NEW ROCHELLE, NY (April 20, 2022) — To this day, former Council Member Shari Rackman remains haunted by the now-infamous “water boarding” incident which took place nearly a decade ago behind closed doors during a New Rochelle City Council meeting. New Rochelle Mayor Noam Bramson, she says, repeatedly berated her and physically intimidates her on behalf of his campaign donors connected to Forest City/Ratner in a furious effort to get her to change her vote on the development company’s Echo Bay deal.
She says she was a victim of abuse by Bramson; that his conduct that night was like an assault.
“I was so shaken I would have said anything to get out of that room.”
Rackman has refused to be in a room alone with Bramson since, she told Talk of the Sound in an exclusive interview.
As an ongoing investigation by the New Rochelle Ethics Committee is opening a window into how Mayor Noam Bramson (D-New Rochelle) operates behind closed doors, Rackman feels the time has come to share publicly, for the first time, her terrifying experience with Bramson’s unbridled rage behind closed doors at City Hall on the night of November 12, 2013.
“It was a side of Noam I had never seen before,” she said. “It was scary because I felt trapped. I was shaking life a leaf.”
She says Bramson’s unnerving conduct frightened her into reversing a vote she had cast on a procedural motion that delayed Council action on the then-controversial Echo Bay development project, a vote which unknowingly set off a chain reaction that resulted two weeks later in a near-unanimous vote to end the Echo Bay project as proposed by real estate developer Forest City/Ratner.
Just prior to going into executive session towards the end of a Committee of the Whole meeting, Rackman voted to delay discussion of the Echo Bay deal.
Bramson was slack-jawed as he grasped that Rackman was not supporting his position. He called Rackman’s decision one of the most remarkable votes ever cast in the history of the Council, implying she was too stupid to understand the implications of her vote.
Rackman is an attorney with decades of experience who had discussed the motion in advance with Tarantino.
To this day, no definitive, logical explanation for Bramson’s unhinged urgency that night has emerged. Some current and former members of Council and City administrators suspect he had promised Forest City/Ratner executives he would push their project through in a matter of days but no one we spoke to involved that night says they can be certain.
For her part, Rackman deeply regrets changing her vote that night.
“After I changed my vote, someone shouted I was ‘an embarrassment to women’,” Rackman said, choking up, in a recent interview. “At that moment I thought they were right.”
City Manager Charles B. Strome, who announced his retirement a few weeks ago, told us recently that the meeting that night was the worst City Council meeting he had ever seen in his two decades as chief executive of the New Rochelle City government.
Council Member Ivar Hyden called it the most unhappy experience he had on City Council.
Council Member Albert Tarantino called it a meeting he would never forget.
Before it was over, a near-riot had broken out, the police had to be called in to protect City Council members, including Rackman, Bramson, and Barry Fertel. Vengeful protesters who had marched on City Hall earlier in the evening screamed threats and obscenities.
The fuse was lit when Council Member Albert Tarantino (R-District 2) made an off-agenda motion to delay discussions on Echo Bay and the related move of the Department of Public Works “City Yard” until after the Council had completed its work on the 2014 Municipal Budget.
There has never been a public explanation by the Mayor why a vote on the project needed to take place before January but Bramson was insistent that there could be no delay.
Much to Bramson’s shock, the Council voted against him, 4-3, with Council Members Louis Trangucci (R-District 1), Ivar Hyden (D-District 4) and Shari Rackman (D-District 6) all supporting Tarantino’s motion.
The Mayor was just days removed from a crushing electoral defeat at the hands of Rob Astorino in the 2013 Westchester County Executive race. Bramson lost 56% to 44% countywide, in a county with a 2:1 Democratic Party registration advantage. He only won narrowly in New Rochelle, 53% to 47%, after winning New Rochelle two years earlier, 79% to 21%, in the 2011 Mayoral election.
Local opposition to Forest City/Ratner, made manifest by the mushrooming of “No Echo Bay” signs throughout New Rochelle over the summer and into the fall — and the resulting media coverage — had forced Bramson to play defense on his home turf in the closing months of his failed bid to unseat Astorino.
It was more than just a loss, it was a potentially career-ending humiliation — and opposition to Echo Bay had been central to it.
The Echo Bay vote came just hours before a rally on the steps of City Hall organized by the United Veterans Memorial & Patriotic Association of New Rochelle and the United Citizens for a Better New Rochelle to oppose the Echo Bay Project. The protesters, many carrying “No Echo Bay” signs, filed into City Hall to address Council during Citizens to be Heard with many offering biting remarks targeting Bramson personally.
