Adams indictment threatens administration’s quest to ‘get stuff done’

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams was planning to spend Thursday touting the city’s progress getting housing built amid a shortage. Instead, he was playing defense against a criminal indictment.

City Hall’s top technocrats attempted to get on with business as usual under the most unusual circumstances: a 57-page federal indictment following an early-morning raid of the mayor’s official residence, all of which upended his scheduled events.

And while staffers said agency work is continuing apace, some said the turmoil surrounding Adams could mar administration priorities, like a high-profile zoning plan slated for a City Council vote this fall.

Kathy Wylde, president and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, emphasized the importance of that kind of focus right now.

“Clearly the indictment has the potential to really damage morale and I think our job as New Yorkers is to try and express our support and appreciation for people who are working hard and doing their jobs and are not involved in this case,” Wylde said in an interview. “It’s necessary to prove that even under the cloud of the indictment, the administration and the city as a whole can get things done.”

She said she’s concerned about how the pattern of city employees exiting high-powered positions will impact the functioning of government.

Since federal agents raided the homes and seized the phones of five top Adams officials earlier this month, the head of the NYPD was forced out, the schools chancellor left and City Hall’s top attorney abruptly quit.

Those departures came after Adams lost a political battle with the City Council to install his preferred lawyer to head the department that handles litigation against the city and its employees. That agency remains without a leader.

“I think there’s definitely the concern, at what point do people truly just lose faith in this administration, and as a result, our work,” said one city official who was granted anonymity to speak freely about a sensitive matter. “If you’re a very public figure within this administration, you do have to think about your future and your reputation, and how long you can stay aligned even if you aren’t named in these indictments, or named in these raids.”

The struggle for a mayor whose motto is “get stuff done” to focus on the “stuff” of city governance was on display Thursday.

Adams was expected to join Gov. Kathy Hochul at an event to celebrate housing getting built under an extended tax break they pushed for in Albany this year, according to four people familiar with the plans. The announcement was canceled Wednesday night as news of the indictment broke.

Deputy Mayors Meera Joshi and Maria Torres-Springer, meanwhile, went ahead with a planned press conference in Brooklyn announcing a new city fund to help building owners comply with legally required energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions limits.

And Torres-Spring hinted at the burgeoning concerns in a social media caption that read, “As life-long public servants, we remain committed to serving New Yorkers to the best of our abilities.”

In an email Thursday to city employees addressing the indictment, Adams urged focus.

“While my legal team thoroughly reviews the allegations that were just released publicly, let me be very clear, I know I’ve done nothing wrong. I am committed to continuing to fight on behalf of New Yorkers as your mayor,” he wrote in the email, which POLITICO obtained. “And it is critical, now more than ever, that you all remain focused on delivering for New Yorkers as well.”

Nonetheless, some agencies will have a harder time distancing themselves from the fallout.

“The FDNY and Department of Buildings should do an immediate inspection of the Turkish consular building, which was never properly inspected based on the Federal indictment papers. It is 36 stories tall and people's lives may be at risk,” state Sen. Liz Krueger wrote on X Thursday.

The indictment accuses Adams, then mayor in waiting, of influencing the opening of the Turkish building despite safety concerns and after receiving illegal campaign contributions from Turkish donors.

On the other side of City Hall, where the City Council proceeded with a planned vote Thursday to approve a package of maternal mental health legislation, Speaker Adrienne Adams said she has not spoken with the mayor with whom she already had an icy relationship. The speaker will play a critical role in shaping the mayor’s City of Yes housing blueprint, which is slated for a council vote later this fall.

Thus far, the proposal — the centerpiece of Adams’ housing agenda — has been largely under the purview of the Department of City Planning. The mayor’s office typically gets more involved in land use matters toward the end of the public review process, but in this case, the chaos surrounding the mayor stands to weaken City Hall’s negotiating position.

“The mayor’s reputation is in tatters right now, he’s lacking credibility, he’s losing his top talent, but at the same time, we’re a council that wants to build housing,” said one lawmaker who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “The council will have a lot of leverage in order to get to what the mayor would consider a win.”

The indictment — which came down hours after Adams appointed a schools chancellor following the mid-school-year resignation of David Banks, whose home was raided — could also paralyze the nation’s largest school system.

The Department of Education — which oversees 1,600 schools that serve 900,000 students — is in the throes of implementing reading and math curricula and a costly class size-reduction mandate.

“He [Adams] will need every ounce of his strength and spirit to fight these charges. Hard for any human being to do that and at the same time, focus on running the largest school system in the nation,” said state Sen. John Liu, who heads the Senate’s New York City Education Committee, who called on Adams to resign.

The news will also have ripple effects on the mayor’s succession strategy: Melissa Aviles-Ramos succeeding Banks when he steps down at the end of the year. Her tenure could be short-lived if Adams resigns.

Two staffers at Tweed Courthouse, the DOE’s headquarters in Lower Manhattan, said the indictment is casting a cloud over the agency, and employees were caught off guard by news of Banks’ resignation.

They too were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.

“Now everything is crumbling,” one employee said. “There is a lot of uncertainty and concerns about what kind of ability we will have to produce our work in terms of clarity and goals as well as how people will perceive us.”

The indictment could complicate Adams’ ability to negotiate his priorities in Albany when the legislative session begins in January and he has to beg for municipal aid from often hostile lawmakers.

Liu said Adams’ legal troubles underscore what he sees as the shortcomings of “mayoral control,” whereby New York City mayors unilaterally run the public school system — an arrangement renewed every few years by Albany.

“[It] is a system that is subject to fast-changing developments, fits and starts if you will, that do not promote the long-term stability of public schools,” Liu said.

Key to mayoral control is the Panel for Educational Policy, which votes on the city’s education policies and contracts. It is effectively a rubber stamp for the mayor’s policies given that he appoints the majority of its 24 members.

Jessamyn Lee, a representative for Brooklyn parent leaders, expressed reservations about approving any contracts that come before the panel “because he’s accused of bribery.”

Adams is maintaining his innocence and vowing to fight the charges.

Banks skipped the panel’s first meeting Wednesday evening, hours before news of Adams’ indictment broke and after he and the mayor announced his successor. Aviles-Ramos was in attendance. A DOE spokesperson told POLITICO Wednesday that he “changed his schedule.”

Panel chair Gregory Faulkner — whom Adams recently appointed as part of a new selection process led by Albany officials — promised continuity despite the legal chaos.

“I had been chair for over a year,” he said. “I’m gonna continue the work.”