Jackson Heights Life

Neighbors,

Here are some of the governance challenges and questions we’ll start to address at the November 10 JacksonHeights.nyc Founders Meeting at the Renaissance school (we'll start it off with bagels at 9 AM).

Challenges / Questions

• Privacy… Is it ok to name a Jackson Heights neighbor on posts you make on JacksonHeights.nyc?
• Privacy… When and what’s ok to post about them? (Click here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Biographies_of_living_persons to see how Wikipedia handles the “Biographies of Living Persons“ question. And see this first take  https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Biographies_of_Living_Persons about a JacksonHeights.nyc policy.)
• Privacy… More broadly, what should be included in our privacy policy?
• Posting privileges… Should we restrict participation  privileges (posting/editing/voting) to real residents (i.e. postcard confirmed)?
• Posting privileges… If real residents only, what are the neighborhood’s border?
• Posting privileges… What about former residents?
• Content… What type of posts are allowed and not? For example, how do we differentiate between an advertisement or promotion and neighborhood boosting?
• Should we create a digital neighborhood currency? This is an ambitious project https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Toward_a_More_Connected_Neighborhood that would come within the board’s purview.
• Create a positive Terms of Use agreement. (See here for things to avoid http://www.cracked.com/article_19683_6-terrifying-user-agreements-youve-probably-accepted.html.)

   
Standard Startup Tasks

• We need to settle on a name: JacksonHeights.nyc Inc. seems obvious, but the founders might think otherwise.
• We need to decide how the new entity will be recognized by government - NYS and the IRS. (It will likely be a 501(c)(3), but there are oodles of choices, see https://www.upcounsel.com/types-of-nonprofits.)
• By-laws must be drafted.
• Should JacksonHeights.nyc be governed using a membership model or have a self-sustaining board?
• As a governance body, how complete does the board need to be before making significant, long term decisions?
• Assuming membership is limited to neighborhood residents, which borders  are we recognizing? (See border maps https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Boundaries.)
• Do we want an advisory board? If so, what are the qualifications and duties?
• How do we choose a pro-bono lawyer?
• If a membership model, who qualifies as a member?

   
Send me your questions/suggestions. And for the latest details on the meeting and the agenda, see this page on the Jackson Heights wiki https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Governance_Process.

Hope to see you next Saturday, November 10th, 9 AM at the Renaissance School (81st Street at 37th Avenue). Please RSVP.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt, JacksonHeights.nyc Governance Facilitator

 
P.S. If JacksonHeights.nyc doesn’t ring a bell, go here  https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Yesterday_%26_Today .

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...The below is from an earlier letter of invitation...

Neighbors,

We need to establish the policies governing our newest neighborhood asset, the JacksonHeights.nyc domain. (Doesn’t ring a bell? See it here https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Yesterday_%26_Today .)

JacksonHeights.nyc’s role is to facilitate civic engagement and help improve the quality of our lives. It’s a Swiss-knife of sorts, able to maintain a resident directory of civic, social, and business resources, improve local input to civic and government processes,  keep an eye on our children’s education and cultural advancement, encourage “neighborly networking,” and more. But it only works if governed properly.

If you’d like to help establish policies to govern JacksonHeights.nyc, come to a Founder’s Meeting at the Renaissance School (81st Street at 37th Avenue) on Saturday, November 10th, from 9 AM to 12 PM. Breakfast will be available from 9, with a formal program beginning at 10.

We’ll have a speaker or two from different neighborhood sectors - education, civic, government, business - to spark a conversation on shaping the governance scope and process.

With neighborhood support, JacksonHeights.nyc will be something magnificent, adding a digital foundation that will help facilitate our wishes for decades.

...

Interested in selling? Call 718 639 4222 for Patti.

That's Saturday, September 15, 9-4 at 35-35 75 Street.

Does anyone have any photos of cars parked on the 75th Street sidewalk by the Nissan Koeppel car dealership? Specifically, I’m interested in photos of cars parked next to the former Northern Lanes bowling alley at 32-45 75th Street. There’s an example of the type of violation I’m looking to better document on this Nissan Koeppel Variance page on JacksonHeights.nyc.

