Senior managers in the agency that handles government purchasing and leases tried to hide their discussions about hot-button issues from the public by communicating via personal text messages, emails and hand-delivered written memos, an investigation by The City Reporter has found.
The conversations involve high-level executives of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS), who sought to keep off the books chatter related to:
- Discussion of an executive deputy commissioner’s move to install her nephew in an agency job.
- Leasing a building in Queens for the Manhattan-based Probation Department because the then-commissioner wanted to work closer to home.
- Proposed protocols to test for the deadly Legionella bacteria in city-owned buildings.
Nearly all of these conversations took place during the first five months of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s tenure and appear to violate rules requiring that city business take place over city-issued phones or via the city’s internal email system — a measure that ensures these discussions can be preserved as official records subject to public disclosure.
This issue of hiding official records recently made headlines after it was revealed that Emilia Rowland Winter, who handles new media for Mamdani, used the Signal encrypted app to coordinate City Hall messaging with an army of Instagram and Tik-Tok influencers. The New York Times reported that Signal communications to at least one influencer were set to “auto-delete,” thus negating the ability to retain these communications as an official record.
In response, the mayor’s chief counsel said he took “immediate corrective action,” and all employees were then instructed not to use the “auto-delete” function and avoid using Signal altogether while discussing official city business…