Recommended Reading, February 2, 2025

Robert Cox

02 Feb 2025 — 7 min read

DUBLIN, IRELAND (February 2, 2025) — It is a bank holiday weekend here in Ireland. St. Brigid’s Day is February 1 but Monday is the day off. This is a new bank holiday, first held in 2023. It is basically meant to be an offset to St. Patrick’s Day. What I like about St. Brigid’s Day is that it is considered the start of Spring by some — and with good reason.

This is the day when spring flowers bloom. The days are getting noticeably longer. It is still a bit cold at times. It may not be the end of winter but it is the beginning of the end of winter.

A Magpie flitting around the snowdrops at Herbert Park in Ballsbridge, Dublin

Now back to business.

If you want to understand the level of corruption at a government agency just look at how they respond to public records requests. Honest agencies will be cooperative, dishonest agencies will be uncooperative.

I have experienced ups and downs over the years with various agencies at the local, county, state and federal level. Between 2008 and 2014, the City School District of New Rochelle was by far the worst, right up until an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice resulted in criminal charges against a senior official and an outside contractor and the “unexpected resignation” of dozens of employees and the banning of numerous contractors. Over the past year, the City of New Rochelle has been by far the worst and there are now multiple criminal investigations which I expect will result in charges against senior officials and outside contractors along with unexpected resignations and bans.

A reader asked me the other day about the City of New Rochelle stonewalling my FOIL requests involving Councilmember Shane Osinloye: “Why do you think they are disregarding these deadlines, aside from shielding Shane? Do they think they’ll get away with it?”

“I know that no one there cares about professional ethics or the law,” I replied. “Will Melendez is totally unethical and unprofessional. It is why he was hired. And Yadira & Company do not care one bit about legal or ethical behavior. Their lawyer cannot tell the difference between right and wrong. I have been doing this for a long time — much longer than they have been in their positions. I know how this ends and so play the long game. The house of cards will collapse. I just document their bad actions, make them public, and let them build up. All of this helps collapse the house of cards. It is not about them. They are all dead men walking. It is about what comes after. I have done this sort of thing many times. The bad guys I have exposed are all long gone. I remain. That will be true this time as well. Watch and see.”

While it is not just about Shane Osinloye, there are Shane records which I requested in November which I have heard nothing about since December 17, 2024 as well as others. I have had to today file another nine FOIL Appeals with City Manager Will Melendez after the City failed to produce any records by the deadlines which have now come and gone.

City Manager Melendez,
This is a FOIL Appeal for constructive denial of my FOIL request described below. By statute, I may submit a FOIL Appeal to you as head of agency. I am legally entitled to submit a FOIL Appeal to you. Accordingly, you should acknowledge my FOIL Appeal upon receipt and make a decision on my appeal within 10 business days. Failure to do so may result in legal action against you as well as ethics complaints.
I am not required to submit a FOIL Appeal to the Corporation Counsel, as she claims. You can read the statute for yourself. With good reason, I do not believe it is appropriate or legal for Dawn Warren to be involved in anyway in adjudicating any FOIL Appeal made by me because she has a Conflict of Interest and so would be in violation of New York State Public Officers Law. She has a Conflict of Interest because she has engaged in legal action against me which includes an active threat of litigation.
I hope you might reconsider your unprofessional course of conduct in both violating state law, the New Rochelle ethics code and the ethics code of the International City/County Management Association, of which you are a member. Until you reconsider and direct the production of records per these and other FOIL requests, please accept this appeal.
The following FOIL request was submitted to the City Clerk on December 27, 2024 and Acknowledged on December 30, 2024 and were due within 20 days. By statute, you were to either produce the records or request more time with a reason for delay and a date certain when the records would be produced. None of that has happened which amounts to a constructive denial of my request.