This article was released on June 18, 2023, and re-released on February 28th 2025, with minor adjustments.
As the race for mayor enters the hands of the voters, voters have two choices in this primary: Westchester County Legislator Damon Maher, and New Rochelle Councilwoman Yadira Ramos-Herbert. WTN News Reporter Edvardi Jackson sat down with both of the candidates ahead of early polling on June 17th.
They tackled issues like housing, crime and urban development. These responses were truncated in certain parts to keep the story brief. Enclosed are audio clips of their full responses, to maintain transparency.
Usage of these audio-clips without express permission from The World Telegram News is prohibited.
Background Information:
Unlike New York City (a mayor-council government), New Rochelle is a council-manager form of government. This means, the mayor is a small part of a larger picture. The mayor is a member of the City Council which consists of six members who are voted in by and represent one of New Rochelle’s six districts. The city council functions as a legislative body that votes on bills and passes them if the majority of their members (4 out of the 6) are in favour. As such, collaboration skills are important traits for mayoral candidates. The city council, after voting on and approving legislation reports to the City Manager who executes their proposals.
The mayor serves on the council as a presiding officer, a title which is ceremonial and holds largely no power over other council members. Despite this, the mayor does have the power to appoint members to boards and committees which are tasked with managing life and development in the city. In this way, the mayor has an important role in the executive process of local government. Both the mayor, and city council members serve 4-year terms which are governed and dictated by the city charter.
Mayor Noah Bramson, who’s been re-elected 3 times since his initial win in 2005 announced that he would not run again for mayor, after his term (which started in 2019) ends later this year. This comes as New Rochelle’s Ethics Board reported that Mayor Bramson had violated the city charter by seeking the position of Commissioner for the Economic Development Board.
However, they found that there was no evidence to suggest there was malicious intent behind his actions.
There is no evidence to suggest that the Mayor intended to violate the Charter or that he did not believe his appointment to be in the best interests of the City. […] Regardless of his intentions, he did violate the Charter in making and pursuing this request of the City Manager even though he did not initiate the dialogue. In addition, it was inappropriate under the Code of Ethics for him, while an elected official, to seek appointment to an administrative position and he should have recused himself from consideration of his appointment.Statement from New Rochelle’s Ethics Board, Sourced from Patch.
On the ballot, there are two candidates: Legislator Damon Maher and Councilwoman Yadira Ramos-Herbert (Representing New Rochelle’s District 3).
For further context, this interview was conducted following information which claimed that Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert had accepted a $60,000 donation to her campaign from the Westchester Country Democratic Committee, which was funded partly by Louis Cappelli, a real estate developer. Mr. Maher condemned this as “unprecedented”, both in our interview and on his blog, however Ms. Ramos-Herbert maintains that the money was gathered without impropriety, saying in our interview “I’m an independent person, I will not be easily bought“.
All opinions expressed by the candidates are not representative of those of our journalists, The World Telegram News as an organization, or it’s parent company ‘KirMedia’.
Section 1 – The Election
Q: Mayor Bramson, who’s been Mayor since 2006 will not seek re-election following a commission report that said he violated the city charter. It was later reported that Criminal Charges against the Mayor Incumbent will not be filed. Do you have any comments on that?
Mr. Maher:
I think the opinion spoke for itself. I did read the transcripts, I think the opinion was appropriate. […] I wasn’t surprised; I didn’t think there was any showing of any criminal intent from the transcripts that I read, so I’m not surprised there was no prosecution.
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
I do not, except I don’t know if him deciding to not run is directly related to the incidents you identified. The sentence read – Is it related? I think he’s been mayor for 16 years, he’s served honourably and he was on the city council for 10 before that so after 26 years of the same kind of government, you kinda want a new job – is what i think is more akin to what is going on.
Q: Why should voters vote for you, and not another candidate?
Mr. Maher:
I think I have a track record of actually getting some pretty good things done. I ran initially for the county legislature in a year where we were being represented in this district by an out now trumpster, and I figured we could do better than that. […] I’ve gotten money – 20 Million dollars – as housing committee chair for affordable housing in downtown New Rochelle. […] We’ve gotten […] more money for daycare, both for the daycare providers and for the hardworking families who need daycare and find it much too expensive.
