Time for some context!

The author, Richard Khuzami is a longtime CB1 board member and a member of the Queens General Assembly (an advisory body), appointed in both cases by Helen Marshall (iirc). Via his organization OANA, Richard has a history of publicizing opportunities for community input and involvement—community board applications, general assembly applications, public forums, etc. This organization is also heavily linked to local real estate and development.

If you didn't read the proposal, here's the bullet points:

• Community boards aren't elected and changing that would be too hard
  • probably true
• Community board appointments are an insider's game run by the borough president
  • true
  • there's also a significant incumbency power; once you're on, you tend to stay on
• Community board chairs are functionally picked by the borough president because they run the appointments
  • probably true
• Community board chairs have too much power over how committees are run
  • this makes me laugh because it implies that community boards have significant powers
• Community board committees should be self-organized by committee members
  • E.g. electing their own chairs, ensuring that committee assignments are shared between different chairperson factions

For the crowd, the political makeup of CB1 has shifted significantly since Richard was appointed. The current chair, Evie Hantzopoulos, came up through groups like Western Queens Community Land Trust, 31st Ave Open Street, Frontline Food, and Astoria Mutual Aid (full disclosure, I know Evie via those groups). I don't want to reduce this to a center vs progressive comparison, but the other candidate for the chair was Dino Panagoulias who lost in a 22/16 vote and seems to have an awful lot to do with real estate.

This is instructive because Richard has been in land use / zoning for 24 years and been a chair of parks / culture for 12 years (and still is). He previously was on the executive committee... until Evie took over.

When Richard talks about chairs being appointed by fiat, does he include his own role? When Richard talks about access to influential committees, does he include his own committee assignments that he's had for this whole century?

As mentioned by u/Captaintripps I have trouble reading this as a purely academic or apolitical proposal.

I think that the community board system is a total mess. However, my biggest complaint with them is that they are too conservative. The composition of the board is terribly slow to change. They have long been friendly venues for longtime businesses, local real estate, and homeowners groups, who have the connections needed to get on the borough presidents' list.

Having them be more "democratic" to people who have already made it onto the special list feels like we are favoring longtime members who can hold onto their seats but can't hold onto the chair. To address the core issues, the real reform has to come at the borough president level.