The Noam Bramson Ethics Transcripts Part I: New Questions About New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson, et al

NEW ROCHELLE, NY (July 10, 2022) -- In the period between filing my ethics complaint on March 20, 2022 and the delivery of the Board of Ethics Advisory Opinion on June 16, 2022, I had been raising the question of whether I would receive a copy of the transcripts of the sworn witness testimony with the Board of Ethics, the City of New Rochelle and the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.

The witness list includes City Manager Charles B. Strome, Mayor Noam Bramson, Corporation Counsel and Deputy City Manager Kathleen Gill, Human Resources Commissioner Robert Yamuder, Development Commissioner Adam Salgado, all 6 District Council representatives — Martha Lopez, Albert Tarantino, Yadira Ramos-Herbert, Ivar Hyden, Sara Kaye, Elizabeth Fried — and Monroe College President Marc Jerome, in his capacity as Chairman of the Board of the New Rochelle Downtown Business Improvement District. A total of 12 witness but 13 transcripts as Strome testified twice.

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From a variety of sources I was told that it was not clear and perhaps unlikely I would get the transcripts either as a complainant or through a Freedom of Information (FOIL) request.

Among the reasons given was that the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office had opened a criminal investigation into issues raised by my ethics complaint, primarily the political corruption charge based on the Mayor seeking to use his elected office to obtain something of value — a $200,000+ a year job and related pension benefits — with that value estimated (by me) to be $2.75 million in increased salary and pension payments above and beyond his Mayoral salary and pension which has a value of another $2.75 million. I was also told there might be attorney-client privilege issues and possibly some executive issues.

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When the Advisory Opinion was released to me as the Complainant on June 16, 2022, (along with the City Manager, the Mayor, and the six other members of Council) it did not include any of the transcripts and was also missing some exhibits.

I reached out to the DA and asked them whether they had an investigation into the Mayor open and whether they were asking the City to withhold the transcripts. I then FOIL’d the City and the DA for anything about a criminal investigation that was interfering with my getting the transcripts. The City sent a copy of a Grand Jury subpoena. At that point I told the DA to stop processing my FOIL. A week later, on July 7, 2022 I received the transcripts from the City.

There are a total of 441 pages of PDF files most of which is the transcript of witness testimony but includes pages like headers and errata pages and a keyword index. In short, a lot of material, a good portion of it a sort of winding road of testimony including questions, sidebars, digressions, arguments, sophistry and answers to questions.

It would be difficult to present a single coherent digestible narrative of all that is going on in the transcripts where different witnesses are being asked about different elements of my ethics complaint so it is necessary to come at this haystack of information to find the needles buried deep within it.

My purpose in these prefaratory remarks is to explain to readers why I am not quite ready to publish all of the transcripts in their raw form. I will do that but to simply dump them online serves little purpose. It would be asking readers to drink from a fire hose. Instead, I have created an outline of the storylines contained within the transcripts based on my “first pass” effort over the past three days to read through them and mark them up. To actually write each story will require a second pass to collect testimony that supports certain points. It is likely that on a second pass or even a third pass additional storylines will emerge as I more clearly see connections between the testimony of witnesses relating to other witnesses on various topics covered by the questioning by the Board of Ethics.

It is important to say that there is not much independence in what occurred in the investigation. All of the people involved are connected in one way or another with many relationships going back decades.

Six of the seven witnesses who are Council members are Democrats and the other five Democrats all know full well the cautionary tale of what the sixth, the Mayor, did to former Council member Shari Rackman when she stepped out of line by choosing not to support the Mayor on the Echo Bay deal: he waterboarded her, primaried her, ran her off Council and ultimately out of the Democratic Party. The City Manager and Corporation Counsel have worked closely with the Mayor for many years. Kathleen Gill, Adam Salgado and Robert Yamuder all serve at the pleasure of the City Manager who serves at the pleasure of Council which is 86% Democrats with Noam Bramson both Mayor and de facto head of the Democratic Party of New Rochelle. The resentment and discomfort at having to investigate or be investigated about an ethics complaint by me, Robert Cox, who most see as an arch nemesis, drips from the pages of the transcripts. Most of those involved are either heavily disposed towards the Mayor and against me or afraid of the Mayor or some combination thereof. Given this, the testimony against the Mayor, especially by his fellow Democrats on Council, is all the more damning.

Ethics Board Chairman Charles Phipps is an elected Democratic District Leader. He was re-appointed in 2014 which indicates he was first appointed before that but the online archive of adopted legislation only goes back to 2012 so all I can say is that it was before that. It is highly questionable why an elected Democratic Party official would even be on an ethics board. Ethics Board member David Blumenthal is nominally a Republican but not active within the New Rochelle Republican party and, based on the transcript, a Bramson devotee. He is said to have a close personal relationship with former Council member Barry Fertel who is not only a longtime Bramson ally but the lawyer who represented Council member Sara Kaye at her hearing. Blumenthal was first appointed to the Ethics Board in 2015.

I will start the transcript series with this article and then follow up as quick as I can by publishing a story about Mayor Noam Bramson seeking to be appointed Development Commissioner by City Manager Charles B. Strome. This allegation is the featured allegation in my March 20, 2022 ethics complaint and for good reason. It can be charged as an A Felony with a possible sentence of up to 25 years in prison. Based on my sources, I believe this element of my ethics complaint is what caught the eye of the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office. I believe the DA began a criminal investigation long before the Advisory Opinion was delivered on June 16, 2022. I believe it is why on the early morning of June 17, 2022 the DA’s office took the decision of whether to send the Advisory Opinion (which sustained at least one and possibly two misdemeanor charges) out of the hands of the City Manager by requesting a copy before it was offered. I believe it is why the DA subpoenaed the transcripts and exhibits the following week. And I believe it is the focus of the Grand Jury investigation of the Mayor currently underway.

I will publish a story on the allegation that Mayor Noam Bramson sought four votes, a majority on Council sufficient to terminate the City Manager if he did not acquiesce to the Mayor’s desire that the City Manager rescind the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager.

