Ex-DCAS official sues, says supervisors pushed sensitive work talk off city devices
A former deputy assistant commissioner says her bosses told her to handle certain topics on her personal phone and email, outside the city's official record.
Senior managers at the Department of Citywide Administrative Services routinely moved sensitive conversations onto personal phones, personal email and paper memos delivered by hand, according to a former deputy assistant commissioner who says the practice kept those discussions out of the official record. Michelle Gundy lays out the claims in a whistleblower lawsuit she filed in August.
DCAS handles purchasing and leasing for city government. Gundy says her supervisors regularly told her to skip her city-issued phone and email for certain touchy subjects and use her own instead, and that the habit was fairly common among the agency’s top officials.
What the off-the-books DCAS discussions covered
Gundy points to three subjects that were steered away from city systems. One was an executive deputy commissioner’s push to get her nephew hired at the agency. Another concerned Probation: the department is headquartered in Manhattan, but its commissioner at the time wanted a shorter commute, so officials talked about renting space for it in Queens. The third involved proposed protocols for checking city-owned buildings for Legionella, a bacteria that can kill.
Nearly all of the exchanges took place before Mayor Zohran Mamdani had completed five months in office. Under city rules, official business has to go through city phones or the internal email system, which keeps the records preserved and open to public release. The conduct Gundy describes appears to break those rules.
According to the suit, Gundy was fired in May after she objected to some of the practices. John Scola, her attorney, said she “had a spotless record running a 1,000-employee City division” before the firing, which he linked to her reporting of nepotism at the agency.
City Hall rules on Signal and personal phones
The lawsuit lands as City Hall tightens its own messaging rules. The mayor’s new media staffer, Emilia Rowland Winter, relied on the encrypted Signal app to coordinate messaging with Instagram and TikTok influencers, and messages to at least one of them were set to delete automatically. The mayor’s chief counsel said he took “immediate corrective action,” and staff were told to stop using auto-delete and to stay off Signal for city business.
Chief counsel Ramzi Kassem had already sent a Jan. 15 memo telling city workers to keep work on official accounts and not to use WhatsApp, Signal or similar apps. On Sept. 21, chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church went further in a text to all city employees, directing them to send work messages from their city email, use city-issued desk or cell phones and keep work calls off personal phones.
Quick answers
What does the DCAS whistleblower lawsuit allege?
Former deputy assistant commissioner Michelle Gundy says supervisors told her to use her personal phone and email for sensitive topics, and that she was fired in May after objecting.
What are the rules for city employees' work messages?
City business must run through city phones or the internal email system. A Jan. 15 memo said not to use WhatsApp, Signal or similar apps for work, and a Sept. 21 text told staff to use city email and city-issued phones.
