Recommended Reading, June 16, 2024
DUBLIN, IRELAND (June 16, 2024) — Happy Bloomsday. Today is the day James Joyce met his wife, Nora. It is the day he chose to set the day of the perambulations of Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. Here it is a big deal, less so in New York.
The week began getting organized in our new apartment in Ballsbridge. This entailed a good deal of learning about our neighborhood. We finally found a supermarket more like what we had in New York, a large Tesco just down the road. There are still critical items we cannot find at local stores: Mac and Cheese, brown mustard, Twizzlers, any General Mills cereal (no Lucky Charms!) — only Kellogg's — but we are surviving.
There was a lot going on this week in getting information out of New Rochelle and Lewisboro, so more research, less published stories. That research will start to bear fruit in the coming days.
Sustainable Westchester Investigations
I checked in with the Department of Public Services on their Sustainable Westchester investigations in New Rochelle and Rye (and probably Lewisboro). I know they were speaking to people in New Rochelle.
“The review continues,” I was told.
As I have no prior experience with DPS investigations I do not know what to expect in terms of a timeline. I told them I would check back at the end of the month.
Jarrell Garris Investigation
On another New York State investigation front, I recently checked in with the AG’s office on their investigation of New Rochelle police officers Kari Bird, Gabrielle Chavarry and Detective Steve Conn in the Jarrell Garris officer-involved shooting. Nothing yet.
I cannot imagine the AG will determine anything apart from a clean shoot with all three officers being exonerated. I am sure the report with have some CYA woulda-coulda-shoulda handwringing, but no charges will be brought.
These sorts of reports tend to take a long time, but 11 months is a bit longer than most, so a report could come any moment. If you like, you can see what past OSI reports have looked like here.
I will be interested to see how much of the OSI Report on Steve Conn will include what I reported on Garris’ history of self-medicating his schizophrenia with PCP and my absolute animation of the ludicrous “Garris was murdered by the cops because he ate a banana and grapes at a grocery store narrative” with a detailed account both of his past drug-involved psychotic episodes and his crime-spree long before he stepped into the New Rochelle Farms store on July 3, 2023. I expected the ME report will find he had PCP in his system at the time of the shooting.
Was Man Shot by New Rochelle Police Suffering from Drug-Induced Hyperthermia?
I very much want to hear any phone calls to police, especially from the grocery store, but also the incidents that preceded that — arson near the KFC and wandering into a woman’s unit at Heritage Homes.
Charles Phipps & Ethics Board Fraud
I have yet to get a response on my discovery that my ethics complaints against Yadira Ramos-Herbert are not being processed legitimately because Charles Phipps, the supposed Chairman of the New Rochelle Board of Ethics, is not a member. I FOIL’d for whatever records the City has related to Phipps’ appointment to the ethics board. I am still seeking a photo of Charles Phipps; if you have one, please send it along.
I wrote to the Corporation Counsel again today:
This is a black and white issue, yet I still have no explanation as to how you intend to address the matter.
Charles Phipps was off the ethics board 2/1/24. ANY action he undertook either in his capacity as Chairman such as convening meetings of the board or communicating with anyone or taking decisions or signing documents as chair are null and void. Likewise, any action as a member, such as establishing a quorum or voting.
The City must fill the vacant seat immediately — I have a pending ethics complaint for Yadira hiring a law firm — signing a contract and committing the City financially to pay for legal services — in violation of the City Charter.
Once the ethics board selects a chairman, someone needs to contact me, state something about what happened and invite me to refile my ethics complaints once there is a duly constituted ethics board.
I see no valid reason for this not to have happened starting at last Tuesday’s city council meeting. It should start this Tuesday at the latest.
More Ianuzzi Lies from BOE
I cannot even imagine why the New Rochelle Board of Education is holding a meeting in silhouette with dim purple lighting, so maybe a subscriber can explain in the comments.
It is always a wonderment to me how government officials will boldly lie, then imagine I will not follow up and eventually prove they lied.
Another case in point
New Rochelle Board of Education President William Ianuzzi issued yet another non-apology apology at the May 30 board meeting, this time for his false statements on May 7 regarding the Industrial Development Agency. Written statements like this are typically prepared by outside counsel and the Superintendent’s Office, carefully crafted to sound like a meaningful statement to the untrained ear but actually to dissemble.
The tell Ianuzzi will continue to defend his lies is he starts by saying he is clarifying some remarks he made at the May 6 Board of Education meeting (it was May 7 not May 6) regarding the Industrial Development Agency.
The issue with his remarks are not that he was not clear.
