'Write our own narrative': Adams shifts focus from scandals in City Hall

NEW YORK — Eric Adams is desperately trying to change the narrative, amid a pileup of scandals, arrests, resignations and FBI raids.

And so on Monday morning he gathered the city’s otherwise-occupied press corps in the rotunda of City Hall to reveal the findings of a rote municipal report that typically gets scant publicity from the mayor’s office.

"I told the team we have to write our own narrative, because if we don’t show the success and we don’t have a person [here] who has benefited from what we’re doing, it just doesn’t seem to get covered,” Adams told reporters Monday morning.

“We don’t want to distract,” he added. “We want to have folks pay attention of how successful this administration has been.”

The Mayor’s Management Report — a charter-mandated compendium of agency statistics tracking ambulance response times, recycling rates and other barometers of municipal service — already readily receives media coverage .

The New York City mayor’s blunt admission of his communications strategy came just hours after federal prosecutors announced they had indicted two fire chiefs who served under Adams on an alleged corruption scheme. It was the latest in a swarm of scandals — arrests, resignations, FBI raids — that continue to engulf his administration.

“The strategy is we’re going to do lots of official shit and look mayoral,” said Chris Coffey, a Democratic political consultant who worked in former Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s administration. “Is it going to work? Probably not. If the worst stuff has happened then yes, you have a shot at getting through this.”

So far this month, federal agents have raided the homes or seized the phones of at least five top city officials. The police commissioner was forced to resign as his twin brother is being probed in an alleged corruption scheme . The mayor announced late Saturday night that his top city lawyer quit — reportedly because he refused to follow her personnel advice . And City Hall fired an aide after NBC News reported that he was involved in a scheme to extort nightclub owners who were the target of scrupulous NYPD enforcement.

Adams’ Monday morning press conference was stated to be about the release of the lengthy annual performance report — the first time in recent years the analysis was accompanied by a press conference.

But the mayor did not deny that the press conference was part of a messaging strategy intended to shift focus away from the scandals.

“Why are we doing this?” he said, referring to the press conference. “We want New Yorkers to know this administration is working hard for them, and we're producing real results. And when things happen to the administration, the real question is, you have the ability to stay focused and provide the services that the city is expecting.”

Throughout the 40-minute announcement, the mayor continued to tout his administration's work to address crime and job numbers in the city. Over the past year, murders fell 15 percent, shootings dropped 18 percent and there are a record number of jobs in the city.

He also dodged questions about the scandals.

“I don’t go into private conversations,” he repeatedly said, when asked for the reason Lisa Zornberg, his top attorney, stepped down Saturday night.

“The people who did the actions should be blamed for it,” he also said, blaming the arrests of the FDNY officials — who prosecutors say took bribes to expedite building expectations — on the previous administration.

The officials' alleged criminal conduct started in 2021, one year before he took office, according to prosecutors.

Currently, two members of the state Legislature have called on Adams to follow his top lawyer out the door and resign.

He balked at any suggestion that further calls for his resignation from city politicians would cause him to rethink his decision to stay in City Hall.

“They call for me to leave over and over and over again, but these numbers are showing that I'm working on behalf of New Yorkers,” the mayor said, pointing to a TV screen flashing positive city statistics behind him, like the 21 percent increase in city EV charging ports or 94 percent rise in speed bump installations.

By comparison, the mayor’s report last year was released late afternoon on a Friday, and the year before it was also put out on a Friday afternoon .

“It's intentional to focus on this narrative so I can write my story,” the mayor said. “Oftentimes history is someone else writing your story. I want to write my own story. And this story is how great we have done.”