Walcott Chides CB 11 Chairman in Letter on Public Hearing for Proposed Bayside School Site

Community Board 11 Chairman Jerry Iannece said he plans to write a response to city Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott, who recently sent a letter bashing the board’s treatment of two city employees at a May 6 meeting.  

Two members of the city’s School Construction Authority presented a plan to CB 11 on Monday for a new Bayside school that would be constructed on 48th Avenue between 210th and 211th Streets.  

A number of northeast Queens residents spoke out against the plan and the board eventually voted 25-3 against it.  

Walcott wrote a letter to Iannece, accusing him of allowing audience members to “abuse” the School Construction Authority representatives.  

In the letter, Walcott said that an individual at the meeting threatened to break one of the DOE employees’ legs. The chancellor advised the SCA representative to file a report with Bayside’s 111th Precinct.  

Walcott referred to some of the audience members at the meeting as “aggressive and antagonistic.”  

“I’m told that you enabled this behavior by not drawing any boundaries to the abuse they were targeting at my staff,” Walcott wrote to Iannece. “I would never allow anyone to be treated in this manner and would expect that you would have the same standard.”  

But Iannece said that no threats were made to the DOE employees during the meeting. He was told that several members from the general public – and not CB 11 members – accosted the SCA representatives after the meeting was over.  

“They were agitated and they probably made some inappropriate comments,” he said. “They shouldn’t have done it.”  

Iannece said he was upset after having received the letter from Walcott and planned to respond.  

“The letter is filled with erroneous statements,” he said. “My response will set the record straight. He accuses me of not running the meeting well and allowing his people to be threatened, which I’m told happened after the meeting.”  

Iannece said it did not appear that Walcott’s office had even investigated the incident.  

“The statements by Walcott are wrong and unappreciated,” Iannece said. “He never asked for a copy of the tape or spoke to CB 11 members. I’ve been a faithful volunteer for 20 years in the community. For him to accuse me of something like this is very unbecoming of his office and not fair to me.”