In a letter, Garden Drive resident Suki van Dijk raises concerns about “Mayor Cohn’s actions and continued misstatements seem to indicate a deliberate attempt to mislead.” The letter reflects comments she made at the City Council meeting on Wednesday.
At the Aug. 9th meeting the mayor falsely claimed that the document attached to the Gang of Four press release (titled New York Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials Ethics Guidance, August 2, 2023) was from NYCOM. He repeatedly said that the document was “NYCOM created,” that “they presented this document,” that John Mancini of NYCOM “prepared this document” and that “this was his document. He sent that document to us.” (Mayor’s comments begin at 1:29:45 in section 14 of the meeting video https://ryeny.new.
Only after Josh Nathan said that he had spoken to John Mancini and others at NYCOM, and that they told him they didn’t write or send any document, did the mayor make the stunning admission that, we “sent the document to NYCOM.” After admitting that he wrote and sent the document to NYCOM he said they “left the document in the form that you see it.” He repeated that claim in an Aug. 24th letter to the Rye Record.
We now know that is also untrue.
Information released by the city on Monday shows that the document sent to NYCOM, is NOT the same one attached to the Gang of Four press release. The document sent & approved by NYCOM makes it clear that it is from the city, not from NYCOM. The document NYCOM approved is not titled NYCOM Officials Ethics Guidance.
It appears that they took the last page of the draft sent to NYCOM, (page 6 in the pdf of the city website) made it into a separate document, replaced the first paragraph, which said it was a summary of their conversations with NYCOM, with NYCOM’s mission statement, added the header “NYCOM Officials Ethics Guidance,” furthering the appearance of it being a NYCOM document. It was then attached and highlighted as such in their press release, “and, in addition, after consultation, the New York Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials (NYCOM) ethics guidance (attached) is consistent with our position.”
Mayor Cohn’s actions and continued misstatements seem to indicate a deliberate attempt to mislead. I don’t know if the other parties to the suit knew that statements the mayor has been making about these documents were untrue. I would very much like to hear from them.
I know we are all sick of this. I would love nothing more than to be able to put this topic to rest and move on. But we can’t as a community move on until we are assured that our representatives understand the gravity of misleading the public, until they admit their wrongdoing, and we are shown the steps that they will take to make sure it does not happen ever again.
See minute 4:28:
