Sustainable Westchester Laid Bare by Deceptive Presentation
DUBLIN, IRELAND (September 8, 2024) — As I told readers on August 30, I finally sat down that day to watch the video of the presentation by Sustainable Westchester to the New Rochelle City Council on June 11. As I watched, I felt the need to first provide context by relating serious legal questions about Noam Bramson and current City officials. I also created a page aggregating all of my past reporting relevant to Sustainable Westchester (linked at the very bottom of this article). I set aside my notes and a preliminary draft of this article, to publish two prequels:
The New Rochelle City Council Agenda Packet for June 11, 2024, was published online on June 6 without the Sustainable Westchester presentation included, even though the Rye City Council received their nearly identical Sustainable Westchester presentation for their June 12 meeting on June 6. After days of stonewalling, the City distributed a PDF containing the presentation to a limited non-public email distribution list just minutes before the start of the meeting. The presentation was never posted to the City website, added to the Agenda packet or included in the Meeting minutes. All of these things were, and continue to be, clear violations of the New York State Open Meeting Law, apparently to somehow shield Sustainable Westchester from scrutiny.
Here is what they were hiding: Sustainable Westchester presentation to New Rochelle City Council 6/11/2024
As I believed the delays and last-minute production of the Sustainable Westchester presentation was part of a deliberate attempt to run interference for Sustainable Westchester by preventing anyone from preparing questions in advance of their appearance on June 11, I made a FOIL request for all communications between the City of New Rochelle and Sustainable Westchester for the 30-day period from June 11 back into May.
In reviewing those emails, I noticed that former New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson had repeatedly violated the Future Employment clause of Section 94.02 Code of Ethics because he communicated with City Hall staff to arrange a meeting on June 5 then attended that meeting to pitch a new Sustainable Westchester contract after he went to work for Sustainable Westchester on January 1, 2024.
While Mayor, Bramson also violated the Representation before one's own agency clause (negotiating his employment contract with a City vendor, Sustainable Westchester) and violated Representation before any agency for a contingent fee clause (secretly paid to work two days a week for Sustainable Westchester in relation to matters before the municipality). On December 5, 2023, while secretly in the employ of Sustainable Westchester, Mayor Bramson belligerently obstructed an executive session of council, physically threatening City Manager Kathleen Gill, when he (and Sara Kaye) refused Gill’s repeated requests to leave the room due to their conflicts of interest while council discussed the ethics decision against Bramson and Kaye and the impact on Sustainable Westchester contracts (they were declared null, void, and unenforceable).
More Ethics Violations by Noam Bramson Come to Light
Now, onto the article I have been working on over the past 10 days.
There is so much wrong with what took place on June 11 it is difficult to comprehend in one sitting so hold on tight.
