"The Workers of This City Deserve Answers" Queens Court Hears Arguments for Inquiry into New York's COVID Restrictions by City Council Members
In a hearing that got strikingly personal and covered everything from the Varma exposé to Kyrie Irving, attorney Jimmy Wagner argued for a public inquiry and a City lawyer made a head-spinning claim.
In a Monday morning hearing that included a remarkable number of personal reflections on the pandemic by both the judge and counsel, Queens Supreme Court Judge Chereé Buggs heard arguments on whether to proceed with an inquiry into New York City officials’ “alleged violations and neglect of the law relating to the lockdown in NewYork City (NYC), the imposition of a lockdown, the shutting down of businesses and churches, and the stripping of NYC citizens of their basic liberties.”
Six New York City Council members filed the petition for a summary inquiry in December, asking for a long list of current and former City officials, from former mayor Bill de Blasio on down, to answer detailed questions about the restrictions that were put in place during the COVID-19 crisis. Summary inquiries are provided for under Section 1109 of the New York City Charter.
With Council Member Joann Ariola and about 20 current and former City workers in the courtroom, Judge Buggs questioned petitioners’ attorney Jimmy Wagner for over 45 minutes about the rationale for going forward with the inquiry.
Council Member Ariola, whose name tops the list of Council members who filed the petition, explained their reasons for calling for the inquiry after the hearing:
“Our attorney, Jimmy Wagner, did an incredible job explaining to the judge that we have in fact met the requirements of a summary inquiry and I am hopeful that she will rule in our favor.
We filed for this inquiry because the City has time and time again refused to answer questions about the reasonable accommodation process and why it was not an equitable process and who the expert who was deciding who received these accommodations and who did not. The workers of this city deserve answers and transparency from the government.”
Attorney Jimmy Wagner says he is currently seeking five more people to file an additional petition for a summary inquiry into the City's COVID-related restrictions and disparities in how they were applied to New Yorkers. New York City residents who are interested in being part of that effort can reach him at jimmy013@gmail.com or 929-477-8889.
The importance of providing answers to New York City workers who were impacted by the restrictions was a theme Wagner returned to again and again during the hearing, emphasizing that rules were stringently enforced on working class New Yorkers but often made exceptions for wealthier individuals.
Many of the petition’s supporters who attended the hearing were workers who lost their jobs or were suspended without pay under the City’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates. As the judge began questioning Wagner, he said that the Council members were “standing in the stead” of the many New Yorkers who were affected by the restrictions.
Wagner also explained that recent disclosures about how restrictions were devised raised new questions, bringing up the revelations that New York City “COVID Czar” Dr. Jay Varma had personally disregarded restrictions he advised City officials to impose on New Yorkers. Those revelations were brought to light by an undercover exposé by Steven Crowder in September 2024.
“This Is Not a Nothingburger”: Judge Buggs Underscores Severity of Pandemic as Justification for Restrictions
Judge Buggs responded to the Varma revelations by saying that the doctor’s personal actions didn’t invalidate his policy recommendations. She emphasized the severity of the pandemic, noting that millions of people died from COVID-19 and New York was the epicenter. The pandemic, she said, was “not a nothingburger,” so what was wrong with the policies put in place to address it?
Wagner responded that the policies put in place included violations of law and neglect of duty in imposing the restrictions, citing the necessary conditions for bringing the inquiry. When Judge Buggs asked for examples of the violations of law, Wagner returned to the disparity between working class New Yorkers who were denied accommodations under the vaccine mandates and celebrities like pro basketball player Kyrie Irving who were granted exemptions from them.
Irving did not take a COVID-19 vaccine when New York City’s mandates went into effect and was barred from playing for some time, but was later able to return to the court after Mayor Eric Adams issued the March 2022 Executive Order 62, which specifically exempted professional athletes and performing artists from the City’s private sector mandate.
Wagner also brought up the closure of small businesses and houses of worship, as well as the police department keeping separate sets of records for employees who applied for accommodations under the mandate and other requests for accommodations. Wagner suggested this might have been done in other city agencies as well, as part of an effort to evade transparent record keeping.
In response to the point about closures, Judge Buggs suggested those restrictions would not be within the purview of the inquiry because they were imposed by the state and not the New York City officials on the list of respondents.
This issue of whether restrictions imposed in New York City emanated from the state or city government came up repeatedly during the hearing, with Wagner insisting that the de Blasio administration adopted, enforced, and extended the restrictions that were originally put in place by Governor Cuomo’s administration.
Wagner: “ The City Wants to Sweep Under the Rug What Was Done to the Working Class People”
As the hearing went on, the exchange between Judge Buggs and Jimmy Wagner took a personal turn, with both of them illustrating points with their own personal experiences of the years of lockdowns, closures, and restrictions.
When Wagner noted that he himself was barred from attending church services in person while still being able to shop at a liquor store, Buggs reflected that she couldn’t go to the hair dresser but could go to the store for a bottle of wine, joking that she understood why liquor stores remained open when the schools were closed because homeschooling “was not fun.” On a more serious note, she added: “I don’t understand the rationale for that either, frankly.”
When Wagner later picked up on this comment to say that people like the judge were