NYC Mayor Adams Holds In-Person Media Availability
Mayor Adams and his team discussed tackling chronic homelessness, emphasizing the need for more comprehensive approaches and criticizing the previous system’s shortcomings. They also touched on the impact of recent free travel promotions from New Jersey, noting that while beneficial for tourism, it’s not a sustainable solution for funding New York’s transit system. The administration remains focused on improving the city’s services and infrastructure despite financial and logistical challenges.
Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy, Communications: Good morning everybody, my name is Fabien Levy and I serve as deputy mayor for Communications for the City of New York. We always talk about reaching people where they are, so as a part of that effort our administration recognizes the crucial role of multilingual communications in effectively serving New York City’s diverse population. To engage with our Spanish speaking communities we create Spanish language videos and social media content on a daily basis.
This weekend our efforts were recognized with a Napolitan Victory Award by the Washington Academy. These awards celebrate the best political communications work in Spanish, and our administration won in the category of best Government Audio Visual Campaign for our bilingual social media campaign NYC Shook Things Up. I just want to say congratulations to our creative comms team, job well done.
So from keeping people safe to making our city more affordable, our administration works every day to deliver for working class New Yorkers. As always, we look forward to telling you more about those efforts today. That’s why the mayor’s once again convened senior leadership for our weekly in-person media availability to answer your questions and address the issues that are top of mind for New Yorkers.
Joining us today we have Mayor Eric Adams, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar, Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg, and New York City Police Department Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism Rebecca Weiner. So I’m pleased to now turn it over to Mayor Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much Fabien and the entire team. Good to see you all. I hope everyone had a great summer. We are continuous on our pursuit to keep this amazing city safe while making our city more affordable and New Yorkers deserve a city that is both affordable and safe and the announcement yesterday really personifies how we continue to move in that direction.
When we came into office our mission was clear, you know, reeling from the pandemic and through the pandemic a steep recession and surge in crime, 40 percent increase in crime and New Yorkers were afraid to be on our subway, to go back and forth. We knew we had our challenges in front of us but when you look at two years and eight months later we’ve made great strides. Overall crime is down for seven straight months in a row and our subway system, particularly in areas of robberies, is the lowest in recorded history.
That’s why last week we filed yet another lawsuit against a major parking app that was pushing New Yorkers to unsafe garages and parking lots. Everywhere people are tempted to do things that is an unscrupulous response to delivery of services we’re going to go after and this was one of them. The app allowed unlicensed and dangerous parking garages and lots who operate on city streets and exploited consumers through deceptive practices and we made it clear it’s not going to be tolerated and we took the appropriate action.
In the area of affordability, we were really pleased yesterday to announce our campaign of actually putting money back into, actually I should say initiative it is not a campaign, to announce our initiative of putting money back into the pockets of New Yorkers. We found when we took office, we just saw too much money was being left on the table in the federal, on the state and on the city level because of the, just the challenges and difficulties of accessing these resources and so we put in place this real initiative to go out and put money in the pockets of New Yorkers on so many different levels.
We can’t do anything about recession and inflation, we can’t do anything about all of those entities, but we can look at the monies that we have already that should be allocated to New Yorkers and we can get it to them. Thus far, we put over 30 billion dollars back into the pockets of New Yorkers and you know, 30 billion dollars. That’s money back recycled into our communities on a local level and it’s just a real way of being efficient as we move and implement the deliveries of goods and services to New Yorkers.
This includes 4.3 billion through our cash assistance program that helps New Yorkers in low-income communities for food, housing and utilities. 1.9 billion dollars through subsidized child care, one of the great initiatives that First Deputy Mayor Wright was able to push forward to drop the cost $55,000 if you make a year less. It went from $55 a week to less than $5 a week. That was huge for families.
245 million dollars through the expanded earned income tax credit. It took 20 years before we were able to get that increase and we hear from people all the time as well as when you look at what we’re doing with the medical debt. We’re extremely proud of our medical debt relief. It’s impacting so many families. So we launched our Money in Your Pockets tour. The team goes out with an iPad, basic information, telling people what they qualify for. I saw a demonstration yesterday, really pleased with this and I think it’s going to make a major impact on everyday New Yorkers.
Before we take questions, we have a real heat advisory. Hot weather is coming. Another day, another hot day tomorrow. We want people to take necessary precautions. The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for tomorrow. It induces in the lower 100s across the city starting at 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. So we want folks to be careful. Sign up as always for NotifyNYC, but also we’re going to have the cooling centers open and you could do it and go look for them at finder.nyc.gov/coolingcenter. If anyone is looking for a particular location or cooling center to go to beat the heat in the city.
I spoke to Ms. Walker today. She lost her son in a horrific accident. And I really thank both the New York Post and the Daily News for their stories on this. Any accident is a terrible accident, but some of them turn into Shakespearean tragedies. Two days before your ceremony, the family’s devastated, as you can imagine. We’re going to find a person involved. And I’m asking New Yorkers, if you know of any information that can lead to apprehending this person who appeared to have left the scene, I’m just going to put $1,000 of my own personal money to call for the arrest and conviction of this person.
Just a horrific, horrific incident, a crash, and that family is devastated. You know, the mom wasn’t even able to hold it together. I spoke with the sister as well. And I’m going to reach out to them. They want to do some sort of ceremony there at the site. And we’re going to do everything we can to coordinate. Number one, to bring closure to apprehend the person. And number two, to allow them to go and have some form of closure at the site where the incident took place.
