From storming out of two Ithaca Common Council meetings to the mayor warning he could be “severely sanctioned,” Alderperson David Shapiro’s tense encounters with his colleagues in City Hall have spilled into public view several times in the past year.
But even before his election to Ithaca’s Common Council in November 2023, he was accused of workplace bullying and verbally abusive leadership at two nonprofits he led, The Sun has learned after interviewing former employees and obtaining internal documents, including a 2022 whistleblower report.
After employees raised concerns about his conduct, the board of directors of one of the nonprofits that Shapiro led, Family Services of Chemung County, voted unanimously in 2022 to not renew his contract, citing low morale and high employee turnover in a memo to staff that The Sun obtained.
Shapiro denied many of his former employees’ accusations in an interview with The Sun. He often declined to discuss specific allegations.
“I’m not going to re-litigate my entire career,” he said. But he did acknowledge that as a nonprofit leader, he had felt it was necessary to make “very urgent” and “assertive decisions” in which he did not “always have the right amount of time to include everybody in the decision-making and in the thought process.”
“I’ve done a lot of really good work in my career,” Shapiro said, “including helping organizations that were failing miserably turn themselves around so that they could become high-functioning organizations.”
Family Services of Chemung County’s decision to move on from Shapiro came after a former employee submitted the 72-page confidential whistleblower report to the board of directors in March 2022, accusing Shapiro of creating a “culture of fear, distrust, and burnout.” The Elmira-based nonprofit provides mental health services and support for families and youth.
Shapiro had taken over as CEO of the nonprofit in 2019.
Shapiro displayed “a troubling pattern” of “creating dismissive and difficult working conditions — serious threats to the organization’s viability and success,” the former employee’s report warned, describing staff members in “professional crisis” and an atmosphere of low morale.
When asked about the internal tensions that led to his exit from Family Services of Chemung County, Shapiro said, “That’s none of your business why I’ve left jobs. But I've left jobs for very personal reasons, and all of those personal reasons were very much my own choices.”
Working under Shapiro “was really a traumatic time for a lot of us,” said Corinne Shanahan, who served as director of operations and quality management at the organization. She said Shapiro was often “verbally abusive” and suppressed dissent in his role.
Shanahan said Shapiro had retaliated against her by removing her position from the budget in December 2021 and offering her the choice to leave or be demoted after she raised concerns about him to her co-workers. She said she chose to leave.
Asked about Shanahan’s claims, Shapiro wrote in an email statement that he could not freely discuss human resources issues, but that decisions to fire people were made by a team and included consultations with human resources staff and the board.
Shapiro added that most former employees who lost jobs were unhappy about it, and many “looked for someone to blame, and that was usually me.”
Shanahan said that she met with Family Services of Chemung County’s board twice after she left the group and that about two dozen other employees had also shared their experiences with the board.
“After intense deliberations, we have voted not to renew David Shapiro’s contract as CEO of Family Services,” the nonprofit’s board wrote in the June 1, 2022, memo to staff. “The vote was unanimous with one abstention.”
The board members wrote that staff morale had been “challenged” and that a “significant amount of institutional knowledge has walked out of the front door.” They added that they hoped some employees who had left might come back following their decision to seek a new CEO.
Several current board members who worked with Shapiro at the nonprofit did not respond to requests for comment.
Salina Barnett, a former staff clinician and mental health counselor at Family Services of Chemung County, described a “mass exodus” around the time when she left in May 2022.
Shapiro “drove away the majority of the clinical staff,” she said. After resigning, Barnett wrote a letter to the board, which she shared with The Sun, saying that the nonprofit had “become something of a hostile work environment” under Shapiro.
“I walked into my supervisor’s office on more than one occasion to [Shapiro] berating her,” Barnett told The Sun, adding that her supervisor “was in tears each and every time.”
Shapiro denied allegations of workplace bullying and hostile one-on-one interactions, calling them “gossip.”
Two months after his departure from Family Services of Chemung County, Shapiro became executive director of Second Wind Cottages, a nonprofit that operates a housing development in Newfield for people struggling with homelessness. He left the position in April 2024, according to his LinkedIn profile.
