Amid the festive sounds and alluring scents of food drifting through the Latin Night Market in Upper Manhattan, Ana María Archila, co-director of the New York Working Families Party, was engaged on a different agenda.
With Election Day nearing, Ms. Archila made the rounds to urge people to vote — not for the left-leaning candidates on her ballot line but against five charter revision proposals for New York City.
The five ballot questions have become a central battleground in a power struggle between Mr. Adams and the City Council as the mayor and his inner circle face federal indictments and several investigations. And in that fight, Ms. Archila knows where she stands.
“The mayor cannot be trusted to remake the balance of power in the city because what he has done is surround himself with people who are suspected of misusing and abusing their power,” Ms. Archila said.
Allies of the City Council, including 60 civil rights and community groups such as the Working Families Party and 50 elected officials, have launched a broad effort aimed at defeating the five measures. Since forming the No Power Grab NYC coalition a little over a month ago, the group has conducted dozens of rallies, text banks and voter outreach efforts.
In Jackson Heights, Queens, the coalition spoke to voters at a green market. There were canvassers at the Bronx Puerto Rican Day Parade earlier this month and at watch parties for the New York Mets and Liberty in Fort Greene and Williamsburg in Brooklyn.
A political nonprofit, New Yorkers Defending Democracy, spent $122,000 to oppose the measures, according to records from the Campaign Finance Board. And the group spent $32,000 for palm cards urging a vote in favor of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz; Proposition 1, a statewide measure to protect reproductive rights; and against the mayor’s ballot measures.
The group also spent $50,000 on an internet advertisement that began: “Mayor Adams can’t be trusted with the power he has, so why give him more?”
The Adams administration has focused on voter education efforts on social media and ethnic and community media but is not allowed to direct voters to vote for or against the measures.
“The beauty of this process is that it’s the will of working-class New Yorkers who use their voices at the polls, and not elected officials, who ultimately decide what laws should be enshrined in the city’s charter,” said Liz Garcia, a spokeswoman for Mr. Adams.
The ballot referendums emerged from a new Charter Revision Commission that was hastily convened in May by Mr. Adams. The move seemed orchestrated to counter the Council’s planned introduction of legislation that would have subjected 21 of the mayor’s commissioner-level appointments to the Council’s approval. Forming the commission effectively knocked the Council’s measure, which required approval from voters, off the ballot.
Among the five ballot proposals, two would directly affect the way the Council passes laws. One measure would require the Council to give the mayor eight days’ notice before holding a hearing or voting on legislation. The measure would also require the Council to release fiscal impact statements about a particular bill earlier, while extending the deadline for the mayor to introduce the executive budget.
The other proposal would require the Council to give the mayor 30 days’ notice before voting on public safety legislation. The 30-day window, critics charge, would allow the mayor to interfere with or delay a bill.
Council leaders say the proposed change is a vindictive response to the Council’s passage of public safety laws that would ban solitary confinement in city jails and require the police to record more information about the people they stop. The mayor vetoed the bills, but the Council successfully overrode his vetoes.
Diane Savino, a senior adviser to Mr. Adams who served as the executive director of the charter review commission, said the proposals would improve life for New Yorkers. She questioned the “disingenuous” motives of opponents.
Ms. Savino said that Proposition 2, which would allow the Sanitation Department to have more power to enforce rules in areas where they currently don’t have jurisdiction, would make the city cleaner in places like city parks. And adding cost estimates to Council bills, she said, would help better clarify the fuller implications of proposed legislation.
She said opponents of the proposals were not considering their merits. “For them, it’s purely about Eric Adams,” Ms. Savino said.
Mr. Adams is in the middle of pretrial hearings after being indicted in September on five counts of bribery, conspiracy and fraud related to accepting luxury gifts, travel and illegal campaign donations from foreign nationals in exchange for favors.
Prosecutors have said they expect him to face additional charges. That investigation is just one of five state and federal investigations swirling around Mr. Adams and his inner circle.
“We know this administration is in turmoil, whether the mayor wants to acknowledge it or not,” said Bertha Lewis, the president of the Black Institute, who opposes four of the five ballot proposals.
Ms. Lewis views the measures — as well as the mayor’s contentious City of Yes housing plan — as part of the mayor’s effort to “create a legacy” for his administration. Her opposition to the housing plan led her to help organize a coalition called “City of Mess” to oppose it.
The procedural battle between the mayor and the Council shows no sign of stopping.
Adrienne Adams, the Council speaker, announced last week that she would form a commission of her own to “transparently and inclusively revise the City Charter” over several months. Ms. Adams will appoint a majority of the members.
And two state legislators from Manhattan, Liz Krueger, a senator, and Tony Simone, an assemblyman, have sponsored legislation designed to prevent Mr. Adams or another mayor from using the office’s powers in a similar way to usurp the Council’s authority.
“My gut is that at this moment in history, I’m not sure giving Eric Adams anything he asks for is a very good idea,” Ms. Krueger said.
At the night market, Ms. Archila appeared to win over Carlos Depaz, a portfolio manager. She told him that the measures were “designed to make the mayor’s office more powerful and the City Council less powerful.”
Mr. Depaz said he was unaware of the proposals but had held concerns about Mr. Adams’s management of the city even before he was indicted in September.
“I’m glad she explained what these propositions are all about because nobody would understand them,” said Mr. Depaz, adding that he planned to vote no. “The mayor that we have now is not the very best one, especially with everything that has happened.”
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