There are two additional allegations — that the Mayor sought to install his former campaign manager Alisa Kesten as City Manager and that the Mayor sought to become the Executive Director of the Downtown Business Improvement District — that did not get much attention from the Board of Ethics so they will fall lower down on my story list. The Advisory Opinion did not even address them. The Board of Ethics only asked BID Board Chairman Marc Jerome about the Mayor and the position of the Executive Director of the Downtown Business Improvement District even though the City Manager sits on the BID Board as does Al Tarantino, another witness, and Joe Apicella one of the people the City Manager contacted for input on the Mayor’s desire to be Development Commissioner. The Mayor was not asked about the BID at all and Kesten gets only a few passing mentions. Kesten was not called as witness.

There are certain threads and themes that emerged from my first pass reading of the transcript that cut across the investigation of the four charges. I will develop storylines around them for future articles as well as any storylines that emerge on additional passes through the transcripts.

Here are a few examples:

Ethics Board Should Not Prejudge

Ethics Board members are supposed to come to an investigation without an opinion, to ask questions and listen with an open mind, and not prejudge. A statement to this effect was made to most witnesses.

The statement made to Yadira Ramos-Herbert is illustrative of such statements, most likely a prepared statement as a preamble to an interrogatory prepared in advance of taking witness testimony.

As I'm sure you know, a complaint was filed by Robert Cox dealing with two issues -- one allegation that the mayor sought appointment to a commissioner's position and pressured the city manager in that regard; and the second, that he was seeking to have Kathleen Gill's appointment as deputy city manager rescinded. Under your charter, this board is obligated to investigate the complaints. The board's approach is call the people in who are complained about and anyone who might have information about it, and say this is the complaint, tell me what you know about it. Give the people a chance to respond. This is not adversarial in that the board has not brought a complaint against anyone. We're investigating a citizen complaint, but there's a whole other procedure that can happen, but is not happening here. Where the board itself can bring a complaint, which then becomes an adversarial proceeding. But this is not what's happening. The fact that you're going to be asked probably somewhat specific questions about Robert Cox's complaint doesn't mean that the board has any opinion about this one way or the other. They just want to know what the other side of the story is. So also, this not being an adversarial legal proceeding, this being an investigation, we encourage you to tell us anything you'd like us to know. You're not limited to the questions we think of. Anything that's relevant to the investigation, share it with us.

Despite this preamble, the two board members, especially David Blumenthal, repeatedly praise the Mayor and the two other targets of my complaint, Sara Kaye and Yadira Ramos-Herbert. Phipps and Blumenthal, again mostly Blumenthal, make clear their disdain for me personally and my ethics complaint. The board most certainly had an “opinion about this one way or the other”. It was heavily tilted in favor of the Mayor and, as I would describe it, his co-conspirators, Sara Kaye and Yadira Ramos-Herbert, and heavily tilted against me and my complaint.

Blumenthal goes so far as to tell the Mayor, “I apologize that you had to be dragged through this. However we decide, whatever the recommendations are, we owe you a debt of gratitude not only coming in today but in general what you have done now for the last 26 and a half years.” After Bramson makes numerous derogatory comments about me — even using the Talk of the Sound tagline “consider the source” — Charles Phipps, the board chairman, reassures the Mayor, “We understand where the complaint is coming from. We know where the complaint is coming from and we are taking that into consideration.”

This attitude of Charles Phipps is one I have encountered since I first launched Talk of the Sound in 2008 to speak truth to local power. It was then-Superintendent of Schools Richard Organisciak who would invariably respond “consider the source” when I reported on corruption at the New Rochelle Board of Education, the same line quoted by the Mayor, which I ironically adopted as our tagline (look at the top of the Talk of the Sound home page). Former school board member Paul Warhit told me in 2013 that the Mayor told him that I was a “psychopath” as part of a broader effort by the powers that be to discredit my reporting and me personally. When I ran for school board in 2011 the Mayor published an article telling his readers to vote for anyone but me. All of this was an attempt to convince people not to read Talk of the Sound in the hope I would stop. Last year, Talk of the Sound had 1.6 million readers plus double that on my social media platforms which I have since expanded with Words In Edgewise, my Substack newsletter. As for my reporting on corruption and malfeasance in the public sector, dozens of corrupt City and School District employees have been, as a result of my investigations, terminated or, as I call it, “unexpectedly resigned”, with some arrested, convicted and sentenced to prison for charges ranging from sex crimes against children to large scale bribery and kickback schemes to academic fraud. Every story I have written, notably the ones so strenuously objected to by school and city officials, has been entirely accurate. Two people were foolish enough to file defamation claims against me. I represented myself in Westchester Supreme Court. Not only did I win both cases but the lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote me a check to get out of the case. So , by all means, consider the source, a journalist with a 15 year track record of exposing public sector corruption and publishing stories that led to firings, arrests, convictions and incarceration. Then consider that charges in my ethics complaint were sustained, that the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office opened its own criminal investigation based on my ethics complaint and there is currently a Grand Jury investigation into the Mayor. How about them apples?

That said, it is worth noting that despite the board members openly fawning over the Mayor and deriding me and my complaint, all on the record, they both ultimately sustained the allegation that the Mayor violated the City Charter, a misdemeanor crime, in his efforts to be appointed to the Development Commissioner position. Their turnabout speaks to the preponderance of evidence against the Mayor and the implausibility of his testimony.

Yadira Ramos-Herbert Open to Perjury Charges

I see no way Yadira Ramos-Herbert could survive aggressive questioning by a smart ADA in front of a Grand Jury. She repeatedly stumbled through half-truths, contradictions and outright lies. She contradicted herself and is repeatedly contradicted by other witnesses. She has opened herself up to numerous potential perjury charges. The most notable lie is both in the transcript of her testimony and an interview of her by the Journal News — that she was not the Mayor’s “third vote” in his attempt to pressure the City Manager to rescind his appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager. Other witnesses provide testimony that indicates she is the third vote. The Mayor himself repeatedly talks about 3 votes while also acknowledging that Fried, Tarantino, Hyden and Lopez were a hard “no” on the Kathleen Gill matter. There are 7 members on Council which leaves Bramson with two, Sara Kaye and Yadira Ramos-Herbert. She is clearly lying and the DA should press her on this point.

