Former prime Metropolis Corridor officers could be barred from lobbying any municipal companies for 2 years beneath a invoice handed by the Metropolis Council on Thursday, sending the measure to Mayor Adams, who declined say instantly whether or not he would signal it into regulation.
Beneath present regulation, senior Metropolis Corridor officers, like deputy mayors and chiefs of employees, are barred from lobbying the mayor’s workplace for a 12 months after leaving public service. They will foyer different metropolis companies apart from the mayor’s workplace instantly upon departing beneath present rules.
The brand new invoice, which handed the Council in a 39-9 vote Thursday afternoon, would beef up the regulation so ex-senior Metropolis Corridor officers can’t foyer any metropolis companies for 2 years after departing. It will additionally topic a number of positions to the ban that at present aren’t coated by it, together with Metropolis Corridor’s chief counsel, press secretary, communications director and intergovernmental affairs director.
In an announcement, Adams spokesman Fabien Levy didn’t say whether or not the mayor will let Restler’s invoice grow to be regulation or use his veto pen to attempt to block it. Levy did lament that the laws doesn’t topic senior Council staffers to the identical lobbying restrictions that prime mayoral officers would face.
“From the start, we negotiated in good faith, agreeing to the Council’s changes for senior leaders in our administration. All we asked in return was for the powerful leadership staff at the Council to not be able to lobby with impunity and for citywide elected officials to hold themselves to the same standards as our administration,” Levy stated.
“Oddly, that request was rejected, and this bill does not do enough to improve transparency.”
The invoice will mechanically lapse into regulation after 30 days until Adams vetoes it.
The invoice’s creator, Brooklyn Councilman Lincoln Restler, stated he noticed the necessity for the tightened restrictions after Frank Carone, Adams’ first chief of employees and longtime political confidant, began a consulting agency upon leaving Metropolis Corridor in late 2022 after which registered as a lobbyist as quickly as his one-year ban handed. His agency, Oaktree Options, has a number of lobbying purchasers with enterprise earlier than Adams’ administration.
The transfer sparked concern from ethics watchdogs, who argued it uncovered a loophole in metropolis ethics regulation that paves the way in which for pay-to-play in metropolis authorities.
Lincoln Restler. (Shawn Inglima for New York Every day Information)
“He was the most powerful person in the Adams administration, involved in the hiring of every key official, involved in the policy-making, the budget decisions, the management of city government and every critical term — and the day he left city government with his new lobbying practice, he was legally permitted to lobby 99% of mayoral agencies, 99% of mayoral staff, 99% of city government,” Restler instructed reporters earlier than Thursday’s vote.
“Our legislation today slams the door shut on the revolving door that allows the most powerful people in the mayor’s office to lobby their former colleagues the very next day,” Restler, a frequent Adams critic, stated.
An earlier model of Restler’s invoice did embrace a provision proposing to impose the restrictions on “high-level employees” of the Council in addition to the roughly 3,000 managerial employees throughout metropolis authorities who’re on the so-called Substantial Coverage Discretion checklist.
However Restler stated he lower that part out after authorities watchdog teams advised such a ban could be “too broad.”
“All the good government groups gave sharp feedback that they thought it was too broad, that it was better to target the most powerful people in city government, the senior staff in the mayor’s office that have direct oversight of the 300,000 person mayoral executive branch of city government,” he stated.
Carone, who stays certainly one of Adams’ prime political advisers and is predicted to assist lead his reelection effort this 12 months, declined to touch upon the invoice’s passage. He has stated he isn’t personally engaged in direct lobbying, and that his staff deal with that.
Frank Carone in December 2022. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Pictures)
The invoice’s passage comes at a time of heightened concern about metropolis authorities ethics within the wake of Adams’ federal corruption indictment. Adams, who pleaded not responsible in September and is predicted to face trial in April, has additionally seen quite a few prime advisers resign from his administration in current months after being ensnared in their very own corruption probes.
