In a recent tense investigation, New York City Council members grilled Adams administration officials, questioning if the city is doing enough to thoroughly investigate the contractors expected to receive more than $5 billion to house and care for recently arriving migrants.
In a review by the Council Oversight and Investigations Division, it was discovered that just three of the nearly 200 such contracts involved a competitive bidding procedure. A fast-track emergency contracting method was used to expedite 125 contracts, skipping the normal approval and review procedure.
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Gale Brewer, chair of the oversight committee, said, “With this stream of new arrivals showing no signs of stopping, at what point do we stop treating this as a temporary emergency and contracting under looser emergency rules?”
Invited to speak were seven executives from prestigious businesses and charitable organizations, but they failed to appear. Brewer and Julie Won, the head of the contracts committee, were among the council members who said they were instructed to boycott the meeting by the Adams administration. That is not the case, according to an administration spokeswoman.
City Hall spokesperson Kayla Mamalek told the media, “We did not instruct any of our contractors not to appear to testify at the hearing, and we did not violate any charter provisions.”
Won provided the names, titles, and monetary amounts of each of the invited executives’ organizations’ multi-million dollar contracts.
The czars of the city’s reaction to the surge of migrants, agency chiefs present at the hearing, vehemently defended their contracting procedure. Despite the fact that additional migrants are still coming in—more than a year has elapsed since the first chartered migrant bus from Texas arrived—officials claimed the flow of migrants has remained unpredictable at any given time.
According to them, they carefully evaluated the pool of applicants and needed to expedite the emergency schedule to meet urgent demands. They also mentioned that the city often hires contractors who have worked for them before.
According to them, they carefully evaluated the pool of applicants and needed to expedite the emergency schedule to meet urgent demands. They also mentioned that the city often hires contractors who have worked for them before.
The city recently built more than 200 emergency sites, many of which are located in hotels that council members and activists have criticized for their exorbitant pricing and dearth of cooking and washing facilities. Officials stated that the city is striving to shift to longer-term locations, although that process might take years.
The Department of Social Services, which oversees managing the city’s system of homeless shelters, is extending a handful of emergency shelter contracts for periods of three years, according to Molly Wasow Park, commissioner of the department.
Commissioner Park noted, “The goal is not to continue to use hotels long-term.”
https://a9d0e03e5b71ae38d2cdb790e34e1b71.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-40/html/container.html Park urged, “We need to continue to respond in real-time,” He further added, “At the same time, we are doubling down and planning for long-term strategies, but those long-term strategies won’t be in place overnight.”
The council members, who continued to press the authorities for information, didn’t seem to be satisfied despite the officials’ assurances.
Won said that more than half of the shelters in her region are still vacant, with just National Guard personnel around them. This is because the nonprofit organizations recruited either haven’t gotten advance payment or haven’t yet increased their capacity.
Won told authorities, “You tell me that it’s moving faster, but in some cases it’s not.”
Top contractor DocGo, a medical services provider that oversees more than twenty-four shelters around the state, was frequently mentioned. Despite the comptroller’s reservations, Adams has indicated he will continue to utilize the company. The state attorney general is looking into the firm on claims that migrants in its custody were mistreated. The CEO of DocGo resigned over the weekend after acknowledging that his biography had misrepresented his degree as a master’s.
The overpayment for bulk services, in the opinion of council members, was Despite that fact,t fact,t fact,t fact, met with resistance. For instance, the city gives DocGo $170 for each hotel room every night or around $5,100 per month. In order to cover the higher hotel room prices in New York City, the Department of Housing Preservation and Development claimed to have agreed to the pricing.
