Angry mom who confronted Adams on toddler mask mandate fired from city job
NY POST | April 6, 2022
The Big Apple mom who crashed Mayor Eric Adams’ press conference Monday to blast him over his tot mask mandate was fired shortly afterward from her job at the city Law Department, The Post has learned.
Daniela Jampel, who served as an assistant corporation counsel, learned she was canned less than an hour after she confronted a caught-off-guard and apparently annoyed Adams over when he would “unmask our toddlers.”
Jampel had publicly challenged the mayor at an unrelated event on LGBTQ issues — as Adams stood in front of a podium banner that read, “Come to the city where you can say whatever you want.’’
“Three weeks ago, you told parents to trust you that you would unmask our toddlers,” Jampel told the mayor.
“You stood right here, and you said that the masks would come off April 4. That has not happened.”
As Jampel attempted to ask why, City Hall staffers tried to cut her off when they realized she wasn’t a reporter, but Adams, seemingly miffed at the mom getting a question in, allowed her to continue, although he told her she needed to “come to a conclusion.”
“Turn on your phone so you can get my answer correctly but come to a conclusion,” he snipped.
Sources close to the matter said Jampel — a leading local critic of the toddler mask mandate and pandemic school closures — was informed by email shortly after the presser that she was fired.
The Law Department’s spokesman confirmed to The Post that Jampel was terminated Monday, although the rep said the decision to fire her was made “prior to today.
“We hold all of our employees to the highest professional standards. In public statements, Ms. Jampel has made troubling claims about her work for the city Law Department. Based on those statements, the decision had been made to terminate her prior to today,” the spokesman said.
“Today’s events, however, which include her decision to lie to City Hall staff and state she was a journalist at a press conference, demonstrate a disturbing lack of judgment and integrity. As of today, she is no longer an employee of the Law Department.”
Jampel told The Post in a statement, “I am retaining counsel and will not litigate in the press.”
The mother of three had been out on maternity leave for the past eight months while actively speaking out against COVID-19 restrictions in Big Apple schools and is the co-founder of an advocacy group, Keep NYC Schools Open.
A source familiar with the matter said Jampel appeared to be in good standing with her bosses as recently as mid-February, when one of them approved her request for extended maternity leave.
The higher-up approved her request and said her colleagues were looking forward to working with her again upon her return, the source added.
City sources say the decision to terminate Jampel came Friday after she wrote a tweet criticizing Adams for upholding the toddler mask mandate and said her job with the city entailed defending “cops who lie in court, teachers who molest children, prison guards who beat inmates.”
“It is a job I have done proudly. Until tonight. Fighting to keep masks on toddlers is shameful. I am ashamed of my office,” Jampel wrote.
Monday’s press conference was not the first time Jampel spoke against COVID-19 restrictions, but it was the first time she directly confronted Adams.
The ordeal came after Adams warned city staffers last seek that every single communication from a public agency, even notices as benign as a tree-planting event, must first be approved by City Hall before being released to the press — all part of an effort to control messaging by his administration, Politico reported.
“What is imperative to know is, you are assigned to an agency under a commissioner, but you work for me,” Adams told staffers during a Zoom call, the outlet reported, citing audio it obtained of the meeting.
“The commissioner leads an agency, but I lead the city. I’m the mayor of the city and all communications that come through this city government is coming through my message.”
About two weeks ago, Jampel attended a rally against the toddler mask mandate and was quoted in The Post criticizing Adams for “not following the science.
“This is making a mockery of the science. This is playing us for fools,’’ she said at the time.
“New York state recognizes the science. Everywhere else in New York state — 10 miles away in Nassau County, 10 miles away in Westchester County — toddlers are allowed to take off their masks along with their older brothers and sisters,’’ Jampel added.
But “our mayor and our new health commissioner tell us it’s not safe for toddlers to take off their masks.”
Last March, Jampel penned an op-ed for The Post demanding the city Department of Education end remote learning and bring kids back to school, an issue that made its way into the court system when parents filed suit against the city.
She called the city’s “two-case rule,” which required school buildings to shut down for 10 days if two cases are found within a week, “arbitrary” and wrote that continuous closures were creating “misery and havoc for children.”
Jampel started working for the city Law Department in February 2016 and earned about $52 an hour fighting “complex personal injury actions” filed against the Big Apple, including against “toxic tort, motor vehicle, and alleged police misconduct,” according to her LinkedIn profile and public records.
She graduated from Fordham University’s law school in 2008.