Question: Mr. Mayor, I’d like to talk to you right now about what you’re doing to deal with the migrants as we go, as we get back to school. I have a number of questions. I wonder what outreach the city has been doing to new families to connect them and their children with both the ability to enroll, but also what city services are available.
I’m also wondering whether you’re better prepared to deal with people who have problems with English as a second language. And lastly, what are you doing to bridge the communications gap between the migrants and their children and the schools to make sure that they get to school?
Mayor Adams: Chancellor Banks welcomed, I think, roughly 7,000, was it?
First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright: 40,000.
Deputy Mayor Levy: Yeah, over the last two years.
Mayor Adams: Into the system today. And he communicated with the new teachers. That was my [inaudible] teachers when I was [inaudible] thousands, the new teachers that came in. And when you do an analysis of the last two years, we incorporated over 40,000 students. And I’m extremely impressed on the retention and the learning of English at that young age.
We come across young people all the time who came here, could not speak English, could not speak several languages from West Africa and others. And they are now communicating in a fluent manner based on what the chancellor has put in place. But also what the students, teachers, and faculties have all immersed themselves into helping these young children and our new arrivals to be incorporated in the educational experience and educational process. And so the chancellor will do an overall briefing on exactly what the plans are.
But it’s clear the Project Open Arms. It has really met the mark. And we are not hearing that these children are not receiving the support that they need. And combination, again, outside entities, volunteers, communities embracing. We’re seeing the best of New York when it comes down to these young people and the chancellor will give an overall briefing, as he does at the beginning of the school year, on any new initiatives he’s going to do.
Question: How many kids, how many migrant kids, and how many new teachers who teach English as a second language?
Deputy Mayor Levy: Just before services, you want to maybe talk about that at the…
Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, Health and Human Services: I just, I thought the mayor did a great job, especially saying this is where we see the best of New York. The group that you said also, mayor, were parents. There’s so many parent associations and community groups. I think on Thursday, there’s going to be a group from the Upper West Side that’s going to the arrival center to hand out backpacks to make sure that kids have everything that they need. And that’s been something. I think this is probably, is this our third starting of school season? And so we’re, fortunately or unfortunately, getting really good at this.
I don’t know what the enrollment numbers will be, Marcia, I’m assuming that they’re going to be a little less because the numbers have been down. And as soon as people come to the arrival center, or whether they’re going to Floyd Bennett Field or any shelter, they get connected to school. They get connected to any kind of child care services that they might need for their little ones, after school services, summer camp they’ve been involved in. So we’ve been really wrapping our arms around those young people. Mental, you know that everybody that goes through the arrival center also gets screened for mental health services, for depression, for trauma, for those kind of things. And then we’re making sure that we have those, the families have those supports too.
[Crosstalk.]
That will be something that the chancellor will get you. I will tell you that Wolof has been a language that has been really increasing because we’ve seen that’s been one from Senegalese families. So I don’t know the numbers. There’s something like 115 languages that we know that we have from the arrival center that we do in the interpreter line that we use, but we can get those numbers for you.
Deputy Mayor Ana Almanzar, Strategic Initiatives: And also Marcia, the investment that the administration did in the work with the council as well, in the 10-point plan includes our engagement with ACS to make sure that the funding that we’re allowed for Raising One Seed, to make sure that we engage our families who are new arrivals, as well as working with the Department of Education, New City Public Schools, to make sure that we engage with those who are in temporary housing to bring those students and their family to understand the services are provided throughout the city, especially in the Department of Education.
Mayor Adams: I think the chancellor is due to be on your show and just do a whole conversation around this. Okay, so we’ll make sure that happens, all right?
Question: Hello, good morning. How are you? Commissioner Weiner is here, so I would like to ask if she can talk about her trip, I guess, to South America and the gangs. I know the mayor mentioned that that’s the plan, but also I’m wondering if you’re here because the school year starts and the universities are back and if there’s any information you can give us to, you know, what’s going on in the Middle East, how can it be also happening here?
But I also have another question, Mr. Mayor and the administration about McGuinness Boulevard redesign. So last week it was revealed that there will be a bike lane on the southern portion that will be prolonged without reducing the number of lanes on that road. So there will be no road diet, but also the parking will be removed. So now both sides are unhappy. They were unhappy before, now they’re unhappy because of different reasons. Can you please answer why this decision was made like this? Just looking for your comment. Thank you very much.
Mayor Adams: I’ve learned in negotiation if both sides are unhappy, that’s a good negotiation. Diem, Josie, do you want to go into your favorite topic, McGuinness Boulevard?
Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: Yes, so I mean, I think you summed it up very well, both sides are unhappy, but there’s lots to be happy about the redesign of McGuinness Boulevard. It adds bike lanes that weren’t there before. They will be protected bike lanes through some of our most vulnerable hours, the evening hours, and also at our most vulnerable points, which are intersections, which a vast majority of our fatalities happen at intersections. We’ve added sidewalk extenders.
And another important aspect of the work that’s happening on McGuinness is it connects to the entire bike network. And that’s really the key to safety. Having a bike lane in isolation is only good while you’re in that bike lane, but people are using bikes to commute, to transfer back and forth to work, to run errands. So having a network of bike lanes is really important to improving safety for all. And obviously the bike lane and having the floating parking are going to have the effect of slowing down traffic.
