WPCNR City Hall Circuit. From The Mayor's Office. September 14, 2007 UPDATED September 15, 2007: City Hall announced this evening  it had been informed the New York State Committee on Open Government finds  Common Council President Rita Malmud, Councilmen Thomas Roach, Benjamin Boykin and Dennis Power  appear to have violated the Open Meetings Law  by publishing their united opposition to the Request for  Qualifications last week. 

In a press account Saturday morning, the Committee was reported as "backing off" this interpretation, but no explanation was reported as to the nature of the qualification, and Dennis Power was reported as not remembering how the RFQ rejection was formulated whether in a meeting, by phone, or other procedure.

Paul Wood, City Executive Officer, left, and Commissioner of Planning Susan Habel. September, 2006 WPCNR News Archive Photo

The 4 councilpersons published their united (majority) opposition to the city’s Request for Qualifications sent to area developers to cast for developers of the station area, in last week’s edition of The White Plains Times, without informing Councilpersons Glen Hockley and Arnold Bernstein or the Mayor or deliberating it before the public.

According to Paul Wood, Camille S. Jobin-Davis, Assistant Director of the New York State Committee on Open Government in Albany expressed the opinion today that, by not expressing their opposition to the RFQ document during a public meeting, “I do not believe that they could validly have acted.”

Wood reports that Jobin-Davis observes that even if the councilpersons circulated the letter and signed on to it without discussion, she believes the  publishing of the letter, “to be action taken outside the requirements of the law.”

 In the letter, the 4 councilmen wrote, “We therefore publicly and unequivocably state our opposition to this process (the RFQ). We serve notice that we do not support the RFQ recently released by the Mayor’s office through the commissioner of planning and will avail ourselves of all measures at our disposal to bring this ill-considered proposal to a quick end.”

Wood said the city was contemplating the Committee on Open Government ruling, and said he was “bewildered, considering the Council has always professed a passion for open government.”

The ruling provided to the city, vindicates Wood’s gut feeling first reported by WPCNR this week that the letter was a violation of the open meetings law. Wood said, “they are allowed to caucus, but they cannot come to a decision. However, I and the Mayor are bewildered because whenever we ask the Common Council President are you caucusing, she always denies it.”

Ms. Jobin-Davis' opinion, in addition, asserts that the intention of the law -- to allow the public the opportunity to observe public officials in discussion -- "cannot be realized if members of a public body conduct public business as a body or vote by phone, by mail, or by e-mail."

The Letter, as published, last week: