Eric Adams limits agency communication with lawmakers

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams is cracking down on interactions between city agency heads and elected officials in an effort to route more intergovernmental affairs work through his team at City Hall.

His administration — prone to a controlling public relations style — has set up a new webpage where elected officials can request an audience with agency commissioners heads or their executive teams.

The new system is angering lawmakers.

“We recognize collaboration is essential but we don’t want to be tied up in pages and pages of needless bureaucracy,” Council Member Shahana Hanif said in an interview, adding that she and her Council colleagues were not contacted by the administration before the launch of the page.

She only found out when a fellow Council member shared the page with her.

“I got new garbage cans, and was requesting a picture with the [sanitation] commissioner. And they said you’ve got to fill out this form,” Council Member Rita Joseph said.

The two-page Google Form poses 14 questions, including the physical address of the person requesting the meeting, whether it’s an elected official or staffer.

City Hall defended the new policy.

“We must ensure that we have the right processes in place to streamline our services and maximize our resources,” a spokesperson said in a statement. “We are dedicated to implementing strategies that allow us to coordinate more efficiently and maintain our responsiveness to all members of the public.”

The effort is a dramatic step in centralizing the complex and frequent interactions between agencies and the army of elected officials who contact them about a wide range of issues. And attempting to cram so much communication through one clearinghouse stands to slow response times.

“This is just, to me, creating more red tape,” Joseph said. “And [Adams] is the guy who said we want to remove red tape. But here we are.”

“This is just a bad way to run your government, pure and simple,” another Council member said of the new setup. “New Yorkers want their officials cooperating and making good on their promises, not creating odd roadblocks for themselves.”

A delay in the communication between agency heads and lawmakers could not only trickle down to New Yorkers themselves — who often start the process by raising an issue with local elected officials — but could slow negotiations over agency-specific legislation, according to a person familiar with intergovernmental affairs who was granted anonymity to speak about the situation.

“I’m sure the more savvy commissioners will ignore it,” the person said.