Mayor Adams: And the Commissioner Weiner can go into the meeting that we’ve had. I want to, hats off to the governor for being proactive to meet with the colleges. Commissioner Weiner and Chief of Staff Camille also met with the schools. We’ve been meeting all summer long because we want to be prepared to allow people peaceful protests without being disruptive to those who attend the schools and without any level of violence. Commissioner, you want to go over?
Deputy Commissioner Rebecca Weiner, Intelligence and Counterterrorism, Police Department: So I’ll start with Colombia. We’re very happy to announce that we have opened a new international liaison post in Bogota, which officially had its ribbon cut two weeks ago. This is part of our international liaison program, which is reliant on the gracious funding of the New York City Police Foundation to help out with the city’s hugely important program allows us to understand challenges, threats that may materialize in our city at their source overseas.
We have not had a South American post before. This is the first time. It’s going to be very useful creating relationships, learning about what’s going on in the region and helping better protect New York City. Part of what we have been doing is various fact-finding missions around a particular transnational criminal organization that materialized here about 18 months ago that we needed to understand at a more granular level. And this is a Venezuelan gang called Tren de Aragua.
But it goes far beyond that. It goes to creating new relationships to make sure that we can anticipate new issues that we may be dealing with collectively. So very positive. The Colombian National Police are a very hospitable host. We’ve had great encounters along the last 10 months with them. And even before, we’re really excited about this addition to our liaison program. And the second part of it is one of our officers embedded with the Tucson Southern Border Intel Center. So again, this fills a geographical gap and also a gap in our understanding of issues around the world.
As for the schools, Chief of Staff Camille Varlack, Deputy Mayor Banks, and some representatives from NYPD had a meeting last week with local universities and colleges. The governor also hosted one yesterday. And these are really helpful conversations as we are in the midst of reopening for the 2024-2025 school year. Making sure everybody knows one another, has had this ongoing communication, and can work collectively in real time, but also planning thoughtfully how to make sure that schools are reopening safely, that students are allowed to express First Amendment rights, but doing so in a way that is respectful of their peers’ ability to learn. So I think we have learned a lot over the last several months. We have worked together consistently through the summer to make sure we are all ready for what’s looking to be a great and very busy fall.
Question: Yes, hi. Mr. Mayor, I’m [inaudible] with Voice of America.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Very good. Given recent statements by your NYPD Chief of Patrol and concerns about a perceived increase in migrant-related crime, can you share your current thinking on whether New York City should consider revising its sanctuary status?
Mayor Adams: Well, that goes through the City Council. They would make that determination. And I have been extremely clear that the overwhelming number of migrants and asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants that come here, their goal is to pursue the American Dream. Migrants and asylum seekers are paroled into our city, into our country, so they’re here legally. But those who commit violent acts after they serve their time, I think they should be removed from our country.
Right now, we don’t have the authorization to be able to go and coordinate with ICE. We have to follow the law. I think the City Council should revise what was changed under the previous administration. Mayor Koch had it right. Mayor Bloomberg had it right. And I think we made a miscalculation through the previous administration.
Question: But do you see yourself, in your personal views, modifying it? There’s the article in the New York Times this weekend about the re-release of the person who raped the person in Coney Island. There’s a big push among everyday New Yorkers to change the sanctuary status, specifically for migrants who commit serious crimes. What is your personal feeling on New York staying a full-on sanctuary city?
Mayor Adams: Well, you stated that everyday New Yorkers, there’s no more everyday New Yorker than me. I’m a mayor that is closely aligned with the feelings of everyday working-class people. I’m clear on that. And I think that I’ve made it clear not only my professional, but my personal. People who commit violent acts on New Yorkers and other migrants in asylums and undocumented individuals should not remain in our country after they serve their time. What’s happening?
Question: Hey, how are you doing?
Mayor Adams: Good.
Question: I have an education, another education question for you. So, you know, we’ve seen a lot of districts and states across the country moving towards these system-wide school cell phone bans. Recently, L.A. did it. We heard, you know, Chancellor Banks has been talking a lot about this, said at the end of the school year that there would be an announcement in a couple weeks.
We’re a week out from school. You know, a lot of schools really want to know, a lot of parents really want to know what’s going on. So, wondering if you could, you know, number one, give an update on that. And number two, could you talk about what you see as the pros and cons of a city-wide school cell phone ban?
Mayor Adams: Oh, great question. And New York is different from L.A. We’re a unique animal, trust me. And if you don’t do it right, you won’t get it right. And the previous administration attempted to do this, and they had to roll back. And the chancellor has been extremely thorough. Hats off to him. Our desire is that we should not have any distractions in our schools. And the number one distraction, not only to students, but even as I look around the room, some of you are deep in your phones. We are hooked on our phones. And we want to get it right.
We want to remove any distraction from our children. Right now, there are some schools that already have bans. But once you use the conversation or the terminology that it is a full ban coming from the chancellor, there’s a lot of things that will kick into play, including UFTs, who pays for the pouches, what mechanisms are being used. So we’ve been doing a lot of reviews. What are the best practices? How could it be done? There will be some action in the upcoming school year. But the extent of a full ban, we’re not there yet.