Rackman theorizes that Bramson felt he badly needed a “win” after his election loss by delivering on the Echo Bay project for Forest City/Ratner, which had financially supported his campaign.
“Losing the election was a blow to his ego,” she said.
Bramson later admitted his own mother had advised him to skip the Council meeting so soon after his election loss.
Rackman believes Bramson’s plan was to have a perfunctory discussion about Echo Bay and the City Yard on November 12 then ram through the votes on Echo Bay on November 19.
“If the Mayor really wanted to have a discussion about Echo Bay, especially the LDA, then why weren’t any of the documents provided to Council before the meeting in our meeting packet? How could I prepare to discuss documents I had not seen?”
Whatever the underlying motivations, Bramson lost his cool that night.
Bramson, shocked at the 4-3 outcome, angrily derided the vote on Tarantino’s motion as “one of the most remarkable votes ever cast at this table.”
BRAMSON: I’d like to ask there be some additional thought devoted to this subject by Council Members over the next few minutes because some Council Members did not have the opportunity to think through fully the implications of this motion and perhaps we’ll come back to this.
TARANTINO: That’s a very unusual request. Six years on City Council. I’ve never heard once you tell people to think after they made the vote. They thought. They made a vote. You win some, you lose some. OK? Let’s move forward now.
BRAMSON: Council Member, if people don’t want to reconsider they don’t have to reconsider but everyone has a right to think through their choices and in the same spirit we always try to get our agenda in advance when we cast votes, you put something like that out on the table without notification to Council Members, as is your right, maybe people want a little more time to digest the suggestion.
TARANTINO: Maybe we should put it out to see who wants more time as opposed to…
BRAMSON: You cannot curtail people’s right to think about things.
TARANTINO: They already have, Mayor, they already decided.
BRAMSON: So then they’ll be no change in the determination, we’ll see.
TARANTINO: So, when will we come back to it?
Bramson ignored Tarantino’s question, cutting him off, then moved onto a discussion of executive session items before returning to Tarantino.
BRAMSON: Are you motioning to table both Echo Bay and the City Yard?
TARANTINO: Yea, Both.
After the executive session, still upset by the defection of Rackman and Hyden on Tarantino’s motion, Bramson took the pair aside just prior to Citizens to be Heard and bullied the two Democrats in an effort to get them to change their vote.
Hyden, who describes himself as some who does not like confrontation, said Bramson pressed him, asking “how can you do this to me?”
Bramson continued to press Hyden on the dais just before Citizens to be Heard held in the main Council Chambers where speakers opposed the Echo Bay deal 27-1.
Bramson continued to silently but publicly press Rackman as the two passed a piece of paper up and down the dais, through Hyden and Fertel, with a handwritten running dialog.
On an open mic, Rackman can be heard to say to Strome, seated next to her, “I just sent him a note, ‘why cant we wait until next week?’
Their back-and-forth continued throughout the meeting. When Bramson realized Rackman was not receptive to his messages, Rackman says, he pocketed the piece of paper.
When the meeting ended Bramson came across the dais towards Rackman. She looked about, seeking a way to avoid Bramson as he honed in on her. He angrily snapped his hand in a motion for her to follow him. As she reluctantly followed him off-stage, Bramson heatedly lectured Rackman.
Once in the City Council conference room, out of the public eye, Bramson ordered the A/V crew out of a small production room just off the Council Chamber floor. As they left, Bramson ushered Rackman into the soundproofed room. She would only learn later that Bramson had locked the door behind them.
Rackman described what happened next in a recent interview, a story she had never told publicly until now.
“Noam approached me,” said Rackman. “He moved closer, put his hands up on a wall or cabinet behind me so that I was boxed in. He thrust his face forward so that his face was six inches from mine and began screaming at me for about five minutes in a loud and threatening tone, demanding I change my vote, saying I didn’t understand the implications of my vote.”
“He was so aggressive, his face contorted in a frightening way,” she said. “To get him to back away from me I eventually gave in and told him I would change my vote to allow discussion. He then backed away from me and let me out of the room.”
“I wish I had the presence of mind to do what I should have done,” said Rackman looking back on the incident today. “I should have kneed him in the groin and run out of the room.”
Rackman returned to the conference room, attempting to process Bramson’s shocking behavior. As she took her seat at the conference table she said Tarantino noticed something was wrong, saying to her, “you’re trembling.”
Bramson hurriedly organized a continuation of the City Council meeting to force what was effectively a re-vote on Tarantino’s resolution.
