Metropolis Company Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant with Mayor Eric Adams and members of his administration.
Ed Reed/Mayoral Images Workplace
Within the waning days of Mayor Eric Adams’ administration, the New York Metropolis Legislation Division took a victory lap highlighting its work within the final 12 months of Adams’ time period — one which noticed the mayor himself let off the hook on federal expenses in a take care of the Trump administration.
Company Counsel Muriel Goode-Trufant launched a report highlighting the Legislation Division’s work within the areas of public security, public well being and schooling, safeguarding town from federal overreach and supporting financial growth.
“I am proud of what the Law Department has accomplished this year to protect the interests of the city and to improve the quality of life for New Yorkers,” Goode-Trufant mentioned in an announcement asserting the report.
“[T]he dedicated public servants of this office have helped the city confront numerous challenges across various legal areas to help make the city safer, healthier, and more prosperous for all.”
Public well being and security
When President Donald Trump tried to chop thousands and thousands in counterterrorism funding for the New York Metropolis subway system — a transfer later thwarted by a federal decide — town joined New York state in its lawsuit towards the Trump administration. The outcome was a restored $12 million that the MTA will cross on to NYPD.
The town additionally took on vapes this 12 months, together with by suing 9 main nationwide distributors for the unlawful sale of disposable flavored e-cigarettes and shutting down a Lengthy Island-based vape vendor through consent order.
On the Second Circuit, judges upheld the state’s ban on open carry of firearms and prohibition on carrying firearms in delicate, public areas like Instances Sq., the subway system and Metro North trains.
On the environmental well being entrance, town beat a problem on the New York Court docket of Appeals to a regulation addressing greenhouse gasoline emissions from giant buildings. It additionally noticed assist for efforts to divest pension funds from fossil fuels, profitable on the Appellate Division, First Division.
The Legislation Division additionally touted its wins on the New York Court docket of Appeals towards a problem to its efforts to maneuver municipal retirees to Medicare Benefit, which retirees claimed supply inferior protection, and the dismissal of a lawsuit claiming that the Division of Schooling had failed to deal with racial segregation.
Combating the feds
The town joined greater than 35 authorized proceedings towards the federal authorities in response to government orders and different coverage adjustments that upended spending priorities, together with discontinuing $47 million in grants for NYC public college magnet packages; threatened immigrants’ rights; and endangered homeless and previously homeless New Yorkers who depend on federal rental help.
In some instances the Legislation Division filed swimsuit straight; in others — when town’s pursuits weren’t straight implicated — it submitted amicus briefs, totaling practically two dozen.
Among the many filings have been briefs backing the habeas petitions of scholars detained by federal immigration officers whereas in courts, faculties and church buildings.
Metropolis legal professionals are additionally taking part in protection towards the federal authorities’s lawsuit searching for to scrap town’s sanctuary legal guidelines, submitting a movement to dismiss the swimsuit, which seeks to drive native officers to assist implement aggressive federal immigration coverage.
Jobs and bonds
The Legislation Division closed $28.9 billion in bond offers, it mentioned, amongst these being the U.N. Improvement Company’s sale of $365 million in city-backed municipal bonds to fund renovations of two U.N. Plaza buildings. That challenge is ready to create 1,800 jobs, based on the division.
After it efficiently quashed challenges to a different headline-grabbing growth — the constructing of three casinos in Queens and the Bronx — town says these plans will convey billions in income to town’s economic system and supply 1000’s of jobs.
The division additionally labored on concession agreements for Wollman Rink and Silvercup Studios, it mentioned, by negotiating labor agreements, drafting procurement guidelines and streamlining metropolis funds to its nonprofit suppliers.