Why do I care?

Last month Community Board 3 had a hearing on a request from Nissan Koeppel for a 20 year extension to the variance that allows them to operate a car storage facility on property zoned for housing. Board 3 approved the request. The next step in the city’s review process will be a hearing by the Board of Standards and Appeals (BSA) - nothing’s scheduled yet.

Note HOWEVER, Community Board 3 members were not provided by BSA with any information about the many complaints filed about the illegally parked cars - a common practice by Nissan Koeppel over the initial 20 years of the variance. So the many complaints I (and perhaps many of you) filed with the city, via 311 in particular, were not brought to the board’s attention. Nor were those complaints that might have been filed with council members, the community board, etc. As far as board members knew, this was a violation free renewal application.

So… did you ever take a picture of the illegally parked/stored cars? Or file a 311 complaint? If so, please send them my way - tomL@communisphere.com - or post them here: https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Nissan_Koeppel_-_BSA_Variance.

So why do I care, what's the difference… If the variance is refused we might see housing, a school, a civic center, library… built there. It’s a rare opportunity.

There's lots of documentation about this issue here.

Thanks,

Tom Lowenhaupt

I received the following in an email from Blikkee today:

   Thanks to your feedback and smarter A.I., we rebuilt Blikkee to help you find the best food in town. New year, new us.

   Recommendations from trusted locals come quick- but it doesn't stop there. Now you can earn tips by bragging about your favorite taco joints, happy hours and secret spots!

   Before we officially re-launch, we’d like to thank you by providing early access. Download https://blikkee.com/ and let us know what you think.

   Stay awesome, the Co-founders of Blikkee

Their marketing lead seems to be "A.I. powered intro's to locals for the best places to eat, recommendations, and neighborhood advice."

Not owning an iPhone, I lack access to the app and it business model. But I suspect a neighborhood would suffer long term growth impairment from a proprietary resource such as this. Interested in hearing experiences with app.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt

I sent this on May 23, but apparently missed Jackson Heights Life. 

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May 23, 2017

Fellow Jackson Heights Residents,

This is a somewhat long message, so I’m going to summarize it here for those who’ve been awaiting this email and know what to do: https://wiki.JacksonHeights.nyc is now ready and waiting for you to share what you know about the neighborhood. (For reasons explained below, the Home page is not editable, all others are.)

The Somewhat Long Message.

The Jackson Heights wiki exists. It's in the earliest of days - in biblical terms, a tad past separating the light from the dark. So far there's not a whole lot to see, maybe 50 pages or so, some of which are stubs - starter pages needing polish and additional detail  before they possess real meaning. To give a feel for what’s there now, I’ll describe two existing pages.

Holmes Airport - I’ve lived in JH for 38 years and had never heard of Holmes Airport until I did a Wikipedia search for Jackson Heights. I learned that Holmes took up almost a quarter of the neighborhood from 1929 to 1940, when LaGuardia Airport opened and ran it out of business. Beyond the page’s raw information, take a look at the Questions, Resources & Possibilities section where several article additions and an Augmented Reality project are described. The page is an example of how our past can be fodder for our future, or put another way, how to build a mountain out of a molehill. (Is your home on the same spot where Amelia Earhart christened the Goodyear blimp Resolute at Holmes in 1932?) See https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Holmes_Airport.

The wiki’s Home Page (https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Main_Page - As noted above, this is the only page that can not be edited by the general public. The existence of this solitary “no changes” page provides an opportunity to bring up the need for a formal governance process. For the wiki (I’ll talk about the JacksonHeights.nyc website below), we’re starting out using similar editorial policies and processes to those used on Wikipedia. But because its a neighborhood wiki and not an encyclopedia, we’re going to need to make some changes. There are a lot of sensitive questions about “appropriate content” that need to be answered. Our governance page looks at that and how we make decisions about the wiki policies.

Why The Wiki?

