I never imagined that this petition would get 2,000 signatures – almost 1% of the population of Yonkers. But I also never imagined that it would take almost two years to convince City Hall that we do not deserve one of the worst noise laws in the nation.
Let’s keep it going! Let’s go for 3,000. Forward this email, or this link https://www.change.org/quieteryonkers to anyone you can think of.
Our Venal, Lacklustre City Government
This effort is about far more than noise, though. The more discovered about how and why this ordinance was passed, the more we learned about the many shocking deficiencies in how our city council and administration operate.
First they ignored our many requests for documents under government disclosure laws. Then they lied to us about whether those documents exist. Only under legal duress did they finally produce more than 1,000 documents.
The emails reveal the sleazy and mindless way that policy gets made in Yonkers. A $1,000 donation. A shockingly rapid response to the donor’s wishes - a new noise law drafted with no research and no meaningful public hearings. An ordinance that contained a ridiculous typo – that no one of the city council, the corporation counsel’s office or the Mayor’s staff bothered to read carefully.
It doesn’t end there. There’s an outright forgery – a published city code doctored to correct the ridiculous typo. No response for months after the forgery was pointed out. And then a botched attempt to fix it with a new, but illegal, city council vote.
Doing whatever it takes to keep Yonkers Louder
You would think that after all this, the city would relent and fix the ordinance?
But no!
Just last week, it came out that the city council rules committee is now attempting to hammer out a new ordinance. Fortunately, Council President Lakisha Collins-Bellamy and Council Member Corazon Pineda-Isaac and have argued that the ordinance needs to be reconsidered. But there’s another faction that won’t give up on higher noise limits, apparently led by Majority Leader and bar owner John Rubbo.
We’ll have to wait until the council’s summer vacation is over, Sept. 9.