New Rochelle Mayor Improperly Sought Appointment as Development Commissioner in Violation of City Charter

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — For more than a year, going as far back as the opening created by the retirement of a former Development Commissioner in December 2020, New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson has been pressuring City Manager Charles B. Strome to appoint him as Commissioner of Economic Development in violation of the City Charter.

After reporting the appointment of Adam Salgado as the new Commissioner of Economic Development on Thursday, Talk of the Sound confirmed the Mayor had been seeking the position for himself.

The Mayor provided an exclusive statement to Talk of the Sound.

Chuck and I had informal conversations about the possibility — it’s intriguing in concept — but a shift like that is just unworkable on multiple levels, and I did not apply for the position. I am very enthusiastic about Adam’s selection; he will do a splendid job.

Article VI, Section 41 of the New Rochelle City Charter describes the responsibility of the City Manager in making appointments.

Appointments made by or under the authority of the City Manager shall be on the basis of executive and administrative ability and of the training and experience of such appointees in the work which they are to perform.

Article VII Section 76.00 of the New Rochelle City Charter enumerates the required qualifications for the Commissioner of Economic Development

• reasonable knowledge of the generally accepted principles of community planning, traffic engineering and renewals and redevelopment projects and planning and administration.
• not less than 10 years of progressively responsible technical and managerial experience in any one or several of these areas.

Mayor Bramson does not meet any of the qualifications for the position of Commissioner of Economic Development.

The Mayor is a member of Council.

Article VI Section 43 prohibits members of Council from interfering in appointments or removals by the City Manager.

Neither the Council nor any of its committees or members shall direct or request the appointment of any person to, or his removal from, office or employment by the City Manager or any of his subordinates.

According to public records seen by Talk of the Sound under a Freedom of Information request, Strome was exceedingly discomfited by a sitting Mayor seeking to be hired as Development Commissioner, especially in a Council/Manager form of government like New Rochelle.

In a memorandum sent to Bramson by Strome earlier this month, Strome told Bramson, “the whole process has been very uncomfortable.”

Strome began by saying, “As you are well aware, we have been mutually considering whether there is an appropriate match for me to appoint you as Commissioner of Development for the City. As we have both discussed, this would be an extraordinarily unusual appointment for both me, as City Manager, and you, as the sitting Mayor of the City.”

Strome told the Mayor that despite the unprecedented nature of a New Rochelle politician seeking an appointment to the City’s professional staff and the precedent it would set he had made exhaustive efforts to perform due diligence by seeking advice from the County Clerk (former New Rochelle Mayor Tim Idoni), two members of the City Council, two City Managers and two developers.

Strome described several obstacles in considering the appointment: 

• the implications of making such an appointment under the New Rochelle City Charter.
• the optics of a professional manager appointing an elected official (politician) to a management position in the City organization.
• the implications of making such an appointment under the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA) Code of Ethics.
• how his peers would react to such an appointment.
• the harm to his reputation as a professional Manager.

Strome sought a legal opinion from Vincent Toomey, the City’s outside legal counsel, and an ethics opinion from Martha Perego, ICMA’s Director of Member Services and Ethics Director.

Toomey’s opinion was redacted in the letter seen by Talk of the Sound, but the memorandum states Toomey’s opinion addressed whether appointing a sitting elected official was a violation of the City Charter.

It appears that under Article VI Section 43, the City Manager could, without violating the City Charter, appoint a sitting elected official to a management position in the City organization but as members of Council cannot ask the City Manager to appoint any person to such a position— including themselves — the violation is in the asking. Attempting to get around that, as the Mayor has done, by claiming his requests were “informal conversations” is a distinction without a difference under the City Charter.

Strome sought an opinion from the ICMA on whether appointing a sitting elected official could be considered a violation of the ICMA Code of Ethics, which might subject him to public censure by the ICMA.

The ICMA advised Strome that appointing a sitting elected official would violate three of the twelve tenets of the ICMA Code of Ethics and concluded, “it is extremely important that the appointment be made after an open, transparent and competitive process. And that at the conclusion of the process, the individual selected meets the requirements of the position as outlined in the charter and the recruitment information. Absent those two steps, then the public will lose confidence that decisions are made in their best interests.”

