Recommended Reading, June 30, 2024

Robert Cox

01 Jul 2024 — 7 min read

Taylor Swift conquers Ireland

DUBLIN, IRELAND (June 30, 2024) — It has been Taylormania here in Dublin over the past week with her three sold-out shows at the Aviva Stadium, just down the street from my house in Ballsbridge. The Swifties have been all over my neighborhood in their cowboy hats, cowboy boots and Taylor Swift merch.

Loli is a big Taylor Swift fan. Tickets went on sale in 2023, shortly after we moved to Ireland, but were all gone in minutes. There was a lot of weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Ticketmaster offered a wait list which seemed entirely hopeless, but I signed up anyway. By some miracle, I was selected off the waitlist about 17 hours before the gates opened for “N1”. I got the email below from Ticketmaster.

I was allowed to purchase up to 4 tickets, but I decided to just go for 1 ticket, believing I was highly unlikely to get any tickets but far more likely to get Loli into the show if I just limited my request to “best available” for a single ticket.

After about 20 tries, I hit the jackpot, one ticket in the front row of the third-level with a good view of the stage and the area where Taylor Swift walked to/from the stage.

Ireland stupidly does not allow ticket re-sellers like StubHub because so many here embrace a Marxist fantasy; everyone should be able to attend any event they want at a below-market price, the law of supply and demand is unfair, and price caps do not create shortages.

Tickets can only be sold on Ticketmaster at face value (so no one would ever list a Taylor Swift ticket) but on StubHub UK the “get-in” price, the lowest priced ticket, is about £900 ($1,200) to sit behind the stage at a UK show.

A comparable ticket to the one I got for Taylor Swift’s August shows at Wembley Stadium in London is listed at £3,492 ($4,400) 😳

When I actually had the ticket on my phone and showed Loli she did not believe it 😀

It just so happened, this was June 28, our 38th wedding anniversary, so a memorable one.

Sustainable Westchester Investigations

I completed research into Port Chester and Mount Vernon.

Joan Grangenois-Thomas, a Trustee in the Village of Port Chester, joined the Sustainable Westchester Board of Directors in 2021. She does not have an issue because Port Chester has not adopted the enabling legislation to join the Sustainable Westchester CCA.

Shawyn Patterson-Howard, Mayor of the City of Mount Vernon, joined the Sustainable Westchester Board of Directors in 2022. She does not have an issue because Mount Vernon has not adopted the enabling legislation to join the Sustainable Westchester CCA.

Port Chester (Joan Grangenois-Thomas) and Mount Vernon (Shawyn Patterson-Howard) do not have an issue because their municipalities are not part of the Sustainable Westchester CCA Program.

As I previously reported, Yonkers does not have an issue because although Yonkers is part of the Sustainable Westchester CCA Program, the Mayor (Mike Spano) does not have a vote on City Council.

New Rochelle (Noam Bramson, Sara Kaye), Rye (Sara Goddard), Lewisboro (Dan Welsh), Bedford (Steve Burdick), and White Plains (Tom Roach) should be removed from the Sustainable Westchester CCA Program by the New York State Department of Public Services because those elected officials had a prohibited interest in Sustainable Westchester but voted anyway to adopt the enabling legislation filed by Sustainable Westchester with New York State Department of Public Services in violation of General Municipal Law, Public Officers Law, and local ethics codes.

While it is clear to me the Department of Public Services has a role to play in removing New Rochelle, Rye, Lewisboro, Bedford, and White Plains from the Sustainable Westchester CCA Program (based on my reporting, DPS is considering this very question) that does not mean that these five municipalities cannot be in the Sustainable Westchester CCA Program. What it does mean is that these municipalities would have to start over.

All Sustainable Westchester customers in New Rochelle, Rye, Lewisboro, Bedford, and White Plains should be immediately reverted to their regulated utility (NYSEG or Con Edison). The local council can then properly adopt the enabling legislation, meaning that Sara Kaye recuses herself in New Rochelle, Sara Goddard recuses herself in Rye, and Dan Welsh recuses himself in Lewisboro.

