Politics on the Hudson

Yonkers resident Virginia Perez, who two years ago unsuccessfully ran for the Yonkers City Council, is expected to launch her campaign on Thursday for the Democratic nomination to the Westchester County Legislature’s 17th District, now held by Democrat Jose Alvarado.

Perez, 31, a hotel management professional, will hold her noon event in front of 279 S. Broadway, the building where former Yonkers City Councilman Wilson Soto claimed he lived when he voted in the 2009 Democratic primary in which Alvarado beat former Councilwoman Sandy Annabi by less than 10 votes.

Alvarado has served on the board almost 10 years representing a district located in Yonkers’ southwest quadrant.

Soto, who lives on the city’s east side, pleaded guilty to lying about his residence and falsifying a primary ballot on March 14 and he is awating sentencing in that case. Annabi is facing a federal public corruption trial for an unrelated matter involving allegations that she took bribes for votes she cast on the City Council.

In her announcement about her press conference tomorrow, Perez said she will call for Alvarado’s resignation due to Soto’s voting fraud.

“In light of the recent guilty plea of Alvarado campaign attorney Wilson Soto on charges of voting fraud, Alvarado has forfeited his moral right to represent the district,” Perez stated in her email.

In 2009 Alvarado denied that Soto was his campaign attorney, though they did work together on the campaign.

Perez is the second woman to announce a challenge to Alvarado this week. On Wednesday Republican Carmen Gomez Goldberg announced her campaign for the seat.

Yonkers Republican party activist Carmen Gomez Goldberg will launch her campaign tonight for the Republican nomination to challenge Westchester County Legislator Jose Alvarado, D-Yonkers.

Alvarado represents the County Legislature’s 17th District, an area mostly representing Yonkers’ southwest quadrant.

Gomez Goldberg is the latest Republican to challenge Alvarado, who did not have a Republican challenger in the last election two years ago.

Instead, Alvarado narrowly defeated former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi in the Democratic primary by less than 10 votes.

Gomez Goldberg is well known in local and state Hispanic Republican circles. Her politicking includes work on Hispanos y Spano Unidos and Amigos de Pataki.

Gomez Goldberg’s announcement is at 6 p.m. tonight at Dolphin Restaurant, 1 Van der Donck St., Yonkers.

With Westchester County Legislator Gordon Burrows’, R-Yonkers, arrest for cocaine possession, score keepers would note that he’s the third Yonkers official arrested in the past three months.

Former Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, D-2nd District, was arrested last month and accused of public corruption in selling council votes for bribes, while former Councilman Wilson Soto, R-2nd District, was accused in December of voter fraud in the September Democratic primary. Both Annabi and Soto face felony charges; Burrough’s faces a misdemeanor charge.

All these arrests might make one wonder how busy Yonkers’ Board of Ethics was last year.

It turns out they weren’t busy writing opinions because none were issued in 2009, according to the city’s law department.

The Journal News submitted a freedom of information law request to the city about the ethics board’s 2009 opinions in January after Annabi’s indictment, just out of curiosity.

Some readers have expressed interest in seeing the proposed legislation to require lobbyists to register with the Yonkers City Clerk before lobbying a Yonkers city official, so I’ve attached it in the jump.

Yesterday Councilman John Murtagh, R-5th District, issued a call to adopt the legislation before it dies in committee. He introduced it in October.

Murtagh issued his press release yesterday in the wake of a federal indictment of former Democratic Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, former Yonkers Republican committee chair Zehy Jereis and attorney Anthony Mangone for public corruption.

Lobbyists are already required to register with the state, but a local registry will make it easier for Yonkers residents to learn who is lobbying their elected officials, Murtagh said this morning.

“If you read the indictment it says Forest City Ratner hired Zehy and he lobbied me,” Murtagh said. “I knew there was some relationship, but I didn’t know he was a $60,000 a year paid consultant.”

Here is the full text of the proposed legislation. (more…)

Yonkers Councilman John Murtagh, R-5th District, issued a call for the Yonkers City Council to take quick action on legislation requiring lobbyists to register before they could lobby city officials.

