Hans Pennink for NY Post
Mayor Eric Adams pressed Gov. Kathy Hochul face-to-face Tuesday in Albany for action on a slew of hot-button issues, including expanding the city’s powers to remove mentally ill New Yorkers from public spaces, The Post has learned.
The poobahs huddled for an hour inside Hochul’s second-floor capitol office, where Adams’ to-do list also covered changing a controversial evidence law and implementing a tax break for low-income families, sources said.
Adams also spoke with Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins in his push to lobby state lawmakers for New York City goodies.
“What I was pleased with was the governor and the speaker both took the posture of what I’ve been saying is we need to put the money back in the pockets of working-class people,” Adams said during an interview with the Post Editorial Board later Tuesday.
“I asked them to look at our … tax for working-class people. We don’t need the money from Albany but we need their approval and the mental health crisis,” he said, specifically noting involuntary removals and commitments.
The mayor’s pushed Hochul to support a measure that would expand the authority to commit seriously mental ill vagrants beyond psych ward doctors, sources said.
Adams’ controversial involuntary commitment effort — which began in 2022 — reached new levels of urgency after Ramon Rivera, 51, a mentally ill homeless man, allegedly stabbed and killed three New Yorkers last month.
The acquittal last week of Marine veteran Daniel Penny in the chokehold death of Jordan Neely, a troubled Michael Jackson impersonator, on a crowded subway also added fueled to concerns over dealing with disturbed New Yorkers.
Adams defended Penny’s actions, but said Neely should not have died.
“When you look at this young man who went repeatedly through our system, he needed help,” he said last week about Neely on GMGT Live’s “The Reset Talk Show.”
“He needed help. And we did not give him help.”
Heastie told The Post that involuntary commitment changes need to be taken up during the upcoming legislative session.
“It has to be addressed because I still don’t think jail is the place to help people with severe mental health issues,” Heastie said.
The mayor also pressed for changes to “discovery” rules that requires prosecutors to provide evidence to defense attorneys in a short period of time — and that many authorities argue has led to a surge of cases being dropped.
Heastie said the state’s Chief Judge Rowan Wilson and Chief Administrative Judge Joseph Zayas told him they worked on a plan to inject more “uniformity” in the discovery process.
But Heastie noted: “I haven’t heard anything about a request for changes on discovery.”
Adams’ powwow with the governor — and opportunity to press New York City’s case — came as he traveled to Albany to take part in the procedural Electoral College vote led by Hochul.