The City of New Rochelle is set to approve tomorrow a no-bid contract for Andrew Beveridge, a Bronxville-based consultant and donor to Mayor Noam Bramson. In a letter to the City Council, City Manager Chuck Strome has asked the Council to “waive bidding requirements” for Beveridge who Strome wants to hire to provide demographic services during the 2011 redistricting process. Beveridge made a contribution of $150 to Bramson in 2009.
Strome Letter on Hiring of Andrew Beveridge
I recommend that City Council adopt a resolution waiving bidding requirements for this project, authoriZing the City Manager to enter into an agreement with Professor Andrew Beveridge to provide demographic services during the 2011 redistricting process and a budget amendment providing funds for this project. (emphasis added)
Forest City must be Kicking themselves
They spent thousands and thousands and this guy gets the gig for 150.00.
Why no bid, and why a democratic district leader. Isn’t there SOMEONE with more distance?
Amount matters
It is pretty hard to imagine $150 is enough sway a contract bid.
Also, isn’t he indeed qualified? His academic qualifications you can argue are subjective but being a consultant for the plaintiff in the last suit is definitely relevant.
he appears to be well-qualified…
…unless one of the requirements is to be non-partisan which this fellow is not. It is my view that this sort of consultant should be non-partisan. Mr. Beveridge is not only not non-partisan he an active player in Democratic politics in New Rochelle who has helped finance the upcoming 2011 campaign for Noam which Noam wants run on new lines shaped in a way as to increase the number of Democrats on City Council.
If Noam wants to hire this guy then he is going to need to allow the Republicans to pick their own guy and have a bi-partisan team do the work (at twice the cost).
The alternative, that a Democratic district leader from Yonkers who has donated to an elected Democratic official in New Rochelle who will directly benefit from how the lines are drawn in New Rochelle is simply a “no go”. I do not care if this guy won the Nobel Prize for Demography. The answer is still “No!”
What a disgrace
This has been Standard Operating Procedure for the past 20-years. New Rochelle’s “independent auditor” is also a Bramson campaign contributor. It’s time for the African Americans in New Rochelle to wake up. Don’t forget the last redistricting where the New Rochelle democrats along with their hired guns like Beverige diluted the African Americans in District 3 to less than 50%. Judge Briant ordered the democrats to reinstate 54% African Americans that existed previously and the Democrats, under the leadership of then Mayor Idoni & councilman Noam Bramson, defied Judge Briant’s order and the NAACP accepted a compromise reducing the African Americans in District 3 to 51%.
Councilman Rice is on record supporting a non-partisan citizens redistricting committee. The citizens in New Rochelle and more importantly, the citizens of District 3 will see where Councilman Rice’s loyalty rests. If Rice supports a non-partisan redistricting committee he is a man of his word, doing what he believes is in the best interest of District 3 and New Rochelle as a whole worthy of re-election. If, on the other hand, Rice rejects a non-partisan committee, then he is nothing more then a Bramson political puppet occupying a seat at the council table waiting for Bramson to pull his strings!
Maybe now the citizens of New Rochelle will realize how the system has been manipulated for the last 20-years. The ruling party, democrats, controls the city manager who does their bidding recommending the hiring of a Bramson campaign contributor by circumventing the standard process of open bidding by means of a no-bid contract.
The definition of cronyism is: doing favors for friends.
I leave it to the citizens of New Rochelle to decide if the shoe fits.
Another Deal
When will city hall realize the citizens of New Rochelle are watching every move they make.
All that matter is that redistricting is fair and neutral
All that matter is that redistricting is fair and neutral.
On 2010-11-02 there were 40,425 registered voters in New Rochelle. Of that:
DEM = 21,302 = 52.7%
REP = 8,516 = 21%
OTH = 10,607 = 26.3%
——————
TOTAL 100%
Any way you cut it, the Democrats will have more voters in each and every Council District.
