There’s another showdown brewing between the City Council and the mayor – this time in court.
The City Council is expected to authorize a resolution Thursday that would allow the body to sue Mayor Eric Adams over allegations that he’s refused to enforce housing laws passed by the Council last year.
The laws would significantly expand access to CityFHEPS, a voucher program that subsidizes rent for low-income New Yorkers. Mayor Adams vetoed the laws last summer arguing they would be too expensive for the city to follow, but the Council overrode his veto.
“The Mayor is duty bound to implement valid local laws like the CityFHEPS Expansion Laws, and his failure to do so is illegal,” reads the resolution scheduled to be voted out of committee Thursday morning and get a vote by the full Council later in the afternoon. “Mayor Adams has not responded to the Speaker and has left the Council with no other alternative but to seek relief from the courts.”
He was legally mandated to implement the laws by Jan. 9. Council Speaker Adrienne Adams threatened the mayor with legal action if his administration failed to pass the laws by Feb. 7 – a deadline that has now come and gone.
While the vote is likely a foregone conclusion it’s still unclear what kind of legal action the Council would take. The Legal Aid Society is also planning to take the mayor to court over the laws.
The CityFHEPS battle is just the latest episode in a series of recent clashes between Mayor Adams and the City Council.
Last month, the Council overrode his veto on a controversial police transparency bill, which will require the NYPD to more carefully log their interactions with the public. The Council also overrode his veto on a measure to ban solitary confinement in a majority of cases across city jails.
The mayor’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Brittany Kriegstein
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