‘Chaos and confusion’ on Western Queens community board lead to discrimination complaint
/
The district manager for Queens Community Board 2 filed a discrimination complaint against board chair Denise Keehan-Smith in March. Image via CB02 meeting stream/YouTube
By David Brand
A smoldering dispute between the chairperson and district manager of a Western Queens community board erupted in mid-March, with a series of contentious emails culminating in an equal employment opportunity complaint alleging a pattern of discrimination by the chair.
In the complaint, signed March 19 and filed with the Queens Borough President’s Office, Community Board 2 District Manager Debra Markell Kleinert claims Chairperson Denise Keehan-Smith is “abusive and quite discriminatory” to board staff and specifically targeted her “using age, disability and religion especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.” The Eagle obtained a copy of the document.
District managers are paid staff members who perform administrative tasks for each of the city’s 50-member volunteer boards, including 14 in Queens. Each district manager serves “at the Board's pleasure,” according to the city’s website. The board chair is the boss, but the chair and district manager typically form a working partnership.
That has not been the case on CB2, according to Markell Kleinert’s complaint.
She wrote that Keehan-Smith has refused to talk with her in-person or by phone and ordered her to report to the office despite the COVID-19 outbreak. She said her age and respiratory issues made her particularly vulnerable to the illness.
“She is abrasive, abusive, accusatory and constantly harassing me,” wrote Markell Kleinert, who has served as district manager for Community Board 2, which includes Sunnyside, Woodside and Long Island City, since 2006. Keehan-Smith, a Democratic district leader, became chair in 2016.
The abuse has occurred for the past two years, Markell Kleinert added. She declined to discuss the complaint when contacted by the Eagle.
Keehan-Smith did not respond to an email and phone calls seeking comment about the complaint. Citing policy, the Queens Borough President’s Office would not confirm or deny receiving the confidential document.
Community boards play an important role in New York City, serving as a conduit between everyday residents and city government. Members cast advisory votes on land use proposals, weigh in on street design plans and host forums on key community issues. The boards hold monthly public meetings, which have switched to remote conferences during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Just one CB2 member contacted by the Eagle agreed to speak on the record about the relationship between Keehan-Smith and Markell Kleinert.
“I’ve been there for quite a while and I felt they were working well,” said CB2 member Badrun Khan, who is challenging U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District.
“This time maybe something’s happening, but I’ve never seen any kind of issues,” she added.
‘I will never stoop to your level’
Unlike Khan, CB2 executive board members could not avoid seeing the issues if they opened their emails in mid-March.
The entire executive board, and officials from the Queens borough president’s office, were included on a series of abrasive messages spanning at least four days as the city and state began taking drastic steps to stop the spread of the coronavirus. None of the executive board members responded to calls or emails seeking more information.
The simmering problems between Keehan-Smith, the chair, and Markell Kleinert, the district manager, flared up on March 17, according to the emails obtained by the Eagle. That day, Keehan-Smith rejected a request by Markell Kleinert to purchase additional laptops so that board members could work from home.
“No, we will not order new laptops. You purchased one last year that has not been used,” Keehan-Smith wrote back.
The next day, March 18, Markell Kleinert informed executive board members that office staff planned to visit the office on a rotating schedule. One older adult staff member was uncomfortable taking the train or bus to work and would work from home, she said in an email.
But Keehan-Smith took issue with Markell Kleinert setting up a work-from-home policy without consulting her first.
“You do not have the authority to make this decision. As Chairwoman, I am responsible for the oversight of the office,” she wrote in an email response. “As District Manager, you are expected to be in the office every day unless you take personal time off.”
She acknowledged a staff member’s compromised immune system but asked for more information about how the staff would work remotely. “I expect you in the office tomorrow to further discuss this,” she concluded.
Markell Kleinert highlighted portions of the email and, in handwritten notes, said that she considered Keehan-Smith’s response “Discriminatory against me/Jewish/age.”
The religious discrimination claim lacks any further explanation, however. Markell Kleinert declined to discuss the complaint.
On March 20, Keehan-Smith told Markell Kleinert that she was following guidance from Acting Queens Borough President Sharon Lee to continue community board functions.
“Please refrain from sending your inappropriate and disrespectful emails,” she wrote in an email with seven people copied.
“Remember, I will never stoop to your level,” she added.
About 45 minutes later, Markell Kleinert fired back an equally strong message. She said she and other community board staff members would continue doing their work, but planned to close the office to adhere to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s stay-at-home order, which he signed that same day.
“The CB 2 office which has [run] quite smoothly for all these years will continue to do so in spite of your Chaos and confusion with all of your emails to defame my character and the character of this office,” she wrote.
Community Board staff eventually decided on a work-from-home rotation approved by Keehan-Smith, but by then, the damage was done.
Markell Kleinert had already submitted her complaint to the borough president’s office, which was signed March 19.
A section of the form asks what corrective action the complainant seeks.
“Respect, reasonable accommodation work from home, Markell Kleinert wrote. “For myself communicate with district manager and the harassment and defamation of my character has to stop.”
Holiday lights and laptops
The dispute over the work-from-home policy played out at the same time as Keehan-Smith and Markell Kleinert quarreled over an unpaid invoice from December 2019.
That argument also took place over a series of emails, which again included executive board staff and officials from the Queens borough president’s office.
After rejecting Markell Kleinert’s request for new laptops on March 17, Keehan-Smith changed topics to address an unpaid invoice for holiday lights submitted by Sunnyside civic leader Patricia Dorfman. Keehan-Smith and Dorfman worked closely together to oppose bike lanes on Skillman Avenue and 43rd Avenue in 2018.
In late-2019, Keehan-Smith told Dorfman and a Brooklyn lighting business that the community board would pay for holiday lights to be hung along Skillman Avenue and/or 43rd Avenue in Sunnyside, according to board members and emails obtained by the Eagle. Dorfman and the Brooklyn business, Electrical Illuminations by Arnold, did not respond to phone calls and texts seeking more information for this story.
Keehan-Smith wanted to make a $5,138 payment using money from a grant provided by the City Council, according to the emails. She repeatedly urged Markell Kleinert to authorize the payment.
Markell Kleinert refused, citing problems with the invoice and strict usage limits for the council funds. The council instituted the restrictions after a Brooklyn community board purchased an SUV using the grant.
“Denise, I just want to make sure things are done properly and correctly,” Markell Kleinert wrote. “This bill that was sent back and forth many times and was incorrect and is currently still incorrect.”
“The understanding is this violates the rules of procurement,” she added, in an email response copying officials from the Queens Borough President's Office.
Borough President’s Office Budget Director Richard Lee confirmed that the board could not pay the money using the council grant and instead instructed the board to pay the invoice using its Other Than Personal Service budget. Lee directed questions from the Eagle to the Queens borough president’s press office, which confirmed the contents of the email.
A spokesperson for the City Council also confirmed that the purchase “does not appear to meet the guidelines” for the grant’s usage.
Markell Kleinert told the Eagle by phone that the community board has still not paid the invoice.
“So far no, absolutely not,” she said. “The company did not supply appropriate documentation at this point, number one. And number two, I’m still waiting for full feedback from the city on some things.”
When contacted by the Eagle, Keehan-Smith said there was nothing inappropriate about the invoice or her attempts to pay the bill using the council grant.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing was done inappropriately,” Keehan-Smith said, noting that she had copied Lee and the counsel to the Queens borough president, Allan Swisher, on the emails. “Clearly nothing was underhanded.”