Tom Roach, Noam Bramson, and Steve Burdick are no longer on the Sustainable Westchester Board of Directors and Noam Bramson, and Steve Burdick are no longer on their local councils.

The Dawn Warren Slow Walk

New Rochelle Corporation Counsel Dawn Warren, in an apparent attempt to curry favor with Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert, has been playing plenty of games lately, including allegedly telling people at City Hall she is going to “slow walk” my FOIL requests and responses to my inquiries.

Early last week, I exposed how she repeatedly lied at the June 18 Special Meeting, claiming she spoke with someone at the PSC who told her that New York State requires that all CCA Programs be opt-out only. It is not only a lie that CCA Programs must be opt-out only but the CCA Framework Order setting up the current structure was adopted in 2016, so it is also a lie that she spoke to anyone at the PSC about this. No one would tell her something that contradicted the CCA Framework Order. She just made it all up.

I asked Warren about this a week ago, but she has gone silent. I made a relevant FOIL request but have not received any records.

I did receive responses from the clerk on Friday to two of my FOIL requests on Yadira Ramos-Herbert and Sara Kaye. The clerk said she will be sending the responses to the other FOILS. As I have many pending FOILS, I am curious as to what “the other FOILS” means.

On another note, on June 17, Warren wrote to tell me, “We expect the Ethics Board to issue an opinion on your latest complaint (Yadira illegally hired a law firm without council authorization) shortly.” It is going on two weeks, so maybe I will get something this week. I will be surprised if the ethics board concludes the obvious — that under the Charter the Mayor has no authority to hire a law firm — and interested to see how they BS their way out of this one.

I have been working on a new ethics complaint against the Mayor, which has involved digging through a ton of emails (obtained under a 2023 FOIL) over the past week. I will not move forward on that until certain records that were required to be provided to me in 2023 are provided. Perhaps I get a key record today, but there are still many more.

Content for Premium Subscribers

New Rochelle’s Lawyer Repeatedly Lied During Council Debate on Sustainable Westchester

Content for All Paid Subscribers

Lewisboro Releases Ethics Decision for Town Councilmember Employed by Sustainable Westchester

Lewisboro Supervisor Thumbs Nose at Town Board

Content for Everyone

Articles from Words in Edgewise, Talk of the Sound and Elsewhere on the Web.

Person Fatally Struck By Train Near Station In Port Chester

New Rochelle Housing Prices Soar 64.8%

New Rochelle Investment Advisor Fined For Bilking Fellow Church Members

Westchester NY board approves increases for rent-stabilized apartments

New Rochelle man charged with pandemic fraud, ID theft

Anshe Sholom of New Rochelle Celebrates Annual Dinner

Former New Rochelle School Administrator Out Early in Nyack

Mamaroneck man arrested for public lewdness

Authorities Looking For Woman Wearing Scrubs Who Abandoned Dog On New Rochelle Road

New Rochelle NY woman charged after abandoning puppy on the street

City of New Rochelle, Public Improvement Bonds: $44,559,809

New Rochelle High School Graduation 2024

Pelham School Board Favors Near Total Ban on Student Mobile Phones

Bowman Falls to Latimer in a Loss for Progressive Democrats

County Legislature authorizes purchase of New Rochelle land for affordable housing

The ‘Green Energy Transition’ That Wasn’t

Widely Used and Deemed Safe, These Food Additives Are More Harmful Than Thought

Mamaroneck to Add Crossing Guard, Safety Measures to Fatal Intersection

Westchester Joint Water Works Pleads Guilty to Failure to Provide Safe Drinking Water

GoFundMe for victims of fire at 30 Eastchester Road in New Rochelle, NY

New York State Graduation Measures Initiative: A Transformational Vision

What to Know About Jamaal Bowman’s Bitter Democratic Primary Race

Con Edison: Birds to blame for New Rochelle power outage

Willie Mays bought castle-like New Rochelle home to escape racism in San Francisco

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