Community Board 9 Chairperson Andrea Crawford will remain in that position for this year. The board discussed a possible revote at this month’s meeting after there was uncertainty over the vote at the previous meeting.
At March’s CB 9 meeting, it was originally announced that Joan Decamp, a CB 9 board member from Richmond Hill, had won the election over Crawford by a count of 18-17. The next day, CB 9 sent out a statement saying that the wrong person had been announced as the winner and it was actually Crawford that retained her seat by that same vote count.
This led to Decamp filing an objection of the vote to the Queens Borough President’s office, saying that she believed that the paper ballots that were used to vote were not signed by the people who cast the votes themselves and because the number of people that voted does not add up to the number of CB 9 members.
Crawford addressed last month’s vote in the meeting on April 10th, saying that it was “somewhat embarrassing” for the board and that it was not a question of a miscount of the votes but a misstatement of who was the election winner.
After her initial statement, the board members discussed the possibility of having a revote for the chairperson position, with some members supporting another vote and others opposing it.
CB 9 member Nick Comaianni argued for having the revote, saying that he felt uncomfortable with the way the votes were counted and announced and that their bylaws allowed for another election if the majority of the board wanted that to happen.
“We can leave this room knowing what the votes are,” Comaianni said.
Another board member, Sam Esposito, backed Comaianni’s statement, saying that they would need two-thirds majority to vote again for chairperson.
“As long as we want to, we can revisit anything, including this election,” Esposito said.
But Sylvia Hack opposed the revote saying that having another vote would go against the board’s bylaws. She added that while it was unfortunate what happened with the vote announcement, the ballots are available for every board member to look at and this is the result that should stand.
“To try and undo what happened is unheard of,” Hack said.
According to Mary Ann Carey, CB 9 District Manager, you first need a reconsideration vote from at least two-thirds of the board members present to vote again for a position like the chairperson.
Maria Thomson agreed with Hack, calling the notion of having a revote “ridiculous” and the reason that they have the election in March is because April marks the beginning of the calendar year for their board and to have another one would mess everything up.
A few other members, who were attending their first meeting as new board members, did not want a revote because it would put them in an awkward position of having to decide on something that they did not have much information about.
After several minutes of the board members discussing a possible revote, Crawford put the issue to a roll call vote. First, it was to decide whether or not to close the discussion of a chairperson vote. A “yes” vote would be to end the discussion and a “no” vote would be to have more discussion about it. If a member chose to abstain his or her vote, it would count as a “no” vote, according to Crawford.
The board voted 25-15 in favor of ending the discussion with 5 abstain votes counting in the “no” column.
Secondly, the board then voted on whether or not to have a chairperson revote.
Voting “yes” would be in support of having another vote and voting “no” means that you want the original result to stand.
That also ended in a 25-15 vote in favor of letting last month’s result count with the 5 abstentions counting as a no.
After the meeting was over, both Decamp and Crawford expressed relief that the uncertainty over the election was finally settled.
Decamp said that the vote shows that Crawford has the overall support of the board, which is something that she needed. She added that the reason she filed the objection with the Queens Borough President’s Office was just to get clarification on what happened during last month’s vote and that she’s glad that its finally been dealt with.
According to Decamp, her complaint was passed along to the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit (CAU) and the Queens Borough President’s Office. She said that CAU told her that the number of votes counted was correct, but the wrong person was announced as the winner.
Although Crawford did not agree with having another vote, she did say that it was good to talk about the issue for the sake of settling it amongst the board members.
Crawford announced during the meeting that they are in the process of drafting a different method of doing those types of elections to prevent a mistake like that from happening again. This includes counting the votes twice at the meeting and having the vote at the start of the meeting instead of towards the end.
CB 9’s next meeting will be on May 8 at The Center at Maple Grove Cemetery at 127-15, Kew Gardens Road.
By Luis Gronda
