I still haven’t gotten a response from Amanda Kahn. Maybe I don’t have the correct email address? I just called Community Board 2. They said that though they wouldn’t give me her email address, they could pass a message on to her. I told the community board to pass the following message to Amanda:

Please Forward this email to Amanda Kahn. Thank You.

Amanda,

I wrote you an email a few weeks ago asking you for information about
the blockparty that The Open Planning Project is trying to throw. I
still haven’t heard back from you. I wanted to remind you that I
still need contact information for leaders within the our community.
Since I want to throw a block party for the community, I would like to
know what kind of activities they would like for the party to have.
Thank you very much.

Sincerely,
Anil

I emailed Amanda Kahn today. This is what the email said:

Amanda,

My name is Anil Makhijani and I met you at the Community Board meeting
last week. Just to remind you, I filled out an application for a
block party that is supposed to take place on June 28th. You
recommended that I talk to the neighborhood leaders as I continue to
plan for this party. I was wondering if you could give me the contact
information for these leaders. Thanks you so much.

Sincerely,
Anil Makhijani

Today Rebbecca and I went to our community board meeting. If I had to use one word to describe the experience it would be “frustrating”. This is how the events of the meeting transpired:

Rebbecca and I arrived to the meeting at 6:30 took a couple of seats on the left side of the room. The room was already packed. At about 6:40, the meeting started. Amanda Kahn, the head of the street activities & film permits committee, presided over the meeting. After passing out the agenda, Amanda announced that the schedule would be changing. Theory Corporation, a clothing company that is headquartered in the West Village, had the leave early, so she would be honoring their request to go first.

This was when things started to get interesting. Amanda Kahn mentioned something about a need for guidelines for future street activities taking place in this community. A man in the back of room made a joke about Google. All the board members broke out in laughter. Rebecca and I gave each other dumbfounded looks, not understanding what was so funny.
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I just got some snail mail from the community board office telling me that the board’s meeting was moved to Monday, May 5th.  These guys still communicate via snail mail?  I guess I shouldn’t be surprised …