As members of the City Council, Bill Henderson and Josh Nathan were the chief supporters of the city’s Ethics Board when it was under assault from former Mayor Josh Cohn, after the Ethics Board had cited Cohn and three of his council allies for an ethical infraction.
Then Henderson and Nathan ran against each other for mayor and Nathan won — and now Nathan has appointed his erstwhile council ally and election opponent to a seat on that very same Ethics Board.
“He’s a man of great integrity,” Nathan said of his former election opponent, who is a former partner at the global accounting firm Ernst & Young. “I trust Bill will continue to give the kind of thoughtful guidance that we have been able to rely upon from our Board of Ethics for many years.”
Henderson, fresh off his departure from the City Council, was named to the Ethics Board for a three-year term, succeeding Edward Stein. Nathan, a Democrat, said the city seeks “good people” to serve on the board and added Henderson, a CPA and former federal prosecutor, met those qualifications.
Although Henderson is a Republican and he and Nathan had a hard-fought mayoral election battle, Nathan called the ex-councilman a close colleague.
Henderson told The Record he was honored to join such a “very important committee” and was “looking forward to serving.”
Nathan said he called Cohn ahead of the public announcement, citing its sensitivity. He did not offer details of their conversation.
In an email, Cohn told The Record that “Henderson would not have been my choice,” but didn’t confirm whether he had spoken to the new mayor.
Nathan and Henderson spent three years as close council allies — often sparring with Cohn and his council allies — before they locked horns in November’s mayoral race.
But partisanship was set aside after election night, Nathan said.
Cohn initially voiced his disagreement with the Ethics Board’s conclusion with the Ethics Board’s conclusion that he and his council allies — Julie Souza, Carolina Johnson, and Ben Stacks — should not consider a tree-cutting moratorium when a homeowner wanted to clear trees next to Cohn’s property.
Cohn and his allies soon took the matter further, voting to sue the Ethics Board — the city suing the city — and to have the city pay for both the lawsuit against the city and the city’s defense.
In the face of community backlash, Cohn and his allies withdrew the suit. In the months that followed, Stacks resigned from the council and Johnson decided not to seek reelection before launching a last-minute failed run as a write-in candidate.
Cohn, who spent the last two years in the council minority, announced in early 2025 that he would not run for a third term. During that period, the City Council rebuffed his continued overtures to undertake an ethics review, including a proposal for the city to pay for a legal analysis.
This fall, Cohn personally hired lawyer Steven Leventhal to conduct his own informal review, but again failed to gain the support of the council majority. He has long argued that fixing the city’s ethics code is ‘for the benefit of Rye residents.”
Explaining his appointment of Henderson, Nathan said, “Ethics happen in context. It’s all situational and it’s critical to have people included on the Board of Ethics who have actually been in the roles that guidance is being provided for.”
Henderson will join former Councilwoman Beth Griffin Matthews, and Ted Livingston, a Westchester County prosecutor.
