City Council members are being forced to strip their desks of political signs — including Israeli hostage posters and flyers calling for a ceasefire in the Middle East – in a move by Speaker Adrienne Adams that is already drawing outrage, The Post has learned.
The speaker, no relation to Mayor Eric Adams, first floated the plan during a conference with other council Democrats Monday as she tries to tamp down rhetoric between lawmakers over the Israel-Hamas war, sources said.
The council’s general counsel then sent out a memo on Wednesday informing members that they couldn’t “affix on furniture or otherwise display signs or flags” in chamber or during any meetings without prior approval from the speaker.
This is a shameful, disgusting excuse of a power flex, used to curtail my freedom of expression,” Brooklyn Republican Councilmember Inna Vernikov railed. “My colleagues have a constitutional right to hang a ‘ceasefire now’ poster, no matter how much I disagree with them. I have a right to display a poster of a hostage, no matter how much my colleagues disagree with my message.”
Kalman Yeger, a Brooklyn Democrat, also criticized the policy, saying it was an encroachment on free speech.
“There is no member of the council to determine unilaterally what members put on their desk,” Yeger fumed.
Both told The Post they would put their signs back up.
Council sources said they expected all signs to be taken down as soon as Thursday.
