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Community involvement is key for those who want to improve their neighborhoods and an important step in learning how to navigate the sometimes complex system, according to some Richmond Hill and Ozone Park residents.
That’s why Romeo Hitlall, Howard Kamph and Marilyn Vecchio decided to join Community Board 10, one of the borough’s 14 boards whose 41 members represent Howard Beach, Ozone Park, South Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, Tudor Village and Lindenwood. Every two years the boards nominate and elect new members.
Although they play an advisory role in dealing with city issues, community boards bring about change, said Vecchio, an Ozone Park resident and local school teacher.
“The community board has a louder voice than an individual,” she said. “They stand behind citizens, stand up for them. And they do listen to issues, they represent every one of us that lives in this community.”
As part of C.B. 10, Vecchio looks forward to assessing the needs of her community, and then working with the proper city agency or authority responsible for addressing them. With 50 years of neighborhood familiarity behind her, Vecchio is quick to recognize some of the new problems plaguing the community — overdevelopment, she said, is the most serious and creates other headaches, such as insufficient parking, illegal home conversions and excessive noise.
Kamph, who served as president of the Ozone Park Civic Association for three years, joined the board in order to step up his civic activism. Already familiar with and having fought for Ozone Park residents’ major causes, Kamph now wants some more leverage in getting results.
Recalling his elementary school days living in Howard Beach and attending P.S. 202, his teen years spent at John Adam’s High School and final move to the Centerville area of Ozone Park, Kamph quipped that he is “a home-grown community board member.”
There are some residing in the C.B. 10 neighborhoods who were not raised there or have few ties in the community and those are the people 32-year-old Hitlall wants to represent on the board.
As the youngest C.B. 10 member, Hitlall’s focus is to get younger community residents involved in neighborhood matters and open the lines of communication between the West Indian community and city agencies.
Often feeling secluded, members of the West Indian community, many of whom reside in Hitlall’s South Ozone Park neighborhood, are afraid to ask for help or don’t know their rights. This, he said, results from poor interactions with local police.
The father of two, who serves as chairman of the Richmond Hill Relay For Life annual event and operates three businesses in Richmond Hill, wants to bring to light the issues with which this community deals. He also hopes increased communication will foster a cultural exchange and enhance the social environment.
Hitlall wants to let members of the West Indian community know “they can come to the community board with any problem, any issue they have.”
5 years ago
