Civic JC and Citizens' Campaign Invite the Public to Get on Board
November 20^th, 2009
Jersey City Independent
By Shane Smith

About 200 Jersey City residents packed into City Council chambers last night to learn how to apply for an appointment to the city's boards, agencies and commissions. Local good-government group Civic JC partnered with the statewide Citizens' Campaign and city officials to provide a two-hour training workshop on the subject.

"This is the people's chambers," deputy mayor Rosemary McFadden said as she welcomed attendees and emphasized the need for the community to participate in the city government.

The city has 39 boards that are charged with advising the mayor and the city council on policy issues. Some, like the Planning Board and the Zoning Board of Adjustment, were created by state statute with specific provisions for membership and required meetings; others, such as the Human Rights Commission, were created by the city to address a specific need and no longer meet. All of the boards have space on their roster for anyone who wishes to be involved in policymaking.

Last month, Gov. Corzine signed into law the Citizen Service Act, requiring municipalities to create a directory of boards and commissions with information about current membership, vacancies, and terms. Just such a directory of Jersey City's boards and commissions was distributed at Thursday's workshop.

Citizens' Campaign state campaign director Lauren Skowronski said that Thursday's workshop was part of the Jersey Call to Service, a three-year initiative to recruit 5,000 citizens statewide to serve their communities in one of four capacities: as a "citizen legislator," or policy advocate; as an appointed member of a municipal board or commission; as a political party committee member; or as a "citizen journalist." Recognizing that running for elected office is prohibitively costly and time-consuming for most, the Citizens' Campaign points to these four "paths to service" as alternative ways for everyday people to participate in their local government.

After Skowronski and her co-teacher Matthew Mayo presented general information on municipal boards and how to obtain an appointment on them, City Clerk Robert Byrne fielded specific questions from the audience on the application process.

Speaking after the workshop, Byrne told JCI he was pleased to see "a lot of new faces" in the crowd and said "it's good that people are getting involved." Noting that the clerk's office has kept track of board memberships for about ten years, Byrne said that the requirements of the Citizen Service Act did not create additional work for his staff.

Jersey City resident Lycel Villanueva, an architect and planner, was pleased with the workshop. Citing widespread "apathy" as "the problem with this city," Villanueva said she was "surprised to see a lot of people" at the meeting. Greater participation is "something this city really needs," she said.

Civic JC vice president Andrew Hubsch was the principal organizer of the workshop, and he told JCI that he was "happily overwhelmed" by the result.

"We achieved our goal to invite people to participate in their government," he said, pointing to the high turnout on a chilly, rainy evening as a particularly encouraging sign that citizens are eager to get involved.

Time will tell if the city clerk's office receives more applications than usual for board memberships in the coming months, but Byrne had already received one application - for municipal judge - by the time he left council chambers on Thursday night.