I hope Mr. Sussman will relay his post to the democratic leaders
Mr. Sussman make sure your fellow democrats Bramson, Sussman, Fertel, Rice, Idoni and Klugman read your message about being “fair and neutral”. Last time they screwed African Americans and gerrymandered for political gain.
Timknows’ ” I hope Mr. Sussman will relay his post to Dem…”
Anything I post at ‘Talk of the Sound’ regarding the NR Democratic Committee, is a smattering of things thing I tell tell fellow democrats Bramson, Sussman, Fertel, Rice, Idoni and Klugman directly, either at NR Dem Committee meetings or in other venues.
I am probably much more tactful here in this public forum and more direct when talking directly with them.
I believe many more persons read TOTS than post here, especially among Democrats, because this site is perceived as a beehive of Republican who like to swarm upon any Democrats who actually post here.
I can afford to post here, because my efforts tend to be to reform politics in NR, and to reform how City Hall operates, and to see commerce improve, and to get City Hall (both Parties) out of shilling for the construction industry. But my motives are improvement not criticism for criticism’s sake.
In comparison, many Republicans criticize anything Democrats do, even if the same Republicans would applaud a Republican doing the same thing. An obvious example is how Teabaggers criticize Barack Obama for the Federal Deficit.
Yet, although it was the Republican incompetent GW Bush who is actually responsible for the deficit, the economic meltdown, and the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the same Teabagger types failed to criticize GW Bush for any of that, and instead falsely blame Obama for Bush’s mess. But Obama is merely the hard-working guy sweeping up the stinking mess left by the Elephant.
Personally, I think the City Council will do a decent job of redistricting in 2011, and that no matter what, the Republicans will complain. As to what the NAACP will do, I cannot comment, because I don’t know.
But last month I told the Dem Committee, and Barry Fertel, that I thought that if somehow redistricting wasn’t done this year, and if the Republicans were somehow to gain the majority on the City Council, that probably everything would reverse, with the Republicans changing their position to wanting the City Council to do the redistricting, and the Democrats changing their position to wanting the redistricting done by a commission. Of course, I doubt the Republicans will gain a majority.
The thing is, no matter who draws the district lines, and how they are drawn, the Democratic voters will have a plurality in all six Council Districts and most Election Districts in New Rochelle, based on the fact that almost 53% of NR voters are registered Dems, while only about 21% are registered Republicans.
Will city hall realize citizens of New Rochelle are watching ??
Knitter asks: “When will city hall realize the citizens of New Rochelle are watching every move they make?”
This will occur after most of the citizens of New Rochelle, of voting age, are watching City Hall at all.
Do you not realize that most residents of New Rochelle are concerned only about their home, neighborhood and the services provided by the civil servants of schools, parks, buildings and housing, public works, sanitation, police and fire departments?
Other than that, most residents of voting age pay very little attention to what occurs at City Hall, or who does what. This was already true in the North End by the late 1950’s. But since then, most of New Rochelle has lost its self-identity.
There are still many residents of New Rochelle who do strongly identify themselves with New Rochelle, and those are the many children attending our schools, public and otherwise. They live part of their lives in an incubator of New Rochelle, and create much of its culture.
I grew up on both ends of NR – Trinity and Davis Schools. When I moved to the North End from Pelham Rd in 1958, I retained roots on the South End, because my father and many of my parents friends had grown up in New Rochelle and remained here, with many owning businesses or working at businesses in downtown New Rochelle. There used to be also a strong local cultural at the Beach Clubs of Davenport Neck, that is mostly lost.
My own generation, Baby Boomers, especially those who grew up in the North End, largely moved elsewhere. Had more remained, there’d be more watching City Hall, and more questioning what other options exist for the future of our city, alternate to those proposed by City Hall itself.
If the current children of New Rochelle were to remain here as adults, they would have a greater awareness of NR City Hall, then does a person moving here from NYC or LI. I strongly suspect that at least 20% of the adults in the North End think their Mayor is Michael Bloomberg, and another 20% also, probably couldn’t name our Mayor. I’d guess that 50% of the adults in New Rochelle don’t know there is a City Manager, and think the Mayor is an executive who runs City Hall.