We want to make sure we have parents on board. When you talk about the hurdles, a lot of parents are concerned about not being able to be in contact with their children, especially after 9-11. They know it’s a distraction. We want to get there with everyone together. A lot of the educators are fully on board with some type of ban. So we say, this is New York City. Trust me, once you do a decision one way or another, you’re going to have those who are in favor and those who are opposed, and we just got to get it right. So I don’t want to go backwards after we make the determination.
Question: Yes, to follow up on that, Mr. Mayor. Yes. So would you have this done on a school-by-school basis where parents are involved in the schools? Or would this be a system-wide situation where there’s limitations on phones? What are you looking at regarding that? And my second question, did you get a chance to listen to Randy Mastro’s testimony in the Q&A? And how did you help him prepare for this today?
Mayor Adams: Speaking with the cell phones, I got to take my hat off to the chancellor. He has really been sensitive about speaking with teachers, parents, students. And what we find is that the overwhelming number of people would like to get the distractions out of school.
How to do it is another question. Do you take the phones? Do you lock them up? Do you put them in pouches? What happens if a phone is missing? What happens if a child refuses to cooperate? All of this stuff, you have to really work it out. And we’re learning from those who are already doing it. They have been very helpful. There has been a real examination on getting it right. And we’re learning from those who are doing it. Because we do have schools in the city that are doing it on their own. And so we want to make sure we get it right. And so we’re going to review the policy. We want to get it right. And we’re going to learn from people like L.A. and other places.
But chief counsel was part of the prep. Randy didn’t need a lot of prep. Randy is a great attorney. And I don’t know how people can say he’s not. Randy’s a great attorney. He has represented the city well. He’s a great New Yorker. And I’m just pleased when you see folks like Governor Paterson and others who are coming out talking about his record. He’s a great New Yorker, a great attorney. And I think we would all be proud to have him represent the City of New York. But that determination goes through the council. They have the right to vote on and confirm him. Did I miss anything, Lisa?
Lisa Zornberg, Chief Counsel to the Mayor and City Hall: I would just add that it’s… I don’t know that there’s ever been a candidate to appear in front of the City Council who’s had as much vocal support from every direction as Randy Mastro has.
There’s every single editorial board that I’m aware of that has opined in his favor. There are witnesses who I believe have interrupted their vacations who are waiting to testify before the City Council today across administrations, from the de Blasio administration, the Bloomberg administration, going back and back. It’s quite remarkable. I think the city would be very lucky to have someone who’s given so much to the city already return full-time in the passionate way he is about representing New York City’s interests.
Question: Mr. Mayor, how are you?
Mayor Adams: What’s happening?
Question: Not too much. I want to ask you about two topics. We had a story recently about DCAS pursuing an initiative where agencies are being asked to shrink their office footprints. I was wondering if you could tell me why this is important to you, and what does this mean for the city’s workforce going forward? Is it a recognition it’s going to be smaller, the councils argue that this could translate to a reduction in services? So I want to get your take on that.
And then separately, you’re back from the DNC. I was wondering if you could just give us some thoughts about your time there. And I was wondering, since you’ve run a lot of campaigns yourself, what do you make of the vice president’s decision to not sit down with reporters so far for a lengthy interview? Do you think that’s helpful for her campaign?
Mayor Adams: We’re not shrinking space because the workforce is decreasing. I think that was incorrectly reported. What this administration is big on, and I’ve just realized we never did any reports on this. The amount of money we found that was wasted. Everything from cell phone contracts to iPads sitting somewhere, taxpayers’ dollars. Efficiency is huge to us. I spend, and I look at these dollars, these are taxpayers’ dollars. If we save a dollar, we can put it in the services. And we’ve been leading from the front, and we should show a report of just how much we found and we saved. And that’s the same with office space.
We want to make sure that we right-size government. What happens in government is that we just continue to do the same thing over and over again, even if it doesn’t make sense. And we’ll renew contracts, renew leases, just renew because it’s renewed. It’s as though people feel as though, well, it’s not my money. I don’t feel that way. I feel these are hard-earned taxpayers’ dollars. And before we renew, do we need it? And that’s the same with our office space. Do we really need this office space? Do we need this size? Do we need this location? Can we get a better price on it? We need to become harder, bargain, we need to bargain harder for the people of the city. And that’s what I believe in. That’s the same thing with the office space that we’re going through.
So before I talk to the DNC question, I’m going to look over to my counsel and say, is this in line? OK. Because you don’t want to get her angry. Trust me. I think that I just like – I love sharing my views through the media, and people have different styles. And so I believe the campaign has worked out their strategy, and I fall in line with that strategy. I’m just a team player, man, just sitting on the bench. When the coach calls me, I’m going to get in the game. Until then, I’m going to keep this bench warm.
Question: Can I ask you a very quick follow-up? Do you have a time frame of when you would like to see DCAS finalize this report, and get kind of a dollar amount or a sense of how much office space you’re going to be shrinking?
Mayor Adams: I’m going to turn that over to the first deputy mayor.
First Deputy Mayor Wright: And as the mayor said, the charge from day one was to be as efficient and effective as possible as an administration. And so the exercise that DCAS is conducting also is aligned with our new remote work policies. Many businesses are doing that. If you have people who are able to work from home for one day a week or two days a week, you have to reevaluate your space.
So we’ve done a first phase of that, and we’ve already seen tens of millions of dollars in annual savings, and we’ll get that information out. And this is something that we just need to do regularly. But the first phase was with some of the bigger agencies, and there are, I think, two more phases to do. And we’re expected to see lots of additional savings, as the mayor said, that we can really put back into impactful programs and services for the city.
