On his last day in office, Mayor Eric Adams vetoed 19 recently passed City Council bills—a flaming bag of dog crap left on the doorstep of 2026.
This week, the City Council, with 11 new members and a new speaker, will convene to override those vetoes except in three cases, including a bill that is vehemently opposed by the real estate industry and one that would require the NYPD to give its civilian oversight board direct access to body camera footage, a move that the city's largest police union hates.
The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act gives nonprofit and community housing groups first dibs—a 25-day head start—to purchase buildings that are in severe disrepair, in arrears, or both. The legislation was tweaked to appease landlord groups and the Real Estate Board of New York, which, according to City lobbying records, spent $227,000 last year to lobby City officials on issues that included COPA. The tweaks failed to placate landlords, but the bill passed the City Council in December anyway, with 31 votes, less than the 34 needed to override a mayoral veto.
Another bill being left to die by Adams's veto did pass with a veto-proof majority: Intro 1451 would require the NYPD to give the Civilian Complaint Review Board direct access to its body camera footage to make investigating police complaints easier and faster. The NYPD has a history of withholding body camera footage from the CCRB. The Police Benevolent Association, which represents more than 20,000 rank-and-file NYPD officers, said the bill would make New Yorkers "less safe" and encourage "fishing expeditions."