'Morally Repugnant' Rant Could Get Elderly Trump Fan Kicked Off NYC Community Board

CORONA, QUEENS — Ann Pfoser Darby, famous around town as Community Board 4's longest-serving member and more infamous for her reputation as the board's No. 1 loose cannon, may have finally gone too far in a pro-Trump, anti-immigrant rant at a contentious meeting Tuesday night on a bike lane proposed for 111th Street.

UPDATE: Queens Community Board Member Tries To Defend Racist Rant, Says Even More Racist Stuff

The Community Board has yet to release audio from the meeting.

However, multiple meeting attendees — all of them pro-bike lane, it should be noted — attested to Patch that while Darby, pictured above on the right, was arguing against the bike lanes, they heard her say something along the lines of: Once Trump deports all illegal immigrants from the neighborhood, there won't be anyone to ride in the bike lanes anyway.

Patch reached out to Darby for comment Wednesday through her Community Board colleagues, but we have yet to hear back.

Juan Restrepo, a representative for TransAlt, NYC's leading transit safety and cyclist advocacy group, was at the meeting. He jotted down Darby's words like so:

"I tried to put it down as well as I remembered it," Restrepo said. "I heard it, and I actually was stunned for a second."

"Everyone was made visibly uncomfortable by what was said," according to Restrepo. And once the board member's words had been translated for the non-English-speakers in the room, the bike activist said, "it was this heartbreaking moment where everyone was tearing up."

Many meeting attendees understood Darby's comments to mean that Trump was going to deport them soon anyway, so the whole issue of bike lanes — popular with immigrants, she suggested — was in some ways moot.

By the following morning, City Council Member Julissa Ferreras-Copeland, who represents the Corona area at City Hall, had issued an irate statement to the press containing the quote. She called Darby's words "xenophobic," "shockingly [and] unambiguously racist" and "morally repugnant."

"I am demanding the immediate removal of this board member for promoting hatred and ignorance," the council member said.

There has been some doubt, however, as to whether Restrepo wrote down Darby's quote correctly.

In a phone interview with Patch, Christian Cassagnol, district manager for Community Board 4 — a young, energetic guy who said he himself comes from a mixed-race family — acknowledged that Darby "did make a comment that could be perceived as racist" but challenged the exact wording of the quote making the rounds.

Cassagnol — who was fielding calls right and left Wednesday afternoon from a litany of local leaders ruffled by the news — said he was not at Tuesday night's meeting but did listen to an audio recording of it afterward. "At no point did I hear the word Trump or immigrant," he said.

This same audio recording is currently being reviewed by the Queens Borough President's Office, which would be the entity with the power to kick Darby off the Community Board, if officials are so inclined.

Cassagnol said he did not want to release the audio recording until the borough president was finished with it.

Darby, a devout Republican and Trumpist, has been sitting on Community Board 4 since 1987.

Her fellow board members sometimes joke that she must be 140 years old. And over three decades acting as a community decision-maker, according to those who've followed her epic tenure, Darby has never been one to keep her right-leaning opinions to herself.

"There's always a feeling of, 'Oh no, what's she going to say?'" said a source close to the board who wished to remain anonymous. "You kind of want to grit your teeth."

"She does have a tendency to speak out of her a--," the source said.

TransAlt activist Restrepo said he sees Darby's most recent rant as an indicator of her true feelings about the neighborhood's growing Latino population. "You can paint a bike lane however you will, but it honestly becomes a proxy for some other thing you hate," he said.

"It's a proxy battle," he said.

The district manager for Community Board 4, for his part, said he was skeptical of TransAlt's true intentions in going after his board's longest-serving member.

While Cassagnol admitted Darby can be a bit of a loose cannon, he insisted the board's general hesitation to build new bike lanes on 111th Street has nothing to do with race.

"We know the way the streets operate," the district manager said. "We don't think this is the perfect place to put these lanes."

Will Darby's pro-Trump bike lane rant be the straw that breaks the borough president's back? Stay up to date on the local kerfuffle by subscribing to receive Patch newsletters and news alerts for your NYC neighborhood.

Lead photo courtesy of Juan Restrepo