Mayor Adams: And I think that’s not the pretty part of government, you know, that we are doing. And I think in retrospect, people are going to really identify how efficient we have been. And that is why we were able to navigate the asylum seeker question issue we were facing and the fiscal cliffs that we were facing. We were facing fiscal cliffs that many people don’t even imagine that stimulus money ran down. Settling 90-something, 96 percent of union contracts, being able to save essential services. I don’t think people really understand how fiscally smart this administration has been. Jacques should really be commended when it’s done. I got a whole chapter in my book on Jacques you know. My book, you’re going to enjoy my book.
Question: Yeah, following up, Josie with the Daily News.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Following up on the, good, how are you doing? Following up on the question about the DNC, you had said before leaving for Chicago, you planned on meeting with national leaders to talk about the migrant crisis. Did those conversations happen, and who did you meet with? And then second question, the Evolv Gun Scanner pilot was set to end yesterday. Will that program be continuing?
Mayor Adams: Yes. First, great meetings in D.C., I mean in Chicago, many of my colleagues and national leaders. And another story that has not been properly told is what national leaders are saying about what we are doing. Michelle Minguez, a former staffer in the White House, and now, you know, part of this national movement. We met with a group of those leaders who just said that what we did here, particularly around work, authorization, they said we changed the conversation across the country. And they really lift us up as an example of what should be done. And now we’re talking about the next steps.
And they are bringing together some very clear messages as part of the campaign, the platform for the country on dealing with transitioning people into employment. Everyone is rallying around employment, making the process easier. This crisis has told us that this process is just too labor intensive and bureaucratic. And now folks are going to be coming together. We’re going to do some joint things together around how do we continue to make the next step on this journey shown. But part of what I said is that I was going to be talking about the affordability and public safety, because that’s what I’m hearing all over.
I traveled through Chicago, met with some crisis management team members when I was there, the chief of staff and I and our delegation. And the public safety issue is a real issue. And being proactive and making sure these cities are affordable. And we had great conversations around that as well.
Question: And guns, Evolv… [inaudible.]
Mayor Adams: Yes, the commission is going to release the numbers of what they were able to accomplish. I know preliminarily when I spoke with Commissioner Daughtry, he shared that the hit ratio was excellent on the false positives, because we’re very concerned about in the subway system, where are we going to get a lot of false positive because of all of the movement and activity. But it’s very impressive. And I know the commissioner is going to release the actual data and then make the determination, do we go to next steps?
Question: Thank you. Hi, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: How’s it going Dana?
Question: Good. Two very unrelated questions. First on the Randy Mastro front, given the investigations your administration is facing, how important is it to you to have a tough and pugnacious lawyer defending you in these matters?
And then secondarily, a colleague of mine is writing a story about the 50th anniversary of the Power Broker by Robert Caro. I’m curious if you’ve read it, and if so, what your main takeaways from the book are?
Mayor Adams: Yes, I read it. I don’t have any feedback on that. We need a good attorney, no matter what’s going on in an administration. Randy Mastro is the best person to have that. To do so, he has the criteria. He’s a great New Yorker and he’s a great attorney.
Deputy Mayor Joshi: Can I just add on the power broker question? There are two items that this administration is taking on that featured prominently in the book, the Cross-Bronx Expressway and the BQE, both highways that tore neighborhoods apart.
Thanks to the bipartisan infrastructure law that was passed, we’ve got funding both to do planning on reconnecting communities across the Cross-Bronx and across the BQE.
Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: I’m okay, thanks. So I want to ask first off, CitiBike has raised its prices twice this year. I don’t know when the last time you rode one was, but to unlock one now is about $4.89 and you can’t ride an e-bike for like less than $12 now.
You said in your 2021 campaign that you plan to publicly subsidize CitiBike. Is that still in the cards for you? And is that still in the cards for you? And I’ll have a follow-up question on related activities.
Mayor Adams: Yeah, why don’t you do both?
Question: Okay, and second, so the other day it was reported by my colleague, Todd, six precincts in the Bronx have gone radio silent, following up on some precincts in Brooklyn and elsewhere. So I just wanted to see if you could say, how are journalists and others supposed to be able to follow what’s going on in their communities in real time if they’re just relying on what the police are telling them? And also you’ve discussed criminals listening into the radios as a possible concern. Do you have any examples of that actually happening?
Mayor Adams: First, CitiBike should be as inexpensive as possible. I wasn’t aware they raised their prices twice this year. And we would love to find a way to subsidize that for low-income New Yorkers to, number one, encourage more bike uses.
People are, it’s a healthy way to get around. It’s a great way to see the city. That is the purpose of building out the bike lanes and all that we’re doing because we want a greater usage of biking. I saw an article in one of the papers about a city that was really doing more with biking. And I forgot what, who was it?
Deputy Mayor Joshi: Paris.
Mayor Adams: Paris, Paris, you know, parlez-vous francais.
Deputy Mayor Joshi: I can just comment also on the CitiBike. There’s obviously the classic CitiBike and the e-bike. The e-bike is incredibly popular. We have a contract with CitiBike. In prior negotiations, it was basically uncapped. CitiBike could charge whatever they want for the e-bike. We have now established a cap, so they can’t go above a certain amount.