Noam Alone with his Cucumber

Ivar Hyden provided the Ethics Board with a startling yet sad psychoanalysis of the Mayor that paints Bramson as a pathetic social cripple, incapable of normal interaction with his fellow Council members, sitting alone in his office, eating a slice of cucumber for dinner, while his colleagues yuk it up, swap stories, talk sports and enjoy a meal together during breaks between Council meetings.

The Mayor and Steven Leventhal

Sara Kaye and Yadira Ramos-Herbert each testified that the Mayor called them after he testified to discuss his testimony (which sounds like witness tampering) and they both recalled the Mayor began by saying how the Ethics Board was unexpectedly confrontational.

Yadira Ramos-Herbert testified “(the Mayor) thought it was a bit more adversarial than he anticipated.” Sara Kaye testified the Mayor said “it was more adversarial and formal than he had expected”. The transcript puts the lie to these claims. The only person being confrontational during the Mayor’s hearing was Bramson’s lawyer. Steven Leventhal was hostile and combative from the moment he entered the room. Leventhal routinely interrupted, told the Mayor not to answer questions, repeatedly threatened to walk out, claimed he was lied to about the nature of the hearing and used the word “ambush”. Afterwards, in a letter, Leventhal similarly attacked the Ethics Board process and threatened to sue Peter Miesels, the Ethics Board lawyer, City Manager Strome, Corporation Counsel Gill, Associate Corporation Counsel Dawn Warren, and members of Council for what he described as a conspiracy — literally, a conspiracy theory about the Mayor.

The Mayor Running the Development Office with Luiz Aragon

Development Commissioner Adam Salgado testified that he was discouraged from applying for his current position in the initial search by Luiz Aragon, his former boss who had just retired several months earlier as Development Commissioner but still had a month-to-month consulting contract. Salgado testified that Aragon told him not to apply for Development Commissioner because he (Luiz) would be running the Development Department with Noam Bramson and Kathleen Gill, with Salgado reporting to Aragon. Salgado came away with the sense that the Mayor wanted to be Development Commissioner with Aragon as his consultant. Salgado testified he repeated what he was told by Aragon to the City Manager and Corporation Counsel and the City Manager said Kathleen Gill would be running Development on an interim basis with Salgado as her deputy and Aragon reporting to Salgado. Gill and Salgado terminated Aragon’s consulting contract a few months later, in September 2021. After Salgado applied in the second round of the Development Commissioner search, the City Manager testified the Mayor asked to see the resumes of the applicants — Salgado’s among them. “(The Mayor) tapped the resumes and he said ‘it is obvious I am the best candidate’ and that's when I decided I had to write the memo to cut this off.”

After Salgado was appointed Development Commissioner on March 17, 2022 the Mayor told him he would have to work with Aragon.

MR. SALGADO: When I was appointed the mayor had come in to my office that morning and he said I know what you may have heard. Despite what you may have heard, I'm delighted by your appointment was his words. And he said I think you need to -- I think you should call Luiz and make it right. And I said...

Q. What did you understand that to mean?

MR. SALGADO: That Luiz was upset that I wasn't relying on him as you know an advisor like sage counsel type person and that we let his contract expire and I wasn't utilizing him for his knowledge. I think he felt left out. And I didn't know he was upset at me because I had no conversations with Luiz. So it was interesting to hear it from the Mayor.

Q. Right. And did you do about that?

MR. SALGADO: I said that I think if anyone -- I told him I think Luiz owes me a call if anything. And so I did, I got a call from Luiz, a congratulatory call.

Salgado’s testimony appears to contradict Aragon’s statement to me on March 20, that he was not involved in what going on in New Rochelle in any way.

A Not-for-Profit City Manager

The Mayor was asked about wanting to change the job description for City Manager to include not-for-profit experience. He was asked, “at any time did you ever discuss with any of (Council members) changing the qualifications for the position of city manager?” Bramson answered “No”. That is absolutely untrue. I was in City Hall on Tuesday March 8, 2022 when the City Manager was in executive session formerly notifying Council that he would leave his position at year end. I spoke to Strome when he came out of executive session. The Council members remained in their conference room for a super-executive session to discuss conducting a search for a new City Manager. I was present when that meeting ended as well and heard Council members in the hallway discussing the highly unusual proposal by the Mayor to expand the job qualifications of City Manager to allow for non-profit experience as a substitute for public sector experience. HR Director Robert Yamuder testified that the recruiting firm provided him a form to list job qualifications, the list was completed by the Mayor, that list included not-for-profit experience, and that both Yamuder and the executive at the recruiting firm found it highly unusual.

How Did Bob Cox Get His Information?

The Mayor testified he wanted to keep the discussion of his interest to be Development Commissioner private. The City Manager testified that he did not want anyone to know about the memo he sent the Mayor about why he would not appoint the Mayor as Development Commissioner. The two Board of Ethics members expressed concerns and suspicion of how I found out about the Mayor seeking appointment as Development Commissioner and how I obtained the City Manager’s memo to the Mayor.

Despite the two Board of Ethics member harping on it, I never FOIL’d for the City Manager’s memo to the Mayor. Not that I have any reason to justify obtaining the memo to anyone but explaining the truth of the matter illustrates the desire of the board, in particular David Blumenthal, to cast my reporting in a negative light.

MR. BLUMENTHAL: I know it's not something you can answer, but it's amazing how Mr. Cox got this information.

MR. STROME: No, it is not.

MR. PHIPPS: It is not?

MR. STROME: It is New Rochelle. Nothing is secret here.

MR. BLUMENTHAL: It is pretty timely.

