Metropolis Council leaders are pushing to drastically increase their oversight of high mayoral appointments — a proposal that guarantees to be the most recent conflict between lawmakers and the Adams administration, The Publish has realized.
Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, throughout a closed-door assembly with fellow Democratic members, floated new laws that may require Mayor Eric Adams receive approval for commissioner-level spots within the administration, in line with council sources.
Sources described the trade as a “preliminary dialog” about including broadening the “advice-and-consent” part of the town constitution.
It comes because the mayor, no relation to the speaker, is attempting to push via the affirmation of veteran litigator Randy Mastro to take over as New York’s high lawyer.
The Adams administration has been quietly attempting to realize help from members of the council earlier than saying Mastro as its choose as company counsel — changing Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix, who was pushed out after elevating points concerning the metropolis representing the mayor towards decades-old sexual assault claims.
On the identical time, some council members have been whipping votes to shoot down the affirmation of Mastro when it’s put ahead.
Town constitution presently offers Massive Apple mayors broad authority to call company heads of their administrations — however the invoice being mulled would considerably curb that energy.
Nonetheless, it wasn’t instantly clear which mayoral appointees would now be topic to council oversight.
Sources stated they didn’t anticipate all commissioners to be topic to a affirmation course of.
Preliminary discussions included having all however three of any administration’s high appointments — police, hearth and correction commissioners — require the council’s approval, one supply stated.
The one top-level appointees that require council sign-off presently are the commissioner of the Division of Investigation and the top of the Regulation Division, aka the company counsel.
The rift between the mayor and the council has grown more and more bigger over current months following the administration’s refusal to implement sweeping modifications to the town’s housing voucher program.
Adams had initially vetoed the housing package deal, however the council overrode the veto, routinely placing the regulation into impact early this 12 months.
The council then gave Hizzoner one other loss, overriding a pair of his vetoes in January on the ban of solitary confinement and the How Many Stops Act.
Speaker Adams put ahead comparable laws again in 2021, whereas serving as Public Security Committee Chair, requiring the affirmation of the NYPD commissioner however that invoice by no means made it into regulation.
Along with the Regulation Division chief and DOI head below the Metropolis Constitution, the council additionally has to approve board members of assorted metropolis companies, together with the Artwork Fee, Board of Well being and Taxi and Limousine Fee, in addition to a handful of others.
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