Dear New Yorkers,

Another donor to Eric Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign has told THE CITY they were reimbursed for a contribution.

The Adams campaign recorded the donation from an event that federal investigators are focusing on as they probe whether the campaign conspired with the Turkish government to accept unlawful foreign donations. 

The donor, who spoke to THE CITY on condition of anonymity, said that they did not attend the event, or even know about it. 

And in two detailed interviews, the donor told THE CITY that their supervisor asked them to make the donation in spite of the employee’s reservations about citizenship status and financial precarity.

“The boss request the check, and, well, you know, I want to maintain my work,” the donor said in a phone interview. “I  said, well, I don’t have the money. I’m not going to give money to anybody because, first of all, I’m not a citizen.”

But the supervisor persisted in requesting a check and then provided them with a cash reimbursement at their workplace.

Such a reimbursement would constitute an illegal “straw donation”: enabling the true source of the funding to remain unknown, often in an effort to evade campaign finance laws that set limits who can give to a candidate and how much they can donate. 

Read more from the latest in THE CITY’s investigation into potentially illegal donations to Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign here.

Weather scoop by New York Metro Weather

Thursday’s Weather Rating: 5/10. Three 5s in a row — it does not get much more “all right” than that. High temperatures in the low 40s once again, with partly cloudy skies and a chance of isolated snow showers this afternoon. The vibes are okay!

Our Other Top Stories

  • Migrant families issued 60-day eviction notices, whose stays in city-sponsored shelters were due to begin expiring the day after Christmas, will have at least another week to remain in the facilities. That’s according to an administration source familiar with the deliberations; a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams neither confirmed nor denied the delay. The source said evictions will be postponed until after New Year’s Day and potentially longer. In addition to the optics of ousting families over the holiday, the source noted that many city staffers would be on vacation over the last week of the year, which would have made removing residents more challenging. 
  • The City Council passed a bill Wednesday that enables tenants to report vacant apartments in their buildings to the city housing agency — and city officials to inspect vacant units when they may pose a hazard to those in units nearby. It’s an effort intended to spur action on “warehousing”: the practice of landlords keeping empty units off the market in anticipation of future rent increases. Among tens of thousands of empty apartments in the city, tenants in nearby units have described trash, mold, open windows, leaky gas pipes and rodents as scourges in their buildings. Adams is expected to sign the bill, which passed the Council by a vote of 39 to 8.
  • Food delivery workers in New York City are now finally earning a mandated minimum $17.96 an hour before tips — following months of unsuccessful legal challenges by delivery platforms DoorDash, Uber and Grubhub to avoid giving workers minimum wage. But a sudden coinciding move has begun to take money back out of worker’s pockets, they say: Uber Eats and DoorDash just changed their apps to only allow gratuities after checkout. The city’s labor enforcement agency says it’s reviewing the situation.

Reporter’s Notebook

Adams Polls Plummet

Mayor Eric Adams has reached a historic low in a recent poll of New Yorkers, with just 28% of respondents saying he is doing a good job. Those are the lowest mayoral approval numbers since Quinnipiac University began conducting its poll of New York City residents, they said. The previous low was set in July 2003, when then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg had a 31% approval rating months after he raised property taxes and made budget cuts.

Adams received the lowest approval rate for his handling of homelessness, of which 72% of those polled disapproved. Affordable housing and crime tied as top concerns. Just 32% of those polled felt Adams was honest and trustworthy. As for the recent investigation into his 2021 campaign, 30% of voters felt Adams “did something unethical but not illegal.”

“There’s no good news for Mayor Adams in this poll,” Mary Snow, Quinnipiac University’s poll assistant director, said in a press release. Fabien Levy, the deputy mayor for communications, said in a statement that, “Incorrect polls come out every day, but the real numbers cannot be questioned: crime is down, jobs are up, and we continue to deliver billions of dollars into the pockets of working people.” 

— Katie Honan

City Council Bills Would Expand Vendors’ Access to Licenses

City Council members introduced a package of four bills Wednesday that they say would expand street vendors’ access to licenses and business services, and repeal criminal liability for unlicensed or unpermitted vending. A bill introduced by Pierina Sanchez and Amanda Farías (D-The Bronx) would increase the number of supervisory licenses for vendors to 1,590 from the current 445 for each of the next five years, with the cap lifted entirely after that. A bill introduced by Shekar Krishnan (D-Queens) would repeal misdemeanor criminal penalties for vendors who are unlicensed or operate in prohibited areas. A bill introduced by Carmen De La Rosa (D-Manhattan) would allow vendors to sell within two feet of a curb. And a bill introduced by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams would establish a division of street vendor assistance under the Department of Small Business Services. 

– Haidee Chu

Things To Do

Here’s what’s going on around the city this week.

  • Thursday, Dec. 7: Holiday Wreath Making hosted by NYC Parks GreenThumb. All supplies are provided. Free with RSVP from 6 to 8 p.m., at the Williamsbridge Oval Recreation Center in The Bronx.
  • Friday, Dec. 8: Exhibit opening of Byzantine Bembé: New York by Manny Vega, a celebration of the mosaicist and muralist whose work also appears in subways, street walls and businesses in East Harlem. Pay what you wish (at the museum’s in-person ticketing counter) at the Museum of the City of New York in Manhattan.
  • Friday, Dec. 8: Parranda and Poetry Liberation Celebration, a walk through the Sunset Park community that celebrates both the holidays and the spirit of struggle for liberation. Free from 4 p.m. (walk begins promptly at 4:15 p.m.) at UPROSE in Brooklyn.

THE KICKER: New York State’s first offshore wind turbine, located on the coast of eastern Long Island, has started to bring power to the grid.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Make it a great Thursday.

Love,

THE CITY

PS. Love THE CITY? Our nonprofit newsroom runs on support from readers like you. Donate here.

THE CITY’s work is made possible, in part, through the support of our sponsors. Interested in becoming a sponsor of THE CITY? Contact us here. 

Copyright © 2023 THE CITY, All rights reserved.