MR. STROME: Listen, I don't know how he got the information. I know he talks to a lot of people and then he FOILS for information. And, you know, once you know what a topic is, you can ask for any document related to that topic and it gets released.

The Mayor also asserts this false claim that I FOIL’d for the City Manager’s memo to the Mayor

Had they bothered to ask for the records, readily available to them, they would have seen that my “source” was the Mayor.

On March 8, 2022, the City Manager announced his retirement. I did a story about that and while at City Hall to take photos of the City Manager I asked various officials how the process of hiring a new City Manager worked as there has only been one City Manager since I launched Talk of the Sound in 2008. There was some confusion as to the answer so I made a FOIL request on that subject to gather information on how the process worked and reached out to a number of sources. On March 17, 2022 I was sent a press release and ran a story that Adam Salgado was appointed as Development Commissioner and Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager. The next day, still reaching out on my story about how a new City Manager would be hired I was told by several of these same sources that the Mayor had wanted the Development Commissioner position for himself. I was shocked and skeptical. I then did what I typically do in such cases, I reached out to the subject. I asked the Mayor directly about it and he replied.

I sent an email to the Mayor on March 18.

From: Robert Cox

Date: March 18, 2022 at 11:12:14 AM To: Noam Bramson

Subject: Development Commissioner

I ran a story about the new Development Commissioner yesterday. I already had a FOIL in on the broader subject of various leadership changes and how things work (as much for my edification as my readers) which interested me with Chuck announcing his retirement and how that position gets filled.

As a follow up to that story, I am hearing the word around town is that you applied for the Development Commissioner position.

Is that the case? What can you tell me?

Thanks

Robert Cox

Publisher and Managing Editor

Talk of the Sound

The Mayor responded the same day.

From: Bramson, Noam

Date: March 18, 2022 at 11:58:22 AM

To: Robert Cox

Subject: Re: Development Commissioner

Hi Bob,

Chuck and I had informal conversations about the possibility -- it's intriguing in concept -- but a shift like that is just unworkable on multiple levels, and I did not apply for the position. I am very enthusiastic about Adam's selection; he will do a splendid job.

Noam

Based on the Mayor’s statement, I made a request to amend my FOIL request

From: Robert Cox

Date: March 18, 2022 at 1:20:02 PM

To: Kathleen Gill

Subject: Development Commissioner

Hi

I exchanged emails with the Mayor and he says he had “informal conversations” about the possibility of his being hired as the Development Commissioner.

Can you amend my FOIL request to include records of any exchanges between the Mayor and the City Manager regarding the possibility of the Mayor being hired as the Development Commissioner.

Thanks.

Bob Cox

Talk of the Sound

There is nothing unusual or nefarious about any of this as much as people like Charles Phipps and David Blumenthal might want it to be. The “timing” is not suspicious at all but a perfectly normal sequence of events based on my reporting tied to two events — the City Manager retirement announcement on March 8, 2022, and the appointments of Salgado and Gill on March 17, 2022. In reporting out a story I stumbled into a better story and pursued it, with a FOIL request, per usual.

I made a standard request of “all communications between” two parties. I never requested the memo. The memo happened to be covered by my FOIL. This sort of thing happens all the time. It is why I write most of my FOIL requests to be non-specific, using phrases like “all files and folders” or “all communications”. I try to cast a wide net and see what comes back.

The second part of the insinuations by Phipps and Blumenthal is how could I possibly have heard about such a supposedly deep secret as the Mayor seeking to be appointed as Development Commissioner.

Let me count the ways.

The Mayor testified he told his wife and told friends “with no connection to the City” neglecting to mention they would all be friends of the Mayor of New Rochelle which is, obviously, a pretty big connection.

The City Manager testified he told (and the Mayor knew he told) various people that the Mayor wanted to be appointed Development Commissioner and those people included Martha Lopez, Al Tarantino, Ivar Hyden, Joe Apicella, Mark Weingarten, Steve Altieri, Steve Pappalardo, Peter Korn and Tim Idoni and none of those people supported the idea with most outwardly hostile to the idea.

Over a period of months, others heard about the Mayor wanting the Development Commissioner position. Noam Bramson testified that he was asked about it by Al Tarantino, Ivar Hyden and former Development Commissioner Luis Aragon. Ivar Hyden testified he heard about it from the City Manager in December. Hyden testified when he asked the Mayor directly in January the Mayor denied any interest in the Development Commissioner position. Same with Al Tarantino. Yadira Ramos-Herbert testified that she heard about it from Ivar Hyden in early 2022 and from Martha Lopez who told her she heard from the City Manager and from Al Tarantino. Sara Kaye testified she heard it from Ivar Hyden. Martha Lopez testified she heard about it from so many people chattering at cocktail parties she could not remember them all and from the City Manager when she raised to him her support for Adam Salgado as Development Commissioner. All of this talk of the Mayor wanting the Development Commissioner position became the buzz of the Democratic party elite of New Rochelle over many months so it became widely known. Adam Salgado testified that early in 2022 there was “buzz” around City Hall that the Mayor wanted the Development Commissioner position. Al Tarantino testified that he was aware of “buzz” within the Democratic Party leadership for months.

Rather than it being a mystery that I found out about any of this, the real question is why it took so long for me to hear about it after so many months.

By the time I heard about it, it is likely that hundreds of people had heard about it. Unlike them I immediately emailed the Mayor about what was to me just a rumor and to my surprise he confirmed it on March 18. I amended an existing FOIL request and was sent a series of documents including the City Manager memo to the Mayor on March 18. I spent the next couple days studying the memo, researching the City Charter and City ethics policies and used that information, along with the memo, to write an ethics complaint. I then spent most of Sunday writing an article based on my ethics complaint. I then isolated out questions I wished to ask each person mentioned in the article and between 6 pm and 7 pm, I sent out a detailed set of questions, tailored to each person. Most of those people are on the witness list. Luiz Aragorn is not. I removed him from my ethics complaint and my article after he called to deny any involvement. The witness testimony now suggests that may not have been true but I credited his denial on March 20. Liz Fried replied to acknowledge receipt of my email but declined to comment due to the pending investigation. I emailed her again after the Advisory Opinion was released on June 16, 2022 but she again declined to comment.

