Mayor-elect Eric Adams Names Chief Counsel, Plans to Root Out Fraud, Mismanagement, and Waste of Taxpayers' Dollars

By Yehudit Garmaise 

At his first press solo conference as Mayor-elect, Eric Adams today announced three appointments that he said reflected the heart of his mayoral goals: “to use taxpayers dollars better and more efficiently.”

After naming Brandon McGuire, a former US attorney, as his chief counsel for City Hall, Adams said he found his “marquis player to help us to build our government right.”

Further citing his goals as: transparency, accountability, and the cleaning up of city government’s corruption and waste, Adams said that McGuire “led the CityTime case, in which hundreds of millions of dollars were  robbed from our taxpayers.”

Adams said that when he sat down with McGuire to speak about “building a better form of government in this city, I was blown away with his vision. I am excited about what he is going to do for the people of our city.”

Adams returned to his promises on the campaign trail, when he “pledged to create a more efficient city government, as mayor and finally reverse the inequalities.

“The inefficiencies are leading to the inequalities. If we continue to be dysfunctional and inefficient, we are going to continue to feed the crises in our city.

“And we are not giving taxpayers their money’s worth every day. That is what we are going to change to make sure our government is going to work for the taxpayers.”

On the campaign trail, Adams said he had identified 25 inefficiencies that led to inequalities on which the mayor-elect said he is going to “zero-in and fix.”

“We are going to move our city in the right direction by rooting out waste, fraud, and abuse waste abuse in our agencies,” Adams said. “Cities are run by agencies, and those agencies are failing.”

Adams also named two other appointees who will report to McGuire. First, Lisa Flores will continue her role as the city’s deputy comptroller for contracts and procurement, a role in which “she will a team that will review of all contracts of amendments, leasing, and concessions among city agencies and vendors,” Adams said of Flores, who served in the same position working for outgoing Comptroller Scott Stringer. “The depth of her experience is really going to help our city.

“Instead of waiting for the problems to happen, we are bringing the comptroller right inside City Hall, so we can do a better job.”

One mission with which Flores is tasked is to ensure that the city pays back non-profits more quickly for the services “that fill the gaps,” said Adams, who said “over and over he heard on the campaign trail that the process of reimbursement for non-profits is “too difficult, too cumbersome, and takes too long. We want to change that.”

To further speed up the process of reimbursement to the city’s non-profits, Adams also announced a partnership with Comptroller Brad Lander, and Flores is going to lead a task force better address the problem.

Adams also appointed Brooklyn’s Marjorie Landa, who currently serves as the city’s deputy comptroller for audit and investigations, to serve now as the head of the newly created Mayor’s Office of Risk Management.

“Landa will oversee a team of 150 people who conduct audits and investigation of matters related to and affecting the finances of New York City,” said Adams. “In her new role, she will be responsible for reducing the risk of fraud and waste and maximizing city revenues and improving the effectiveness of city government.

“We are looking forward to this amazing team, who will continue to build out and zero in on fraud, mismanagement, and the failure of transparency in government.

“We are going to go deep. We are going to put in place a system that looks at all contracts in excess of $10 million, which will go under immediate review to make sure they are providing the services we need in our city.”

Photo by: Reuvain Borchardt/Hamodia.com