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
I think it could be summarised for [sic] the three C’s. I have a demonstrated collaboration approach that has brought results to our city and that we are in this interesting juncture for the need of some continuity, to help continue the development but change to bring in an equity and inclusion lens to how we’re thinking about development, how we’re thinking about the benefits of development, modernising our approach to government and accessibility to government. So the three C’s: My collaborative approach, my understanding of what needs to be continued and also what needs to change.
Section 2 – Urban Development
Q: There are a lot of construction projects in the city, especially along North Avenue, and through Division Street. Speaking to some drivers, they say the construction has caused unnecessary disruption to their daily commutes. How do you plan to tackle urban development? And do you have a message to commuters?
Mr. Maher:
It’s tough for me because I have a bicycle and [that’s how] I get around mostly. […] It’s funny, I move faster than the car traffic now with my bike but it’s no fun because, y’know , people talk about potholes and the bumpy roads, well believe me, on a bicycle you know they’re there. We have to have a better reason and explain at least to the residents what’s going on, and when it’ll end – and this is one of the jobs of the mayor. But yeah, it seems like there was not a plan to have all the infrastructure ready in advance, so we’ve got people in these buildings and we’re still building the infrastructure which leads to delays and inconvenience. […] Where we differ on [Development] is my opponent is hook, line and sinker with the mayor – go forward, full-speed ahead, there’s nothing wrong, there’s nothing to be seen here – but we have a problem!
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
I totally empathise with the traffic detours, and the delays in our otherwise clean city. I think some of this is growing pains with development, not to minimise people’s discomfort. Part of my approach though in modernising our city government and improving communication is to work with our city staff and the construction folks to coordinate projects and get the word out to residents, to drivers, to taxi drivers, to make sure that we’re getting the word out as early as possible, so that people can make detours, that we’re using proper signage, just communicating because the work plans come through city hall so we have a need to aggregate that information and get it out there. I do think in a few years, we’ll see the proof of the results of that inconvenience we’re feeling, but in the meantime we just need to do what we can to be transparent and communicate.
Q: I’ll also pose to you the question of Mice and Rats in the city. As an attendee of New Rochelle High School, for example, I’ve seen my fair share of rodents. What do you plan to do about the rat problem?
Mr. Maher:
Well, if I knew that, I’d be mayor of the world. (laughs) Mice and Rats – they’re always there – but they get disrupted during construction so you’ll see more of them. I’ve noticed living downtown now, the streets aren’t kept as clean as they might be in different parts of the city. Where the business and food district people are, they’re in pretty good shape. But you go a block or two away from there, and there are a lot of dirty streets. And there are people – businesses especially – who will leave their trash there overnight. I don’t know how you address that. I don’t know if it’s legal or not to do that, if it’s not legal, there should be more enforcement around that.
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
That’s a little alarming, we don’t want to think of our kids in school with rats and mice. Our schools are run by our school-board – not to be bureaucratic or pass the buck – but as mayor, what I could do is make sure that the facilities that we’re responsible for, that we are being proactive around it: Hiring the right people, picking the right response, but also making sure that the school board knows that this is a concern our students are facing.
Q: One of the major urban development projects currently being planned is the LINC project, which will build a park along Memorial Highway and North Avenue. Do you support this proposal? And how would you manage it if you were mayor?
Mr. Maher:
I really don’t understand it, I still don’t, I’ve been saying that for a while. Do we need another park way through the city? How will you keep the speeds down realistically? Do we want another one-way street?
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
So I’m a huge supporter of the LINC. Memorial Highway was built as part of what was called urban renewal, and it GUTTED an African American community. Memorial Highway used to be black owned homes and businesses. There’s no other part of New Rochelle that really has that kind of 6-lane-highway gutting through a residential area. I actually lived in that area for 12 years with my children, so trying to cross the street was always ducking and dodging to make sure you weren’t hit by a car. So, I really want to make sure that the neighbourhood feels safe and family friendly and that it respects seniors and children. In respect to the disruption, you’re right. It is going to be an inconvenience to reroute traffic, again more modernization in how we communicate, how we coordinate projects is paramount […] but I’m looking forward to a community that kinda has some heat islands, finally having some trees, parks to play in, for seniors to be able to relax and sit, and kinda right the wrong of 50 years ago.
Follow-up Question to Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert: Such a wide-ranging project would inevitably be costly. How would the city pay for all of this?
