CHELSEA — A “miscommunication” between a local community board and one of its committees led its members to believe the NYPD had snubbed them at a meeting focused on bike safety — which members found called "insulting," the board’s district manager said.
Community Board 4’s Transportation Committee last week blasted the NYPD for its absence at a meeting focused on two recent cyclist fatalities in the neighborhood.
However, the board didn’t actually invite the NYPD to the meeting in the first place, district manager Jesse Bodine acknowledged Monday.
The board reached out to NYPD for details about one of the incidents, and Bodine told the committee co-chairs Christine Berthet and Yoni Bokser that information would be “forthcoming,” he told DNAinfo New York.
“When I said that the information would be forthcoming, I think maybe [Berthet and Bokser] interpreted that as that [the NYPD was] attending the meeting to present, or give some type of report, which was neither requested or confirmed,” he said.
Emotions were running high following the deaths of 36-year-old financier Dan Hanegby and 80-year-old cobbler Michael Mamoukakis, Bodine added.
“I think a lot of folks… were just generally very emotional about the fatalities that did happen, and… reacted very strongly to it,” he added.
The NYPD previously did not respond to a request for comment about the meeting.
