NYC councilmember says Mayor Adams tried to stop police transparency bill by trading budget cuts

Mayor Eric Adams told at least one member of the City Council he would restore cuts to their favorite programs if they agreed to vote against a police transparency bill the mayor and NYPD officials vigorously opposed, according to four people familiar with conversations in the Council.

Adams’ attempts to horse-trade using the budget, which he has unique leverage over as mayor, come while the city is battling a fiscal crisis. But his efforts had limited impact on the outcome: The Council overwhelmingly passed the legislation Wednesday in a 35-9 vote — a veto-proof majority.

The bill, authored by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and introduced with a majority of councilmembers as cosponsors, requires police officers to report all their investigative interactions with civilians, including low-level encounters not previously required to be tracked.

One councilmember said, before the vote, Adams and other administration officials floated restoring cuts in an area important to the lawmaker in exchange for a no vote on the legislation. The councilmember spoke to Gothamist on the condition their name and details of the mayor’s offer not be disclosed because it was a private conversation.

Another Council source who also spoke on the condition of anonymity out of respect for private conversations with lawmakers said several councilmembers told the source they were approached by Adams, who offered them funding for their pet initiatives or inquired about what kind of funding they wanted.

...

The mayor and Council have been locked in a bitter battle over recent budget cuts. In November, Adams ordered broad cuts to city services, including schools, libraries and police, and has repeatedly said more cuts are in store because of financial pressures the city faces from the migrant crisis, expiring federal pandemic aid and slowing tax revenue growth.

Councilmembers responded by holding an 11-hour hearing this month where some grilled budget officials over whether the cuts were necessary, pointing to recent revenue projections that were less dire than initially forecast. But as mayor, Adams retains significant control over spending reductions throughout the fiscal year and will propose the city’s next budget in the coming months.

Administration officials estimate the city faces a $7 billion budget deficit, but a recent report by the Independent Budget Office, the city’s fiscal watchdog, found a much smaller gap of $1.8 billion next year.

Adams faces heavy criticism over the cuts from lawmakers and residents alike, with a Quinnipiac poll earlier this month finding the spending reductions were a factor in his abysmal approval ratings — the lowest of any NYC mayor in the history of the poll.

The mayor has blamed the cuts on the federal government’s alleged failure to provide sufficient funding and policy responses to the migrant crisis.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240103122115/https://gothamist.com/news/nyc-councilmember-says-adams-tried-to-stop-policing-bill-by-horse-trading-budget-cuts-it-failed

e; This NYT investigative piece on NYC's response to migrants seems related,

"The city has signed more than $2 billion in no-bid contracts, some with vendors that have been accused of abusing migrants. It has paid more than twice as much to house each migrant household as it did to house a homeless family before the crisis." (archived).