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
So we actually have received close to 25 million dollars in grants to fund this park. So the benefit of this is: We are providing more green space, reducing carbon monoxide, making an area safer for crossing the street, but also not paying the bill. The state and the federal government believe in this project so much that the state gave us a 10 Million Dollar grant about 6 years ago, and just last year NY federal senator Chuck Schumer gave us another eleven or twelve million to fund this project, [plus] Bloomberg Initiatives gave us another 1 million dollars. So the majority of this project will be paid for by grants and not actually impact our taxpaying base.
Follow-up Question to Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert: But construction will disrupt the habitats of mice and rats, so wouldn’t such a project be counter-intuitive to the solution you proposed?
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
It’s an excellent point, I’d argue though that if the rats and mice are already there, they’re probably already existing so we may as well kind of destroy their burrows and their homes to manage that, and build over it in a way that does what we can to prevent them and then provide regular maintenance to avoid a resurgence in the volume.
Question Directly to Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert: Also in terms of urban development, is what your opponent, Mr. Maher calls “The $60,000 Question”. That money came from the Westchester Democratic Committee, which was a cut from 134,000 dollars that was donated in-part by real estate developer, Louis Cappelli. Today, will you address your voters and the people of New Rochelle to explain what’s happening? Because on paper, this looks like a conflict-of-interest.
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
I fully appreciate the transparency question. I’d like to lead off by reminding you and my voters that I’m coming in with a broad base of support. I have labour union endorsements including carpenter and trades, AFL-CIO, 32-BJ, 11-99, [and] the New York State Nurses Association. Those are really strong labour unions that are sometimes in conflict with business development but have decided to endorse me as opposed to my [opponent] because of my vision, my track-record, my lived experiences, and my ability to bring people to the table and advance the interests of others. […] So I fully appreciate focusing on the 60,000 dollar amount, but I want to lead off by reminding everyone of the broad coalition of support that I have, that’s not just focused on business. […] What I would flag is this: the donation came from the Westchester County Democratic Committee. New Rochelle is the fastest growing city in the state, and there’s a chance to elect a qualified but also historic-making candidate, myself, a woman, and person of colour. I think that reflects their excitement behind it, but also their belief in my vision to keep the city moving forward. […] I can understand the concern about not wanting the development dollars involved, but ultimately the donation came from the party who went out and fundraised. I’m an independent person, I will not be easily bought, I worked really really hard to get to this role, and I’m only seeking to execute it with integrity and with the thought of moving the city forward and pushing the city forward. […] My understanding is that Cappelli donated a large amount, but the party also held a fundraiser in the spring and the money came from that. So, while I understand the concern, it’s really important to remember that the donation came from the party. It’s also important to remember, my opponent doesn’t discuss this, that he also received money from a very similar entity while he’s run for county legislature. So I do wonder sometimes – as have other elected officials – is their comfort-level in challenging a woman of colour who receives this income, and why we’re not challenging white men who accept this money.
Follow-up Question to Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert’s response: You mentioned a bit about some struggles you’ve faced as a woman of colour. Tell me more about that.
Councilwoman Herbert
I think there are some issues around my intersectionality of being a woman AND a person of colour and then if you bifurcate that even more, an afro-latina. […] So I do feel like I’ve faced more questions and struggles around these issues in a way that maybe the same characteristics for a man may not face them. For me, my journey started as a mom who wanted to improve a park and I think bringing that lens of a mother who happens to be a lawyer and a senior administrator at Columbia Law School, really helps to focus on what NEEDS to happen and bringing results across the line.
Section 3 – Crime
Q: New Rochelle has a relatively low crime-rate, however that doesn’t minimise the effects crime has on this city. So far this year, there were 14 criminal incidents in the city, many of them being thefts, stabbings and assaults. What do you plan to do about the crime in this city? And what is your message to residents who aren’t feeling safe in their Neighbourhoods?
Mr. Maher:
Well first of all, they are safe. […] Crime is very low in New Rochelle. When people say that to me, I sort of challenge a little, I say “Where do you live? And what is happening in your neighbourhood” and they say “Well, nothing in my neighbourhood, but i hear this and that about New York City.” […] if people ask me what my anti-crime program is, it’s certainly not “change the bail laws back, lock em’ up and throw away the key”. I always counter with what’s scientifically proven, which is summer jobs for youth. […] You’ll always see that there’s a playland job fair in New Rochelle, and I try to make sure they hire from New Rochelle, Mount Vernon, Yonkers and White Plains.
