Can the New York City Council override Eric Adams to keep a casino out of the Bronx?

On Wednesday, Mayor Eric Adams rejected the City Council’s rejection of a key land use approval for a casino bid in the Bronx. Will the City Council reject the mayor’s rejection of their rejection? That’s still to be determined. 

A veto from Mayor Adams gave a breath of life to the Bally’s Corp.’s bid to build a casino in the Bronx, after the City Council earlier this month voted against a crucial land use approval that the project needed to proceed. (Bally’s is one of many companies competing for just three available downstate casino licenses.)

Mayor Adams’ veto is not entirely surprising. City Hall stepped in to help usher along an earlier local approval for this same casino bid, going against local Republican Council Member Kristy Marmorato, who opposes the casino, to do so. Several other members of the Bronx delegation, meanwhile, have said that they want the Bronx to have the same chance to compete for the economic activity and investments that a casino could bring. Among them are Council Members Rafael Salamanca and Kevin Riley, who directly called on Mayor Adams to issue the veto. 

“By rejecting the land use application for this casino bid while approving three others in Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn, the City Council is putting its finger on the scale – and this is precisely the type of action that leads New Yorkers to lose faith in their elected leaders,” Mayor Adams said in a statement announcing his veto. City Hall has brushed off the suggestion that the mayor’s decision-making is related the fact that the Trump organization – which formerly operated at the site in Ferry Point – would get a $115 million sweetener if the casino bid succeeds. NY1 also reported that members of Adams’ inner circle have connections to Bally’s, including Mayor Adams’ election lawyer Vito Pitta, who is a lobbyist for the project and Mayor Adams’ reelection campaign chairman Frank Carone, who is a consultant for Bally’s. 

The question now is whether the City Council will hit back, in the form of an attempted veto override.

Though City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams’ office blasted the mayor’s move in a statement, it’s not yet clear that they will, or can, go so far as to override the veto. 

The council is on a tight 10-day deadline if they want to override. Neither City Hall nor the speaker’s office could immediately answer whether they understood that to mean calendar or business days. But either way, the council would need to schedule a vote before their next stated meeting on Aug. 14 to do so.

The council would also need to whip enough votes to get the two-thirds majority required to override a veto. When the council rejected the land use application at a sparsely attended stated meeting earlier this month, it wasn’t with an overwhelming margin. Their rejection passed with just 28 votes out of the 51-member body. Nine people voted against it – effectively, they voted in support of Bally’s land use application – while another nine members were absent and five voted to abstain. If they pursue a veto override, the speaker’s office would need to add another 6 votes to their ranks.

Still, they’re leaving that door open. “Mayor Adams has issued the first and only land use veto during his tenure for a casino applicant, not housing,” Council spokesperson Mara Davis said in a statement. “This administration’s hypocrisy and unethical conduct is well documented and has been witnessed by all New Yorkers, so the mayor's words have no credibility.”

And while it could be a scramble for the speaker’s office to pull together the votes – particularly in the summer when members tend to go on vacation – it’s not impossible. One council member, who was granted anonymity to discuss an evolving situation, said that despite the fact that they voted against rejecting the land use application earlier this month, they would more than likely vote with the speaker in a potential override vote.

The tradition of member deference in the City Council – the unofficial practice by which the council gives council members say over land use issues in their own districts – is precedent the council may want to protect, particularly as a Charter Revision Commission convened by the mayor has already taken aim at that practice. 

A spokesperson for Marmorato did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Republican Council Member Frank Morano and conservative Democratic Council Member Bob Holden, who both voted with Marmorato and the speaker against the land use application earlier this month, confirmed that their positions remained unchanged. “I’m with Kristy Marmorato on Bally’s,” Holden wrote in a text. “I’m a firm believer in member deference.”

Others who support giving the casino its chance, however, could wind up breaking with Democratic leadership if the speaker pursues an override vote. “The Bronx deserves a chance to stimulate our economy,” Riley wrote in a text.