The race for three seats on the Mount Vernon City Council has turned to accusations of unfair and offensive robocalls made to Mt. Vernon Democratic voters. The Mount Vernon Forward team of Danielle Browne, Cathlin Gleason, and Ed Poteat released the following statement:
“Late last week, investigators from Attorney General James’s office contacted me in response to the letter we submitted to request an investigation into the disgraceful and illegal robocalls plaguing Mount Vernon households. The investigators requested audio files of the offensive robocalls in question, and we have provided the Attorney General with the material. We do not yet know who originated this gross disinformation attack, as there is no legally required committee or expenditure filed with New York State.
“As this investigation continues, we ask Mount Vernon residents to remain calm and resolute, focused on working together to create a better future for our city. We recognize that in the context of the Attorney General’s ongoing efforts to probe disinformation and robocalls in our state, that we will probably not have a resolution to this case before the June 22nd primary. But I am committed to full cooperation with the Attorney General’s investigation, however long it takes.”
Nobody in the media has obtained, or released trascripts of the robocalls and texts. The closest has come from Mt. Vernon News Center, #MVNC, one of the better Mt. Vernon news locations, on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/MVNewsCenter.
“#MVNC received back to back Robo calls last week claiming Browne is having an affair with lobbyist Kenny Plummer agmonst other things. The last Robo call was very hard to understand, the narrator was speaking in a Caribbean accent and the call was reported to be over two minutes long – leaving some residents to hang up in the middle of the call,” wrote Mt. Vernon News Center.
Yonkers Times asked Tom Watson, who is working on the Mt. Vernon Forward campaign for a copy or transcript of the robocalls and he refused. We ask anyone who has the robocall to email it to us at dmurphy@risingmediagroup.com. We think that a trascript of the call is worthy of our readers attention.
“The unidentified calls contain deeply racist and sexist language that attacks the entire community of Mount Vernon, and calls into question the issue of election law in the city,” said the Mount Vernon Forward coalition in a joint statement.
“We believe elements close to certain Mount Vernon candidates may be responsible for these ads. We call on Attorney General James to investigate, and we ask that our Democratic leadership – specifically Mount Vernon Democratic Chairman Reginald Lafayette and Westchester County Democratic Chairwoman Suzanne Berger – immediately denounce these disgusting Republican-style attacks.”
None of the calls reference a legal constituted political committee under New York State law.
“We are running an open and above board campaign for public office,” said the Mount Vernon Forward team in a statement. “We formally request that our opponents in the City Council race condemn these tactics – Janice Duarte, Andre Wallace, Delia Farquharson, Lauren Carter, and Nicole Lucio must stand against base racism and vicious misogyny and join with us in asking Attorney General James to step in.”
NY Attorney General Leticia James is now involved in this case.