Hopefully the market feedback and obviously press about the kinds of rates that they’re charging would have an influence on them not going to the very top amount of that cap, but coming down. And as the mayor commented, the more popular these transportation modes are, the more volume you have. And generally that can also help to bring prices down. We do work out with CitiBike several programs for NYCHA residents, for discounts, other discount programs, one-day discount programs when we do our open streets. We are in phase three. And if we are to extend the program to phase four, I think subsidy is something that has to be part of that discussion.
Question: What program were you talking about?
Deputy Mayor Joshi: There’s a program. I’m happy to follow up with more details for NYCHA residents and discounts and CitiBike.
Mayor Adams: You know, a lot of your dreams go up in smoke when you have to pay $5.6 billion out of nowhere. Can you imagine what we would have been able to do with $5.6 billion in our city?
A lot of things we wanted to do, we couldn’t do. We had to make smart choices as any household would do every day. To make those smart choices so that we could continue the delivery of services to our city. With the radio encryption, your question was, do I have any examples of criminals?
Question: Criminals using the scanners.
Mayor Adams: What’s interesting about criminals, they don’t notify you on their ways that they’re going to undermine the system. They don’t call up the police and say, hey, I’m getting ready to listen to this call that you’re getting ready to respond when a man with a gun.
Just as a reporter picks up on this, I think we really underestimate how much time criminals spend in outsmarting police. Or trying to outsmart the police. We’re good in catching them because as you know, we took 17,900 guns off the street and our subway system robbery is the lowest in the recorded history of the city.
And we had seven months of decrease in crime after the slight uptick. And we have a long period of crime dropping our city. So we outsmarting them. So we don’t want to give them more tools. They are slick. They are determined to hurt innocent New Yorkers and I’m determined to push back on them.
Deputy Mayor Levy: Just to go back to the city bike also, I know we do, since the start of our administration, we got $5 discounts for NYCHA residents and SNAP beneficiaries. And about 16,000 New Yorkers have used those benefits so far.
Mayor Adams: Is that part of our $30 billion that we put money back in the pockets of New Yorkers? You know? Probably not. I think that’s… Gotta add that. So it’s $30 billion plus that. Plus that. You know that.
Question: You’re talking about subsidies in the next phase of this pilot. Would that only be for low-income New Yorkers or for the entire program? And how do you determine what success would be to follow through on that?
Mayor Adams: That’s a good question. The first order of business that I must look after are low-income New Yorkers. And then if we have more to expand, same thing we do with the reduced fare MetroCard. We don’t go and give it to the CEO of a corporation. We go to low-income New Yorkers. We go to our students. We have reduced fares for our seniors. That’s what cities are supposed to do.
Cities should look at those who are in greater needs and give them the assistance. And then if you have additional, then you can increase the amount like we’ve done in other areas. But my first focus, we need to go after those low-income New Yorkers to give them the assistance they need so they can have a step towards middle-class New York.
Deputy Mayor Levy: And I’m being told that the distracting cell phone that I have, it is part of the $30 billion. Okay. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Good. Good to see you again. The Elizabeth Street Garden has been a big controversial point. [Inaudible], there are a bunch of celebrities now that are calling for the city to halt the final eviction. It’s going to be used to build affordable housing for seniors. A lot of people are saying you should put it somewhere else. Is that any way possible? I think they’re trying one more Hail Mary to block the eviction on September 10th. So that’s question number one.
And number two, it’s a public-private partnership. Does the private company have an option to not make it affordable housing, get it knocked out after like 20 years or something like the old Mitchell-Lama thing and just take it over and run it as their own? Or is there no sunset on the affordable housing?
Mayor Adams: Oh, I know Maria Torres-Springer is not here. She’ll probably explain the in-depth part of that. And I’m looking forward to meeting because folks reached out and they wanted to meet and I’m looking forward to sitting down and having a conversation and hearing their thoughts. But here’s what we do know.
We do know we have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate. We do know we have thousands of people with vouchers that can’t find places to live. We do know we have 64,000 people living in our shelters. We do know that this project is going to be for affordable housing and a green space that is truly open to the public, not the way it was before. And it has longer hours in the process. And so we also know this. Just about every place we go to talk about build housing like this, people give us a reason not to.
I don’t know how to get clearer to New Yorkers. People are homeless. People are homeless. My responsibility is to place as many people as possible inside a home because it feeds additional problems. If a child grows up in a homeless shelter, he or she is less likely to graduate from high school. If you don’t graduate, you incarcerate far too many people.
I have to stop the feeder to the problems proactively. And particularly talk about shelters. I don’t know, Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom, I assume you may know, but I don’t know. I don’t know one area where people raise their hand and say, build it here, build it here, build it here. We have places where people have no shelters, don’t want one shelter. Just can’t run a city that way. And so I’ll take the weight of the criticism that comes from making these hard choices.
And people are gonna look back and they’re gonna say that this administration was willing to do what was right for all New Yorkers. And so I’m willing to sit down. And if they say, people say to me, don’t build it here, build it there. I say, thank you for telling me about there because I need that spot too. We need all spots. We’re doing now, we’re doing an analysis. Are you doing it, Meera? Who’s doing the analysis? We’re looking at all government. Who’s doing that?
First Deputy Mayor Wright: We’re doing it. Maria’s doing it.
