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Dear New Yorkers,

This week, Mayor Eric Adams described Hui Qin — a Chinese billionaire who has pleaded guilty to federal charges of making more than $10,000 in illegal donations to three political candidates — as one of the “thousands upon thousands of people” that Adams met during his 2021 campaign for mayor.

But Adams has not denied that he was one of the three recipients of Qin’s fraudulent campaign donations. And publicly available records indicate that Adams’ ties to Qin and Qin’s now-former wife, Emma Liu, are deeper than a single meeting on the campaign trail.

According to a bio posted on the website of a nonprofit she chairs, Liu — to whom Qin was married for more than a decade — was tapped by the mayor’s office to serve on Adams’ Asian Affairs Advisory Council.

The council was formed in 2022 under the leadership of Adams’ director of Asian Affairs, Winnie Greco, whose two homes in The Bronx were raided last month by the FBI.

Read more about the mayor’s apparent connection to Qin and Liu here.

Weather scoop by New York Metro Weather Thursday's Weather Rating: 3/10. Winter decided to pop back in to say hello. High temperatures barely reach the lower 40s with a consistent breeze. In better news, it's sunny out for most of the day. Grab that winter coat again, the vibes are chilly today!

Our Other Top Story

The independent federal monitor who has overseen the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) since 2019 issued a blistering final report card Wednesday, which takes aim at the agency’s mismanagement. Monitor Bart Schwartz and his company Guidepost Solutions’ five-year monitorship ended Feb. 28; though he applied for a second term, federal housing officials and the Manhattan U.S. attorney chose a different firm instead. In his 101-page farewell critique, Schwartz challenged NYCHA’s default position of blaming money woes for its troubles, arguing that many of its problems are self-inflicted due to incompetence and an inability to efficiently use existing resources.

Reporter’s Notebook

Emissions Test Fail

New York City’s government — the largest property owner across the five boroughs — won’t comply with the city’s own climate law until up to two years after the legally mandated deadline.

Local Law 97 — which limits how much carbon large buildings can spew — requires city government operations to reduce planet-warming emissions 40% below 2006 levels by July 2024. Officials last year admitted the city is not on pace to meet that deadline and didn’t know when they could, as THE CITY reported.

Now, officials say they expect to meet the target in fiscal year 2027, according to a March 12 letter sent from the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) to the Council Committee on Environmental Protection, Resiliency and Waterfronts.

DCAS is facing a $1 billion cut to its five-year capital budget, which includes a $295 million cut to its energy management projects and $220 million cut for resiliency and technology projects. The agency is also facing a $15 million cut this year for electric vehicle purchasing, which represents about 350 electric cars DCAS cannot buy, officials said in response to questions from Councilmember Lincoln Restler (D-Brooklyn) during a hearing earlier this month.

— Samantha Maldonado

Things To Do

Here’s what’s going on around the city this week.

Wednesday, March 20: The Awe of the Arctic: A Visual History, an exhibition of narrative accounts, prints, photographs and ephemera from the New York Public Library’s collection documenting Arctic depictions from the 16th century to the present. Free through July 13 at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in Manhattan. Saturday, March 23: Historic New York: Lower East Side Parks, a tour led by Urban Park Rangers that delves into the city’s early history. Free from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., meets at Seward Park in Manhattan. Sunday, March 24: Signs of Spring Scavenger Hunt, a walk that focuses on animals and plants adapting to the changing season. Free from 1 to 2 p.m. at Gravesend Park in Brooklyn.

THE KICKER: LaGuardia Community College in Queens just received the largest-ever gift to a U.S. community college. The $116 million grant from Mets owner Steve Cohen and his wife will go toward a workforce training center.

Thanks, as always, for reading. Make it a great Thursday.

Love,

THE CITY

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