There has been much mud slinging from what is supposed to be respected attorneys like Mr. Trachten and bloggers like Care4NewRo concerning New Rochelle City Court Judge candidate Cynthia Lobo. This resulted from two mindsets, one; the loyal Kool-Aid drinking Democrats and two; desperate people in the Kettner campaign that realize Cynthia Lobo is the most qualified and diverse candidate. But history has a funny way of repeating itself. In the closing days of Kettner’s failed city council campaign Kettner shot herself in the foot with the conflict of interest concerning her position as chairman of the Board of Appeals on Zoning (BAZ). Ms. Kettner continues to chair the BAZ while her campaign filings show lawyers and architects who appear before her as donors. Lawyers like former mayor Rippa and architects like Stanziale who have appeared before Kettner throughout the current judicial campaign. Kettner also touts herself as “New Rochelle’s own” and believes a judge should “invest in New Rochelle” but a judgeship is not a birthright and Kettner spent over $3,000 with businesses outside New Rochelle for palm card design and printing. Today, in the closing days of what will be Kettner’s failed attempt to become New Rochelle City Court Judge I heard Ms. Kettner’s approved WVOX radio solicitation.

In a deliberate political maneuver, Mayor Noam Bramson plotted with his fellow council democrats to deny Council District 3 qualified representation for five months. This flies in the face of the democrat’s long standing policy of appointing a provisional council representative in a timely fashion. Council minutes reflect council representative Bramson was appointed provisional mayor three days after Mayor Idoni was sworn in as county clerk at the January 3, 2006 special council meeting. Seven days later, January 10, 2006, Barry Fertel was appointed provisional representative for council district 5 to replace Bramson. Later that year Councilman Jack Quinlan moved away from New Rochelle leaving Council District 2 unrepresented. Quinlan’s farewell council meeting was on June 29, 2006 and twelve days later on July 11, 2006 former councilwoman Chris Selin was appointed provisional representative for Council District 2.