Mayor Adams: Executive order. We’re looking at all the government places to build housing. We have to build housing. 1.4 percent vacancy rate in affordable housing is functionally zero. So we have to build housing. This is, I can’t get any clearer to folks that we have to do that. And some of you come to my town halls, you know, every time we talk about build housing somewhere, someone tells us why it can’t be there. Okay, I understand that. That’s why the City of Yes is important. We gotta build more housing.
Zornberg: Mayor, if I could just add that in addition to how focused this administration is on building housing, we are also focused on reducing and eliminating source of income discrimination, where someone who has vouchers for an apartment, nevertheless faces discrimination with landlords who refuse to rent to them based on that source of income. And if you didn’t see it, I would encourage you to look at the Parkchester settlement. It’s a historic settlement by the CCHR last week. One of the largest, I think the largest, housing discrimination settlement in which a very large building management company agreed among the relief to set aside 850 apartments for voucher holders from anywhere in the five boroughs and make that housing available. So there’s another problem. That’s part of the larger problem of helping people who are economically disadvantaged and need assistance to get roofs over their head.
Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: And just to be clear, the mayor said 63,000. He was talking about migrants. But if you put that with our traditional New Yorkers, we are taking care of 119,000 people who are in our homeless shelters right now.
Mayor Adams: The real numbers. When you look at this project, 100 percent affordable for older adults. When I do my senior town halls, these older adults are petrified that the city is no longer affordable for them. They’re afraid they’re not going to be here. And we have 15,000 square feet of open space. We’re doubling the size of the open space that’s there.
Deputy Mayor Levy: And making it actually public.
Mayor Adams: Right, right.
Question: I want to ask about the NYPD police scanners. And I’ve heard your rationale, NYPD leaders, it’s a rational reason, logical. I get it. No doubt. But I think what community groups and journalists are asking for is maybe a little delay so communities who care about what happens in their neighborhoods, they’re not in the dark. Journalists can do their job. And to talk about what the job means, think about Amadou Diallo, Eric Garner, two stories the world knows their names because reporters had access to radios and could go report that. Why can’t they just get a little buffer so the police can stay safe and journalists and community groups can do what they got to do?
Mayor Adams: I still didn’t understand. You said the radios allow…
Question: Journalists listening to police radios knew to get to Staten Island, and report, and that reporter for the Daily News, that photographer was able to get the video of Eric Garner and his interaction with the police. And the world knows his name because of that.
So all we’re asking for, and I want to know why, what you think about that, what journalists are asking for, is to just get a little buffer so the police can have their communication secure and reporters and community groups also know what’s going on in their neighborhoods.
Mayor Adams: Yeah, and I think that was very thorough that you laid out those two cases. I think also the thoroughness should be in that there are municipalities all over this country that are doing this because they understand that at the top of this is public safety. I don’t think I’ve made any form of not articulating. That’s my top priority.
Being safe, to me, that’s the foundation of everything. And I view everything through that prism. After people being safe, I build on that. And when I speak to the commissioner and others, they say, listen, this is a public safety issue. Now we’re looking at other options. We’re not going to close the door and be so stubborn. But people have to come to me with something that’s not going to jeopardize the lives of police officers, responding officers, and responding to calls of service.
Deputy Mayor Levy: And Dan, I would just add Commissioner Weiner is here. Actually, the NYPD has caught people using this for criminality. So yeah, Weiner can speak to that.
Deputy Commissioner Weiner: So I think the bad guys using police as part of the equation, it’s not the whole story. But our commissioner, our chief of information technology have been very thoughtful in how they are rolling out encryption gradually. And one thing to keep clear is that the citywide stations are going to remain unencrypted. So a lot of the major jobs, the ones you’re talking about, are going to be unaffected by this rollout to encrypted channels.
And part of this is a very necessary upgrade to actually our technical infrastructure and interoperability with partners. So the mayor just mentioned, we’re not alone. We’re not even first to the table on this front at all. If we look at our neighboring partner agencies, many of them are already encrypted or going in that direction. So this is the wave of the future.
And just to give you a couple of examples, so apparently there were 60 incidents for radio interloping in 2023 and 2024, 180 arrests in the past five years of perps who had radios on them. One major pattern last year, an armed citywide robbery pattern that was mitigated after the migration to encryption.
So there’s certainly a public safety dividend, but also the transparency that is currently provided by having some encrypted and some open. And that’s a balance that I know our department and obviously City Hall are working very carefully through.
Question: I don’t doubt the interlopers. And I know those have been examples. My question is though, do you think the buffer or a delay would infringe on that safety issue on a precinct level?
Deputy Commissioner Weiner: And I think, well, I’m not the expert in our department on this issue, but I think we have to look very closely at industry standard among our partners and how they’re doing this rollout and mindful that there are so many ways that we all are getting our information.
The radio is among them. And this is not an all or nothing situation. People are very able to get information in real time through other means. And this allows our officers to be protected and to be doing the law enforcement mission that they really need to be doing.
Question: Mr. Mayor, we’ve heard from several older readers that they’re having issues ordering the newer trash bins, including the compost bin that was made free for people in Staten Island and in the Bronx. What other options do you want less tech-savvy New Yorkers to know about? And the importance of them being involved in this program to begin with, how important is it that everyone is involved in these new trash bins?
