Mayor Eric Adams has boasted about being available to anyone in the city, even giving out his cellphone number to students and creating a hotline just for constituents.

But elected officials wanting to talk to his team will now have to fill out a form and wait for a reply. 

The mayor’s team announced the new two-page “elected officials engagement form” last Friday in a meeting with agency commissioners and other executives, then sent it to City Council members this week, according to multiple people either at the meeting or briefed on it. 

The types of “engagement,” according to an email obtained by THE CITY, includes “meetings with commissioners or executive directors, meetings with senior level agency staff, requests to tour districts, requests to attend events, requests to attend task force meetings, requests [for] take part in interagency meetings (more than one agency,) official letter correspondence, requests to discuss enforcement, any other requests outside the scope of daily operations involving constituent matters or issues.”

All of the requests will go through the mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, according to the email, and are for any elected official.

The change prompted immediate pushback from some members of the Council, which  has recently ratcheted up fighting with the Adams administration over legislation and the city’s budget. Previously, Council members or other elected officials could directly email or call agency heads and other executive team members with questions and concerns. 

Councilmember Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side of Manhattan, said she’s worked with mayors since Ed Koch and never heard of a centralized intake process for contacting government officials. She also served previous terms in the Council and as Manhattan borough president when Adams was in charge of Brooklyn.

“I’m not filling out any form,” she announced Tuesday to a room of reporters at City Hall.

One Democratic Council member who asked not to be named put the new initiative squarely on Tiffany Raspberry, the director of the mayor’s office of intergovernmental affairs. 

Kayla Mamalek, a spokesperson for the mayor’s office, said the form is all about efficiency. 

“This administration is working every day to deliver on our vision for a better New York by protecting public safety, rebuilding our economy, and making this city more livable. To continue to do that efficiently, we must ensure that we have the right processes in place to streamline our services and maximize our resources,” she said in a statement.

Man of the People

Since he took office in 2022, Adams has repeatedly said how approachable he is to constituents and electeds. He’s set up a “text with Eric” line that sends automatic messages, a WhatsApp channel and his own newsletter.

He frequently hands out his actual personal cellphone number at town halls and on the street. Adams even gave his number to a high school student who texted him to invite him to a protest; he replied that she should be in school. 

“No mayor in the history of this city has been more accessible, more approachable, more on the ground than I have,” he said at a news conference in October.  

“If people know me, I am probably the most visible, the most approachable… I’m out in the streets talking to people,” he said a month earlier. 

Another Democratic Council member who asked not to be named said the form creates more fairness especially when there are allegations of special treatment in the mayor’s office.

“You need to make sure everyone who calls your office gets the same treatment,” she told THE CITY.