Execs at group that paid for Mayor Adams’ $34K Israel trip have business before his admin

Two top executives at a philanthropic organization that bankrolled Mayor Adams’ recent trip to Israel have significant business and lobbying interests before his administration, according to a Daily News review of city records.

The matter involves Marc Rowan and Eric Goldstein, respectively the chairman and CEO of the United Jewish Appeal-Federation of New York, which picked up the tab for Adams’ stay in Israel between this past Sunday and Thursday.

UJA spokeswoman Emily Kutner told The News on Thursday that the group spent $4,857 on Adams’ airfare, lodging, food and other expenses related to his Israel visit.

The group shelled out the same amount per person on six Adams administration officials who traveled with him, totaling $33,999, including the mayor’s expenses, Kutner said. Among the officials who had their costs covered by UJA were Deputy Mayor for Communications Fabien Levy, senior adviser Joel Eisdorfer and First Deputy NYPD Commissioner Tania Kinsella.

Despite its optics, the Adams entourage’s trip does not appear to have broken any city ethics laws as they allow for public officials to accept free trips from third parties. There is a law prohibiting public officials from accepting anything of value, including travel, from firms or individuals with business dealings before the city, though that ban does not apply if there’s a government “purpose” for the freebie.

Still, John Kaehny, head of the Reinvent Albany watchdog group, deemed the financial arrangement of Adams’ Israel trip an “obvious” conflict of interest and a “big, big loophole” due to Rowan and Goldstein’s ties to city government. Those ties include Goldstein lobbying top members of Adams’ administration for city funding, and Rowan being the head of a major private equity firm charged with managing hundreds of millions of dollars in public pension funds for the city, records show.

The loophole, Kaehny said, should be addressed by lawmakers.

“This is exactly why mayors should be legally banned from having their trips or expenses paid for by outside entities, because the potential for conflicts of interest is just too high,” said Kaehny. “It’s all completely legal — it just shouldn’t be. It can be a way for special interests to facilitate pay to play, and influence the mayor’s official actions by giving things of value.”

Kaehny acknowledged that trips like Adams’ Israel visit can have a lot of value in providing needed perspective for promulgating policy and running city government.

“But if it is a worthwhile trip for government purposes, then the taxpayers should be paying for it,” he said. “If it’s private players paying for it, then the question always becomes: What are they expecting in return?”

Levy, Adams’ deputy mayor, said the mayor’s chief counsel, Lisa Zornberg, signed off on all funding details for the trip beforehand “to ensure full transparency of the costs and compliance with ethics rules.”

“It’s surprising that the Daily News is advocating for spending taxpayer dollars when we found a cost-effective and fully-transparent way to visit a country that so many New Yorkers have a connection to and were eager to see the mayor visit,” Levy said in a statement.

Kutner said UJA’s counsel also preemptively approved the funding of the mayor’s travels.

“We are proud to have organized this educational trip to Israel for the mayor — which follows a longstanding tradition of New York City mayors and other elected officials traveling to Israel,” she said.

The city Conflicts of Interest Board, which enforces local ethics laws, was not consulted before the mayor’s Israel sojourn, according to a City Hall official. Rather, City Hall relied on existing Conflicts of Interest Board guidance on free travel to devise the funding arrangement for the mayor’s trip, the official said.

Conflicts of Interest Board Executive Director Carolyn Miller declined to comment Friday.

In addition to serving as chairman of UJA, Rowan is the founding CEO of Apollo Global Management, one of the world’s largest asset management firms.

City records show Apollo manages more than $726 million in assets for the New York City Employees’ Retirement System, the municipal government’s largest public pension fund, which is controlled by a board whose chairman, Bryan Berge, is an Adams appointee.

Apollo has for years used an in-house government relations firm to lobby the public pension system, commonly known as NYCERS, lobbying records show.

Since Adams became mayor in January 2022, Apollo, which makes money off of NYCERS via investment fees, has focused on lobbying the retirement system on matters relating to “disbursement of public money” from the fund, according to the records.

As Apollo’s chief executive, Rowan has been registered in the city’s Doing Business Database since 2012. The database is meant to prevent the appearance of pay-to-play in city government by sharply limiting how much money individuals listed in it can donate to campaigns of candidates for elected office.

While there’s no record of Rowan contributing money to any of Adams’ political campaigns, he gave $25,000 in 2021 to Vote for NYC’s Future, a super PAC founded by real estate billionaire Stephen Ross. Ross launched the PAC with an aim to boost voter turnout among centrist Democrats in the 2021 mayoral election, which Adams won.

In his statement, Levy noted Rowan wasn’t on the mayor’s trip to Israel. “The city’s pension funds were never discussed,” he added.

Goldstein was on the trip with Adams and is pictured with him in a number of photos released by City Hall.

UJA focuses mostly on advocating and securing public and private funding for local groups, and in his capacity as the organization’s CEO and chief lobbyist, Goldstein has a web of business ties to Adams’ administration. Like Rowan, Goldstein is listed in the city’s Doing Business Database.

Lobbying records show Goldstein has directly met with Adams’ First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright; his International Affairs Commissioner Edward Mermelstein; his Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro, and staff at his Contract Services Office, among other targets. The purposes of Goldstein’s lobbying have been varied and include everything from allocating city funding for UJA-sponsored holocaust survivor services to advancing “UJA priorities” in its partnerships with local non-profits.

In addition to his own activities, Goldstein has in his CEO role hired multiple top lobbying firms to do UJA’s bidding in interactions with Adams’ administration.

Inside NYC Politics

Weekly

Latest news and more on politics and government in New York City and New York State.

That includes Goldstein this year hiring Kasirer LLC, one of the city’s biggest government relations firms, to lobby Adams administration officials, including deputy City Hall chief of staff Menashe Shapiro, on “funding requests and relationship building” for UJA, Clerk’s Office records show.

The stated purpose of Adams’ Israel trip was to learn about Israeli technology, meet with local leaders and discuss combined efforts to combat antisemitism.

Adams isn’t the first New York City mayor to face heat for accepting free trips.

Ex-Mayor Bill de Blasio drew similar conflict of interest concerns from the Center for Constitutional Rights when he accepted a trip to Israel in 2015 paid for by a Brooklyn-based entrepreneur.

It also isn’t the first time Adams has raised eyebrows over his traveling habits.

While Brooklyn borough president, Adams accepted thousands of dollars in travel and other perks from the governments of China, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

During the 2021 campaign, human rights and government watchdogs questioned the appropriateness of Adams taking freebies from those governments, given their documented histories of corruption and oppression.