Mount Vernon’s Democratic mayor violated federal election law by dressing campaign pitches as official city business, even as her handpicked police deputy faces an attempted murder charge.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel determined that Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard broke the Hatch Act when she sent campaign mailers marked as an “important message” from the city ahead of the June 2025 Democratic primaries.
The New York Post obtained the OSC ruling. The mailers endorsed five of her hand-picked candidates for comptroller, city council, and city judge and included a sample ballot.
Federal watchdogs said the packaging was the problem. Residents would have every reason to treat the envelopes as government business, not campaign spin.
The Hatch Act is a federal law first established in 1939. It bars certain state and local officials, those whose posts are bankrolled in part by federal dollars, from using the power of their office to sway an election.
Patterson-Howard, elected in 2019 as Mount Vernon’s first woman mayor, sits in that category. OSC’s Hatch Act Unit found she crossed the line by stamping political mail with the look and language of city government.
Erica Hamrick, deputy chief of the OSC’s Hatch Act Unit, put the finding in plain terms.
"The language of these campaign mailers reasonably would lead residents to believe they contained official business from their mayor, compelling them to open the envelopes when they might not otherwise do so,"
That is the core of the case. City stationery and “important message” framing turned a campaign pitch into something that looked mandatory. The goal, as reported, was to boost her chosen slate in the June 2025 Democratic primaries in the Westchester County city.
Mount Vernon activist Samuel Rivers filed the federal complaint that triggered the review. He argued the mayor tried to pick the winners for residents instead of letting them decide.
"Look at the letter, the federal government has now confirmed what residents suspected when they opened that envelope: The mayor used the power of her office to try to choose their representatives for them,"
Rivers called for her resignation after the OSC determination.
OSC did not seek removal or a fine. It sent Patterson-Howard a warning letter.
The office advised that if she engages in prohibited political activity again, it would treat that conduct as a willful and knowing violation of the law.
"advised that if in the future she engages in prohibited political activity, OSC would consider such activity to be a willful and knowing violation of the law."
In short: the feds found a violation, documented how the mailers misled residents, and stopped at a first-strike notice. Future abuse would face a tougher standard. The mayor did not respond to a request for comment on the ruling.
Voters in Mount Vernon got campaign material dressed as city business. Accountability arrived as a letter.
The Hatch Act finding lands beside another personnel mess tied to the same mayor. In 2020, Patterson-Howard hired Jennifer Lackard as deputy police commissioner to lead the police department’s Wellness Unit, a post paid $125,000 a year.
Lackard has since been charged with attempted murder. Prosecutors allege she chaperoned her son, described in reporting as gang-affiliated, to a botched drive-by shooting outside a Bronx courthouse.
Her husband, James Lackard, 47, described as a drug-peddling ex-con, was allegedly in the car during the shooting. Police said he was on the run before turning himself in a few days later.
The mayor had defended the hire when questions first arose. She has not answered new questions about the OSC letter or the charges surrounding her deputy.
So the public record now holds two tracks at once. Federal election watchdogs say the mayor used official-looking mail to steer a primary. Her hand-picked deputy police commissioner faces an attempted murder case tied to a courthouse drive-by, with the deputy’s husband also pulled into the alleged episode.
The June 2025 mailers were not subtle. They carried city framing, a slate of five endorsed names, and a sample ballot. OSC concluded that design would push people to open them as if the mayor were conducting official business.
That is exactly the conduct the Hatch Act is built to stop. Office power is not a campaign tool. Federal dollars behind a local post come with a simple trade: keep partisan electioneering out of the official channel.
Rivers framed the letter as confirmation of what neighbors already suspected when those envelopes arrived. He wants her out. OSC wants no repeat. The mayor has offered no public reply on the federal finding.
Mount Vernon taxpayers fund the offices and the payroll. They also fund the $125,000 Wellness Unit job given to Lackard in 2020. They now watch a federal warning on campaign mail sit next to attempted murder charges against the same mayor’s deputy and related allegations against the deputy’s husband.
The OSC ruling is limited to the mailers. The Lackard case is a separate criminal matter. Together they sketch a leadership record defined by blurred lines, between city business and campaign work, and between careful hiring and a deputy now accused in a violent plot.
When city envelopes become campaign props, voters stop getting a fair shake. A warning letter marks the foul. It does not erase it.
