What a Mayor in Crisis Means for New York City

If Mayor Eric Adams needed any further evidence of his diminished stature in New York City, this past week was a new low point.

On Tuesday, the mayor’s handpicked choice to become the city’s top lawyer withdrew his nomination, sparing himself and the mayor from a public rejection.

Two days later, a separate embarrassment emerged: Mr. Adams’s police commissioner, Edward A. Caban, resigned under duress. Mr. Caban and his twin brother are under federal investigation, one of four federal inquiries circling the highest levels of the Adams administration.

Then, late Saturday, came another blow: The mayor’s top legal adviser at City Hall, Lisa Zornberg, abruptly stepped down.

The swarm of federal scrutiny has raised questions about Mr. Adams’s fitness to lead the city; his ability to negotiate with the City Council and with state and federal leaders to push his agenda; and his capacity to lure and retain talented people in city government.

The scrutiny has also made his path to re-election more unwieldy. On Friday, a fourth prominent Democrat, State Senator Jessica Ramos, joined a crowded field of mayoral hopefuls seeking to stop Mr. Adams from winning a second term.

“Pretending that this is not happening or trying to brush it aside is no longer going to work,” Jumaane Williams, the city’s public advocate, said in an interview. “Everybody is watching this, and people have a right to be concerned about whether they can govern.”

The four investigations into the mayor and his inner circle are unprecedented in modern New York City history. The last broad municipal scandal was in 1986 under Mayor Ed Koch, when the leaders of three city agencies were indicted, two of the mayor’s allies were convicted and another took his own life. Mr. Koch, who was not accused of wrongdoing, lost his bid for a fourth term in the 1989 Democratic primary.

Only two mayors have resigned — Jimmy Walker in 1932 and William O’Dwyer in 1950 — both after corruption scandals.

But the mayor’s weakened political position could endanger his priorities for the city, not just his political future.

Each year, the city has a legislative agenda that it pushes in Albany, and Mr. Adams has been able to use his relationship with Gov. Kathy Hochul to successfully press for changes to criminal justice laws and for financial assistance with the migrant influx.

But when lawmakers return to Albany in January, some key Democrats have privately said that Mr. Adams has exhausted his political capital, and that any items on his legislative wish list would be considered solely on their merits, and not because of the mayor’s influence.

Indeed, on Friday, Assemblywoman Emily Gallagher and Senator Julia Salazar became the first two state lawmakers to call for Mr. Adams to resign. “A mayor who cuts education, library budgets, and parks, who surrounds himself with criminals and alleged corruption up to the very top, does not deserve our trust,” Ms. Gallagher, who represents a district in Brooklyn, wrote on social media.

The first major gauge of Mr. Adams’s influence will arrive in the coming months as the City Council considers a contentious housing proposal that is the third and last phase of the mayor’s City of Yes plan to update New York’s zoning rules.

The proposal would make it easier to build affordable housing and to convert office buildings into housing. The city has estimated that the plan could produce more than 100,000 new homes over the next 15 years. It would also end parking mandates for new housing, and increase density in a crowded city.

Donovan Richards, the Queens borough president, recently signed on to the proposal with some conditions and hopes it will proceed. He said he was worried that the investigations surrounding the administration might “add to the mistrust” that residents feel toward government and undermine people’s views of the housing plan.

“People think there has to be some thing at play,” he said. “It has to do with donations or they’ve got to be getting something in return for building 100 percent affordable housing. It hurts a lot of public servants when these sorts of distractions happen.”

Discussions over the housing plan have slowed as the investigations have expanded, according to a land-use lobbyist who is working on the proposal and who asked for anonymity to avoid damaging a relationship with City Hall. Contracts have slowed as has the response from city officials, the lobbyist said.

A spokesman for the mayor said the City Planning Commission will hear the proposal later this month, putting it on track for a City Council vote this fall, which aligns with the administration’s original timeline for the project.

Mr. Adams mostly kept a low profile last week, in large part because he tested positive for Covid on Monday and was confined to his official residence at Gracie Mansion. Mr. Adams was conspicuously absent from a gathering commemorating the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. As President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald J. Trump and former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg attended the ceremony, Mr. Adams walked a wreath from Gracie Mansion to the East River, just behind his residence.

The mayor conducted his weekly media briefing remotely last week, and he did the same when he spoke after Mr. Caban’s resignation. The administration, Mr. Adams said, would “remain focused on delivering for the people of our great city.”

The mayor has not been accused of wrongdoing and insists that the investigations will prove he did nothing wrong.

Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Mr. Adams, said in a statement that the mayor had delivered on making the city safer and had worked productively with state lawmakers and the City Council to close illegal cannabis shops and build affordable housing, among other measures.

“New Yorkers recognize that we are in a much better place today than we were 2.5 years ago,” he said.

Because the federal investigations involve Mr. Caban as well as the deputy mayor for public safety, Philip B. Banks III, some leading Democrats say they fear that the Police Department may suffer from a loss of morale or direction.

Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller who is running for mayor, said that a “leadership vacuum” had made him “very concerned about the safety of the city’s residents.”

Adrienne Adams, the City Council speaker, said she hoped that Mr. Caban’s resignation would alleviate some of the stress on the Police Department, but “because of the magnitude of the situation and the number of investigations going on right now within the administration, the distractions are still going to be there.”

Crystal Hudson, a Brooklyn city councilwoman, had a more practical concern. The West Indian American Day Parade, where five people were shot this month including one fatally, is in her district. Days after the high-profile shooting, the police have yet to arrest anyone.

With the Police Department in disarray, she said: “What does that mean for the families of those victims and getting justice for them?”

Some top priorities of the mayor — like eliminating rats and putting trash in containers — could proceed as planned, though they might be harder to enact if New Yorkers have lost faith in his administration. Curbside composting launches next month on Staten Island and in Manhattan and the Bronx, and smaller homes will be required to use specialized trash bins starting in November. The mayor is also slated to host the city’s first-ever National Urban Rat Summit next week.

Alicia Glen, a former deputy mayor under Bill de Blasio, Mr. Adams’s predecessor, who oversaw major projects like the citywide ferry system, said that city government would continue to function because it was a “well-oiled machine filled with talented people.” But she suggested that the mayor’s broader policy goals might be compromised.

“I don’t think this fundamentally changes the ability of the city to deliver services,” she said. “The question is if the mayor is weakened, how can you exercise your political capital and bring your priorities over the finish line in the way you’d like to get them done?”

In Albany, where Mr. Adams has had an uneven record, state lawmakers will consider several critical issues affecting the city, including how to fund the transit system after Governor Hochul canceled congestion pricing.

Diane Savino, a former state legislator who now serves as a senior adviser to the mayor with a focus on state and city legislative issues, said she was not worried that the mayor’s agenda would be stymied because of the investigations.

Ms. Savino said she would remind legislators that their job was to represent New York City alongside the mayor and that “all of the drama that may be happening or not happening is irrelevant to the responsibility you have to help the city deliver for your constituents.”

The Adams administration will soon convene a meeting of its agencies to help develop their state legislative priorities and begin corresponding with the governor’s office.

“If you want to play politics, that’s fine. Everybody likes to do that,” Ms. Savino said. “But if you’re going to make determinations based on priorities that the city wants, they better be not about who the mayor is or who any elected officials are, but what’s best for the people of the city of New York.”

And then Ms. Savino concluded by displaying a trait that Mr. Adams was known for earlier in his term, but that had been in shorter supply in recent days: swagger.

“Don’t worry,” Ms. Savino said. “We got this.”