He clearly stated that he and Jonathon Raymond had multiple conversations with Chuck Strome. This is a lie.
After he was challenged on this lie in a letter by Strome on May 8, and asked about Strome’s letter by me on May 9, he wrote back with his explanation. I published his explanation as written by him.
My answer was based on the email exchange Chuck and I had in August 2022 and updates that I received from Superintendent Raymond at that time.
When the May 7 meeting video was published online two weeks later, I saw for the first time that Ianuzzi lied to me, his actual statement was that he had multiple conversations with Chuck Strome not that he had an email exchange with Chuck Strome.
Ianuzzi said to me on May 9 that his May 7 comments were not meant to be disparaging to Strome or Gill.
He claims he mistakenly added Gill to his comments because he thought she was on the email thread. He now admits she had nothing to do with any of this, but regardless his comments were about conversations he and Raymond supposedly had with Strome and Gill, not emails exchanged, so this is a compound lie.
On May 30, he said his comments were not meant to be misleading or duplicitous or negative or accusatory.
In his May 7 remarks, he is clearly playing to the crowd by blaming Strome (and Gill) for their not acceding to Ianuzzi’s request to replace Amy Mosehli with Adina Barrios Brooks. His message is clear: I tried to convince Strome to remove Mosehli and install Barrios Brooks, but he Strome and Gill refused my reasonable request.
As Strome noted in his May 8 letter, the Mayor not the City Manager proposes IDA members which are then voted on by the City Council so Ianuzzi was barking up the wrong tree in any case. He should have been meeting with Noam Bramson.
On May 30, he said he said on May 7, “We asked Strome and Gill about there being a board seat open on the IDA”.
Another lie. This is not what he said.
What he actually said on May 7 was, “We asked Strome and Gill for a board member to be on the board. There was no seat open. They said “no”. We can’t force them to do it. (inaudible statement from a member of the public) I agree with you. Me and Jonathon Raymond had multiple conversations with Chuck Strome about it at the time.”
To review:
He said on May 30 that he said on May 7 that he and Raymond asked Strome and Gill “about there being a board seat open on the IDA” — a passive inquiry.
What he actually said on May 7 was he and Raymond asked Strome and Gill “for a board member to be on the board” — an active demand to put a BOE member in the IDA.
In reality, he said neither of these things because he had no such conversations with Chuck Strome.
What is his email of August 30, 2022, says is “With Amy Moselhis (sic) departure from the Board of Education we would like our Vice President, Adina Berrios Brooks to fill her seat on the IDA Board.” — an aggressive demand that a sitting IDA member be removed without cause by the City Manager and the resulting vacancy be filled for the remainder of a five-year term by a particular individual (Amy Mosehli’s biggest enemy on the school board; a ploy driven by animus, revenge, and spite).
On May 8, Strome asked that his statement be read into the record at the next BOE meeting — there have been 3 meetings and that still has not happened (maybe a reader would care to read Strome’s original letter at the next Public Comment session; if so, contact me to get a copy).
He has still not publicly apologized to me for lying to me multiple times and lying to Otilia Taylor-Tanner, the person who asked about the IDA on May 7.
It is hardly worth bothering with Ianuzzi at this point — haters are going to hate and liars are going to lie.
Former City Manager Calls Out False Claims by New Rochelle School Board President
New Rochelle Board of Education President’s Lies About IDA Board Seat
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Sustainable Westchester Founder Mike Gordon Likes His Hat — Democracy, Not So Much
I certainly hope the DA and DPS are taking a good look at Mike Gordon. The situation in Lewisboro smells rotten, and Gordon appears to be at the heart of it.
Hundreds Wrongly Denied a Place on New Rochelle Section 8 Housing Waitlist
A reader sent me a tip on this. While the Section 8 department acknowledge there was a problem, they have yet to explain what caused the problem. Without a transparent process starting with an outside audit and a report to City Council, there is no reason for anyone to trust the process.
Content for Free, Basic & Premium Subscribers
Here are a few free articles from Words in Edgewise, Talk of the Sound and Elsewhere on the Web.
Jamaal Bowman’s challenger is the Cher of suburban New York
Unsafe ‘Swiss Cheese House’ in New Rochelle: 5-year Neighborhood Fight Continues
New Rochelle Man Arrested with Crack, Heroin and Brass Knuckles
North End Tavern in New Rochelle to change hands after 8 years
Police: Car strikes pedestrian in Mamaroneck
New York proposes dropping Regents exams from HS diploma requirements
Recommended Reading, June 8, 2024
Recommended Reading June 1, 2024
Cheers for now!
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