Mayor Adams held a press briefing in City Hall’s Blue Room for the first time in weeks, after cancelling most of his public appearances last week due to an unspecified health scare. His statements today on the matter, however, have raised more questions than answers.
“That week I decided to go off,” the mayor told reporters today, “I was feeling a real pain in my side, and I didn’t know what it was.” Adams said that he took a series of tests based on his doctor’s recommendation, and recalled talking to his son about it, reportedly telling him “I went to the doctor, he wants me to take some tests, I’m going to have to go under for one of them.” He repeated the assertion about the anesthesia as he explained his communications with his staff, saying that he told them “I’m still going to be in communication, but I’m going to be under anesthesia.” When another reporter pressed further on the delegation of authorities while he would have been incapacitated, the mayor stated “I let my chief of staff know and I let my FDM (First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer) know […] All the responsible things you’re supposed to do, we did.”
The mayor may have been responsible in the common-sense meaning of the word when he alerted his staff, but that does not follow the procedure spelled out in the New York City Charter (the city’s constitution) concerning where the mayor’s authority lies if he’s incapacitated. That document dictates that the next in line of succession would be the Public Advocate, an office currently held by Jumaane Williams. “Now more than ever New Yorkers need full faith in the continuity and competence of the city’s government,” Williams stated in a communiqué released shortly after the mayor’s press conference. “Given the new disclosure of the mayor’s time under anesthesia last week, and his office’s failure to inform the public advocate of that fact at the time, it seems clear that this was a violation of the charter.”
Beyond Williams’ concerns, there is still as of this writing, a woeful lack of clarity from the mayor’s office as to what was the cause of Adams’ absence last week. Williams, La Voce, and the rest of the press corps understood the plain language of the mayor’s comments in today’s briefing to mean that he had been put under anesthesia last week for medical tests. A few hours after the briefing, however, Press Secretary Kayla Mamelak Altus specified that Adams had experienced the pain in his side that he mentioned in the briefing weeks ago, and went under anesthesia to have a colonoscopy on January 3rd. He then reportedly got the results of that procedure, which were of some concern, and underwent further tests last week. Those tests, according to the press secretary, were blood work, an MRI, and a test for H. Pilori (a gastrointestinal bacteria), all of which came back negative.
None of these tests require anesthesia, and Adams’ press secretary stated that the mayor “misspoke” when he gave the impression that this was the case. She also stated that the mayor “did not violate the charter.”
Adams first resurfaced last Thursday, attending an annual Interfaith breakfast, delivering a fiery speech where he swatted away rumors about him possibly resigning, and gave little indication of convalescence or being otherwise drained due to medical concerns. On January 3rd, when he reportedly got a colonoscopy and underwent anesthesia, Adams still attended scheduled events after the procedure, having engaged in a media event with Riverdale Press at 4 p.m. that same day.
As of this writing, there is no further explanation offered concerning the mayor’s absence last week.
