Community board says it has no confidence in Ardila's ability to represent them amid sexual assault allegations

Assemblymember Juan Ardila was the subject of a no confidence vote passed by Queens Community Board 2 on Thursday, June 1, 2023. Photo via Ardila/Twitter

By Jacob Kaye

Though it already appeared clear that Assemblymember Juan Ardila’s local community board had lost faith in him in the months since two women accused him of sexual assault – the board made it official on Thursday.

Queens Community Board 2, which represents the western portion of Ardila’s Assembly district, voted nearly unanimously in favor of a no confidence vote during their board meeting this week. The likely unprecedented resolution from the board passed with 34 votes in favor, and only one against.

The vote somewhat reflects the public response to the allegations made against Ardila, and his muted response to them.

Nearly all of his Western Queens government colleagues have called on him to resign, as has Governor Kathy Hochul, and a number of his constituents. A number of his colleagues have also vowed not to work with him, and have said that he was a non-factor during recent budget negotiations between the legislature and the governor, several electeds told the Eagle. On top of it all, Assembly Democrats revoked Ardila’s right to handle his office’s $250,000 in discretionary funds, handing the management of the money over to neighboring Assembly Jeffrion Aubry, the New York Post recently reported.

It all has resulted in the perception that Ardila is unable to represent the approximately 140,000 Queens residents who sent him to office for the first time during last year’s general election.

That lack of representation was at the heart of the community board’s resolution.

“It is hereby resolved that Queens Community Board 2 takes this vote of no confidence in Assemblymember Ardila’s ability to represent his constituents within Community Board 2,” the resolution reads.

Ardila did not respond to multiple requests for comment on Friday. He has not responded to requests from the Eagle dating back to mid-March. His communications director and chief of staff have similarly ignored calls from this publication, and calls to his office often go unanswered.

The community board’s vote comes a month after members of the board, as well as several elected officials whose districts overlap with Ardila’s, confronted the freshman Democratic lawmaker, who was in attendance.

Ardila was absent from the meeting on Thursday, although he did send a representative to update members on the legislative work he claimed to be doing.

Thursday’s resolution was first born from a conversation held during the previous month’s meeting, after the confrontation with Ardila.

Though the board initially discussed voting on a resolution calling for Ardila to resign, two potential roadblocks forced them to tone the resolution down.

During their discussion in April, a representative from the Queens borough president’s office told them they may be wading into territory that could get them into legal trouble – a community board, though advisory and made up of unpaid volunteers, is a government entity and unable to give official positions on what could be considered a political matter.

Additionally, leadership of the community board wanted to ensure the resolution would pass, and there were several board members who had previously said that they were uncomfortable calling on Ardila to resign before a formal investigation into the sexual assault allegations is concluded – there is reportedly an investigation into the allegations being headed by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.

“What we're supposed to do on a community board is kind of work together to find the best way forward – I think we did that, and I'm happy with the vote,” the board’s chair, Danielle Brecker, told the Eagle on Friday.

Queens Community Board 2 member Dr. Rosamond Gianutsos explains the resolution she authored that issued a no confidence vote in embattled Assemblymember Juan Ardila on Thursday, June 1, 2023. Screenshot via CB2/Zoom

But that didn’t stop several members of the board from arguing that an explicit call for resignation should be added to the vote of no confidence.

“We should revisit explicitly advising the assemblymember to resign, given that we have advisory power in this situation,” said board member Laura Shepard. “And I strongly believe that we should use that to set an example for all of the young people who are looking up to us, watching this space and not letting this continue. It's our responsibility.”

Brecker said that while she agrees personally that Ardila should resign, she felt that more important to the community board’s work was presenting a resolution guaranteed to pass.

Speaking with the Eagle on Friday, she said that while she wasn’t surprised the board voted in favor of the resolution, she was surprised that the vote was nearly unanimous.

“There's a few people who I thought were never going to come around to this no matter what we did, and they did,” she said. “I'm very proud of that.”

The board’s resolution is advisory, and on its own, will have no direct effect on Ardila’s position in Albany. However, it is one of the more formal and concrete rebukes of the elected official made since the allegations first broke.

During the meeting Thursday, board member Dr. Rosamond Gianutsos, who drafted the resolution, said it would simply serve as a statement made on the record that “could be used by people.”

Brecker told the Eagle that she is “hopeful that this helps the community and the community board move on.”

“But you know, it's tough because I don't know what's going to happen with the assemblymember,” she added.

Ardila has ignored the calls for resignation and has, beyond three brief statements issued shortly after the allegations were made, largely ignored speaking about the alleged 2015 assaults.

He has additionally promised to address the situation further, but has thus far yet to do so.

“We're just talking about a personal issue that took place in my life years ago,” Ardila told the community board in April. “We are going to address it to the public, so, you have that commitment. It is going to be in a timely manner. In terms of the timeline, as to why the timeline took place the way that it did, like I said, you’ll have all those answers.”

The allegations against Ardila were first reported by the Queens Chronicle and the Eagle on March 13.

Two women, both of whom requested anonymity, said that the then-staffer for then-City Councilmember Brad Lander allegedly touched one of the women inappropriately and exposed himself to the other during a 2015 party attended primarily by students from Fordham University, from which Ardila had recently graduated.

Additional reporting by Ryan Schwach.