“Frankly, appointing a sitting elected official to serve in a staff position, even if they meet all the qualifications, looks like patronage and self-dealing.

After months of pressure from Bramson to be appointed Development Commissioner without submitting a job application, Strome asked Bramson last Fall to formally apply for the job after an executive recruiting firm was hired to conduct a search.

The decision to hire an executive recruiting firm, after a first recruitment effort did not produce acceptable candidates, was discussed at a Council meeting in October 2021.

“When I suggested you participate in that process by submitting a resume, you decided you would not do so,” wrote Strome in his recent memorandum to Bramson.

Strome concluded the memorandum with an apology for not acceding to Bramson’s demands.

I gave it very serious consideration. I can tell you that most of my peers in the profession would have dismissed the idea out of hand. 

The bottom line for me is that in the end, I believe, given all of the above, appointing a sitting elected official to a professional position (qualified or not) could be a violation of the City Charter and is most certainly a violation of my professional Code of Ethics. I am not willing to do that.

I know you will be disappointed with this decision but I am hopeful you will accept it and understand that I gave it serious thought and am just not able to come to the conclusion that it is the right decision to make. I am truly hopeful that this will not change the working relationship we have had over my remaining time in office. The whole process has been very uncomfortable and the time has come, in fairness to both you and me, to end it at this time. 

I know this is not the outcome you would have liked and I am sorry for that. But I do believe it is the right and only decision I, as City Manager, can make.

Bramson still has at least one other card up his sleeve. Bramson controls the search process for hiring a new City Manager. 

Sources say, having failed in his attempt to pressure Strome to hire him as Development Commissioner, Bramson is seeking to get members of Council to hire a new City Manager who would play ball by both hiring Bramson as Development Commissioner and hiring an outside consultant to fulfill the day-to-day duties of the position given Bramson’s lack of qualifications, experience and ability to perform the job.

New Rochelle Corporation Counsel Kathleen Gill, and acting Development Commissioner for over a year, is a threat to those plans.

Bramson does not want Gill to ascend to the position of City Manager when Strome leaves, as she would almost certainly refuse to appoint Bramson to the Development Commissioner position.

Since Strome announced the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager on Thursday, paving the way for her to get the top job, Bramson has reached out to four members of Council in an effort, unsuccessful so far, to organize four or more votes to demand Strome rescind the appointment of Gill as Deputy City Manager.

The effort by the Mayor to gather a majority of Council votes before confronting the City Manager carries with it the not-so-veiled threat that the Council would vote to fire Strome if he did not capitulate and rescind the Gill appointment, accelerating what amounts to an attempted coup d’état by the Mayor, an effort to circumvent the Council/Manager form of government by installing a puppet City Manager who would then appoint Bramson to a $210,000 a year job for which he is unqualified under the City Charter.

As previously noted, Article VI Section 43 prohibits Council from interfering in appointments or removals by the City Manager.

Even listening to Bramson’s request to join him in his effort to pressure Strome to rescind Gill’s appointment may be a violation of the New Rochelle City Charter and an Ethics violation by members of Council. Four members of Council received calls from Bramson seeking to get Strome to rescind Gill’s appointment, sources say.

The efforts by Mayor Bramson to pressure the City Manager both to obtain his appointment as Commissioner of Economic Development and to force Strome to rescind the appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager are wildly inappropriate and clear violations of the City Charter while also placing the City Manager, who serves at the pleasure of the City Council, under pressure to violate the ICMA Code of Ethics, which raises additional questions whether Bramson and others may have violated the City of New Rochelle Ethics Code and New York State law.

This reporter has filed an Ethics Complaint with the New Rochelle Board of Ethics against Mayor Bramson, and any members of Council who may have conspired with Bramson in these matters, in particular, that Bramson sought to use his office as Mayor of New Rochelle to enrich himself by obtaining through coercion, actual or implied, a job as Commissioner of Economic Development with an annual salary exceeding $200,000 plus benefits, for which he is not qualified under the New Rochelle City Charter, that in so doing subjected a public officer to unwarranted assaults on their integrity, and that he has sought to usurp the authority of the City Manager through coercion, actual or implied, by interfering in Strome’s appointment of Kathleen Gill as Deputy City Manager.

New Rochelle Board of Ethics Complaint – Noam Bramson, et al.