Mayor Adams’ office scraps controversial online engagement form for elected officials

Mayor Adams has discontinued a controversial policy requiring local elected officials to seek permission via an online engagement form before speaking with senior officials in his administration about a range of issues, according to two sources directly familiar with the matter.
Tiffany Raspberry, Adams’ intergovernmental affairs director whose team has been in charge of approving engagement requests, announced the cancellation of the policy in a private Zoom call Monday morning with City Council members and other local elected officials, the sources said.
Raspberry also disseminated a memo to local politicians on the rollback.
“Though we strongly believe this policy helped streamline operational processes and deliver equitable access for all elected officials, we want to ensure that elected officials can continue to partner with city agencies in a manner that provides the best and most efficient outcomes for New Yorkers,” Raspberry wrote in the memo, a copy of which was obtained by the Daily News.
Raspberry wrote that her team will still require the “standard process” of local elected officials having to fill out a form to meet directly with the mayor.
The announcement came just as the City Council was expected to vote this Wednesday on a bill that would make the policy unenforceable.
Brooklyn City Councilman Lincoln Restler, a Democrat who authored the bill, said the policy change was part of a deal between the mayor’s office and the Council.
“We came to an agreement with the administration that if they eliminated the form, we would pull back our legislation,” Restler said, adding that the Wednesday vote now won’t happen. “I’m pleased that this silly and reckless form is a thing of the past so that all elected officials in New York can get back to working effectively with Parks, Sanitation, the DOE and other agencies to keep our city safe and healthy.”
The policy, implemented this past spring, required elected officials fill out a form in order to meet or speak with senior administration officials, like agency commissioners, about various issues, including public safety, sanitation and education.
Since it took effect, elected officials on the city, state and federal levels have complained that the policy makes their jobs harder by adding unnecessary red tape to their frequent interactions with administration officials.
Elected officials have said they speak frequently — sometimes daily — with agency commissioners and other senior officials about issues that are critical to their constituents. Requiring signoff from the mayor’s office on such conversations has slowed down constituent services, elected officials say.
Underscoring the widespread distaste for the policy, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens) vowed in April that her members would not abide by the requirement.
On Monday, Julia Agos, a rep for the speaker, said the form “was never a good idea.”
“This form created bureaucracy and interfered in the collaboration of elected officials with other city leaders,” Agos said.
The mayor has maintained the policy was meant to streamline city resources.
“I need to make sure that my commissioners are being coordinated correctly,” Adams told The News in April in defense of the policy. “Those electeds who are saying, ‘Well, we don’t want to do that.’ … Then you have disorder. I don’t want to have disorder.”