Why Did the Mayor Not Want to Submit an Application for Development Commissioner to the Search Firm?

The Board of Ethics members expressed mystification as to why the Mayor did not submit an application to be Development Commissioner. The answer is obvious — his application would have been subject to FOIL. He was concerned that I would hear about it, obtain his application and publish it causing all hell to break loose. How do we know that would happen? Just look what happened when I did find out. There has been an ethics complaint, an investigation, an Advisory Opinion sustaining my complaint, a DA investigation, Grand Jury investigation and some — not enough — but some media stories. It would seem obvious and in keeping with his prior history of trying to sneak things through that the Mayor hoped to secretly get the position first then ride out the storm that would certainly ensue leaving with him a job paying double his current salary as Mayor and a massive pension windfall, a bump worth an estimated $2.75 million above his current pay and benefits package.

Three Way Call with the Mayor

Yadira Ramos-Herbert and Martha Lopez each testified they were on a call together with the Mayor. Ramos-Herbert testified she was in a meeting when the Mayor called her. She said she called the Mayor back but he didn't answer so she checked her email and saw the Salgado/Gill press release then called Lopez who was on the phone with the Mayor. Ramos-Herbert never explained why a phone call from the Mayor and an email from the City Manager about the Development Commissioner and the Deputy City Manager would prompt her to call Lopez, who just happened to be on the phone with the Mayor. There is something odd about this and the transcript suggests the possibility that the Mayor texted Ramos-Herbert, who he repeatedly indicated supported him on rescinding the Gill appointment, and instructed her to call Lopez, join the call and help him to convince Lopez to oppose the Gill appointment.

During the call, Ramos-Herbert and Lopez recalled their versions of the Mayor telling them Sara Kaye and Liz Fried “feel the same way”. Martha Lopez testified she understood the Mayor to mean that Kaye and Fried agreed with the Mayor on going to the City Manager to complain about the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager. Ramos-Herbert testified she understood the Mayor to mean that Kaye and Fried agreed with her to not go to the City Manager to complain about the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager. Whatever the truth of that, and there is plenty of reason to doubt Yadira Ramos-Herbert in any of this, it was definitely not true that Kaye and Fried were of the same mind. Kaye supported the Mayor (and the Mayor testified he had two other votes) and Fried was strongly opposed. With Tarantino, Hyden, Lopez and Fried totally opposed, the only votes left to the Mayor were Yadira Ramos-Herbert and Sara Kaye.

The Mayor testified he had two calls with Liz Fried about the Gill appointment. Fried testified to two calls with the Mayor, one on March 17 and one on March 18.

MS. FRIED: The next day Noam did call me back to say have you given this any thought and I said I am one hundred percent on board with Kathleen Gill, I think she should be the next city manager. I support her promotion to deputy and that was it. Basically Noam said would you keep an open mind? I said no, I will always support Kathleen, end of conversation, and that was the end of it. Yes, that was March 18th, yes, and then we have not spoken since.

Martha Lopez testified that after Ivar Hyden told her Fried was opposed to asking the City Manager to rescind the Gill appointment — the opposite of what the Mayor had said on her three-way call with Ramos-Herbert she called Ramos-Herbert to tell her Hyden said Fried was opposed so she was going to call Fried.

MS. LOPEZ: So several days passed by, and I called Yadira, and I said, "You know what? I heard that Liz said no to the request to rescind." And I said, "I don't know. I just feel that I have to call Liz to find out." So I called Liz, and she said "No, I didn't." And I said, "Really?" So if I would have been by myself talking to the mayor, I probably would have said -- I probably would have questioned myself and said, "Did I hear correctly? Did he say Liz and Sara?" But Yadira was on the phone call. So when Liz said to me, "No, I did not agree, and actually --" she said -- it was a Saturday, and she said, "Actually he came to see me at 7:30." She did say, "He came at 7:30 A.M. to talk to me." The mayor.

Q. Came to her house?

MS. LOPEZ: . To her house.

Q. 7:30 A.M.?

MS. LOPEZ: 7:30 A.M. So -- and she said, "I like -- I like Kathleen, and I like Adam, and they are doing a great job." And I agreed with her. I said, "Yeah. They are doing a great job, and I'm very happy."

Fried testified on April 4, 2022, that after the two calls with the Mayor on Thursday March 17 and one on Friday March 18, “we have not spoken since”. Lopez testified that Liz said the Mayor came to her house early Saturday morning, March 19, 2022.

Yadira Ramos-Herbert testified that during the three-way call she understood the Mayor to say that Fried and Kaye were in agreement with with Lopez and her in opposing the Mayor going to the City Manager about the Gill appointment. The Lopez testimony raises all sorts of questions about Ramos-Herbert’s testimony and some about the testimony of Fried and Bramson.

Lopez testified that she understood the Mayor to say Fried and Kaye supported the Mayor’s effort to rescind the Gill appointment and Ramos-Herbert had the same understanding in the second call which contradicts Ramos-Herbert’s testimony about the first call. Ramos-Herbert never mentioned the second call in her testimony.

Fried and Bramson both failed to mention something that would be hard to forget just two weeks later — having repeatedly told the Mayor “no” on two separate calls, on March 18 and March 19, the Mayor showed up at her house for breakfast on March 20 to ask her to change her mind on Gill.

Yadira Ramos-Herbert testified that Ivar Hyden called her after I filed my ethics complaint and story about my ethics complaint on March 20, 2022 to ask her if it was true that the Mayor had asked her about rescinding the Gill appointment and threatening to fire the city manager.

MS. RAMOS-HERBERT: "You know, Ivar, real talk. No, it didn't happen. So whoever is saying that it did, I wish they would just, you know, either get their sources right or call me because I would gladly tell them it didn't happen."

