Guest Opinion: Rye’s REAL Ethics Violation: Tarring Innocent Volunteers Carolina Johnson, Julie Souza and Ben Stacks

In a guest opinion piece, Rye Mayor Josh Cohn addresses the 2023 finding of Rye’s Board of Ethics. He says then sitting council members Carolina Johnson, Julie Souza and Ben Stacks were unfairly tarred in the incident. Cohn will complete his two terms (eight years) of service as Rye Mayor on December 31st.

By Mayor Josh Cohn

We live in a time of enormous hostility towards and suspicion of public officials (some of it justified).  In this climate, great pain may be inflicted in the name of ethics on public officials for simply doing the right thing; this is what happened to three former members of the city council’s tree subcommittee, whom I’ll call the Ethics Victims.

In this narrative, I’ll treat councilmembers Josh Nathan and Bill Henderson as one, which is how they acted. They were joined by then-councilmember Fontanes, who was new and whom they led, and whose name is omitted from this narrative.

I. Amnesia

In 2023, Councilmembers Johnson, Souza, and Stacks were the city council’s tree subcommittee. In 2021-22, the subcommittee, having determined that flag lot development presented a principal remaining threat to Rye’s trees, joined with members of the Planning Commission and others in advocating for restrictions on flag lot development. The council passed this measure, along with greenery-protective steep slope restrictions. Unfortunately, the subcommittee’s subsequent efforts were delayed by the limited availability of city staff needed to support the work. Later, Henderson/Nathan would claim to know nothing about the tree subcommittee, even though they’d voted for the flag lot and steep slope restrictions, and even though (among other things) in September 2022 they received written notice of the subcommittee’s continuing effort and copies of the materials it was studying.

II. Ethics, True and ?

In January 2023, I learned that a quarter acre of mature trees was about to be clear cut on a lot behind my house situated outside existing regulation. I consulted the city attorney. Then, to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest, I recused myself. Following the city attorney’s suggestion, Deputy Mayor Johnson and the other Ethics Victims promptly called a special public council meeting to discuss a possible moratorium on tree cutting and revisions to the tree law, with the aim of protecting at least some of the threatened trees.

Henderson/Nathan balked, claiming that an effort to save trees behind my house would look like a favor to me and therefor create an appearance of impropriety.

This unsupported argument implies that there is a zone of mandatory inaction around a recused public official’s home, depriving neighbors – not to mention the official – of city protection.

III. Clear Cut, So What?

Immediately after public notice of the special meeting, the trees in the lot behind my house were destroyed in a clear cut. The Ethics Victims decided to hold the special meeting anyway to renew the tree law revision process, protected by a moratorium.

In a dramatic gesture, Henderson/Nathan boycotted the special meeting and asked the board of ethics to support continuing the boycott to the next meeting. The board of ethics declined to support their boycott. However, they agreed with Nathan/Henderson that the ASAP special council meeting originally intended to mitigate a clear cut of trees behind my house had the impression of impropriety.

The board’s position was illogical. I had recused until the trees behind my house were gone. The trees were gone well before the special meeting and the meeting’s purpose no longer had anything to do with them; so where was any possible impropriety? Moreover, the need for speed in originally calling the meeting was proven by the quick destruction of the trees.

Critically, the board appeared to know nothing of the tree subcommittee’s mission and efforts. If they had known, they would have understood that the subcommittee’s members – the Ethics Victims – would have tried to defend a quarter-acre of trees no matter whose house they were behind. Worse – and this is truly inexcusable – the ethics board acted without notifying the people they had decided to investigate.

IV. Rebuttal Rebuffed

The Ethics Victims and I first learned that the board of ethics had “investigated” us when we read their “confidential” findings in the press. Concerned about reputational harm from their flawed reasoning, we asked the board members to hear us.  The board refused. I protested publicly at a council meeting. The board did not respond.

We learned from multiple lawyers how wrong the board was. We hired an ethics lawyer to open a conversation with the board. Getting no substantive interaction, we sued for a corrective declaratory judgment – not money. Relying on case law, we voted that the city would bear our costs, to be on even footing with the indemnified board. But we never took any city money.

At a public council meeting, a resident suggested that we get an independent authority’s support, rather than pursuing litigation. I began a conversation with the New York Conference of Mayors (NYCOM).

For brevity, I’ll skip over the interim developments between the time I reached out to NYCOM and February 2025, when the city council received a letter from NYCOM’s general counsel. (Those interim developments underscore, but are not essential to, this narrative.) The NYCOM letter, though stated in general principles, made devastating legal points, including the ethics board’s lack of legal authority to take action and its flaunting of due process. The letter is the first exhibit to my May 7 message (ryeny.gov, click on “Government” then “Mayor” or  chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.ryeny.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/20284/638956249592844709). All my related council presentations, which explain the details, are available under the same tab.

The NYCOM letter left no doubt that our city’s 60-year-old ethics code urgently needs review. Despite this, the Henderson/Nathan-led council majority first ignored NYCOM’s findings, then when prodded in the May 7 council meeting, spoke in favor of a legal review of our ethics code, if it didn’t look back at the tree episode. But since, they have repeatedly stonewalled against a start, despite having the NYCOM GC’s recommendation of the right lawyer to do it.  (See council videos, June 11 – Item 12, https://ryeny.new.swagit.com/videos/345461,    July 16 – Item 6, https://ryeny.new.swagit.com/videos/350005 .)

Why would they bury NYCOM’s important findings? Why would they turn down an offer by the NYCOM general counsel’s recommended lawyer, the current co-chair of the relevant NYS Bar Association committee, to provide that review to the council confidentially, for a nominal sum and without examining the 2023 ethics fiasco? Henderson/Nathan’s actions suggest an effort to avoid scrutiny of their own roles in the fiasco, which appear to have been politically motivated.

So here we are, Rye. The factual and legal record shows error by the board of ethics and political gamesmanship by Henderson/Nathan from start to finish. The Ethics Victims (and even I) deserve better. So does Rye.