“Reverend Bernard has informed the commission that he will be stepping down due to the time commitment that serving would require,” Frank Dwyer, a spokesman for the fee, mentioned in response to the inquiry. “The commission is grateful for his initial offer to serve. A suitable replacement will soon be named.”
Property information present Bernard, 71, and his spouse, who’ve six youngsters, purchased the house for $1.4 million in 2021. They took out a $1.1 million mortgage on the sprawling 2.3 acre property that they completed paying off in March 2024, information present. On his private Fb web page, Bernard lists a PO field close to the St. James residence as his mailing handle.
Bernard didn’t reply to calls and texts this week.
He and his spouse have owned and offered a number of properties on Lengthy Island over the previous few many years, information present. A New York Instances profile of Bernard from 2009 mentioned he and his spouse “live with three dogs on Long Island.”
Bernard, who’s often known as the “power pastor” for his political connections and has greater than 32,000 parishioners at his Christian Cultural Heart church in East New York, was amongst 14 folks picked by Adams in December to be a part of his second revision fee, which he tasked with crafting Metropolis Constitution amendments that might enhance housing manufacturing.
Bernard was one in every of solely two members on Adams’ new fee absent from the panel’s first assembly this previous Tuesday. On the outset of the assembly, fee members launched themselves by stating which of town’s 5 boroughs they reside in.
Bernard’s resignation comes after Adams’ first Constitution Revision Fee launched final 12 months additionally embody the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, who sparked residency issues over his New Jersey residence. On the time, Adams’ workplace mentioned Daughtry was capable of serve on the fee as a result of he’s registered to vote within the metropolis and splits his time between Brooklyn and New Jersey.
The aim of Adams’ newest fee is to formulate referendum inquiries to get onto the November 2025 normal election poll. In saying the panel final month, Adams’ workplace mentioned he needs it to provide you with questions that’d amend the Constitution to “combat the city’s generational housing crisis.”
Mayor Adams on the Apollo Theater on Jan. 9, 2025 in Manhattan. (Barry Williams/ New York Every day Information)
The launch of the mayor’s panel got here after Council Speaker Adrienne Adams introduced plans to roll out her personal revision fee. Certainly one of her high constitution revision priorities has been to provide the Council extra oversight of metropolis authorities appointments the mayor can presently make unilaterally.
As a result of a quirk in state regulation, the Council can’t advance referendum questions onto a poll that features questions crafted by a mayoral fee. Speaker Adams and her Democratic colleagues have accused the mayor of launching his newest fee in a deliberate bid to dam their effort — a cost he denies.
In spring 2024, Adams launched his first fee, which additionally ended up blocking the Council from advancing their very own set of referendum questions onto this previous November’s poll.
That fee acquired a number of questions onto the November poll that proposed putting extra restrictions on the best way the Council drafts legal guidelines, particularly ones associated to public security. All the questions besides one have been accredited by metropolis voters in November.
With Josephine Stratman
Initially Revealed: January 10, 2025 at 1:09 PM EST
