Eric Adams’ latest plan to keep New York's strong mayor system

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams announced on Tuesday night plans to create a Charter Revision Commission — an otherwise mundane move that an increasingly restless City Council views as an attack on its independence.

Some in the 51-member legislative body saw the mayor’s surprise announcement as a way to block them from getting more oversight of his appointments — a change the body recently began to pursue.

“This was a direct response to the City Council’s intention to subject more mayoral appointments to advice and consent,” Council Member Lincoln Restler told POLITICO. “The mayor's appointment of a spurious Charter Revision Commission that will have no substantial impact on city policy only delays the inevitable: The City Council is going to subject more mayoral appointments to advice and consent.”

Adams’ commission would usurp any potential changes to the charter the council could initiate in order to expand its own authority over mayoral appointments, Restler said. The Daily News reported last week that the council is considering a bill to give itself more say over mayoral appointments to lead city agencies.

In announcing his commission, Adams offered a more straightforward mission, tasking it in a press release with “reviewing the city charter and determining how to make New York City’s municipal government more responsive and transparent to the city’s residents.” To chair it, he tapped New York Building Congress President Carlo Scissura — a government fixture who has served on two such commissions before.

Charter Revision Commissions review changes to the city’s political and governmental makeup, and propose amendments that go before voters for approval. It was through one such ad hoc group in 2019 that New York City implemented ranked-choice voting.

The news on Tuesday comes amid a faltering relationship between Adams and the council, a body led by fellow Democrat and onetime ally Adrienne Adams.

There remains widespread opposition within the council to Mayor Adams’ desire to appoint controversial lawyer Randy Mastro as the city’s corporation counsel — one of the few appointments over which the legislative body does have consent. That comes on the heels of fighting over city budget cuts and police reform measures.

The mayor doesn’t agree with the council’s proposal to expand their powers, he said at a wide-ranging press conference Tuesday, adding that he likes the city’s strong executive system “because people should know who they blame.”

If the council wanted to expand its advice and consent powers to positions like buildings commissioner, council members would need to pass a bill. Then voters would be asked to approve a referendum putting the change into effect.

Mayor Adams’ spokesperson Fabien Levy denied the move was a reaction to the council, saying there had been discussion for “a few months” and City Hall planned to present voters with suggested charter changes on their November ballots.

“Anyone who thinks our administration doesn’t think things through or plan things in advance misunderstands how government works,” he said. “This is not a thing that is done last second.”

The commission will be asked “to focus on how the charter can contribute to public safety and provide opportunities for greater community input and transparency when legislation is proposed that would impact public safety,” the press release from the mayor’s office stated.

It also noted the commission should look at promoting fiscal responsibility and “evaluate processes for determining the financial impact of proposed legislation on current and future fiscal years, whether the financial impact is funded, and making that information more transparent to the public.”

Levy declined to provide more specifics of what the administration would like to see changed in the charter, and declined to share who else would serve on the commission.

But that language alone worried some in the council, who felt it suggested the mayor wanted to limit their powers.

In a recent display of strength, the council overrode Adams’ vetoes on a pair of public safety laws in January, following a public fight where he tried to rally support against them. Adams has also taken to accusing the council of lacking fiscal responsibility, most prominently with a law expanding access to housing vouchers, which he has refused to implement.

“Charter Reform Commissions always have an opportunity to improve functions of government,” said Council Member Keith Powers, who chairs the body's Rules Committee that votes on mayoral appointments. “But we want to make sure it doesn’t interfere with the powers and responsibilities of the City Council as duly elected officials that have a right to represent their districts as well.”

Speaker Adams’ office declined to comment on the news. Scissura declined to comment on whether the commission was targeting the council, but said he was “thrilled to be chairing. I think it’ll be a good opportunity to see what New Yorkers are thinking.”