New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson is asking supporters to join his “Share the News” team in an effort to promote news items from his web site in order to address what the Mayor claims is “misinformation” and “falsehoods” on “various websites”, by which he means this site, Talk of the Sound.
The Mayor is concerned that “anger” has taken center stage in discussions about local issues even though he acknowledges that “sometimes anger is justified”. Bramson says his goal is to “elevate the conversation” by which he means public discourse at City Council Meetings. For Bramson, anger is justified when he is angry at others but not justified when people are angry at him, as was the case when Bramson became enraged during a City Council Meeting in February.
This is part of a broader pattern of controls on free speech and open government under the Bramson regime. Bramson recently announced he may consider using his majority on Council to pass rules suppressing the speech of elected officials in New Rochelle. Bramson has previously admonished City Council members for discussing their concerns with the press, proposing instead that disagreement on Council be discussed behind closed doors. New Rochelle police officers have been specifically warned about communication with Talk of the Sound. Police officers have complained that the department’s social media policy place significant, unwarranted restrictions on free speech rights of NRPD employees. Sanitation workers in New Rochelle were called into a meeting this week for a similar reason after Talk of the Sound ran a story about garbage pick up routes going from 9 routes to 8, placing more of a burden on the remaining crews. The DPW Commissioner recently sent a letter instructing DPW employees not to talk to City Council members. Bramson recently killed a Crime Map program presented to Council by New Rochelle Police Commissioner Patrick J. Carroll who recommended the program as a way to make residents safer by increasing awareness and cooperation between residents and police. Knowledgeable sources tell Talk of the Sound the Mayor has improperly intervened to block Freedom of Information requests submitted to the City.
In the new program, Bramson supporters would sign up and receive emails each month from Bramson asking them to publicize new items from the NoamBramson.org web site and then distribute those items via social media services like Facebook and Twitter.
The Mayor’s announcement indicates he is attempting to use the public response to the passage of GreeNR to gin up traffic to his web site and collect names for his donor list in anticipation of the fall Mayoral campaign. In his announcement email, Bramson refers to the “bizarre claim that New Rochelle’s sustainability plan was part of an international conspiracy to curtail our liberties and subvert the U.S. Constitution” and referenced remarks by Joseph Calisi who raised the specter of “death camps” in criticizing ICLEI.
Such histrionics coming from the Mayor, attempting to tar reasonable concerns over the City’s association with ICLEI, an organization almost entirely unknown to New Rochelle residents. In a straw poll vote on the Council last month, all three Republicans, two of whom voted for GreeNR, expressed their opposition to New Rochelle’s membership in ICLEI. Some of the concerns expressed in Council were that the City Council had never been informed of the decision to join ICLEI, the costs associating with joining ICLEI, that as a requirement of of the pilot program the City was require to hire a “Sustainability Coordinator” consultant, that the purpose of this $65,000 a year cost was not disclosed to Council. Rather than addresses those concerns the Mayor sought to paint anyone with any questions about ICLEI was promoting conspiracy theories and believed in black helicopters over Montana.
It is public record that ICLEI-USA is a United Nations organizations with the mission of implementing the UN’s Agenda 21 in the United States. It is a fact, not a conspiracy theory.
You can read the entire email from the Mayor here.
Bramson is selective in what and who he answers
It is interesting that Bramson when asked questions on WVOX can cut the person off the line, tell the person that the comment made is strictly “his or her” opinion and cut them off, or simply tell the person to research the topic even if it involves something that is available at City Hall. When you are in the driver’s seat of a car you can steer it where you want and the passenger has no options, that is, until election day.