Ramos-Herbert is, of course, referring to me, the person with “sources” who should have called her and had I done so she would have “gladly” have told me it didn’t happen. Ramos-Herbert is right. I did not call her before I filed my ethics complaint or published my story about my ethics complaint. I emailed her.

To put my email to her in context, Ramos-Herbert testified to a three-way call with Martha Lopez and the Mayor on March 18 about the Gill appointment and another call with Lopez. Ramos-Herbert testified to a one-on-one call with the Mayor on the morning of March 19 that I had a story coming soon about the Mayor’s interest in the Development Commissioner position. Ramos-Herbert testified that she apologized to the City Manager on March 21 for not calling him over the weekend. She testified she said, "I didn't call you over the weekend 'cause things were just becoming way too intense."

The “intensity” refers not only to the phone calls she testified to but other witness testimony about phone calls with her. It was a “hair on fire” weekend for the entire Council and especially for those like the Mayor and Ramos-Herbert and Kaye. the “et al” in my ethics complaint naming the Mayor and them.

The context for my email is that Ramos-Herbert raised her right-hand, took an oath to tell the truth and then lied.

She testified, “I wish they would just, you know, either get their sources right or call me because I would gladly tell them it didn't happen."

She knew the story was coming for two days, she had an “intense” weekend waiting for the story to drop, she got a highly detailed email from me at 6:32 pm. The story dropped at 7:47 pm. The ethics complaint was marked received by the City Clerk, a member of the Board of Ethics, on March 21, 2022 at 8:47 am.

From: Robert Cox

Date: March 20, 2022 at 6:32:16 PM EDT

To: Yadira Ramos-Herbert

Subject: Commissioner of Economic Development

Ms. Ramos-Herbert,

I want you to be aware that I will publish today (Sunday) at about 8 pm a story which will say the Mayor Noam Bramson has been pressuring the City Manager to appoint him as Commissioner of Economic Development in violation of the City Charter and GML 18, and that having failed in that given the announcement Thursday of the appointment Adam Salgado to the position of Commissioner of Economic Development, has sought to pressure the City Manager to rescind the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager in violation of the City Charter.

I will concurrently file an Ethics Complaint with the New Rochelle Board of Ethics.

I want to give you an opportunity to comment and, in particular, address the following:

Were you aware before the publication of our article that Mayor Bramson has, for about a year, sought to have the City Manager appoint him Commissioner of Economic Development?

Were you aware that Article VI Section 41 of the New Rochelle City Charter requires management appointments by the City Manager shall be made based on “executive and administrative ability and of the training and experience of such appointees in the work which they are to perform”?

Were you aware that Article VII Section 76.00 of the New Rochelle City Charter enumerates required qualifications for the Commissioner of Economic Development which includes 10 years of progressively responsible technical and managerial experience in any one or several areas (community planning, traffic engineering and renewals and redevelopment projects and planning and administration)?

Were you aware that Article VI Section 43 of the New Rochelle City Charter prohibits members of Council from interfering in appointments or removals by the City Manager?

Did Mayor Bramson seek to organize members of Council to obtain the necessary votes to remove the City Manager with the intention of going to him, votes in hand, to get him to rescind his appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager — in apparent violation of Article VI Section 43?

Did Mayor Bramson seek your support in his effort to get the City Manager to rescind his appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager?

Did you indicate to Mayor Bramson that you would support his effort to get the City Manager to rescind his appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager?

Are you aware that under the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) Code of Ethics, the appointment of an elected official (politician) by the City Manager, qualified or unqualified, would violate three tenets of the ICMA Code of Ethics and subject the City Manager to censure by the ICMA?

Are you aware that the New Rochelle Board of Ethics is created under Article 18 of the General Municipal Law of New York State, which has as one of its purposes to “protect innocent public officers from unwarranted assaults on their integrity”?

Sincerely,

Robert Cox

Publisher and Managing Editor

Talk of the Sound

I did not hear back from Yadira Ramos-Herbert before the story ran on March 20 or before my ethics complaint was accepted on March 21 or before she testified on April 8, 2022 nor right up until today, July 10, 2022 so it is difficult to credit her claim that she would “gladly” tell me anything about any of this.

Why Did the City Manager Notify the Council of the Appointment of Adam Salgado as Development Commissioner by Press Release?

Part of the “intense” weekend took place via email. Several members of Council, foremost among them Yadira Ramos-Herbert, spent a good deal of time telling the Ethics Board about how it was extraordinary that they were not given a heads up on the Salgado and Gill appointments, that the way they first learned of the appointments was in an email on March 17, 2022.

The City Manager addressed this in his second round of testimony on April 12, 2022.

MR. BLUMENTHAL: The second question is something that is probably not as relevant and I just want to be clear about that. We heard from a number of the City Councilmembers. It was unusual for you to announce that kind of position selection both of Adam and Kathleen in a memo notifying them in closed chambers.

MR. STROME: That's correct that it was unusual. On the Adam one in particular. The reason I did that was because it would have been exceedingly uncomfortable to do that with the mayor's interest in the position, and some of the councilmembers I honestly believe had no idea that he had an interest.

The City Manager Was Miffed to Hear the Mayor Was Canvassing Council for Votes to Pressure Him to Rescind the Gill Appointment

During his second round of testimony on April 12, 2022, the City Manager explained how he learned the Mayor was talking to Council members about the Gill appointment.

MR. STROME: I was told that the mayor made several calls about this subject. The four people he called were Councilmember Fried, Councilmember Lopez, Councilmember Kaye, Councilmember Ramos Herbert to see if there were four people, because we have a seven person council who had the same concerns as him and that if there were, he was going to come talk to me about those concerns. So I was told that but that was third-hand information, somebody telling me something somebody else told them, so I was told that and in fact, I was also told that he was, you know, or maybe I just deduced that he was gathering three votes to terminate my employment which is the reason I went to see him the next morning and that's when he said no, I was just concerned about the timing of the deputy city manager appointment.

Q. Was there any reason that he needed three other council people before he could express that opinion to you, that he was concerned about the timing of it?

