New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's administration will skip a City Council oversight hearing on its troubled pied-à-terre tax rollout, drawing bipartisan criticism from council members who say written testimony is no substitute for accountability.

The administration announced it would send no officials to testify at the hearing, scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m., choosing instead to submit written remarks. Mamdani spokesman Matthew Rauschenbach cited "ongoing litigation" as the reason, a justification that City Council Speaker Julie Menin and lawmakers from both parties rejected as insufficient and evasive.

The decision lands in the middle of a rollout that has already produced a lawsuit, a temporary judicial pause, a database listing more than 900,000 homeowners, and 17,000 tax notices sent to property owners, many of whom say they were wrongly targeted. For an administration built on promises of transparency and progressive accountability, the refusal to sit for questions marks a conspicuous retreat.

900,000 names, 17,000 notices, and a lawsuit in three weeks

The pied-à-terre tax, a surcharge on non-primary residences, was approved by Governor Kathy Hochul and Democratic state lawmakers after Mamdani pressed his "tax the rich" agenda. It applies to one- to three-family homes valued at $5 million or more and to co-ops and condominiums worth at least $1 million that are unoccupied or not the owner's primary residence.

City officials published a database of more than 900,000 homeowners who could potentially face the tax. Then they sent 17,000 notices warning recipients they would owe the surcharge unless they filed for an exemption. The problem: some of those notices went to people who live full-time in their homes and have for years.

Three homeowners filed suit, contending they either wrongly received notices for their longtime primary residences or were placed on the published tax roll in error. Among the plaintiffs are the wife and father of Republican Staten Island Councilman Frank Morano. A judge granted a temporary pause of the rollout, an early victory for the challengers, but that pause was subsequently lifted, allowing City Hall to resume. The lawsuit remains active.

The speed of the breakdown is striking. Mamdani warned wealthy New Yorkers about paying their "fair share" in late July, sparking an immediate backlash. Within days, city officials published the massive homeowner database. By early August, the lawsuit had been filed. A judge paused the rollout around August 10, then lifted the pause days later. And now, barely a week after that legal whiplash, the administration says it will not answer questions in person.

Democrats join Republicans in rebuking the no-show

Speaker Menin made clear the hearing would proceed with or without the mayor's team, and pointedly noted that previous administrations managed to show up for oversight even while facing active litigation.

"Oversight is an essential function of government, and past mayoral administrations have shown up to answer questions despite ongoing litigation. This is an unfortunate decision by the Administration but the hearing will go forward so we can hear from the public."

The criticism did not stop at the speaker's office. Bronx Councilman Eric Dinowitz, a Democrat otherwise allied with Mamdani, posted on X that the rollout was "clearly flawed" and accused the administration of "turning its back on the transparency and accountability our city was promised."

That is not a Republican talking point. That is a fellow progressive telling the mayor he broke his own standard. Mamdani, a former Democratic Socialists of America, backed state legislator, built his political identity on holding the powerful to account. Now his own allies say he is ducking the process he championed.

Fellow Bronx Democrat Kevin Riley echoed the frustration, writing that "written testimony cannot replace direct engagement, transparency, and the Council's ability to ask important questions on behalf of New Yorkers." The administration has faced mounting political friction across a range of issues, including a hostile reception at a recent NYPD event on Staten Island that underscored the depth of public frustration with Mamdani's leadership.

Morano calls the snub 'incredibly disrespectful' to homeowners

Councilman Morano, the Staten Island Republican whose own family members are plaintiffs in the pied-à-terre lawsuit, did not hold back. He called the administration's decision "incredibly disrespectful" to the public and laid out the human cost of the rollout's failures.

"New Yorkers have been confused, alarmed and forced to spend their own time dealing with this rollout. The Council scheduled a public hearing so the administration could answer questions directly. Now they won't even show up."

Republican council members planned a rally on the City Hall steps at noon, ahead of the hearing, to amplify the frustrations of homeowners caught up in the tax chaos. The Democratic Socialists of America scheduled a rival assembly at the same time and place, rallying in support of the levy itself. The dueling events capture the political split, but neither side is defending the way City Hall handled the rollout.

The administration's own defense, delivered through Rauschenbach, leaned entirely on the tax's policy merits rather than addressing the implementation failures that prompted the hearing in the first place. Mamdani's pattern of sidestepping difficult public moments has become a recurring theme, the mayor recently left town for a weeklong upstate vacation while his deputy managed city business.

"From the beginning, we have been clear that the pied-à-terre surcharge is an important source of revenue for our city. This revenue is essential to funding safer streets, cleaner parks and other critical investments that New Yorkers across all five boroughs deserve."

Safer streets and cleaner parks are fine goals. But the question the Council wants answered is not whether the tax is a good idea in theory. The question is why the administration published a database of 900,000 homeowners, sent 17,000 notices that included people living in their own homes, triggered a lawsuit, and then, when asked to explain what went wrong, chose to send a letter instead of a person.

Litigation is not a shield against oversight

The "ongoing litigation" excuse deserves scrutiny. Speaker Menin noted that past mayoral administrations testified before the Council even while lawsuits were pending. Government officials face legal challenges constantly; if every active case excused an administration from legislative oversight, the Council would rarely hear from anyone.

The administration is not being asked to comment on the merits of the lawsuit. It is being asked to explain how it managed a tax rollout that confused homeowners, generated erroneous notices, and required a judge to step in. Those are operational questions, not legal ones. The litigation excuse looks less like caution and more like a convenient way to avoid uncomfortable answers, a tactic that sits poorly alongside Mamdani's record of reversing campaign pledges when reality proves inconvenient.

Several open questions remain unanswered. Which specific city officials were expected to testify? What exemption process were the 17,000 homeowners required to complete, and how many have done so? Has the administration identified how many of the notices were sent in error? And what, exactly, will the written testimony say, and will it address the rollout failures or simply restate the policy's revenue justifications?

None of those questions can be answered by a written statement that arrives after the hearing. Written testimony cannot be cross-examined. It cannot be pressed for follow-ups. It cannot be asked to reconcile the gap between what the administration promised and what homeowners experienced. That is precisely the point of a hearing, and precisely why the administration's absence matters. The broader pattern of governance failures, from a sprawling homeless encampment on Manhattan's West Side to the pied-à-terre debacle, raises fair questions about whether this administration can execute its own agenda.

When you tax the rich, you had better get the paperwork right. When you get it wrong and 17,000 people get notices they should not have received, you had better show up and explain. And when you refuse to do even that, you are not governing, you are hiding.