“Currently all lobbyists are required to register in Albany” Murtagh noted in his press release issued today, “but it is impractical for citizens in Yonkers to rely on registration in the State capitol to know who is trying to influence lawmakers in Yonkers”.

Murtagh and Councilwoman Joan Gronowski, D-3rd District, introduced the proposal in October but no action was taken. He issued today’s announcement in response to the federal indictment of former city Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, who is accused of accepting more than $167,000 cash and favors for changing her vote on two development proposals.

“In light of recent allegations of undue influence in City Hall, it is all the more important that we send a message of openness and transparency” Murtagh  stated.

His full statement is posted here: (more…)

As the indictments against former Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, D-2nd District, were rolling off federal prosecutors’ laser printers, Yonkers Mayor Phil Amicone had the unfortunate timing of releasing a video on the city’s web site of himself touring Ridge Hill Village with the title: Ridge Hill Village Rising to New Heights!
Ridge Hill Village is the development that federal prosecutors allege put more than $130,000 in Annabi’s pocket as part of a deal to change her stance on the project. She initially opposed it and then suddenly supported it.

Click here to watch Amicone’s video.

Westchester County Legislature candidate Sandy Annabi, a Yonkers councilwoman, is asking her supporters to contact the Justice Department’s voting rights hotline at 800-253-3931 if they encounter unfair treatment at the polls on Election Day.

Annabi is running on minor party lines in the 17th Legislative District against Democratic incumbent Jose Alvarado, who beat her in the primary by five votes.

Annabi has claimed voter fraud in the primary and she has sent her allegations to the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office and federal officials, though none have made any public conclusions about her claims.

In a press release this week, she claimed that the Justice Department set up the 800 number to take calls about election fraud in response to her allegations, but a Justice Department spokesman explained to The Journal News that the hotline has previously been available for anyone in the U.S. to call about voting irregularities.

Another interesting item in her release was a reference to Jose Alvarado supporter Wilson Soto, who Annabi claims broke the law by voting in Alvarado’s district.

Soto says he lives in the district but has owned property outside the district.

Alvarado’s campaign disclosure form from July 2009 indicates that Soto made an in-kind contribution of $1,000 and the listed address is well outside the 17th district. Soto said that the home belongs to his fiancee.

Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, D-2nd District, is proposing a county tax break for Yonkers residents who live near the county’s waste treatment plant in southwest Yonkers.

The proposal is made as part of her race against incumbent county Legislator Jose Alvarado, D-Yonkers, who she will challenge in the Nov. 3 election from minor party lines.

Here is her proposal: (more…)

Yonkers Inspector General Philip Zisman says the Yonkers Board of Education’s lawsuit asking a state Supreme Court justice to order him to stop trying to probe the district lacks merit.

“Nothing in the litigation papers undermines the inspector general’s authority to serve subpoenas and conduct independent investigations of the Yonkers school district,” he said this morning.

The Board of Education filed its lawsuit on Sept. 29 and it cited political forces working in concert with Zisman to disrupt the board’s operations. On Wednesday schools spokeswoman Jerilynne Fierstein declined to comment on which political forces are acting against the district, citing the pending litigation.

At least three Yonkers City Council members have issued statements expressing displeasure over the board’s suit, the latest being Sandy Annabi, D-2nd District.

Here is her statement issued late in the day yesterday: (more…)

Yonkers Councilwoman Sandy Annabi, D-2nd District, met with the Westchester County District Attorney’s Office’s public integrity unit on Tuesday.

She presented her list of irregularities that she claims constitute voter fraud in the Democratic primary for Westchester County’s 17th legislative district. I’ve attached a copy of her complaint below.

Annabi lost the primary by five votes to four-term incumbent Jose Alvarado, who released his own statement about Annabi’s allegations on Wednesday.

For the record, Alvarado misrepresents some of Annabi’s positions on the city budget, capital budgets for the schools and a land disposition agreement (LDC) for downtown redevelopment. Annabi voted against the LDC because she said it was a bad deal for city taxpayers; she voted against the city budget because of cuts to police; and the City Council has not yet voted on the capital improvement bonding for the schools.

Here is the text from both statements. Annabi’s is VERY long: