Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s administration is spending $1.6 million in taxpayer funds on ads for five New York City ballot questions that critics say strip power from residents and hand it to bureaucrats.
The questions go before voters in the Nov. 3 general election after a 15-member Charter Revision Commission appointed by Mamdani selected them, the New York Post reported. The mayor’s office has rolled out social-media videos and text blasts that frame the measures as a path to “faster government.”
City law bars government officials from using public funds to advocate for or against ballot proposals. Council members from both parties say this campaign does not merely inform voters. They say it pushes an agenda that weakens local checks.
Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) drew a hard line on the spending.
"Taxpayer dollars are supposed to be used to serve the public, not bankroll the mayor’s political agenda."
She went further on the substance of the package itself.
"The whole thing is completely illegitimate, and we are getting closer to socialist totalitarianism every day with this administration. These proposals want to take power away from the people and put it in the hands of bureaucrats."
Councilman Phil Wong (D-Queens) did not spare the mayor either. He noted that past mayors have tested the edges of the rules. He said this effort does not come close to that gray area.
"We’ve seen past mayors walk right up to the line of what is allowed under the law, but this isn’t even close. It’s way over."
Council Speaker Julie Menin has warned colleagues about lost transparency and lost Council power if the questions pass. She has said she will not authorize the Council to spend taxpayer funds on this year’s ballot questions. The Council as a whole has not taken a formal stance.
That stance stands in contrast to 2025. Under then-Speaker Adrienne Adams, the Council spent more than $1.5 million opposing a set of ballot questions pushed by then-Mayor Eric Adams. Voters approved those measures, which revised the land-use decision-making process.
A spokesperson for the Mayor’s Office defended the blitz as required outreach by the commission.
"Per state law, the Commission is charged with providing public education and is leveraging the tools available to inform New Yorkers about the proposed ballot props in an effort to encourage them to make their voices heard."
In a video the mayor’s office released last month, Mamdani races around City Hall with Looney Tunes-style sound effects and delivers a simple pitch.
"New Yorkers will be able to vote on how fast our government runs."
Critics hear a different message. They see a mayoral-appointed commission writing the questions, then a mayoral office selling them with public money while local review gets cut.
One measure would “simplify” approvals for private uses of public space, including outdoor dining sheds, sidewalk cafes, accessibility ramps, benches, and planters. Under the description in the reporting, it would eliminate City Council review, strip local community boards and borough presidents of some input, and let applications move ahead without public hearings.
Another would speed construction of new bus lanes, bike lanes, and other street projects. The Department of Transportation would no longer need to present those projects to local community boards. The same package would replace the City Council with the mayoral-controlled City Planning Commission as the body reviewing sales and leases on certain city properties. It would also expedite city office-space leases by removing approvals now required from the Council and the Planning Board.
Other proposals would reduce paperwork for city contractors and simplify the building-permit process while shifting waterfront-permit responsibility from the Department of Small Business Services to the Department of Buildings.
The fifth question would set the city’s rainy-day fund at an amount equal to 12% of the previous year’s city tax revenue. No such targeted amount exists now.
Taken together, the package shrinks the roles of elected Council members, community boards, and borough presidents on projects that touch streets, sidewalks, and city property. It expands the reach of agencies and a planning body tied more tightly to the mayor.
Citizens Union New York posted that it is “hard to tell” whether the ballot-question ads cross “the line into electioneering.” The group added that “the more honest truth” is that no city ethics watchdog is clearly responsible for enforcing the ban. It called on the Council to pass legislation clarifying that the Conflicts of Interest Board “is indeed tasked with regulating the ban on government-funded electioneering.”
COIB Executive Director Carolyn Miller said the ad blitz’s legality “is beyond the scope of the board’s jurisdiction.”
That leaves a practical gap. City law forbids public funds for ballot advocacy. The board that might police it says the question falls outside its writ. The mayor’s office keeps spending. Voters head to the polls on Nov. 3 with the ads still running.
Community groups under the banner “Our Streets! Our Voices! Our Vote!” planned a rally outside Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Organizers oppose what they call an anti-car push and the ballot question that fast-tracks street projects while muting resident input.
The fight is no longer abstract. Outdoor dining, bike lanes, bus lanes, property sales, and waterfront permits all sit inside the same package. So does a rainy-day fund rule that locks in a fixed share of tax revenue. Each item moves a decision point away from neighborhood boards and the Council and toward City Hall’s preferred channels.
Mamdani appointed the commission that chose the questions. His office is financing the message that sells them. Council members who usually split on party lines are warning that the public is paying to shrink its own voice.
Taxpayers should not have to fund the case for giving their own power away.