But, probably 80% of the students in grades 5-12 in New Rochelle could name both our Mayor and City Manager. After all, that’s part of their school education.
The NR Board of Education is a different story. Any parents of public school children pay attention to the BOE, and the PTA assures that. Any property owners feel the bite of school tax increases.
Another reason so few residents of New Rochelle pay attention to City Hall is the demise of the Standard-Star newspaper. When I was a kid, its reporters and editors lived here and knew the implications of New Rochelle news very well, and the daily paper reported mostly on New Rochelle. It was published on North Avenue near Huguenot.
Gannett bought the Standard-Star newspaper, and strangled it by moving its publishing to Harrison, and hiring reporters and editors who didn’t know New Rochelle very well, and who didn’t fully understand the implications of the news they were reporting. Eventually, Gannett put the Standard-Star, Daily Argus, Reporter Dispatch, Herald Statesmen, and the other local Westchester newspapers out of business, and replaced them with the atrocious Journal News, a ‘thing’ that barely reports on New Rochelle at all.
We do have, however, WVOX. Whether or not it is a sufficient source of news, and as to how many people listen to the WVOX news, is open to question. I rarely listen to it, but I am glad it exists.
Newspapers like the Westchester Guardian are exciting mud-slingers, but there is not much journalism there beyond allegations of scandal.
Talk of the Town smells like Republican spirit to me, and is mostly opinion, but is useful for some news, even to Democrats, and for feeling the pulse of at least some people in New Rochelle who vent their opinions. I appreciate that Robert Cox provides this site as a source of free speech and information. But I doubt there are many people in New Rochelle’s North End who view Talk of the Town, or who listen to WVOX (except during emergencies).
Most of the people of New Rochelle take no interest, one way or the other, as to what development occurs south of Eastchester Rd / Forest Ave / Beechmont, which I would refer to as the Central and South End. People in the Central and South End cannot help to notice the so-called ‘development’ around them, and question new ‘development’ proposals, but the low voter turnout here in City Council elections, especially in Council Districts 1, 2 & 4 is due to voters’ frustration with their choices.
The North End does vote in local elections, but many voters have no idea what’s really happening in New Rochelle. Much of the North End voters’ ire is really against horrible Republicans like Gingrich, GW Bush, Cheney, Palin, Beck, and their reactionary predecessors, and that voter anger results in Democrats Council Members always winning big in the North End.
So I assume City Hall will never realize the citizens of New Rochelle are watching every move they make, because so few are watching.
Am I agreeing with Brian again?
The basic premise of Brian’s comment here is, I believe, entirely correct — that most New Rochelle residents pay very little attention to what goes on in New Rochelle. I would count myself as one of them for the first decade I lived in New Rochelle. I worked in an office in Manhattan, I spend days, often weeks and sometimes months on the road. My exposure to New Rochelle was primarily from my kids school and Saturday sports programs.
It took encountering “problems” with the Parks Department and the Public School system to “wake up” to the reality of New Rochelle. Prior to that awakening, I was one of those who only noticed the City when my trash, leaves or snow was not removed.
There was, for me, very little civic awareness but a great deal of self-interest. I care about my family, my house and, to a lesser extent, my car. As a result I focused on my kid’s school and access to sports programs on the weekend, my taxes and maintenance of my property and potholes (because they might damage my car). Until something confronted me directly I was oblivious. I lived closer to Larchmont than downtown New Rochelle and did my grocery shopping, got my haircut, purchased eye glasses, went to doctors all in Larchmont and Mamaroneck. My kids went to Sts. John and Paul so even the sports programs for my kids were in Larchmont-Mamaroneck.
Given this I cannot really criticize people who are unaware of New Rochelle even though they live in New Rochelle. To me this is largely why so few residents vote in local elections including school budget elections.