We began our effort with the belief that Jackson Heights is built upon the shoulders of those who preceded us. And we see the wiki as an information archive of where we’ve come from, what we’ve done, and what’s here now. As well, a neighborhood wiki should detail resources and stories on how things got and get done.

We hope to get all meaningful neighborhood information together in one place and arrange for permanent availability. And there’s no realistic way to do that other than through a massive neighborhood-wide collaboration using wiki software.

Wikipedia’s managed to get over 5 million pages in the English language encyclopedia. How many contributors do we need to capture the detail of our neighborhood is unknown. But there are 100,000 residents here to help with the task - plus former residents, visitors, and well wishers - and our wiki software is a most powerful tool.

What can you do today? Here are some suggestions, some easy some difficult.

* Start a page for an organization you belong to, or improve an existing page about it. Got a memory about a store you loved that is no longer with us (Caffe Greco!), start a page. Write about your building and perhaps some famous past residents (but before writing about current residents, we need to have a conversation about privacy - see the Governance and Appropriate content pages). I recall hearing that former Assembly member Ivan Lafayette had a proposal for an improved local transportation system - if you know anything about it, create a wiki page for it. Are you Cuban, Thai, Indian, or Nepalese? Create a page about your culture’s arrival and impact on Jackson Heights. See a starter page on Cuban Jackson Heights here: https://wiki.jacksonheights.nyc/wiki/Cuban_Jackson_Heights.

* Simpler is to copy and past a page from Wikipedia. There are lots. Take a look at the Fifth Avenue Bus Company page. This page was clipped from Wikipedia and posted as a new page on our wiki. It needs to be reorganized and refocused about its role here. Eventually the page might have local photos and remembrances of its impact on JH. It will be a slow build process. Every wiki page is a collaboration that will change over time. For now, just get something started.

* Fixing up existing pages is also quite worthwhile - that’s what most Wikipedians (Wikipedia editors) do. Correct spelling, choose a better word, find a reference, update, reorganize - all necessary and worthwhile tasks.

* If you’re ambitious, follow up on a theme. For example, I started with a copy and paste from Wikipedia of Travers Park. Next I created a page for Thomas Travers with a bit of googling. Next I added pages for Rory Staunton Field and the Staunton Foundation. Then I added links to other parks, and have stopped “parking” for now.

* If you’re not interested in pagemaking, perhaps the policy area is of interest. Take a look at the Governance process and Appropriate content pages. These are key to the wiki’s success. If we get these areas right, there’s a good likelihood we’ll succeed.

* Finally, if you’ve got an idea or a gripe, I’m reachable via the below.

* Final, final. If none of this appeals to you, forward this to a friend who might be interested.

The Future

The wiki is part of the Jackson Heights Initiative. It was begun by Connecting.nyc Inc., a NYS nonprofit that emerged from a community board 3 resolution passed in 2001. Connecting.nyc applied for and received the city’s license to operate the JacksonHeights.nyc domain. Our goal is to get the wiki and related digital resources in operation, (e.g., the JacksonHeights.nyc website), and transition control to a locally controlled nonprofit within the next couple of years.

The JacksonHeights.nyc website is not ready for viewing yet, remaining in the unimproved state in which we received it from the city. Our next message will focus on plans for it. Until then, share your knowledge on the wiki.

Best,

Tom Lowenhaupt

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Director, Connecting.nyc Inc.

Interim Director, JacksonHeights.nyc

Tom@connecting.nyc

Connecting.nyc

Jackson Hts., NYC

718 639 4222

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Due in part to this past Saturday's rainout, next Saturday, May 18, there will be at least three flea markets in Jackson Hts.

• Montclair Gardens - 75th Street between 35th and 37th Avenues. 15 or so sidewalk tables.
• Renaissance School - 81st Street between 35th and 37th Avenues. Indoors.
• Towers - 80th Street between Northern and 34th Avenue. Lots of outdoor tables.

Please come to the play street tonight at 8:00PM. We will be showing the highly acclaimed movie, "Inside Job."

78th Street, between 34th Avenue and Northern Blvd.