Community Board 11 hosted the Pelham Parkway Task Force, a committee that was made up of board members and community members which oversaw the work that was going on with the reconstruction of Pelham Parkway and the installation of a new larger water supply system, and new storm sewers. That Task Force had the removal of one member in early 2021, and the Task Force was disbanded one month later with no explanation by the community board.
As a former member of Community Board 8 who dealt with matters similar to this I was known to the Bronx Supervisor of the Department of Design and Construction, and was placed on the Task Force shortly after I moved to Morris Park one block from Pelham Parkway. While I questioned several things I thought were not being done exactly to protocol, I was not the person removed from the Task Force. I would later check the City Charter to find out that CB 11 had no authority to disband a task force it never authorized, that a board member had to run the meetings not the District Manager was done, and that the meetings had to be public not private as they were.
Several months later Jeremy Warneke the District Manager of CB 11 would ask Ms. Joanna Rojas the consultant on this project (who is getting paid by the city), If the Task Force should be reinstated by CB 11, since there were many questions about the work being done, and the fact that Con Edison had gone right through the reconstructed new Westbound roadbed with a thirty inch gas line leaving a six foot depression in the new now split roadbed. It was well known that Con Edison had to go through Pelham Parkway with its gas line, which like the new forty-eight inch water supply line, were for future development in CB 10 and CB 11. Ms. Rojas told DM Warneke there was no need for restarting the task force, that she would answer any questions anyone had. I asked several questions one about the section of the parkway between White Plains Road and Boston Road, which has been under construction for over a year, even after new larger water pipes were installed next to the existing ones, not getting answers.
It seems that a small community organization outside of the construction area also had complaints as work was being done that was not on the original plans. Ms. Rojas has arranged to meet with this small group to discuss the project, and only a small part of the community board area has been invited. One might call this an illegal meeting, since such a meeting must be directed through the community board since the project runs from one end of Pelham Parkway to the other in CB 11, and not just in one small part of the board area. I have filed a complaint with the New York City Department of Investigation as to how a $139 Million Dollar project (before cost overruns) is being done with no community oversight. Why the parkway reconstruction was done knowing full well that Con Edison was going to go right through the roadway, thus now leaving a six foot section of the roadway that has no concrete foundation, just compacted sand which already has shifted causing a dip in that section from the heavy traffic and buses, along with several other items that are listed including the disbanding of the Task Force.
This section (six feet across) of the westbound Pelham Parkway taken before the asphalt road was put on it has no concrete foundation, and a thirty inch gas line underneath in the sand which has already shifted.
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