NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y. (June 6, 2026) — A New Rochelle journalist has filed a formal ethics complaint against Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert, alleging she has willfully neglected her mandatory duty under the City Charter to deliver an annual State of the City address.
Filed here.
Robert Cox, publisher of Talk of the Sound, filed the complaint Saturday with the New Rochelle Board of Ethics, chaired by Wilbert Ortiz. The complaint alleges that Ramos-Herbert has violated Article III, Section 10 of the New Rochelle City Charter, which states that the mayor “shall…present an annual State of the City message.”
As of June 6, 2026, no address has been delivered and no date has been announced.
Cox’s complaint documents a pattern of escalating delay across Ramos-Herbert’s three years in office. Her predecessor, Mayor Noam Bramson, delivered the address in the first quarter of every year it was given, typically in March. The sole exceptions were 2020 and 2021, when the address was cancelled or postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ramos-Herbert delivered her first State of the City address on April 11, 2024, at the Remington Boys & Girls Club — five to six weeks later than the historical norm. Her second address came on May 8, 2025, at New Roc City — approximately two months behind the traditional schedule. In 2026, her third year in office, no address has been delivered, none has been scheduled, and no public statement has been issued explaining the omission.
On May 28, 2026, Cox wrote to Ramos-Herbert at her official email address asking whether she planned to deliver the address in 2026, why none had been scheduled, when one might be delivered, and whether she was aware the address is a mandatory charter obligation. Ramos-Herbert did not respond.
The complaint argues that a mandatory duty “indefinitely deferred without announcement, justification, or response to direct inquiry is, in effect, a duty abandoned,” and characterizes the escalating pattern of delay as “a willful course of conduct” rather than inadvertence.
Cox invokes New York State Public Officers Law §36, under which willful neglect of duty by a public officer constitutes a misdemeanor, and asks the Board of Ethics to refer the matter to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office if it sustains the complaint.
This article was prepared with the assistance of AI tools under the direction and editing of Robert Cox.
Have information about this story? Email robertcox@talkofthesound.com (preferred) or contact via WhatsApp: +353 089 972 0669.
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