A special session of the Rye City Council will be held Friday at 3:00pm regarding the legal counsel selected by the City of Rye Board of Ethics and Corporation Counsel in regards to the lawsuit initiated by Mayor Josh Cohn and his Gang of Four (Cohn and Councilmembers Carolina Johnson, Ben Stacks, and Julie Souza). The meeting will also be aired on Cablevision Channel 75 and Verizon Channel 39. We’ll also see you on the Internet (live and archive).
The resolution on the agenda is “to approve a waiver of any potential conflict of interest on behalf of the law firms to be retained respectively by the City’s Board of Ethics and Corporation Counsel in connection with litigation pending in Supreme Court, Westchester County bearing index NO. 62424/2023.” The items appears procedural but would indicate there has been no settlement between the parties.
Seven City of Rye council members were unified in their pursuit of tree conservation. They crafted new legislation to support this goal. In the days leading up to the passage of this legislation, The Gang of Four (“G4”) became particularly concerned about tree cutting on a wooded lot adjacent to many houses—including a house belonging to the mayor.
The Gang of Three (“G3”) saw an opportunity to undermine G4 and exploit an ambiguous moral situation (whether the proximity of the wooded lot to the mayor’s house warranted special treatment). In doing so, G3 likely leaked a confidential government document to MyRye.com, leading to a biased article accusing G4 of unethical behavior. Consequently, the reputations of the G4 council members are permanently tarnished on Google.
While the whole situation is an embarrassment, funding an investigation into the true ethics violators seems like the right path to take.