A company once owned by Deputy Mayor Philip Banks that snared a $150-million city Housing Authority contract has been greenlighted by the Adams administration to qualify for no-bid security contracts at the city’s burgeoning network of migrant shelters.
Last November the Department of Citywide Administrative Services (DCAS) placed the company, Overwatch Services, on a list of pre-qualified minority- and women-owned businesses eligible for contracts of up to $1.5 million to provide guards at city facilities, including shelters that house asylum-seekers, records show. The contracts are not subject to the usual competitive bidding process.
Michael Garner, the city’s chief diversity officer, is heavily involved in the city’s MWBE program, including the push to hire security firms for the overburdened shelter system.
Garner has a long history with Adams. Both men were founders of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, a fraternal group of Black police officers that the mayor ran for years before he entered politics. The mayor appointed Garner as chief diversity officer in February 2023.
Credit: Marc A. Hermann/MTA
On Sept. 4, federal authorities took the cell phones of several top Adams’ aides, including Philip Banks, who is deputy mayor for public safety; First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright; her fiance schools Chancellor David Banks; and senior aide Timothy Pearson. None of the top aides who received visits from federal agents have been accused of wrongdoing.
This is the fourth instance since then in which contract issues have emerged involving top Adams’ administration officials. A third Banks brother, Terence, whose devices were also confiscated by federal agents, runs a government relations firm. His clients include a tech firm that has lovbbied both David and Philip Banks for a contract.
The head of the MWBE office, Garner, served in the NYPD back in the 1990s and 2000s along with Adams and Philip Banks. Banks resigned as the highest ranking uniformed member of the department in 2014, shortly before it was revealed that he’d been named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal investigation of police corruption. The FBI uncovered evidence two businessmen had treated Banks to pricey meals, sports tickets, all-expense paid junkets, and $20,000 in “interest” on an investment.
Banks and City Safe
Shortly after his resignation, Banks bought a security company called Overwatch Services from another former cop, Dwayne Montgomery. Banks and a former NYPD sergeant named Soyini Chan-Shue owned the business as partners, renaming it City Safe Partners. Another longtime Adams’ associate, Winnie Greco, was listed as Overwatch’s “Chinese American Security Liaison,” according to an archived version of the firm’s website.
In February, Montgomery pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud for raising illegal “straw” donations for Adams’ 2021 campaign. Later that month, Greco’s homes were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation by Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.
Banks has repeatedly said he sold his interest in City Safe Partners in 2018. But state records show he was listed as a partner in the firm on a security guard license that remained in effect through mid-June 2020. Any changes to that partnership arrangement would require an amended application, but in Overwatch’s case no such amendment was filed.
Liz Garcia, a spokesperson for the mayor, has said Banks divested from the company before joining the administration. Defense attorney Ben Brafman, who is representing Phil Banks in the federal investigation, did not immediately respond to THE CITY’s questions about the timing of Banks’ ownership of Overwatch.T
In July 2020 Philip Banks and his two brothers held a Zoom fundraiser that raised $15,670 for Adams’ 2021 mayoral campaign. That August, Chan-Shue, Philip Banks’ former partner at City Safe, raised another $16,075 for Adams.
Both DCAS and the MWBE office are under the direct supervision of Wright’s office. A decade ago, in 2013, David Banks reached out to his brother, Philip, after Wright was arrested following a fight that turned physical with her then husband. Soon after that phone call, Wright’s arrest was voided.
Lobbying for Admission
Last November, the DCAS placed Overwatch on a list of 21 security contractors pre-qualified to bid as minority- or women-owned businesses for both armed and unarmed security guard work at city shelters. In July, Overwatch signed in to a pre-proposal conference run by DCAS, the first step in the process of picking contractors to run shelter security.
These contracts are part of the Adams’ administration’s efforts to increase the participation of minority- and women-owned businesses in bidding on city contracts, in part by loosening the strict competitive bidding protocols that apply to big contracts.
In announcing Garner’s appointment in February 2023, Mayor Adams also directed city agencies “whenever practicable” to “seek to award contracts for goods, services and construction of up to $1 million to MWBEs through a non-competitive method.” The $1 million cap later increased to $1.5 million via a bill sponsored by Assemblymember Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, an Adams ally, that was signed by Gov. Kathy Hochul in December.
The influx of 210,000 asylum seekers into New York City since spring 2022 has put a strain on the shelter system. It’s also created a heightened demand for security guard firms.
The involvement of Garner, as head of the mayor’s office of MWBE, is evident in lobbyist filings by one of the firms placed on the same pre-qualified list as Overwatch, Nature’s Finest Security, LLC of Brooklyn.
Last year the firm hired a lobbyist, Kyle Bragg of BMW Government Relations, to lobby Garner and DCAS officials in the hopes of winning security guard contracts under the MWBE program Garner oversees, records filed with the city clerk show.
During January and February, Bragg described his work on behalf of Nature’s Finest as “communicating with Mayor’s Office of MWBE to ensure client isn’t missing bid opportunities for security service contracts,” according to the records.
In March and April, Bragg noted that he intended to speak with “MWBE Michael Garner and DCAS Commissioner Dawn Pinnock to navigate the city portal for bidding service contracts and helping client to become prequalified in preparation for upcoming bid opportunities,” according to the records.
Bragg appeared to have more success with Garner than DCAS. In one entry for July and August, Bragg noted that his call to a top DCAS official “to get update on upcoming security bid” went unanswered. His subsequent call to Garner resulted in Garner setting up a call for Sept. 3.
The mayor’s office did not respond to THE CITY’s questions on Monday about Garner’s role in the effort to hire MWBE security firms for the city shelter system.
DCAS Commissioner Pinnock left in April. In June Adams named Louis Molina, a former cop and ex-corrections commissioner, as her replacement. A spokesperson for DCAS did not immediately respond to THE CITY’s questions about which pre-qualified MWBE security guard firms have been awarded contracts to date.
