The Fire Department of New Rochelle fell victim to City Hall’s massive blow in the form of Layoffs. The Fire Department of New Rochelle had to layoff six (6) firefighters, the equivalent to one fire house. City Manager Chuck Strome, Mayer Bramson and the majority of City Council all agreed to SACRAFICE THE SAFETY OF NEW ROCHELLE RESIDENTS by moving forward with this layoff, while they themselves sit pretty collecting full time salaries for part time work. Last week Bramson and the majority of City Council members voted yes to raise property taxes and reduce city services personnel.
This amazes me how they can justify raising property taxes over 5% and cut services at the same time. They never even took into consideration cutting their salaries, which none of them deserve. Bramson earns over $86,000 as our PART-TIME mayor and our PART-TIME city council members earn over $35,000. These amounts are only salary. They also spend hundreds of thousands of taxpayer money on unnecessary expenses such as travel, dinning, official vehicles, fuel, etc…
Bramson and Strome place the public’s safety at risk due to money issues, but they still have yet to collect unpaid property and school taxes from Mr. Domenic Procopio, Chairperson of the Municipal Civil Service Commission. Mr. Procopio was given STAR Exemptions on multiple properties and Combat Veteran Tax Exemptions on the same properties. The issue here is that you are allowed STAR exemption on the property where you reside only and in order to qualify for Combat Veteran Tax Exemption, you needed to have served in any of the US Armed Forces during war time, which Mr. Procopio had not. He was never enlisted.
All Veterans out there should be outraged at Bramson and Strome for allowing Mr. Procopio to get away with this and still get away with it. They are trying to pass this off as a clerical error. We know that Strome, Bramson & Idoni put all this in place for Mr. Procopio because he contributed to their election funds. Mr. Procopio owes New Rochelle Tens of Thousands of Dollars based on over 8 years of illegal tax exemptions, but Bramson and Strome have granted him a PASS and continue keeping him on as the chairperson of the Municipal Civil Service Commission. Outrageous!!!
Now Bramson and Strome are calling a special city council vote to extend the LeCount Place MOU for the 13th time. This is beyond ridiculous!!! New Rochelle is already in a hole and they just want to keep making us sink deeper. Capelli must have paid Strome and Bramson a huge sum of money to pay off council members to vote yes on the extension, or else they wouldn’t have even called the meeting.
So Mr. Strome and Mr. Bramson, how much money was given to you under the table by Capelli for you to call this meeting? We know what it takes, we just want to know how much you sold out for!!! How much did Idoni get as well?
For those of you who elected Mr. Bramson, I personally would like to thank you all for voting him in and allowing him and his mindless city council entourage to destroy New Rochelle. Idoni made New Rochelle bad, Bramson made it even worse.
Apparently Bramson DID sell out
Somebody wrote about campaign contributions in newrochelletalk.com/node/1321 and there is a link to the state campaign lists . It makes for interesting reading . You can see why there wasn’t any action on Procopio , the procopio family consistently donates to the campaign of the mayor . I couldn’t find Capelli or Apicella but I’m sure there’s a link somewhere . Most disturbing is the 5000 dollars from Forest Citys Ratner family for the mayorial campaign . A family from Cleveland decides to support a mayorial candidate only to later come before the mayor as a developer . Remember , the city had to pick Forest City from a list of 6 developers who submitted concepts . So , long before the selection process began , the Forest City group was positioning themselves with pre selection discussions with Noam Bramson . Why else would a family from Cleveland find it in their hearts to support New Rochelle ? The whole thing stinks backroom dealings . Got a better explanation ? Let’s hear it . Follow the money .
I want to ask all the
I want to ask all the council people out there who think that laying of firemen and decreasing the man power for solely monetary purposes. Do you ever think of the fact that you are putting a father,a husband, a son at risk. By short handing man power YOU put our loved one lives at risk. While you sit behind your oak desks with your luncheons and coffee meetings warm and snug in your office.. our loved ones are running into burning buildings, carrying and treating ill people with sickness and disease…inspecting houses and building with less then desirable conditions and people ….their lives at ever second being at risk and chance of not returning home to their spouses,children and families. Now lets get into the fact that YOU want them to choose their raises or their brothers??? When you do a jobs like this your lives are in the hands of the men you work with. their brothers… though to some that may mean nothing, but to most its a bond…. you do what you need to do to save your brother. Council members,you can come to work and have your buddies bring you a donut and a coffee , however , fireman count on their fellow employees to show up.. to stay alert and to save their lives if need be. So to now ask them to cut their brothers that they A… need as man power and B that they have bonded with is completely unfair….or option B for them is to choose..their brothers or their raises ….which lets get real… cost of living will not hold off or decrease for them being good guys. This situation is really sad. New Rochelle is going down the toilet quickly… The only comment I have to say is I hope for your sake MR. COUNCILMEN… that because of this your not finding yourselves trying to GODFORBID get into a packed wake of a NEW ROCHELLE firefighter that dies due to lack of man power…because you telling a widow and her small children that there Daddy died a hero… he may have still been around had he had enough back up!!!!!
Many members over the years
Many members over the years have been injured due to insufficient levels of manpower. Some were forced to retire due to their injuries, though they wished to remain on the job. These cuts will only lead to more injuries and extra costs to the city ie: emergency room care, doctors visits, medications, physical therapy, etc etc