NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 18, 2025) — Tuesday night’s New Rochelle City Council meeting was a masterclass in missed opportunities—about an hour of it, to be precise. Tucked into the agenda as a “Discussion Item,” Councilmember David Peters’ push for $200,000 in city funding for the Boys &
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 18, 2025) — During the so-called auditor’s report on New Rochelle 2024 financials, Finance Commissioner Lying Ed Ritter told council last week that sales tax is about fifty-fifty between brick-and-mortar and online sales. How he arrived at this figure is a mystery. Here is why.
DUBLIN, IRELAND (September 14, 2025) — Not my most fun weekend. Notre Dame lost in the closing seconds to Texas A&M due to a missed extra point by the Irish. The Giants lost in OT to Dallas after the Cowboys kicker (from Notre Dame) kicked a long field goal
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 13, 2025) — The City of New Rochelle issued a Request for Master Redeveloper Proposal (RMRP) late Friday to tear down and redevelop about 20 acres of Flowers (City) Park. There have been no hearings, no public input, no surveys — no engagement of any kind. The RMRP
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 13, 2025) — Several speakers at Tuesdays hearing on the Quaker Ridge Road (QRR) Complete Streets Project voiced concerns about outdated traffic data. They were told all the information they could want was contained in the Final Design Report (FDR). The QRR hearing required as part of
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 11, 2025) — On Tuesday, the New Rochelle City Council met for its monthly Committee of the Whole Meeting to hear the status on the much-delayed independent auditor’s report. Finance Commissioner Ed Ritter and Brian Sawma, the so-called “independent” auditor from EFPR Group, spent over an
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 10, 2025) — For more than an hour last night, the New Rochelle City Council was misled, obstructed, deceived, and otherwise frustrated in their attempt to get answers as to the current state of the city’s finances. Finance Commissioner Ed Ritter repeatedly lied — through omission and
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 9, 2025) — More than a decade after the initial incident that sparked widespread local controversy, the case of City of New Rochelle v. Flavio La Rocca, et al. is finally set to proceed to a non-jury trial. The trial is scheduled for tomorrow, September 10, 2025,
DUBLIN, IRELAND (September 7, 2025) — So, now you know what I have known but could not say. New Rochelle is close to broke. Perhaps now skeptics will begin to understand why I have been reporting on wasteful spending under the Ramos/Melendez administration, why there is an ongoing, multiagency criminal
How Yadira & Co. eviscerated New Rochelle’s finances in less than 18 months. NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 7, 2025) — On the afternoon of Tuesday, September 9, the public will learn what happens when you combine low-IQ spend-thrift politicians, blatant corruption, and an utterly incompetent chief executive, making the next
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (September 3, 2025) — The City of New Rochelle announced Tuesday that it will hold a presentation and a hearing on the Quaker Ridge Road upgrade project on Sept. 9 at 7 p.m. at City Hall in the Council Chamber. The hearing will provide an update on
DUBLIN, IRELAND (August 31, 2025) — I am back now from my Grand Tour of Hungary, Austria, Czech Republic, and Germany. Quite a trip. We don’t have Labor Day Weekend here so having recuperated from my travels I will be grinding out some interesting stories starting Monday. I spent some
MUNICH, GERMANY (August 27, 2025) — Gee, that was quick! I submitted my response Monday to the complaint filed on August 4 by David D. Lin and Michael D. Cilento of Lewis & Lin, LLC in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of New
BAYREUTH, GERMANY (August 26, 2025) — I submitted my response Monday to the complaint filed on August 4 by David D. Lin and Michael D. Cilento of Lewis & Lin, LLC on behalf of New Rochelle Corporation Counsel Dawn Warren (Dum Dum) and New Rochelle Development Commissioner Adam Salgado (Loverboy). You
PRAGUE, CZECH (August 24, 2025) — Over the past week I have been traveling with stops in Budapest, Vienna, and now Prague. I am off to Germany tomorrow to the attend the Bayreuth Festival. I booked so many things to do each day that I am too tired at the end
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (August 24, 2025) — I could write a detailed account of the disastrous Taste of Horton event yesterday — or the equally poor showing at the Coffee with the Mayor event — but I am going to ask my readers to do that in the comments.
DUBLIN, IRELAND (August 17, 2025) — I will be on holiday starting tomorrow with stops in Budapest, Vienna, and Prague before crossing into Germany to attend the Bayreuth Festival to see two Wagner productions (Tristan & Isolde, Parsifal) at the opera house he built to showcase his compositions; the Bayreuth Festspielhaus
NEW ROCHELLE, NY (August 14, 2025) — In a recent opinion piece for Governing magazine, New Rochelle City Manager Wilfredo Melendez extolled the virtues of the council-manager system of government, crediting it with balancing democratic accountability and operational expertise to drive the city’s progress. But just weeks before the article’
This article is part of a series: New Rochelle Thimblerig Table of Contents. DUBLIN, IRELAND (August 13, 2025) — In a significant GETTING RESULTS win for New Rochelle taxpayers, competitive bidding for the 2025 Jazz Under the Stars and LINC-ing Futures events has slashed costs by over $67,000 compared to
DUBLIN, IRELAND (August 10, 2025) — The big news this week is that Dawn Warren and Adam Salgado — now on their third (or fourth? or fifth?) law firm over the past year— finally found a lawyer willing to file their personal defamation lawsuit — funded by the City New Rochelle, meaning the
DUBLIN, IRELAND (August 11, 2025) — A copyright dispute has emerged between Robert Cox, a journalist who owns the subscription-based website “Words in Edgewise,” and attorney Lalit K. Loomba and The Quinn Law Firm, PLLC, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of
DUBLIN, IRELAND (August 8, 2025) — On Thursday, August 7, 2025, I had an email exchange with Nate Adams. I expressed my disappointment about him calling me a motherfucker. He repeatedly denied it and then called me out, demanding I prove it, saying, “the floor is yours”. Well… per his request…