After Repeat Snubs, Lawmaker Demands City Council Hold Mamdani Accountable

Councilmember Frank Morano is a first-term lawmaker who has thrown just about everything he’s got at Mayor Zohran Mamdani this year, up to and including his father, Carmine Morano, and wife, Rachel O’Brien, who are named plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to block the rollout of the city’s incoming pied-à-terre tax. Now, the Staten Island Republican wants his colleagues to break the glass and use the council’s subpoena power to get answers about the Mamdani administration’s use of a secret group chat for influencers. The move is necessary, he says, after the official in charge of the communications via encrypted messaging app Signal refused to attend a council hearing Tuesday, the second such no-show by Mamdani administration officials in two months. “The most frustrating part of yesterday’s hearing was that the administration sent witnesses who simply could not answer the central questions,” Mr. Morano said in a statement to The New York Sun. At the hearing, Mr. Morano presented a memorandum he said was authored by the mayor’s chief counsel, Ramzi Kassem, earlier this year, directing officials not to use messaging apps including Signal and Whatsapp without prior authorization. “The officials with firsthand knowledge declined to testify. That is exactly why I called for subpoenas,” Mr. Morano told the Sun. “Oversight only works if the people who made the decisions actually show up and answer for them.” City Hall reportedly fed the content creators in the Signal group daily updates, talking points, and clips to use in favorable posts about the mayor. Some members have been paid for content by city agencies as part of public messaging campaigns, according to the Columbia Journalism Review. Messages in the Signal chat were also set to auto-delete, teeing up a recordkeeping nightmare for an administration that already has a problem answering requests for public information.While the commissioners in charge of the Department of Records and Information Services and the Mayor’s Office of Mass Engagement attended Tuesday’s hearing, the city official who actually runs the private influencer group chat, Emilia Rowland, refused the council’s invitation.“I do hope because there are so many folks that could be answering these questions that aren’t here that this committee and this council will consider using our subpoena power to force them to answer,” Mr. Morano said during the hearing.City Council Minority Leader David Carr joined Mr. Morano in his frustration, calling it “incredibly disappointing and outright ridiculous” that none of the witnesses the city sent to testify had firsthand knowledge of the influencer group chat at the center of the oversight proceedings.Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, a staunch progressive and firm ally of Mr. Mamdani, also joined in from the dais. “As everyone knows, I have a great respect for this administration, so it upsets me that they have me agreeing with Council Member Carr,” said Mr. Williams. “I don’t know what to say except the right people should be here.”This is the second time in recent months that the threat of subpoenas has been floated for Mamdani administration officials. Councilmember Gale Brewer, who led an oversight hearing on the contentious rollout of the pied-à-terre tax last month, signaled her readiness to subpoena the administration after Department of Finance Commissioner Richard Lee refused to attend an August hearing, citing the ongoing lawsuit involving Mr. Morano’s family members.Ms. Brewer finally received written responses to the council’s pied-à-terre questions on Friday, she told The New York Sun in a phone conversation. She said she would confer with the speaker’s office as to how the council would ensure it gets answers about the Signal group.A spokesperson for City Council Speaker Julie Menin told the Sun that she is focused on “healthy and productive oversight,” saying the council has many tools in its toolbox besides the rarely invoked subpoena power.During a phone call Wednesday, the spokesperson added that the speaker was “disappointed” by the officials’ refusal to testify. Ms. Menin, who held three commissioner-level roles under prior administrations before joining the City Council, has stressed the importance of such appearances. In January, Ms. Menin told the New York Editorial Board she was going to “run this council in a different way, which is, we are going to insist on the commissioners showing up and answering questions and providing the data.” According to Ms. Menin, “That’s what oversight is.”

After Repeat Snubs, Lawmaker Demands City Council Hold Mamdani Accountable

After Repeat Snubs, Lawmaker Demands City Council Hold Mamdani Accountable

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