CB 7 special committee to recommend member be booted
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A special committee will recommend to remove Community Board 7 member John Choe following allegations of misconduct. Photo via Choe campaign
By Jacob Kaye
On the same day the Board of Elections certified his third-place finish in his race for City Council, a Community Board 7 special committee moved Tuesday to recommend that John Choe be stripped of his position on the board.
Though Choe didn’t show up to the hearing, the special committee decided it will recommend he be removed from his seat on the all volunteer board when the full board meets at a yet to be determined date.
Choe, who has long denied all of the allegations against him, was allowed to testify on his own behalf at Tuesday’s meeting, however, he decided not to show.
“I feel it's pretty much stacked against me and I don't feel I'm gonna get a fair hearing,” Choe told the Eagle. “Instead of participating and giving them any credibility, I'm just going to not participate.”
The special committee was made up of members Lei Zhao, Warren Schreiber, Barbara McHugh, Betsy Mak and Frank Macchio, who chaired the committee. Community Board 7 chair Eugene Kelty, who appointed the members to the committee, oversaw the hearing as an impartial observer.
“John was invited, I really wish he would have shown to be able to give his side of the story,” Macchio said. “It was considered an obligation for us to serve [on the special committee]. We have no axe to grind and it's no witch hunt for anybody.”
The committee members served as a panel of judges, and heard testimony from Chuck Apelian, the accuser, and a witness he brought to testify. Once the accusations were made, Apelian, the witness, several members of the public and Kelty left the room and the committee deliberated.
It was the first time in the board’s history proceedings to oust a member have been implemented.
The special committee was formed after Apelian, the board’s first vice chair, brought five charges of misconduct against Choe in early June.
The full board voted 42 to 3 to proceed with the charges on June 14, forming the special committee that voted to bring the charges against Choe back to the full board for a final vote in the coming months.
“[Choe] is a bad guy,” Apelian said. “And I think the evidence proved it.”
Apelian alleges that Choe violated the City Charter on multiple occasions as a member of the board. The accusations range from slander to violating the rules of the Campaign Finance Board.
The special committee found cause on the allegations that Choe violated the charter by emailing his fellow board members requesting campaign contributions, started an unauthorized Facebook group for the board, had a poor attendance record and defamed members of the board by accusing them of being corrupt.
The special committee did not find cause on the fifth and final allegation brought by Apelian, which said that Choe admitted his opinion could be swayed “for the right price” during a hearing on the Flushing Waterfront Development plan at a Borough Board meeting in February 2020. Choe’s comment was met with laughter and the special committee said the context didn’t warrant moving forward with the allegation.
While the executive committee Apelian serves on and Choe have clashed for several years, their disagreements came to a head in the lead up to the vote on the Flushing Waterfront Development plan in December 2020.
Choe, who was firmly against the now-approved plan, called out Apelian for what he alleged to be a conflict of interest.
Apelian, the board’s Land Use Committee chair, worked as a paid consultant for the development group behind the project. Apelian recused himself from the board’s vote on the development plan.
Several months later, Councilmember Peter Koo declined to recommend Choe for reappointment to the board.
“A lot of Community Board members recommended to me not to recommend [Choe] because he didn’t go along with the team and always opposed the agenda,” Koo told the Eagle in June. “We need more voices [on Community Boards] but in any community, we have to listen to the majority.”
Despite the recommendation, Queens Borough President Donovan Richards reappointed Choe in April.
A spokesperson for the Borough president’s office said it’s the office’s policy to “to consider and address specific complaints regarding community board conduct in a confidential manner.”
“Queens Borough President Richards is committed to ensuring that Queens’ fourteen community boards and their members are duly public servants for their neighborhoods,” the spokesperson added.
Choe has called the process to remove him a waste of public funds and time, and has said that he hasn’t been properly notified of the technicalities of the proceedings.
“I have not been fully looped into what's going on,” Choe said. “I keep getting these notices that the meeting was scheduled, that it's now an executive session, like they just make these decisions without any consultation with me with my schedule. There's no transparency in how they're making decisions about this entire process.”
Though last night’s meeting was public, a notice of the meeting – something the board is required to post online prior to the meeting – could not be found online Wednesday.
Marilyn McAndrews, the board’s district manager, said that while the notice was sent to the City to be posted online yesterday prior to the meeting, she noticed it had been taken down without her approval the following morning.
Choe said that when the full board meeting eventually comes, he fully expects to be removed.
“My feeling is they've already concluded that I need to be kicked off the board,” he said.
Choe’s fate on the board will be determined by a simple majority vote.
