Community Board 9 members voted to place District Manager Mary Ann Carey on a six-month probation. Anna Gustafson/The Forum Newsgroup
After considering ousting Community Board 9 District Manager Mary Ann Carey from the post she has held for 30 years, citing frustrations with communication and the speed with which issues are dealt, board members ultimately decided to instead place Carey on probation for six months.
Originally entertaining a motion to dismiss Carey, CB 9 members never voted on such a proposal and, after a four-hour meeting that included an hour-long executive session, opted to retain Queens’ longest serving district manager, with the provision that she and the board members unhappy with her performance work together to address the concerns.
After six months, board members are expected to reevaluate her performance.
“It seemed reasonable to give her a trial basis,” said CB 9 member Alex Blenkinsopp. “My feeling is we’ve come 30 years with her; we can give her another six months.”
Blenkinsopp said he has been “very critical of her performance” because, for example, “issues are not addressed in a timely manner.
“There are problems with technology, with accountability,” continued Blenkinsopp, who earlier in the evening said on Twitter that CB 9 “members seemed to be pretty much in the dark about Ozone Park rezoning” because “Mary Ann Carey didn’t fill us in adequately.”
Carey, whose board covers Kew Gardens, Richmond Hill, Woodhaven and Ozone Park, said while she is pleased to remain at CB 9, she is “not completely vindicated.
“They have to tell me what these issues they have with me are,” Carey said. “I’ve always done what I thought should be done.”
All but four board members voted to retain Carey and place her under probation – Joel Kuzsai, Maria Thomson, Regina Santoro and Richard David.
The district manager said talk of her leaving the board originated when two board members, Rabbi Daniel Pollack and Andrea Crawford, asked her to consider stepping down last September.
“They brought me to dinner, and it was very pleasant,” Carey said. “They said, ‘You’ve been here a long time – don’t you think it’s time to retire?’ At that time, it came out of the blue, and I was shocked.”
Carey said she, soon after that meeting, informed the board members she intended to remain district manager.
Then, a couple weeks ago, Carey said the executive board members decided at a meeting a couple weeks ago that she should be removed.
“They said they decided it was time for me to leave,” Carey said. “I was shocked and embarrassed… I said, ‘I’m not going to let anybody push me out.’”
A number of speakers came to the meeting in support of Carey, including Frederick Beekman, the vice president of ambulatory care at Jamaica Hospital; George Russo, an attorney from Ozone Park whose family operates Villa Russo in Richmond Hill; and Stanley Schuckman, a realtor who has owned and operated a shopping center on 102nd Street for about three decades.
“I’m here to commend the board for its leadership, and the face of that leadership is the district manager,” Russo said.
Paul Sapienza, a former board member and chairman of CB 9 who now lives on Long Island, too praised Carey, saying she understands how to navigate city bureaucracies.
“She knows the right person to go to,” Sapienza said. “She knows who to call to get something done.”
Now that the board has decided to keep Carey on, the district manager said she is going to “put this behind me.
“I’m not one to hold a grudge,” she said.
By Anna Gustafson
