Mayor Eric Adams denies existance of City Hall list to fast-track fire approvals for major developers.
Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office
Mayor Eric Adams on Tuesday fiercely denied the existence of an internal City Hall list aimed at fast-tracking fire system approvals for major developers that is reportedly being eyed by the FBI in its probe of his 2021 campaign.
The so-called “Deputy Mayor of Operations (DMO) List” was first created by former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2021 and continued under Adams’ administration when he took office in 2022, according to published reports. The list was used to help major developers cut to the front of the line in getting needed approvals for construction projects from the FDNY.
One of those big developers is reportedly the government of Turkey, which asked Adams for help in getting the Fire Department to greenlight a new Turkish consulate building in Midtown Manhattan after he had won the Democratic mayoral nomination but was still Brooklyn Borough President in 2021.
The incident, where the mayor contacted former Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro to look into speeding up approvals for the consulate building, is being investigated as part of a broad probe by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) into the mayor’s 2021 campaign. Adams admitted last week that he reached out to Nigro, but insisted he was simply advocating for his constituents in Brooklyn’s sizable Turkish community and had no power to pressure the former fire commissioner into fast-tracking the project, which opened just days after his intervention.
When reporters asked the mayor about the list during a Tuesday morning press conference, he claimed it does not exist under his administration and that he had not heard of it prior to last week’s reports.
“I have not heard of a DMO list,” Adams told reporters.
“This administration never had a DMO list,” he added. “We know nothing about…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply