Politics on the Hudson

Yonkers mayor Phil Amicone has tapped Dan Schorr, a former Westchester County district attorney candidate, to be the city’s next inspector general.

Schorr lost this past fall on a republican campaign against Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore. His nomination to be the city’s top watchdog comes on the heels of former Yonkers City Councilwoman Sandy Annabi and other local politicos received federal indictments this week on corruption and extortion charges.

Schorr’s nomination is pending the City Council’s approval. Amicone has repeatedly expressed his disapproval of current Inspector General Philip Zisman. The mayor has put up previous nominations to replace Zisman but they have been heavily questioned by City Council.

Schorr is a White Plains resident. Amicone spokesman David Simpson said the city does require the Inspector General to be a Yonkers resident but City Council has the authority to waive the requirement.

Rob Astorino was sworn in as Westchester County Executive on Sunday. This graphic that I made on Wordle showcases the buzzwords Astorino used in the speech, with the size of the words indicating how frequently they were used.

Full text of Astorino’s speech is after the jump.

Larchmont Mayor Liz Feld seems to be having a busy morning.

Earlier today she criticized U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), whose seat Feld has made no secret she’s eyeing, over the healthcare bill passed in the Senate today.

Now she’s taking shots at China over the country’s handling of climate change talks in Europe last week. Today Feld wrote a column on the Web site for the conservative group Family Security Matters saying she’s protesting China’s behavior by not buying toys made there.

“Today I will finish my Christmas shopping,” she writes. “And while scanning the shelves, I’ll be on the lookout for those three ubiquitous words: Made in China. Anything with that label goes right back onto the shelf. It’s a small and personal protest, but one well worth it to me.”

Get the popcorn out for this one folks.

As you recall, Mamaroneck village mayor Norm Rosenblum’s decision to fire full time attorney Janet Insardi and replace her with Christie Derrico in a part time capacity has created quite the chatter in the community.

I was on the village’s Web site today to read tonight’s Board of Trustees agenda and noticed Christie Derrico has made a motion to set a public hearing on her own job position. The public hearing would be on a future resolution to amend the village code to change the job from full time to part time.

Trustee John Hofstetter said he was surprised by the motion because setting the hearing wasn’t discussed at the board’s work session last week.

“Under the procedures we currently have in place, you can’t just add things to the agenda,” he said. “Apparently, that doesn’t matter.”

Hofstetter has raised several question’s about Rosenblum’s decision. His comments from last week’s organizational meeting can be found here.

Rosenblum acknowledged the motion to set a public hearing wasn’t discussed at the work session last week but it was something that he brought up after the meeting in a conversation with village manager Richard Slingerland.

“What we’re doing tonight is basically a procedural thing,” Rosenblum said. “It’s a request to have a public hearing. The public hearing won’t be until the next board meeting in January and then we probably won’t vote on it until sometime after.”

The village’s board meeting will take place tonight at 7:30 p.m.

Have you been keeping up with Mamaroneck’s “Attorneygate?” (as I’ve moronically nicknamed it).

First, village mayor Norm Rosenblum, prior to taking office, decided to fire full time village attorney Janet Insardi and replace her with a part time attorney Christie Derrico, the wife of the town’s Republican Party chair. Then there was a small back-and-forth email argument between village officials after Insardi was cut off from her e-mail before getting fired.

Yesterday Insardi’s firing and Derrico’s hiring was made official at the village’s annual organizational meeting. The Board of Trustees, in front of a crowd of around 150 people at the Emelin Theater, voted 3-2 on both the firing and hiring resolutions.

Casting no votes were the two Democrats on the board, trustees Toni Ryan and John Hofstetter. Both trustees said Rosenblum wasn’t transparent with his decisions about the village attorney and wondered if it was even legal.

Ryan wanted to table the motion because the board had not been given specifics about Derrico’s part time position, such as responsibilities, salary, benefits, etc. The request was denied.

Rosenblum told me before the meeting he planned on addressing criticisms of his plan but he didn’t. I will be reaching out to him again later this week for a follow-up story on the subject.

A copy of Toni Ryan’s statements last night is after the jump (click full screen on the viewer to get a better look at it).

There’s been a lot of chatter in the village of Mamaroneck after mayor elect Norm Rosenblum’s decided to drop village attorney Janet Insardi and replace her with Christie Derrico, the wife of a Republican Party chair.

Democrats on the village board last week said they were upset because Rosenblum made the decision without talking to the board or the public. Today their outrage continued because apparently the village cut off Insardi’s email access even though she still technically works for the village.

UPDATE: Insardi’s email has been restored.

Family Guy cartoon creator Seth McFarlane recently did an interview with Playboy (hey, I read it for the articles!) and said this interesting nugget:

“We were trying to figure out what we could write for Senator Chuck Schumer,” he said. “He’s a fan of the show and said at one point that he would do a guest spot if we asked him. So we have that in the back of our heads.”

It wouldn’t surprise me if Schumer ends up doing the show. Family Guy already has Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh appearing next season, so Schumer isn’t much of a stretch.

There’s  been a handful of proposals circulating around Albany in light of Diane Schuler’s wrong-way crash on the Taconic State Parkway last month, and now Mike Spano (D-Yonkers) is calling on New York to adopt the “toughest drunk driving penalties in the nation.”

Under the state’s current laws, DWI that causes death is usually tried in court as vehicular manslaughter, with a maximum prison time of 15 years.

Spano wants to toughen the laws bumping up the charges to second degree murder and a minimum prison sentence of 15 years.

New Rochelle City Manager Charles Strome III was on 1460 WVOX today and made a random promise to a caller during a conversation about baseball:

“Should the Mets make it to the playoffs, during the City Council meeting in October I will rip off my shirt and demand that the Council get things done,” he jokingly said.

Hmm, not sure if I want to hold him accountable for that statement :)

Money magazine released its famous “Best Places to Live” list this week. New York was nowhere to be seen among the top 10 cities.

Actually, not a single New York municipality made the top 100 either.

How do you guys feel about that?