A Message from Chair Peter Fleming

To my fellow Community Board 6 members:

I hope that you, your family and friends are well and that you are taking whatever steps are necessary to keep yourselves and those you love safe.

Like you, my husband Brian and I are staying at home and doing our best to stay healthy. Brian is working from home and seems to be constantly on conference calls. I am reading, watching Amazon Prime and news on TV and cooking. Today is Brian’s birthday, so I baked him a cake that we will enjoy tonight. I imagine you and your families are doing much the same.

This COVID-19 crisis is difficult for all of us in varying degrees. As a gay man in his early 60s, I am no stranger to losing friends and loved ones to a health crisis. Like today, the AIDS crisis saw many people die unnecessarily due to the government’s unwillingness to confront the crisis head on. While I would like to think we learned some lessons from that terrible time, some days it seems like some of those teachable were lost to history. Hopefully we will see less of that in the days and weeks ahead.

One of the biggest lessons we learned from the AIDS crisis was the importance of accurate information. With the benefit of a lot of time on my hands, I get my information from a variety of sources including Community Board 6, the city and state of New York, the federal government (at least sometimes) as well as a variety of newspapers and television news. My best piece of advice is to not believe everything you read or see on TV and to gather as much information as you can from a variety of sources. The CB6 daily newsletter tries to provide as much accurate information as it can with a focus on our own city and neighborhoods.

Mike and I are in regular contact and are trying to advocate for causes we feel are important to the people who live in CB6. Mike collects information for his daily newsletter and manages the District Office remotely. Ty and Liza are managing their duties from home as best they can under difficult circumstances. Please feel free to contact us if we can help you in any way while you and your families continue to shelter at home.

As Mike noted in his newsletter, we are co-sponsoring a virtual community check in with representatives from various crisis-relevant agencies and elected officials participating. You can register for it here.

We obviously cannot have a regular board meeting right now. And because of the crisis the city is experiencing, we have no issues to review. As things change in the weeks ahead we will brainstorm ways to bring committees and the community together so that we can help get life in New York City back on the path to normal.

Before I close I wanted to add my thank you to our health care employees, teachers, retail workers, delivery people and others who put their health on the line every day to help keep essential parts of this city running. What you do is so important and I can’t thank you enough.

For now, the most important thing is to stay safe. Try to start each day with a smile. I know I don’t say it enough, but thank you for your dedication and service to our shared community. I look forward to the next time we can meet in person and shake hands, pat each other on the back and continue our efforts to make CB6 a better place to live and work.

Be well…

Peter

Chairperson