edgar) has said he will not reapply, and a member listed as Dimash had three absences in the records Jeremy presented. Rodriguez and others said the committee attendance problems, rather than full-board attendance, are the primary concern.

The board did not take formal votes on any of the items. Members said they plan to continue the discussion in leadership and at upcoming committee meetings, including asking chairs to improve pre-meeting outreach and to consider timing of reminders.

Gallery session and public comment were closed with no registered speakers.