Q&A
Council Member Sandy Nurse discusses community board outreach and veteran civic participation
0:28:50
·
168 sec
Council Member Sandy Nurse raises questions about community board outreach for veterans and collaboration with the Board of Elections (BOE) for voter registration. Commissioner James Hendon responds, discussing limited interaction with BOE and the challenges faced by veterans in understanding local government structures.
- Nurse emphasizes the importance of educating veterans about civic participation and local government structures.
- Hendon highlights the additional challenge of veterans settling in unfamiliar locations, requiring introduction to New York City's organizations and networks.
- The discussion underscores the need for proactive outreach and education for veterans transitioning to civilian life in New York City.
Sandy Nurse
0:28:50
I did have a question, and things were letting me jump in because I have a a Landmark Committee vote right now.
0:28:56
They've been So I have 3 kind of things to touch on.
0:29:03
I know that the chair mentioned community boards.
0:29:07
And my understanding is I I believe the law is coming up soon where there's term limits, and so I think it would be really great to do some proactive outreach and education and workshops on preparing veterans and communities to to enter community boards, considering they're probably a very, very high turnover of membership in community boards given how long people serve on them.
0:29:28
So it's a great opportunity.
0:29:31
And the other question I had was, if you all collaborate with BOE at all or if BOE has ever done any proactive outreach with you all around kind of veteran registry voter registration or any outreach campaigns?
James Hendon
0:29:45
We we have not accounts for more notice as far as direct collaboration with BOE.
0:29:49
We may have a lot of communication with BOE, but we've not, like, done a coordinated event along those lines.
0:29:54
We've reached out to BOE in the past about having them speak out of owner's advisory board, maybe that was something we tried to arrange.
0:30:00
This was, you know, back in 2021.
0:30:03
But that's the the greatest session we've had with them.
Sandy Nurse
0:30:05
Yeah.
0:30:05
Maybe we just bug BOE to to you know, really take the initiative and reach out to the veterans.
0:30:12
Mhmm.
0:30:13
And I think it's important to mention that a lot of, you know, service members when if they go in very early, when they go in really young, they lose out on the experience of that local democracy at home.
0:30:26
And so they might not even be familiar with local government structures such as community board, city council, things like that.
0:30:33
I mean, when I was growing up in the military, we didn't have those things.
0:30:37
We vote by absentee ballot if there's any awareness and education.
0:30:41
So it takes time to relearn or actually learn for the first time depending on how long you served and when you join.
0:30:48
What what is civic participation for you?
0:30:51
Because you're coming from a top down structure so much that you're not even thinking about that.
0:30:57
So I really think the education piece is super important for folks coming that you're now getting the data from who are transitioning in.
0:31:04
I think that's really great that that data has come in today.
0:31:07
But that was all I had to ask.
James Hendon
0:31:08
Okay.
0:31:09
May I just add something to what you said?
0:31:10
Another thing to point out is that half a veteran settled down and place it not originally from.
0:31:14
So you have folks.
0:31:15
So it's educating them about what it needs to be involved in local government, but also introducing them to New York City as far as different organizations and just the networks here because about 200,000 folks leave the military each year.
0:31:25
10,000 come to the state of New York.
0:31:27
5000 come to the city of New York approximately, and we're assuming with the half of these people have never lived here before.
0:31:32
So this is a curve a learning curve that we need to address.
Sandy Nurse
0:31:35
Yeah.
0:31:36
Absolutely.
0:31:36
Mhmm.
0:31:37
Thank you.
