Star-Revue CB6 Website Update, by Asar John

The Red Hook Star-Revue is providing an update on the quality of Community Board 6’s website, four months after a first look.

In September, we found a website displaying information about “talk of the town” issues: the Brooklyn Marine Terminal, the Gowanus rezoning, petitions for street redesigns, links to contact city agencies, and of course, information regarding the board itself.

We also noted several inconsistencies, such as months and years of missing meeting minutes and several resources with outdated information.

We started by reviewing the board’s home, meetings, record of minutes, resources and committees pages. Then, we compared the quality of those pages to the same pages listed on other nearby board websites.

Following the report, CB6 Land Use Coordinator Rebecca Kobert reached out to us explaining that a WordPress update wiped a plethora of information from the site. Kobert said she sought assistance from the city’s information technology (IT) helpers to remedy the website issues.

So lets see what’s changed there since that review was published and what has stayed the same.

Home Page
Landing on the home page, CB6 still boasts the happiest district in the city, above “immediate interest,” items which have been updated to include the 2026 alternate side parking calendar, election results and a flier about joining a community board.

A column of blue buttons below the “immediate interest” items link to the board roster, board resolutions, an additional alternate side parking schedule and more. In our September review, the roster, parking schedule and public school calendar were all outdated, listing information from 2024.

This time around, all of those items are updated and viewable except for the parking calendar. An error message appeared on the page after an attempt to open the schedule via Google Chrome. It didn’t work on Safari either, as an “invalid address” message popped up. Although the schedule isn’t viewable through the website button, it can be viewed as a PDF file in the “immediate interest” section of the home page.

Meetings
Information on CB6 meetings can be found on the site’s “Community Calendar” tab. In our original report, we noted that only upcoming meetings for the following month could be viewed on the board’s calendar. Now, information regarding the date and time exists for general board meetings for multiple months, but not for any other meetings, such as those for individual committees.

Record of Meeting Minutes
Our previous scan of CB6 meeting minutes revealed a lapse in record-keeping. A couple of months ago, only minutes from general board meetings in January, February and April of 2025 were available on the board’s Google Drive. According to the New York State Open Meetings Law, “if the agency in which a public body functions maintains a regularly and routinely updated website and utilizes a high speed internet connection,” meeting minutes are required to be posted within two weeks of a meeting.

Since our report, CB6’s minutes documentation has become more thorough. All 2025 meetings (except for December) can be viewed on the drive via the “Meeting Minutes” page. Meetings as far back as 2010 can also be read via the district site. For records before 2010, the website directs you to contact the district office.

While the minutes upkeep has enhanced since September, there’s still room for improvement. The December minutes haven’t been posted, and committee meeting minutes from March, October, November and December were missing from the drive.

Resources
CB 6’s “Resources” page is relatively the same. The page displays district-related information such as the district needs survey and land use decisions, such as the Brooklyn Marine Terminal & Gowanus rezoning. General online resources are also listed from city agencies alongside directions for reporting a pothole or filing a 311 complaint.

Committee Information
In our previous review, we noted the contents of the committee page. Each committee listed had links to an individual committee page where you can find discussion materials, names of members and meeting date information. Each page contained a link to the board calendar, providing details for the next meeting of the respective committee. However, much of the information was outdated, showing meetings that had passed and none that were upcoming.

Months later, this hasn’t completely changed. The Business Affairs & Licenses committee and transportation committee pages mention meetings from the spring of 2025. Others, such as Human Services and Environmental Sustainability, link directly to the board calendar and don’t list information for past meetings.