NEW YORK — This year, at a small meeting at City Hall between Mayor Eric Adams and leaders of an anti-crime group, two attendees complained about a New York City Council bill requiring the police to document more interactions with the public. They suggested that the mayor convene a charter revision commission to lessen the likelihood of similar legislation passing again.
Three weeks later, the mayor formed the commission, tapping several of the community leaders and other loyalists to serve on it.
On Tuesday, that commission did exactly what it set out to do.
The commission proposed hampering the City Council’s ability to pass legislation affecting the public safety operations of the Police Department, the Department of Correction and the Fire Department.
The proposed amendment to the City Charter, which is effectively the city’s constitution, would force the City Council to wait 45 days, instead of the current three days, to hold hearings on proposed public safety legislation once it is announced. After those hearings, the council would have to wait at least another 50 days before voting on the matter. State law requires the council to wait seven days after a bill is finalized before voting on it, according to a council spokesperson.
Should the commission approve the proposed referendum Thursday, as it almost certainly will, city residents will have the opportunity to vote on it in November.
Thanks to the complicated mechanics governing ballot referendums, the mayor’s proposal is expected to push off the ballot a City Council proposal designed to limit the mayor’s power — a result that the council speaker, Adrienne Adams, does not believe was accidental.
“We believe that the charter commission was indeed empaneled to thwart that effort,” Adams, who is not related to the mayor, said on NY1 last week.
The council’s proposal would have required the mayor to seek its approval for nearly two dozen mayoral appointees. In a statement issued Tuesday, a council spokesperson, Julia Agos, called the mayor’s charter revision commission a “sham.”
A spokesperson for the mayor, whose office forwarded the final recommendations to the news media, declined to comment on the proposals. But during a media availability Tuesday, the mayor dismissed concerns that he was rushing the process.
“Being rushed is introducing legislation in a week,” Eric Adams said. “We allowed New Yorkers to come in and speak. And part of the recommendation that people are saying, before you do these changes in law, people should have a right to come in and speak.”