{"id":251406,"date":"2026-06-01T21:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/251406\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T21:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T21:38:13","slug":"judge-orders-nyc-officials-to-testify-about-why-city-hall-initially-said-records-on-lower-manhattan-air-quality-after-9-11-didnt-exist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/251406\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge orders NYC officials to testify about why City Hall initially said records on Lower Manhattan air quality after 9\/11 didn\u2019t exist"},"content":{"rendered":"

Advocacy group 9\/11 Health Watch celebrated Manhattan Supreme Court Judge James Clyne\u2019s May decision forcing officials to testify. Attorney Andrew Carboy said the group was glad it had those 68 boxes of records now, but felt the public deserved an explanation as to how and why the city initially told advocates who filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the records it didn\u2019t have anything to share from the months following the attack when it actually had hundreds of thousands of documents, calling it extremely concerning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s crazy,\u201d Carboy said of how the city handled producing documents about what it knew and when about the danger of Lower Manhattan\u2019s air quality after the attack 25 years ago this September<\/a>. \u201cThe court has determined we are entitled to an explanation for these wild contradictions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clyne\u2019s decision to force the officials to testify is notable. It\u2019s incredibly uncommon for live testimony to be permitted in these types of suits against city decisions, particularly those regarding FOIA determinations, Carboy said, adding that he \u201cdidn\u2019t envy\u201d those who\u2019d be forced to take the stand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told the judge, \u2018Look, we\u2019re not asking you to rule on what the city did right or did wrong in response to 9\/11. We\u2019re only asking for [testimony from] these record searchers, because the story keeps changing,\u2019\u201d Carboy said. \u201cSo, to preserve the integrity of the court system in this proceeding, he is allowing us to ask the record searchers these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

9\/11 Health Watch sued the city in March<\/a> over its refusal to turn over air quality records after it submitted FOIA requests in 2023 for risk assessments the city performed and communications between city agencies and the federal government immediately after the attack. The group\u2019s said its goal is to ascertain how the city made the decision to tell the public that the air in lower Manhattan immediately following the attacks was so safe that life could essentially go back to normal.<\/p>\n

\"9\/11A group of firefighters search the remains of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. More than 400 firefighters have died of 9\/11-related illnesses nearly 25 years after the attacks.REUTERS\/Shannon Stapleton<\/p>\n

Over 5,000 people have died to date from health conditions, like cancer and lung diseases, stemming from exposure to toxic air in the wake of the attack, significantly more than the roughly 3,000 who died on the day of the attack.<\/p>\n

9\/11 survivors demand healing of \u2018a moral injury\u2019<\/p>\n

Carboy said the group isn\u2019t seeking the information so survivors have new grounds to sue the city \u2014 there are multiple legal blockers preventing them from doing so at this point \u2014 but for answers and accountability.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s described the city\u2019s choice not to hand over documents as \u201ca moral injury\u201d and an affront to the public\u2019s trust in government. While he still feels there are likely records the city hasn\u2019t turned over, he said he\u2019s focusing first on preparing to question the officials on why and how they said they didn\u2019t have any records before handing over 68 boxes of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are public records. They belong to the public. They\u2019re not to be withheld,\u201d Carboy said. \u201cThis was a complete misstatement that the records did not exist. This was a complete misrepresentation that the records could not be found with a diligent search.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said forcing the officials to testify helped preserve the integrity of not only the FOIA process related to 9\/11 records, but in the city at large.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIf our government is going to be so cavalier and incorrect about the records of the most significant event in New York City history, imagine how they are in more everyday things that affect individuals, whether it\u2019s zoning documents, tax assessment documents,\u201d the attorney said. \u201cIt\u2019s really, really disturbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clyne appeared to agree in his decision, saying that the city\u2019s denial of the FOIA request was arbitrary and capricious and lacked any individualized reasoning to deny the public records request.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe purpose behind FOIL is to promote open government and public accountability by imposing upon governmental agencies a broad duty to make their records available to the public,\u201d Clyne wrote. \u201cPetitioner has asserted facts to establish their cause of action and has demonstrated a need for discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked for a comment on the decision, the city\u2019s Law Department referred amNewYork to comments Corporation Counsel Steven Banks made at a City Council March budget hearing where he told council members his team was working to set up a public portal so the public could freely view documents related to the city\u2019s actions in the wake of 9\/11.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince I was confirmed a couple of weeks ago, we have set up a team that is reviewing what documents can be posted on a portal to provide access to the public and the cost for maintaining such access, and what documents cannot be posted,\u201d Banks said at that hearing. \u201cWe\u2019re working on this very hard to be able to, as I said, post documents to be available to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carboy said he believed the city was fighting the release of documents because \u201ccareer staffers\u201d in the mayor\u2019s office and the Law Department have spent their lives keeping the documents hidden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only people on the planet who are fighting the release of these records are the career staffers at the Law Department and the Mayor\u2019s Office,\u201d Carboy said. \u201cAs best as I can see it, for whatever reason, they\u2019re basically disregarding the publicly stated wishes and instructions of their bosses, Mayor Mamdani and Corporation Counsel Steven Banks.\u201d<\/p>\n

The City Council has pushed hard for the release of all documents related to the terrorist attack, with Speaker Julie Menin and Council Member Gale Brewer repeatedly urging the mayor and Law Department to share everything they can and calling for an investigation into the city\u2019s handling of the crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The officials\u2019 testimony is set for July 1 and July 8.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Advocacy group 9\/11 Health Watch celebrated Manhattan Supreme Court Judge James Clyne\u2019s May decision forcing officials to testify.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5301,4590,2710,43241,9,56,63,65,64,87],"class_list":["post-251406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-9-11","tag-air-quality","tag-law","tag-law-department","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251406\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}