Council spent $1.5M on anti-ballot measure mailers despite electioneering ban

The City Council spent more than $1.5 million taxpayer dollars over the last month to blitz voters with mailers opposing Mayor Eric Adams’ ballot proposals that would limit the Council’s ability to control housing development, records show.

Currently, the Council must sign off on most major development projects in the city. If a Council member opposes a specific development within their district, the Council usually honors their position and rejects the project in question, and Council members often use the threat of rejection to extract concessions.

The ballot proposals, created by a charter revision commission Adams convened, include provisions that would take the Council out of the game entirely with certain developments that build permanently affordable housing or in neighborhoods that to date have not permitted more than a handful of units.

The use of public resources to promote political causes, known as electioneering, is strictly forbidden under the city charter. In fact, the charter specifies that public servants may not use government funds “for a public message that contains an electioneering message,” which is defined as “a statement designed to … support or oppose a particular referendum question.”

Over the last three weeks, the Council spent $206,798 on printing materials and $1,295,411 on postage to mail out tens of thousands of mailers, according to data THE CITY obtained from the Council via the Freedom of Information Law. 

By comparison, the Council spent $726,384 on ballot mailers last year opposing proposals put forward by the first Adams-convened Charter Revision Commission.

While not explicitly telling people how to vote, this year’s mailers make clear the Council’s opposition to the mayoral commission’s proposals.

One warns voters, “DON’T BE MISLED BY MAYOR ADAMS’ SO-CALLED HOUSING PROPOSALS.”

Another mailer makes sure voters know which ballot questions are at issue, proclaiming, “Mayor Adams’ misleading Proposals 2, 3 and 4 on the ballot this election will take away your community’s POWER to demand the city and developers invest in your neighborhood when allowed to build.”

The Council’s spending marks a major push to counter the pro-ballot political spending group YES on Affordable Housing, which has raised $1,389,675 in contributions and has spent just over $1 million in print, digital ads and text banking, according to state and city campaign finance records. City & State reported that the commission itself plans to spend $3.2 million on public education campaigns.

Council spokesperson Julia Agos claimed the city Conflicts of Interest Board (COIB), which provides ethics advice to city employees, had signed off on the Council’s mailer campaign, finding that their voter blitz is “not a ‘political campaign,’” because the mailers were “not directed toward the success or failure of a candidate for election to public office nor (to) the promotion of a political party.”

The Council declined to provide the full response it says it received from the Conflicts of Interest Board, and the board does not share its responses to advice requests publicly.

“Voter education is not electioneering,” said Agos in a statement. “The Council has a responsibility to ensure New Yorkers understand what they are voting on, especially when proposals put on the ballot by Mayor Adams’ commission use deceptive language intended to mislead voters.”

She referenced $3.2 million in public funds being spent by the mayor’s office “to present a positive view of these proposals and reinforce their misleading language, including TV ads that feature city employees in Mayor Adams’ administration.”

Calling the commission’s proposals “false solutions,” Agos added: “We support the goal of building more housing faster to address our city’s housing crisis, but Mayor Adams’ Ballot Proposals 2, 3, and 4 are flawed and use misleading language that hides what they actually do from New Yorkers.”

Richard Briffault, a Columbia University professor who served as chair of COIB from 2014 to 2022, said the Council’s citation of COIB’s rationalization allowing their use of public funds for the mailers was “tunnel visioned or siloed.”

“The COIB needs to redefine political activity because their definition of political activity is inconsistent with the charter’s definition of electioneering messages — which includes spending on referendum questions,” he said.

Ballot question 2 would shift the final say away from the Council and give it to the city Planning Commission, which is controlled by the mayor, on all publicly financed affordable housing projects and on most affordable housing developments in 12 community districts with the lowest rates of affordable housing.

For other projects that create affordable housing, which would still go to the City Council for a decisive vote, ballot item 4 would create an appeals board — with the Council, local borough president and mayor each getting one vote — that could overrule Council rejection of a project.