BRAMSON: I believe there may have been some misunderstanding as to whether that (motion) applied purely to a vote or discussion and distribution of information so with the understanding that there won’t be a vote on any of these subjects next week I would like a motion that the discussion items and the distribution of information be tabled until next week so that it’s possible for the Council to receive and talk about the various documents that were submitted by members of the staff and the City Manager was prepared to distribute today.
Trangucci interrupted Bramson to ask Corporation Counsel Kathleen Gill if Bramson could make such a motion given the prior motion to defer discussion on Echo Bay until January. Gill told Trangucci that Bramson was not making a “motion to reconsider” but rather making a new motion. Gill did not address that Bramson’s new motion reversed the effect of Tarantino’s previously adopted motion.
Tarantino, struggling to contain his anger, compared Bramson’s rough handling of Rackman to the treatment of al Qaeda prisoners at black sites by the CIA.
TARANTINO: Mayor. What we’ve got going on here is you took a Council Member in a room and waterboardedthem to get them to agree to what you wanted. I object to that. I am appalled by it. And I’m surprised that you would do something like that. I usually don’t get like this at Council meetings but tonight is a meeting I will never forget.
Tarantino continued.
“You’re going to tell me that you don’t know what was going on before the rest of the Council, you’re going to tell me that? Then I’ll call you a liar.”
Tarantino says he knew Bramson had been given information the Council had not been provided.
Bramson dismissed Tarantino’s concerns, saying, “We have to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.”
Trangucci called the Mayor’s re-vote absurd then angrily stormed out of the meeting.
Hyden voted against the Mayor.
“I really feel tonight could be the most unhappy experience I’ve had on City Council. I don’t like being bullied. I don’t like being pushed. I don’t like being backed into a corner,” said Hyden.
Rackman voted with the Mayor.
“I will mirror the sentiments of Council Member Hyden. However, I do want this information and I would like to see the information disseminated to the public therefore I will vote ‘yes’ to the discussion (shouting), excuse me (more shouting and interruptions), I will vote ‘yes’ to the dissemination of the information and preliminary discussions but I will not vote on these issues in the very near future.”
As Bramson gaveled the meeting to a close, tensions rose. As police officers interposed themselves between the crowd and the City Council, the lights were unexpectedly turned off by Peter Parente, a vocal Echo Bay opponent, leaving dozens of people, including City officials, stumbling around in the dark as TV cameras rolled. Bramson switched the lights back on but by then the meeting had devolved into total, utter, bedlam — the crowd erupting with angry catcalls, jeers and threats.
Outside, moments later, as she walked towards her car, Rackman was shouted at by Ashley Ward, an opponent of the Echo Bay project. As the shouting continued, Council Member Barry Fertel, already in his car, drove around the parking lot, ran from his car and confronted Ward, screaming at her with his face inches from hers, just as Bramson had done to Rackman moments earlier.
Parente ran to defend Ward from Fertel.
“Hit me,” screamed Fertel over and over again, holding his hands at his side, daring Parente to punch him in the face until police intervened.
Fertel got back into his car.
A shaken Rackman was walked to her car by a police officer and then escorted home by the police.
Bramson too was given a police escort home.
“I’ve been coming to City Council meetings for 30 years,”, said James O’Toole immediately after the parking lot incident. “I’ve never seen anything like what I saw tonight.”
On November 19, 2013 Bramson opened the City Council Meeting by addressing what took place the week before.
“I also, before we get into the budget, want to say a couple of things about our meeting last week. All of us, I think, try to maintain a tone of civility and professionalism in our discussions even when we have disagreements. We certainly try to encourage that among those who attend our meetings and speak in a public context and we try to uphold that standard in our conversations amongst ourselves. It’s probably fair to say we did not meet that standard last week.”
“I am not happy with my own performance. I allowed frustration to get the better of me in at least one instance. I regret that. I am particularly sorry that Council Member Rackman, I think, was put in a difficult position.”
Rackman says Bramson spoke to her privately as well.
“In both his public and private statements, Noam sought to excuse his behavior and spread blame for it to others. In my case, that I provoked him by voting to table discussion of Echo Bay and somehow deserved to screamed at by him in a locked room.
“It was, I think, not clear what he meant by putting me in a ‘difficult position’, was it pressuring me to change my vote or his cornering her in the video production room.”
“To this day, Noam has no recognition of what he did in that room. He still thinks he took me inside just to have a conversation”.
The Mayor then withdrew his prior motion leaving in place Tarantino’s approved motion from the previous week so further discussion and votes on Echo Bay would be postponed until 2014.