Councilwoman Herbert
So my first year on the city council, I facilitated our city’s police reform. So I’ve been working with our police very closely, hand-in-hand since 2020, and really talking about policing and balancing that tension of residents wanting to feel safe but not like they’re in a militarised zone. […] So we partner with the county for a mobile crisis response team, they provide mental health resources, so if the police encounter someone and it seems like more like a mental health issue, we don’t need the police getting engaged in a mental health issue, right? […] The city’s investing in year-round after-school and summer programs with our school board so the kids have something to do, and there are interventions that way. [We need] more community outreach from our police to our neighbours because they can see what their concerns are and we can strategise on the appropriate way [to protect] that community.
Follow-up Question to Mr. Maher: June was Men’s Mental Health Month. Some people argue that the rate of crime directly correlates to poor mental health in key groups, one of them being men. Do you support this argument? And what would you do to improve mental health services in the city?
Mr. Maher:
I was really the moving force behind getting the mobile mental health response units. So first of all, if there’s a 911 call involving a person who’s acting erratically, not on their meds, y’know, just out of line, first you have to de-escalate the situation so that nobody ends up dead. Sometimes if you send the police, it can escalate the situation – although there are young police now getting the proper training – but the better idea is what we’re doing now, and what has been done in other places, where the 911 operators are trained to determine whether it’s really a police call, or if it’s a mental health call. So now we have these units that consist of two people, usually women, in a van and street clothes who initially just try to de-escalate the situation. Eventually, there will be enough data to know what calms the person down if it’s a repeat call. We did recently start opening neighbourhood mental health clinics; Something the Republicans eliminated when they came into power in the county, and we’re 5 years in power as democrats and we’re just starting to get these facilities reopened. It’s really difficult as a local problem, again this is one of those regional problems that county government has to account for.
Q: Relating to Crime, is the issue of Guns in the City. As of today, New Rochelle’s Police Department have announced arrests for 6 gun-related incidents this year – including an armed robbery at a Liquor Store in March. And last year, 10 gun-related incidents were reported – including a homicide that left 3 people at large. How do you plan to tackle gun violence?
Mr. Maher:
We have a very good district attorney, who’s taking a multi-prong approach to find a [law] that works. The most important thing we could do is have a federal law. New York has good laws, if they haven’t been gutted by the US Supreme Court. So there’s that angle. We can do more with the outreach to our community – I don’t think the current mayor does that enough – to get people to cool down. We have to make it uncool to seek revenge in every instance, and we have to try to make it so people don’t feel they need to be armed. I think that’s the problem with a lot of the young guys. They don’t necessarily want to be a part of all this, but they feel they need to protect themselves [and] It’s a part of the paranoia gun owners have too.
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
It’s a great question. It’s interesting because New York State has some of the strictest gun laws in the country, but they still kinda come through the borders – y’know, state borders – and ghost guns are proving to be a problem because you can order them and have them come to your home and assemble them, and they’re not traceable. So again, it’s one of those things where it’s multi-prong, it’s staying in close contact with our police department [because] they need to foster relationships in the community so they can get a heads up of what’s going on and intervene appropriately, ir’s advocacy to our state and federal delegations to kind of curb the ghost guns and make stricter rules in other states, so they don’t come across in to New York. And again, I think partnerships, collaboration and advocacy with state delegation, federal delegation and our police is the way to go, but the community has to trust the police as well so they can give the police a heads up to intervene
Section 3 – Closing Thoughts
Q: How do you feel about the state of the city right now?
Mr. Maher
I’m very optimistic about the future. I’ve lived here 29 years, […] my wife and I love being able to walk to stores and restaurants and jump on the train and do something in Manhattan […]. We’re starting to get some nightlife, I guess, and I commend the city for running this show every Saturday afternoon from now into early fall; 5PM at Ruby Dee Park.
Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert:
There are a lot of benefits that are associated with this golden hour, so I’m really proud to have been able to overlap with our prior city manager (who was here for 25 years), our mayor (who has been here for 28 years), but also take this new perspective and fresh ideas for how to move this city forward.
Full Audio:
Damon Maher – Full Audio
Full audio of Mr. Maher’s interview, conducted by Edvardi Jackson (the author of this article) on June 15th 2023.
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Yadira Ramos-Herbert – Full Audio
Full audio of Councilwoman Ramos-Herbert’s interview, conducted by Edvardi Jackson (the author of this article) on June 16th 2023.
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/2220.199184
