Recommended Reading, July 21, 2024

Robert Cox

22 Jul 2024 — 5 min read

EDINBURGH, IRELAND (July 21, 2024) — Loli and I are on a trip to Scotland. We started in Glasgow. We took Scottish Rail out to Troon for the first round of The Open (in the U.S. it’s the British Open). We then took the train back to Glasgow, then a second train to Edinburgh where we (so far) toured Edinburgh Castle, Old Town, The Royal Mile, the Scottish National Museum and Edinburgh University and innumerable minor attractions. Yesterday, I rented a car, and we drove 2.5 hours north through the spectacular hills of the Scottish Highlands to Balmoral Castle, the summer residence of the British Royal Family and Queen Elizabeth II’s favorite place.

For the first time in the history of the castle, a handful of tickets for a tour of the interior rooms of the castle were put on sale. Last April, 40 tickets per day (4 groups of 10) were made available for tours from July 1 to August 4 (after which the Royal Family takes up their summer residence in August and September).

The 1,400 tickets were sold quickly, but my some miracle I got 2 of what staff called golden tickets for July 20. Loli loved watching The Crown on Netflix, so this was all about creating a nice experience for her. We were allowed to skip the parking lot, drive through the gates and park less than 100 meters from the castle.

Back to Westchester…

The City of New Rochelle has become utterly lawless. These past few weeks, Yadira Ramos-Herbert has plunged to new depths, aided and abetted by the other Democrats on council and corrupts city officials starting with Corporation Counsel.

Dawn Warren flat out lied a few weeks ago when she interrupted a public meeting to claim she spoke to someone at the Public Service Commission who told her that Sustainable Westchester was prohibited by the State of New York from offering opt-in only electrical aggregation programs. I asked the PSC, who confirmed what Warren said was untrue and provided me the relevant legal document. She refused to respond to my requests for her to say who she claims to have spoken to. She lied at a public meeting, but never corrected the record.

This past Wednesday, she claimed that there was “case law” that said Yadira could sign a contract with a law firm on her authority. This is news to every experienced person I spoke with. She agreed to provide Al Tarantino the research she claims she produced. I made a similar request. Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then, but I expect she was again lying to protect Yadira.

A municipality cannot function if their attorney is giving out bogus legal opinions to retroactively justify corrupt conduct. If she lied again, I will be calling for her to resign or for the Acting City Manager to fire her.

At least the minutes for the meeting were accurate (not always the case).

The minutes say: “The Members of City Council indicated that their votes on the proposed legislation are based upon the opinion of the Corporation Counsel.”

Martha Lopez and David Peters were explicit on this point when they cast their vote. Matt Stern referenced this point during the discussion of Tarantino’s motion to table the resolution to give time to bring in an outside counsel.

In the expectation that Dawn Warren once again lied, I will be curious as to their reaction to voting to authorize payment on an illegal contract. We will have to wait because there are no council meetings scheduled until September.

As my article notes, I made a new FOIL request and asked Dawn for whatever she provided to Al.

I will keep saying, Yadira and her co-conspirators will be in for a rude awakening. There will be a day of reckoning, and each act of malfeasance only adds to the list.

Not to be out done, the Rye City Council voted 4-1 to re-up for Westchester Power. For the first time, Rye Councilmember Sara Goddard disclosed before a vote benefiting Sustainable Westchester that she is a member of the Board of Directors of Sustainable Westchester. Despite this clear response to my reporting, Goddard failed to recuse herself, give a reason why (a conflict of interest), and leave the room. Instead, in violation of state law, Goddard did not recuse herself, remained, then voted. As readers know, the Department of Public Services confirmed to me (based on my reporting) that they are investigating whether the Sustainable Westchester agreements in Rye and New Rochelle are defective.

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