In November 2023, Shapiro, a Democrat, won his bid for Ithaca’s Common Council. He was sworn in on Jan. 3, 2024, representing the Third Ward, which includes parts of Collegetown and the adjacent neighborhoods of Belle Sherman and South Hill.
Before his time at Family Services of Chemung County, and years before his election victory, Shapiro had run another nonprofit as executive director from 2011 to 2018: Family and Children’s Service of Ithaca, which provides mental health care and social services.
Jessica Brown, who worked under Shapiro as the group’s youth and community-based services supervisor, wrote in an email statement that he “refused to meet with people who he didn’t like,” and called him “petty and self-serving.” She said multiple co-workers had been “brought to tears by his behavior.”
Erika Busch, who worked as a clinician at Family and Children’s Service of Ithaca, criticized his “erratic, dismissive, unreflective and uninformed behavior” in City Hall in a December 2024 op-ed for the Ithaca Times. (The op-ed mistakenly ran under the name Erika Wood, she said.)
“As a former employee, I remember well the centering of himself, and the manipulative workplace bullying that looks so similar to the way he has conducted himself on council since being elected,” Busch wrote in the op-ed, commenting on what she called the “unprecedented ‘level of dysfunction’ we have seen in Common Council since David was elected.”
Busch declined to comment further for this article.
Alicia Kenaley ’98 M.B.A. ’18 — the current executive director of Family and Children’s Service of Ithaca — declined to comment on concerns raised about Shapiro.
Former employees said Shapiro has taken his at times abrasive leadership style as a nonprofit leader to Ithaca’s Common Council.
In March 2024, during a Common Council meeting set to discuss a resolution calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Gaza war, Shapiro stood up and interrupted proceedings, accusing audience members who were holding a “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” sign of antisemitism.
Some in the crowd began to chant “Free, free Palestine.” The mayor called the room to order as Shapiro continued to talk over him. Moments later, Shapiro stormed out. He returned about 30 minutes later.
In October 2024, Shapiro again left a Common Council meeting, alongside Alderpersons Phoebe Brown (D-First Ward) and Margaret Fabrizio (D-Fifth Ward), after a contentious debate over a raise for the mayor, which they opposed.
“This is the worst behaved council I have ever worked with, least professional and least dedicated to the job,” Alderperson Ducson Nguyen (D-Second Ward) told the Ithaca Voice after the meeting, later tweeting on X about the walkouts: “This has happened twice this year and never in the 8 prior.”
In August 2024, Shapiro threatened to break confidentiality rules and divulge sensitive information in a public meeting after he failed to convince others on the Common Council to enter an executive session, a closed-door meeting to discuss nonpublic information. A tense exchange with the mayor ensued.
“Then I’m going to break confidence,” Shapiro told the council after the mayor dismissed his call for a closed-door meeting.
Mayor Robert Cantelmo M.A. ’20 responded to Shapiro, “You absolutely can’t do that. You’ll get sanctioned.”
Later in the meeting, Cantelmo again warned Shapiro, “Only because you said it, you will be severely sanctioned if you violate confidentiality. I just want you to understand that, because we’ve never had that happen in any of the time I’ve been involved in the city.”
When reached by phone, Cantelmo declined to comment, telling The Sun, “I prefer to discuss the policy issues that are facing the city.”
Alderperson Clyde Lederman ’26 (D-Fifth Ward) wrote in an email statement to The Sun that “While David has been a better colleague this year, I was disappointed last year with his willingness to bring up colleagues’ personal lives and disparage City staff during the budget process.”
Days later, Lederman asked for his comment to be withdrawn and sent The Sun another statement via text message, describing Shapiro as a “passionate colleague,” but someone with whom he also has “a contentious relationship on how to work with City staff.”
Alderperson Patrick Kuehl ’24 (D-Fourth Ward) defended Shapiro, writing in an email that “Shapiro has been a strong colleague to work alongside.”
“He is intelligent and passionate,” Kuehl added. “He brings that passion to Common Council meetings, and cares deeply about his ward, the city, and the people of Ithaca.”
When The Sun began to ask about his relationships with his colleagues in City Hall, Shapiro interjected, “I think right now I'm going to decide to end the call. I told you — I'm not going to entertain gossip and rumors.”
Shapiro previously ran for the Tompkins County Legislature in 2017 and lost. His four-year term on the Common Council runs through December 2027.
