B’klyn pol latest to rip Adams’ new access policy
Mayor Adams’ new gatekeeping protocols controlling how elected officials contact administration personnel are having immediate — negative — results, according to a Brooklyn pol who’s refusing to follow them after alerting Team Adams to possible lead contamination.
Councilman Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) told the Daily News on Thursday that after trying to convey concerns about elevated lead levels at a north Brooklyn park, he got the cold shoulder from City Hall and two city agencies, all of whom cited Adams’ new policy.
“I reached out to the leadership in the Parks Department and the Health Department and they told me to fill out a Google doc. I reached out to City Hall, and they told me to fill out a Google doc,” he said.
“This is an embarrassing, bureaucratic boondoggle.”
Restler (photo) said he’s refusing to fill out the form after Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) declared Wednesday the Council will not abide by the mayor’s new protocols.
The new policy is a departure from past practice and requires Council members and other elected officials to fill out and submit written requests online in order to speak with the mayor’s commissioners and senior staff at city agencies. In the past, elected leaders have simply reached out to those administration higherups whenever the need arose.
Adams spokeswoman Liz Garcia said the administration takes “lead contamination concerns very seriously.”
“City agencies, as well as City Hall, responded immediately to Council member Restler’s request for a meeting and asked him to follow our standardized process if not an emergency,” Garcia said. “Despite the fact that the Council member refused to fill out the form, out of an abundance of caution, the Parks Department is actively adding soil and mulch to the park as an additional protective layer.”
Adams, who’s touted his intention to streamline city government since being elected in 2021, said a day earlier that the new policy isn’t “punitive” and is intended as a “smart coordination of city resources, particularly with the manpower that has dropped a lot.”
“I need to make sure that my commissioners are being coordinated correctly,” he said. “Those electeds who are saying, ‘Well, we don’t want to do that’ … Then you have disorder. I don’t want to have disorder.”
The policy led to a swift backlash.
Council Speaker Adams declared Wednesday that the Councll “will not be adhering to this excessively bureaucratic and inefficient process that only undermines the work of city government.”
On Thursday, she said at least two Council members have already complained about the troubles the new policy has caused.
“It is certainly not the way to ‘get stuff done’ for the people of the city,” she said in a clear shot at the mayor and his often-repeated motto.
Officials in the mayor’s own administration are questioning whether the policy is practical.
Last Friday, during a private meeting focused on the policy, NYPD Commissioner Ed Caban said the requirement could prove to be a nuisance for the police department, according to an official who attended the meeting and a second source briefed on it.
“What [Caban] was saying is that they have such constant communication with elected officials that you would imagine that this would slow down communication,” the source on the call told The News earlier this week.
Restler contends the policy is already having a negative impact on the people he represents.
He said the alarm bells about lead were first raised by a community-based organization. Restler declined to name the park, saying he doesn’t want to alarm residents before having all the facts. Garcia identified it as McCarren Park in Williamsburg.
“All I’m trying to do is protect the health and safety of my constituents,” he said. “This is no way to run a city.”