MR. STROME: That has never been the history. If he or any member of the council had a concern, they were always free to talk to me individually. No one has ever come to me as a group, actually, so I was a little miffed there was an attempt to get three votes because we never had that kind of dynamic. If it is a concern about a personnel appointment or some other matter that is going on, council people and several mayors, two of them, anyway, have never felt the need to get votes to come in. That's what I was told was going on so, you know, if he was getting votes to come talk to me that would have been a very unusual circumstance. That was never required before nor does it really matter, honestly.

Al Tarantino testified that the City Manager called him repeatedly on March 18, 2022.

MR. TARANTINO: ...on Friday after this happened I then get a call from Chuck again that he was quite upset because he had heard that the mayor had reached out to other councilmembers to take their temperature about going to Chuck about the appointment of Deputy City Manager Gill and he was quite upset on the phone about it and, you know, I said well, you know, you do the appointing, nobody else has the appointment and he said well, he had three votes but you need four, and of course the inference of that is that by saying that you are telling the city manager who four votes can remove from office that, you know, if we have four votes, and in fact I sent an e-mail to Chuck Strome the following day because I was pretty upset with what was going on. In fact, I got not only one call but three different calls from Chuck that day about what was going on with that appointment. You know, we went from the concern about the commissioner of development and all of a sudden now we were involved with the deputy city manager which wasn't something that was part of the entire process of the commissioner of development. This was something new that popped up after the appointments were made. He did bring up to me that, you know, who do you think, you know, are going to agree with him and I said well, you need four votes and I knew some of the councilmembers and I knew some of them were not on board because the councilmembers started, you know, talking to each other after this and it was clear I wasn't going to be called or Ivar Hyden wasn't going to be called because neither one of us would even consider something like that. It is not our position to do that. So then on the third call I got from Chuck was later in the day. It was probably around 6:00 and he was still quite upset that he had heard from the mayor and the mayor was talking about meeting with some of the councilmembers, you know, just two at a time, him and two because you can't have more than three together; meeting two of them and discussing this appointment and, you know, that's when I really was upset, had trouble sleeping Friday night, I have to be honest because this is something that I never experienced. In 14 years I never, you know, seen anything like this and we have had some interesting people on council over the years that I would have probably anticipated this from but not from the people that were involved now, and I sent an e-mail to Chuck that stated that I would like an opinion and I then laid out what my concern was, was about if in fact what was happening with the councilmembers and the mayor talking about getting four votes and to me that meant they were looking to eliminate the city manager if he didn't rescind the particular appointment, and also the issue about the commissioner of development position, were they ethic violations, were they charter violations or were they criminal violations? And I asked for an opinion and, you know, I asked for the opinion from the city manager who then in turn went out and got an opinion from an attorney. I don't have it with me. I don't know if you have it or not, okay. You do have it with the opinion?

Q. Right.

MR. TARANTINO: So the opinion, you know, laid out if these things were true, but that was the job of this Board to determine those kinds of things. So, you know, that's where everything ended with me as far as the process. I got that opinion and I decided to just hold onto it and wait and just see, you know, how the process played out but it gave me a little bit of comfort in knowing I wasn't, you know, totally off base in what I was seeing in front of me. I was very concerned but, you know, you give people the benefit of the doubt until you can prove otherwise and I wanted to make sure I wasn't going down a path that was the wrong path and that to me was very important.

Tarantino sent an email on Saturday, March 19, 2022 1:16 pm to the City Manager which the City Manager forwarded to the entire Council.

From: Al Tarantino

To: Strome, Chuck

Cc: Ivar Hyden

Subject: Ethics Codes

Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2022 1:16 pm

Chuck

After speaking with some council members it has come to my attention that the Mayor has reached out to them to persuade them in going to you with four votes to force you to rescind the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager.My question to you would be is this a violation of the Ethics Code and City Charter to pursue this by the Mayor. It seems to me that the Mayor would be threatening the City Manager with his job by letting him know if he does not do what he wants he will be terminated.

Can you get an opinion on this and let us know.

Al

The Mayor testified about this email.

Q. I am going to show you what had been premarked as Exhibit C and what I am going to ask you to do, it is a chain of e-mails that you are a party. I ask you to go to the last page and take a look at the first e-mail.

MR. BRAMSON: From Al Tarantino.

Q. Okay. First of all, did there come a time that you saw that e-mail before today?

MR. BRAMSON: Oh, yeah. Obviously I responded to it.

Q. When you first saw it, what was your reaction?

MR. BRAMSON: Astonishment, anger.

Q. Now, in his e-mail to you he says-- in to Chuck he says, "After speaking with some councilmembers it has come to my attention that the mayor has reached out to them to persuade them in going to you with four votes to force you to rescind the appointment of Kathleen Gill as deputy city manager. My question to you would be is this a violation of the ethics code and the city charter to pursue this by the mayor? It seems to me that the mayor would be threatening the city manager for this job by letting him know if he does not do what he wants he will be terminated. Can you get an opinion on this and let us know?

Al."

Q. Did you ever have occasion to speak personally with Councilman Tarantino about this after you saw this e-mail?

MR. BRAMSON: I did not.

Q. Did you make an effort to?

MR. BRAMSON: No.

Q. Is there a reason you did not make an

effort to?

MR. BRAMSON: I didn't think that would be constructive. I thought it would be more appropriate for me to respond, as I did, with an e-mail to the entire city council and the manager laying out my account of what transpired which I did and which is in front of you and which is consistent with what I just stated a moment ago.

The Mayor sent his reply to the Tarantino email on Sunday, March 20, 2022, 7:39 pm which is about an hour after he received an email from me informing him that I would soon submit an ethics complaint about him and publish a story about the ethics complaint.

From: Bramson, Noam

Sent: Sunday, March 20, 2022, 7:39 PM

To: Strome, Chuck Strome, Al Tarantino

Cc: Lopez-Hanratty, Martha; Yadira Ramos Herbert; Ivar Hyden; Kaye, Sara; Fried, Elizabeth

Subject: Re: Ethics Codes

Given the sensitive nature of this claim, I think it important to offer a full and clear description of the conversations in question, and to address what I believe are significant mischaracterizations in the inquiry.

