Jeremy Schulman has been removed from his role managing the New Rochelle Industrial Development Agency and replaced by Development Commissioner Michael Freimuth in the wake of a damning audit by the Office of State Comptroller which found that NRIDA failed to evaluate and monitor tens of millions dollars in tax breaks given to developers.
In a thinly-veiled attempt at damage control, Michael Freimuth (above left) asked Chuck Strome (above center) and the IDA Board to pass a resolution creating a new position of Assistant to the Secretary of the Board then asked the board to appoint him to that newly created position so he could have legal access to NRIDA documents while avoiding the necessity of formally taking away and assuming Schulman’s title of Executive Director.
The OSC audit found that NRIDA did not use specific criteria for evaluating project owners’ applications, failed to use detailed evaluation criteria, failed to document the reasons for their project approvals. The auditors found the board could not provide any assurance that projects are evaluated in a consistent manner, does not perform a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis for the projects it approves, did not independently verify data supplied by project owners and did not monitor the status of ongoing projects.
For those keeping score at home, this means that Freimuth is technically working for Schulman on the IDA while Schulman works for Freimuth in the Office of Development. Freimuth told the IDA board that Schulman will take on more “planning” responsibilities while Freimuth will get more involved with the day-to-day of NRIDA. In other words, Schulman has been fired as NRIDA Executive Director two weeks after the OSC delivered its audit to City Hall.
This sort of face-saving maneuver at City Hall is reminiscent of the elaborate efforts back in March to allow Domenic Propcoio to retain his title as Chairman of the Municipal Service Commission in the wake of a Talk of the Sound investigation. While Procopio retained the title of Chairman he was effectively neutered by City Manager Chuck Strome who sought a change to the City Charter which took appointing power away from the Chairman and placed in the hands of the City Manager. The City Council approved Strome’s request and Procopio lost the power to appoint the director of the New Rochelle Municipal Service Commission.
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