In my case, I finally had enough.
I can tell you exactly when that was. It was during a state hearing for my older son. School officials had testified under oath during the hearing and repeatedly perjured themselves. While not naive about the world, I was truly dumbfounded that school officials would so brazenly lie under oath. The final straw was when Sheila Samuels, a lawyer for Kehl Katzive and Simons, the school district’s lawyers, introduced into evidence a document, a school notebook, that had clearly been doctored and then sought to use it to trip up my son during cross-examination. She failed when my son pointed out some of the pages the district had forgotten to rip out of the notebook before submitting it as evidence. Those pages proved my son was right and the district was wrong and suddenly Ms. Samuels aggressive questioning of my son stopped.
It was at this point that we had the following exchange:
Me: “where did you get your law degree? A crackerjack box?”
Samuels: “On yeah…what are you, a blogger?”
Me: “Yep, I am a blogger and if you keep pushing me one day soon you are going to find out what that means and you are going to regret it”.
For those who despise this web site, if you want to know who to “blame” look no further than the Direct of Special Education Yvette Goorevitch and the district’s two lawyers, Marion Katzive and Sheila Samuels. Goorevitch, my wife’s boss at the school district, repeatedly lied under oath and produced false documents to support her lies. The Board of Education is well aware of this and has done nothing about it just as they are aware that Schools Superintendent Richard Organisciak, New Rochelle High School Principal Don Connetta and NRHS Science Department Chair Joyce Kent have all lied to them and to state officials including Kent lying to a State investigator.
I believe that it takes some experience like this to awaken the sort of New Rochelle resident that Brian is accurately describing. It is why I try not to debate a “sleeping” New Rochelle resident because they are firmly wedded to the idea that all is well and everything is as it should be and nothing is going to convince them otherwise.
I think that applies right now to some of the parents who have been objecting to the decision to cut out-of-district yellow bus transportation. Last year, when the district cut 6th grade out-of-district yellow bus transportation I spoke with a few of these same parents who were convinced that they could “talk” to Organisciak and the Board of Education and resolve their concerns. Now they are starting to wake up and realize that not only did that not work last year but it was the proverbial camel’s nose under the tent, that the plan back then was not just to cut 6th grade transportation but the whole thing and that they were suckers for trusting Organisciak and the Board of Education. I expect having woken up, some of these parents will start to ask MORE questions not less and arrive at the point that I have arrived at — that New Rochelle is run by a small clique of people who have figured out ways to benefit themselves on the public dime. I also expect that the district, fearing to wake the sleeping parents from Young Israel, wil find some way to placate them or at least muddy the waters and many of these single-issue voters will go back to sleep. Many but not all.
Lastly, I might mention to Brian that given the amount of time he spends on the site he might want to make note of the NAME of the site 🙂
Honesty and Transparency is what is needed in New Rochelle
If the City of New Rochelle was truly inclined to have an honest and transparent assessment of redistricting in New Nochelle, in addition including civic input, they should hire the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.
The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law is a non-partisan public policy and law institute that focuses on the fundamental issues of democracy and justice. Our work ranges from voting rights to campaign finance reform, from racial justice in criminal law to presidential power in the fight against terrorism. A singular institution – part think tank, part public interest law firm, part advocacy group – the
Brennan Center combines scholarship, legislative and legal advocacy, and communications to win
meaningful, measurable change in the public sector.
Andrew Beveridge is former Yonkers Democratic Party, Second Vice-Chair and District Leader.
“Our work?” Sanchez you hypocrite!
Maybe it’s time the police start investigating martin sanchez and bob cox. Rumors flying around they vandalized someone’s boat by writing bob cox sleeps with the fish. It’s not like either of you do anything during the day or the night, neither of you work. Blame everyone else for your own idiocracy.
realinformation?
Get use to the change or move out of town. Do you have the courage to post your real name?
Just what we need, another
Just what we need, another paid consultant.
What a waste of money.