• Chuck's memorandum announcing the Deputy Manager appointment raised for me concerns related to timing and context. On the eve of our search for a City Manager, I felt that a title change might constrain a new Manager's ability to establish a leadership structure of their choosing.

• I reached out to Council Members Lopez, Ramos-Herbert, Kaye, and Fried to seek their feedback. (I would have called CMs Tarantino and Hyden, as well, but they had already responded to Chuck's memorandum via email to express their support, and so their views were known.) The purpose of my outreach was to determine whether or not others saw the matter similarly to me. If my concerns were widely-held, then I would judge it appropriate to bring the issue to Chuck's attention. If not, then I would let the matter go. At no time did I say or imply that a vote would be held. At no time did I say or imply that Chuck would be threatened, implicitly or explicitly, with termination. At no time, did I say or imply that Chuck would be "forced" to rescind his appointment. Instead, I viewed such a prospective conversation with Chuck as fully consistent with the informal discussions many of us have had about personnel over the years and which Chuck has typically welcomed, while always reserving for himself the full and final right to make appointments, as he deems appropriate.

• During these calls with Council Members, some argued that -- regardless of whether my concerns were valid or shared by others -- raising them with Chuck would simply create tension without constructive purpose. I was persuaded by and accepted this point. With that, I considered the matter closed.

• The following morning, Chuck received a call -- I do not know from whom -- letting him know of these conversations. From this call, Chuck obtained the misimpression that I was seeking his termination, and then confronted me with his concerns. I assured Chuck in clear and unambiguous terms that he was mistaken. He accepted this assurance that I was not seeking or threatening his termination, confirmed this in subsequent conversations with others, and then acknowledged to me that he had misinterpreted the information received in his call earlier that morning. It was only in this context -- in order to set the record straight and explain what had actually transpired in the prior day's discussions with Council Members -- that it was necessary for me to describe to Chuck my concerns about the Deputy City Manager appointment. In other words, I never initiated a conversation with Chuck about this subject and had no plans to; had it not been for Chuck raising the matter with me, we would never have discussed the issue at all.

Most of us have, at one point or another, shared personnel assessments with each other and/or offered suggestions to our management team. To deem the conversations in question a violation of the Charter requires a significant mischaracterization of their content and is also inconsistent with our long-standing practice of open, respectful manager-council interactions on all subjects.

It is unfortunate that this sequence of events, conversations, and misunderstandings has now obviously generated an uncomfortable level of tension and mistrust among us. I accept my share of responsibility for preserving the constructive relationships we have all enjoyed and worked hard to build.

I do not anticipate addressing this issue further via email, but I will, of course, share this account with outside counsel if asked, and will also be pleased to answer questions that counsel may have. Feel free to call me if you would like to discuss.

Noam

My email to the Mayor was sent more than an hour earlier so he was well aware of what was contained in my ethics complaint and my article about my ethics complaint.

From: Robert Cox

Date: March 20, 2022 at 6:27:41 PM EDT

To: Noam Bramson

Subject: Commissioner of Economic Development

Mayor Bramson

I want you to be aware that I will publish today (Sunday) at about 8 pm a story which will say you have been pressuring the City Manager to appoint you as Commissioner of Economic Development in violation of the City Charter and GML 18, and that having failed in that given the announcement Thursday of the appointment Adam Salgado to the position of Commissioner of Economic Development, you have sought to pressure the City Manager to rescind the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager in violation of the City Charter.

I will concurrently file an Ethics Complaint with the New Rochelle Board of Ethics.

I want to give you an opportunity to comment and, in particular, address the following:

I have received additional information, including a memorandum to you from the City Manager and an ICMA to the City Manager.

These documents raise a number of questions.

Were your “informal conversations” with the City Manager about his appointing you to the position of Commissioner of Economic Development violations of the New Rochelle City Charter, specifically Article VI Section 41 (appointments shall be made based on “executive and administrative ability and of the training and experience of such appointees in the work which they are to perform”) and Article VII Section 76.00 (the required qualifications for the Commissioner of Economic Development which include10 years of progressively responsible technical and managerial experience in any one or several areas — community planning, traffic engineering and renewals and redevelopment projects and planning and administration) and Article VI Section 43 (prohibition against members of Council from interfering in appointments or removals by the City Manager)?

Did you use your elected office in an attempt to enrich yourself by obtaining through coercion, actual or implied, a job with an annual salary exceeding $200,000, plus benefits, for which you are not qualified under the New Rochelle City Charter?

Are you aware that under the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) Code of Ethics, the appointment of an elected official (politician) by the City Manager, qualified or unqualified, would violate three tenets of the ICMA Code of Ethics and subject the City Manager to censure by the ICMA?

Are you aware that the New Rochelle Board of Ethics is created under Article 18 of the General Municipal Law of New York State, which has as one of its purposes to “protect innocent public officers from unwarranted assaults on their integrity”?

Did you subject a public officer to unwarranted assaults on their integrity, a possible violation of New York State law, in particular, Article 18 of the General Municipal Law?

Did you seek to organize members of Council to obtain the necessary votes to remove the City Manager with the intention of going to him, votes in hand, to get him to rescind his appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager — in apparent violation of Article VI Section 43?

Did you consider hiring Luiz Aragon as a consultant to the Development Office, should you be appointed Commissioner of Economic Development?

Do you intend to lead the job search for a new City Manager and, if so, would you accept appointment as Commissioner of Economic Development under the City Manager hired through that search process?

Sincerely,

Robert Cox

Publisher and Managing Editor

Talk of the Sound

I know that is a lot for a preface but there is a ton of material in these transcripts and I wanted to prepare readers for the upcoming series on the transcripts which I will begin as soon as possible with a deep dive into the clashing timelines between the City Manager and Mayor on the Development Commissioner position.

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