Chair-gate: Eric Adams' veto fight gets petty

As political strategy goes, City Hall’s attempt to unseat reporters at a competing press conference on Tuesday felt a little wobbly. 

As City Council members and faith leaders set up for a rally in support of the How Many Stops Act in the City Hall rotunda, deputy chief of staff to the mayor Menashe Shapiro approached reporters sitting in chairs waiting for the press conference to begin and demanded they get up. “Let’s go,” Shapiro said, in a brusque and baffling order to City & State and a handful of reporters at other outlets to stand up and hand over the chairs they were sitting in. Last week, the mayor vetoed the How Many Stops Act, and has been vigorously campaigning against it. 

Reporters ignored the order while Shapiro hovered. Asked if he was trying to kick reporters out of their seats for the council's press conference, Shapiro said, “No, I have no control over that. I just want our chairs. Thank you.” The stern order was delivered with no explanation other than that the chairs belonged to the mayor’s side and they needed them. “If the City Council wants to give you something to sit on, it’s for the City Council (to do),” Shapiro said. “Let’s go,” he added, in a final, failed attempt to order reporters to move.

The interaction marked one of the pettier escalations in an increasingly bitter fight between Mayor Eric Adams’ administration and the City Council over two law enforcement-related bills that Adams recently vetoed. The council’s press conference on Tuesday convened interfaith leaders to rally in support of one of those bills – the How Many Stops Act, which would require more reporting on low-level police investigative encounters. The council has vowed to override both vetoes. 

Asked about the turf war at his own (concurrently scheduled) off-topic press conference just across the hall on Tuesday, Adams said that the mayor’s office is usually sent letters requesting the use of the City Hall rotunda, and that that wasn’t done. A council spokesperson said that they usually check in about using the rotunda, though not with written letters, and that they did so on Tuesday, but it was on short notice because they planned to hold their press conference outside until it started raining. 

“We want to maintain control in the rotunda area,” Adams said at his off-topic press conference. “We’re going to communicate so that we can be good tenants together, in this building.” The mayor’s office and City Council share the use of City Hall. 

A spokesperson for the mayor declined to comment further on the chairs, or on reports that mayor’s side had also refused to turn on lights typically used for press conferences in the rotunda, which left some of those rallying in support of the How Many Stops Act in shadows.