At the very end of the meeting Tarantino moved to rescind his own motion and place a vote on the Echo Bay Land Disposition Agreement on the agenda for the following week.
Barry Fertel, confused by Tarantino rescinding the motion that has cause so much controversy the week before, requested a five minute recess to caucus with members of his own party. The television screen went to black. While the cameras were turned off, Fertel stood up to leave the room when Tarantino reminded him there could be no caucusing in a public building such as City Hall so Democrats would have to meet off City property. Fertel said “forget it” and sat back down. The cameras were turned back on.
When the meeting resumed a minute later, Tarantino again moved to rescind his motion and hold the LDA vote the following week. The motion was seconded by Trangucci and approved by unanimous consent.
Fertel and Bramson belatedly appeared to recognize that Tarantino would have only made the unexpected move to force a vote if he had already locked in a fourth vote. After the meeting adjourned, Bramson spent twenty minutes talking to Rackman but it was too late. She was now irretrievably lost to Bramson and alterably opposed to the Echo Bay project.
The following week, on November 26, Bramson instructed Council Member Jared Rice (D-3rd District) and Fertel to save their political futures by voting against the Echo Bay project.
The vote on the Land Disposition Agreement failed 6-1 with Bramson the lone Council Member to vote for the deal.
The Echo Bay deal was dead, killed largely by Bramson’s own overreach in waterboarding Rackman to get his way two weeks earlier.
In the end, Bramson got his revenge by using his control of the Democratic Party to oust Rackman as a Democratic Party candidate, effectively ending her political career in New Rochelle.
On May 6, 2015, at its nominating convention, Elizabeth Fried was nominated by Marianne Sussman and seconded by Damon Maher as the District 6 Democratic candidate. Rackman, the incumbent, also nominated, conceded the nomination to Fried but vowed to run in a primary election. Rackman lost the primary election then switched parties to run on the Republican line in the general election. Rackman lost to Fried in November then finished out her remaining term on December 31, 2015.
VIDEO CLIPS, IN SEQUENCE, FROM NOVEMBER 2013 CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS
New Rochelle City Council Meeting Nov. 12 2013: Tarantino Motion to Delay Discussion on Echo Bay Passes with Support from Rackman
New Rochelle City Council Meeting Nov. 12 2013: Tarantino Motion to Delay Discussion on Echo Bay Passes with Support from Rackman (Camera Isolated on Bramson)
New Rochelle City Council Meeting Nov. 12 2013: Before and After Citizens to be Heard
New Rochelle City Council Meeting Nov. 12 2013: Bramson Re-Vote Causes Pandemonium
New Rochelle City Council Meeting Nov. 19 2013: Bramson Apologizes
New Rochelle City Council Meeting Nov. 19 2013: Tarantino Rescinds Previous Motion to Delay Discussion on Echo Bay, Schedules Vote
New Rochelle City Council Meeting Nov. 19 2013: Final Vote on Echo Bay Project
True leadership stepped forward this night. No, it was not Noam “water-boarder” Bramson nor Peter “shotgun” Parente. We witnessed the resolute and courageous leadership of the Al Tarantino/Ivar Hyden alliance. These two city councilman from different political parties work together in the best interest of New Rochelle residents. Both of these businessman have politically-moderate views and bring to the table a great deal of common sense, keen perspectives, and decades of entrepreneurial experience.. Al and Ivar bring order to chaos as serve role-models for cooperation between political parties.
Kudos to both of them.
Branson bullied elected constituants? Then proceed to campaign against them. What a surprise.
Fertel gave him a plural vote for year’s in exchange for State Funded Health insurance.
NR is a dirty pig sty yet he still gets to move the pieces.
Why does this guy Parente show up everywhere like he is a $&^tty version of Forrest Gump? I can’t believe this guy is involved in the community. Who shuts off the lights in a meeting like that and is taken seriously.
All these Democrat dirtbag politicians in this article, and your takeaway is Parente turning off lights? Nice that you find cornering and bullying women acceptable. You are as sick as Bramson and Fertel. It’s always these Democrat men who are the nastiest bastards, especially to women. Whiny little entitled boys who are used to getting their way. Why would Rackman stay silent all these years? Reminds me of the trash in Hollywood who stayed silent about Weinstein, but found their voices to criticize Trump. Wonder how many more women were threatened because of her silence.
Brings back memories of what a true scumbag he really is. Lou trangucci should of kicked his ass that night …
I think the Mayor has totally lost it. I read your whole story and his actions were totally out of line. Makes me wonder how much kick back he is pocketing with all this ugly building and destroying what was once a beautiful and thriving city. Very sad.