Recommended Reading, July 15, 2024

Robert Cox

15 Jul 2024 — 6 min read

DUBLIN, IRELAND (July 15, 2024) — Time stopped over the weekend with the events in Western Pennsylvania. It is difficult to focus on my reporting on Westchester County and not stray into national news, something I committed myself to do 16 years ago when I shifted from working for Newsweek on national political coverage to hyper-local coverage in New Rochelle, the Sound Shore area and Westchester County.

Sticking to my coverage area, let me update readers on my reporting.

As I mentioned last week, in the afternoon going into the four-day holiday weekend, I was sent documents under FOIL that had clearly been withheld for days (if not weeks).

I wrote a lengthy story about one set of records — the disgraceful and absurd yet entirely predictable failure of the New Rochelle Board of Ethics to hold New Rochelle Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert accountable for her unauthorized contract with a law firm to negotiate a settlement agreement with Kathleen Gill based on me ethics complaint filed on May 21.

What I did not expect is that rather than make up a crazy legal theory to justify her blatant violations of the New Rochelle City Charter, they would improbably declare that charter violations are not ethics violations and that the ethics board can only rule on financial or financial reporting violations.

This is so obviously untrue as to boggle the mind as to how they convinced themselves of this. The reality is, they aren't concerned with the truth, but just made stuff up to protect the Mayor.

Keep in mind, this is the same ethics board that in 2021, found that HR Commissioner Christine Dodge failed to disclose a romantic relationship with PBA President Chris Greco while negotiating the PBA contract; that in 2022, found Noam Bramson committed ethics violations for violating the City Charter in pressuring Chuck Strome to hire him as Development Commissioner and rescind Strome’s promotion of Gill to Deputy; that in 2023, found Noam Bramson and Sara Kaye committed ethics violations for voting on resolutions benefiting Sustainable Westchester while on the Board of Directors of Sustainable Westchester; that in 2024, issued an Advisory Opinion on my ethics complaint that Ramos-Herbert failed to disclose her non-financial interest in Sustainable Westchester.

None of these investigations and Advisory Opinions were based on financial considerations or financial reporting violations yet all of a sudden, after acting on six ethics complaints in three years, in June 2024, the ethics board claims it does not have jurisdiction over charter violations because they are not about financial considerations or financial reporting violations. This is not to mention that unlike those past investigations, illegally signing a contract costing thousands of dollars is about financial considerations.

In the 2023 cases involving Noam Bramson and Sara Kaye’s illegal votes, the outside counsel was Benjamin W. Sonnenfeldt, an Associate at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP. Sonnenfeldt was the outside counsel for the ethics board last month when they claimed they had no jurisdiction to investigate my May 21 ethics complaint.

It has become clear that the City of New Rochelle has devolved into complete lawlessness under the Ramos-Herbert regime.

It has also become clear that the regime has become emboldened.

The only thing that is going to stop them is a criminal investigation. I have called for this since the events of March 25th (note: like so much of the recent illegality, Yadira’s illegal law firm contract was signed on that day). I said then, and I say now, that the criminality is so wanton that I fully expect action by the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office.

I may want to start referring to the NO-ETHICS BOARD 😂

A few other notes…

In my article on the no-ethics board, I mentioned that I never did get a response to an email on May 21 where I expressed doubt that I received all the records pursuant to my FOIL.

Later that day, a reader emailed me a thread where Yadira admitted to having the law firm contract. She had withheld it for over a month. Even after she produced it, the contract was withheld from me for another two weeks. All of this is illegal — more lawlessness in the Ramos-Herbert Regime.

Also, later that day, almost 4 months after signing the law firm contract, the Clerk informed me an invoice from the law firm had magically appeared 🤔

I received an email from the Clerk:

…an invoice has been issued and law is presently reviewing it. Once the review has been completed, I will forward you a copy.

I am not clear on what “an invoice has been issued” even means. The contract says an invoice will be issued at the end of each month (and law firms tend to be punctilious about billing clients) so there should have been an invoice on March 31 or maybe April 30, at the least. Note that the line, “an invoice has been issued” could mean anything — it was issued months ago, before or after my initial FOIL request, or before or after my May 21 inquiry, or before or after the June 24 no-ethics board letter to the Acting City Manager or last week.

I suppose “law is presently reviewing it” presumably means Dawn Warren has it, which raises the obvious question whether she has had the invoice for months and the failure to respond to me about it is part of the Dawn Warren Slow Walk or whether she just got the invoice and how (was it sent to Yadira and Yadira withheld it?).

I fail to see how or why it would take months to “review” an invoice from a law firm and “once the review has been completed” could mean a few hours or, as may be the case, months with months more delay to follow.

Sustainable Westchester Investigations

I completed research on North Salem and the Town of Mamaroneck. Both have defective contracts. I also looked at Ossining, but there was no issue there.

Dana Levenberg was appointed to the Board of Directors of Sustainable Westchester in 2019, re-appointed in 2022, then left the board in 2023.

She is a member of the New York State Assembly from the 95th district. She was elected to the Assembly in 2022 and took office in 2023. She was Town Supervisor of Ossining from 2016 to 2022.

The Town of Ossining has a council-manager form of government. It is governed by a town supervisor and a four-member town board. The Town of Ossining is composed of two incorporated villages, the Village of Ossining and the Village of Briarcliff Manor, each of which has a mayor and a village board.

The Town Board of the Town of Ossining adopted Chapter 73 Community Choice Aggregation (Energy) Program under Local Law 4-2015 on July 14, 2015, and amended the law in its entirety on July 26, 2022, by adopting Local Law 5-2022.

The Board of Trustees of the Village of Ossining adopted Chapter 10 Community Choice Aggregation (Energy) Program under Local Law 3-2015 on July 1, 2015, and amended the law in its entirety on July 6, 2022, by adopting Local Law 5-2022.

The Village of Briarcliff Manor has never adopted a Community Choice Aggregation (Energy) Program.

The Town Supervisor of Ossining does not have a vote on the Town of Ossining board or the village board’s of the Village of Ossining or the Village of Briarcliff Manor.

As Dana Levenberg did not have a vote on the Town of Ossining board, the Village of Ossining or the Village of Briarcliff Manor, there is no issue with the CCA Agreements for the Town of Ossining or its two villages.

Content for Premium Subscribers

New Rochelle Ethics Board Punts on Mayor’s Blatant Charter Violations

Content for All Paid Subscribers

Lewisboro Revolts Against Sustainable Westchester

Another Defective Sustainable Westchester Contract: North Salem

Another Defective Sustainable Westchester Contract: Town of Mamaroneck

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Person found dead in New Rochelle apartment stairwell

Village of Mamaroneck Rejoins Sustainable Westchester

Village of Mamaroneck Sobriety Checkpoint-Results for July 4th Weekend

Off-Duty Port Chester Police Officer, 23, Dies in Upstate Motorcycle Crash

New Rochelle Woman Charged in 18-Count Indictment for Torture Killing of Her Intimate Partner

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