Bernadette Ferrara speaks against the Just Home proposal at the Sept. 29, 2022 public hearing at Jacobi Medical Center.
File photo Aliya Schneider
Bronx Community Board 11 Chair Bernadette Ferrara and Vice Chair Al D’Angelo were officially booted from their positions on the body Thursday night, after being at odds with fellow board members and the office of Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson for months.
A motion to let the pair carry out their terms as chair and vice chair failed during CB11’s full board meeting on April 25, even after the body’s investigation committee recommended the full board let them remain in their leadership positions.
Eliezer Rodriguez, CB11 board member and chair of the investigation committee, said before the vote that the committee met at length three separate times for a total of around nine hours to discuss both Ferrara’s and D’Angelo’s fitness for their positions.
“This was not an easy task,” Rodriguez said. “From my understanding this has never happened before. This is historic.”
Before the vote, he urged the full board to take the committee’s recommendation and let the pair finish out their terms.
“It will affect, perhaps, if it’s a negative outcome, the standing of these individuals within their communities,” Rodriguez said.
The full board ultimately decided to disregard the committee’s recommendation, and strip both Ferrara and D’Angelo of their titles.
In a statement posted to social media on April 25, Ferrara said her removal was “all about [manipulation,] power and taking over the community board, starting with public defamation of character.”
Their unprecedented removals have been brewing for months on CB11.
The first sign of a shakeup came in November 2023, when the board voted in executive session to create a committee to potentially strip Ferrara and D’Angelo of their leadership positions.
Ferrara’s removal initiative came primarily from critics who claim she neglected her board duties while campaigning for the CD-13 council seat against Marjorie Velázquez in the June 2023 local primary — which she went on to lose. Ferrara, however, blamed efforts to oust her on the majority of the board’s “progressive” wing, which consists of seven or eight new board members.
D’Angelo has also faced intense scrutiny for separate reasons.
An article published by The City last fall highlighted the column D’Angelo penned in the Bronx Times in April 2023, where he questioned why “Black Americans are the least educated, least healthy and among the most incarcerated ethnic group in the country” and stated that it was time to start addressing the “elephant in the room.”
His critics have called his character into question, accusing him of spreading racist rhetoric that they don’t want to be affiliated with.
Gibson attended a Bronx CB11 meeting in November 2023 to express her disappointment about how the board was operating, saying she was frustrated by the body’s “chaos” and “dysfunction.”
In another month of drama for the board, this January Gibson removed CB11 member Miguel Dyer, who flipped his middle finger at a resident in a remote meeting last year. Dyer was originally tapped as Ferrara’s treasurer while she ran for council, but resigned abruptly over anti-gay marriage and anti-transgender remarks last summer.
The Bronx Times has reached out to Gibson for comment and is awaiting response.
In her statement about her April 25 removal, Ferrara refutes the claim that she wasn’t meeting her attendance requirements and accused people in her removal committee of having “an agenda.”
“The mature decision should have been to wait until election time in June 2024, nominate and vote instead of dragging so many volunteers through the mud,” Ferrara said. “It has been a pleasure to serve you.”
CB 11 serves the neighborhoods of Allerton, Indian Village, Morris Park, Pelham Gardens, Pelham Parkway and Van Nest.
This is a developing story, last updated on April 26 at 12:22 p.m. Check back for updates.
Reach Camille Botello at cbotello@schnepsmedia.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @bronxtimes