Community Board 7 kicks out member
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Queens Community Board 7 voted to remove member John Choe on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
By Jacob Kaye
After nearly four hours of what resembled a full-blown trial, Queens Community Board 7 voted overwhelmingly to remove board member John Choe from its ranks Monday night.
With 39 board members voting in favor, three against and with one abstaining, the board made history this week – it was the first time the northern Queens board has ever expelled a member.
Choe’s fate on the board was a foregone conclusion, something the former candidate for City Council admitted to the Eagle in the lead up to the vote.
In June, the full board voted 42 to 3, with one abstention, to create a special committee to look into the allegations against Choe brought by Vice Chair Chuck Apelian. In July, the special committee voted unanimously that it had found cause on four out of five allegations of misconduct and issued a report saying it would recommend Choe be booted from the board.
The special committee brought that recommendation to the full board, which represents Flushing, Bay Terrace, Beechhurst, College Point, Malba, Queensborough Hill, Whitestone and Willets Point, on Monday, Aug. 16, in the basement of the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox Church in Whitestone. It was the first in-person meeting the board has held since the pandemic began in 2020.
“The fact that they spent hours and hours on these bogus allegations on me – I'm astonished,” Choe told the Eagle after the vote.
The proceedings were new to the board. CB7 had never even begun the process of kicking a member out, let alone follow through on it. The board’s chair, Eugene Kelty, turned to the board’s bylaws and the New York City Charter to map out the proceedings, he said.
“It’s something we didn’t want to do,” Kelty told the Eagle. “Removing board members is serious, it's a really serious issue and it's not taken lightly and all the forethought that went into it to make sure that we were doing it correctly.”
The night began with a protest. Around a dozen people came out to show Choe their support and handed out flyers to board members as they made their way into the church’s basement.
“I strongly believe that this idea to kick John Choe off the board by Chuck Apelian and the executive committee is really dangerous for the whole borough of Queens,” said Ramond Lin, who came out to support Choe. “It sets a dangerous precedent if [Queens Borough President] Donovan Richards doesn't intervene. It sets an idea that you can kick people off who disagree with your ideas.”
A group of Choe supporters protested the expulsion proceedings on Monday, Aug. 16, 2021. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye.
Richards has allowed the board’s removal proceedings to move forward without his interference. While he supports Choe – he appointed him back to the board against City Councilmember Peter Koo’s recommendation in April – he said that it’s the board’s right to remove a member if they find cause.
“I reappointed John Choe to Community Board 7 because I truly believe our community boards should be diverse, both in identity and thought. I continue to believe this,” Richards said in a statement to the Eagle. “Under the City Charter, however, a Community Board has the ability to remove a member for cause with a majority vote, and Community Board 7 has decided to exercise this authority.”
Choe’s removal officially centered around five allegations of misconduct, although the conversation about those allegations divulged into back-and-forth spats, ad hominem attacks and personal grudges lobbed by all parties involved.
At one point in the proceedings, an exasperated Choe said, “Jesus,” at the conclusion of one of his defense statements. Several board members gasped and one began to complain to Kelty, who then reprimanded Choe for “taking god’s name in vain when we’re in a church.”
The proceedings had the qualities of a trial, with Apelian acting as the prosecutor, Choe as the defendant and Frank Macchio, who chaired the special committee that looked into the allegations, acting as a judge. The board served as the jury.
CB7 Vice Chair Chuck Apelian argued for removing John Choe from the board on Monday, Aug. 17, 2021.
The proceedings began with opening statements from both Apelian and Choe.
“I just want to tell you that this didn't happen overnight and this isn't a personal situation,” Apelian said. “This is something that went on for a couple of years and specifically over the last couple of months.”
Choe emphasized Monday that he felt the proceedings against him were a “sham.”
“I think we can all agree that wasting taxpayer resources in a witch hunt to kick me off the board is not the highest need in our community right now,” Choe said. “But that's exactly what the board, its executive committee and staff had done for the past several months and years.”
Each of the five allegations, which Choe has all denied, were presented separately.
Choe was first accused of violating the City Charter when he sent a campaign fundraising email to around 20 board members in December 2020, allegedly using an email list generated and used by the board.
Choe told the board that those emails were gathered through years of correspondence with members outside of their capacity as CB7 members.
Apelian referenced a section of the City Charter, which states that public servants are generally prohibited from “directly or indirectly request[ing] any person to make or pay any...contribution for any candidate for an elective office of the city.”
Choe referenced an opinion issued by the Conflicts of Interest Board that determined that community board members don’t qualify as public servants because of their lack of policy making powers, but that didn’t convince the board, whose members told Choe that they felt his use of their email address was improper.
Kelty made a formal complaint about the email with the COIB in December. The COIB told the Eagle on Friday that it can’t confirm the existence of an investigation into the complaint or whether or not the allegations were dismissed until it issues a formal ruling, which it has not done.
Choe was also accused of creating an unofficial Facebook page for the board without getting approval, of having a poor attendance record and of defaming members of the board by accusing them of being corrupt.
The one accusation the special committee did not find cause on centered around a comment Choe made to the Queens Borough Board in February 2020. Choe told then-acting Borough President Sharon Lee that his opinion on the controversial Special Flushing Waterfront District, which Choe was against, could be swayed “for the right price.” The comment was followed by laughter at the February meeting, and the special committee said the context didn’t warrant moving forward with the allegation.
In the end, it didn’t matter. Board members only needed to find cause on one of the allegations to vote to remove Choe.
Community Board 7 members read through the allegations against John Choe as his supporters turn their backs on the proceedings. Eagle photo by Jacob Kaye
The three who voted against the motion for his removal were Choe, Harpreet Singh Wahan and Cody Herrmann, who questioned the validity of each of the five allegations throughout the night.
Herrmann told the Eagle that she saw much of the fight between Choe and the rest of the board as stemming from the Special Flushing Waterfront District.
Apelian, who recused himself from the community board’s vote on the project, worked as a paid consultant for the project’s developers. Choe has long accused Apelian of violating his duty to the community for taking the job and continued in that same vein Monday.
“I think, as we heard a lot tonight, this actually isn't necessarily a personal attack between Chuck and John, but it is kind of this bigger issue that has to do with how Flushing is being developed, and how different areas of Community Board 7 are being developed,” Herrmann said. “The people that I've organized with don't think John should be put off the community board. They think that we need that type of voice and that there aren't enough voices like John’s represented on the board.”
Prior to his removal, Choe warned that if he got the boot, other board members who hold opinions that differ from the board’s executive committee would be discouraged from speaking out.
Herrmann, who was appointed to the board for the first time this year and is by far its youngest member, said that despite Choe’s removal, she wasn’t worried about retaliation.
“A lot of these board members have been on the board for 40 years, which is definitely longer than I've been alive,” Herrmann said. “It seems like everybody's playing their own game. I guess I'm not really tied down to those same obligations – that might be what allows me to speak out.”