Mayor Adams: So just talk to me about…
Deputy Mayor Joshi: Yeah, first of all, just to be clear, the new trash cans are available for order. They wouldn’t be delivered until September, but they’re not mandatory until 2026. So people can use the residential containers they have right now, or if they don’t have one and they wanna buy one on their own, there will come a point where they are mandatory. And if you look around the nation in this area, we’re behind the curve. But if you look at other cities, they do have authorized containers for residential usage. So it’s a common practice and we’re gonna be adopting it.
On the composting, please, we can follow up with you on the rollout for the free containers. We wanna make sure that those are happening. The borough presidents have them, the electeds have them, and we’re doing giveaway events all the time. So I’m happy to connect with you afterwards to make sure that your readers have all the right contact numbers and dates of the giveaway events.
Mayor Adams: But that’s a good question to ask. Is the only way they can do it is ordering online?
Deputy Mayor Joshi: There is, I believe, also a telephone number, which I’m happy to get for you as well. So I know a lot of people are much more comfortable using the phone when they’re ordering because it’s a live person, hopefully at the other end. But we’ll make sure you have that information as well.
Mayor Adams: Yeah, but we’re gonna look at that, because it shouldn’t be just online. And then we’re gonna speak with Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez to really disseminate the information among our senior, our older adult homes. And then we’ll even dispatch our PEU to certain locations and use iPads to order for people. So we’re gonna zero in on it. I’m glad you brought that to our attention.
Deputy Mayor Levy: I actually got the number here. So it’s 855-692-2467. So anyone can call that number and order.
Mayor Adams: Yeah, great, great, great. But the bottom line is, we gotta get rid of Mickey, these darn rats. So containerizing the garbage is the best way. I think in Harlem, we saw like a 70-something percent decrease in rodent complaints. This is a huge win for the city putting garbage in containers.
Question: Two questions. So first, what orders did the Harris campaign give you going forward in your capacity as mayor to help her get elected?
And the second question is about homelessness. So we’re almost three years into your administration in which you’ve claimed historic levels of getting homeless people into permanent housing. However, homelessness conditions have only gotten worse with the highest number of street homeless in more than a decade.
People have told the Post that they feel unsafe. It’s a revolving door, horrid conditions. The shelters are a revolving door and it causes horrid conditions at key tourist hubs like Penn Station. So doesn’t it show that your administration’s approach is failing on homelessness? And if not, why?
Mayor Adams: Yeah, first, I’m gonna look over to my counsel to talk about.
Question: Yeah, just… In your capacity as mayor though, is the question so not…
Mayor Adams: I’m still gonna look over to my counsel.
Zornberg: Maybe I can offer just a helpful clarification that, and of course, you can ask any questions you want. I just wanna clarify that when city officials are not asked to perform campaign functions in their official capacities as city employee. So that’s the distinction.
Individuals who serve in the city administration, of course, have the right to campaign and engage in political activities on their… Without using city resources for that purpose. So I just wanna give you that clarification. And again, you can ask anything you want, but if it’s a specific question about specific political campaigns, there are just limitations that the Conflict of Interest Board have guided us that may impact the degree to which answers can be provided.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. The question around the homelessness, you said it’s at some of the highest levels. 212,000 people entered the city. In addition to 64,000 already being homeless. I’m not quite sure how people don’t see how amazing it is that we’ve been able to pull this off. 212,000 people that we had to house. And for the slight uptick that we have with 212,000 people, it’s really remarkable. We’re gonna continue to do what we’ve done. Transition more people out of shelters into permanent housing in one year in the history of the city. We’re gonna continue to give smart ideas to transition people in the next step of their journey that includes re-ticketing. We’re gonna continue to say that we’re not gonna allow encampments throughout our city, like other municipalities have done. Our city has not turned into an encampment zone like we see across the country.
But to do what DM Williams-Isom has been able to do with her team, with 212,000 people, and we’re still getting what? About 800, 900 a week?
Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: 700 last week.
Mayor Adams: 700 last week. We were getting 4,000 a week. Can you imagine how scary that is? 4,000 people a week you had to find a place for. And at one time we had to do it within a certain number of hours, right? We were being sued because we didn’t take 4,000 people and house them and get them in beds by a certain number of hours. Boy, I can’t wait till y’all read my book.
Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: So I wanna hop in. I wanna hop in just a second. Can I just hop in? Because you said whether or not our homelessness strategies were failing. And so I took that to mean traditional homeless populations. And yeah, street homeless. So I wanted to just remind you that since this administration started, we’ve connected over 7,600 people to shelter.
So we took the infrastructure that was here, whether that was the CBOs that were working in the subways, that were working above ground, all of the co-response teams that were working to bring people into shelter. If you look at other cities and you look at homelessness in other cities, in New York City, 90 percent of our people who are homeless are sheltered.
That is because of our right to shelter and the other things, the infrastructures that we have, the long-term people who have worked for a long time. But you know that it takes a lot of outreach to engage people and to bring them into shelter to then get them connected to permanent housing. Our numbers have been… in FY23, we’ve placed nearly 1,000 New Yorkers are placed in subsidized permanent housing because we’ve been able to increase the amount of people through CityFHEPS, which is our program to connect people to vouchers. So there’s many different pieces of it. The mayor from day one has been talking about encampments.
I don’t know what New Yorkers you’re talking to, but I know all the New Yorkers that I’m talking to and my neighbors see less encampments since we’ve been here. And so getting people off the street, doing the engagement to those people who are in those encampments and bringing them inside is something important.
Once you get them connected, we have to make sure that they get services. Some people need to get hospitalized, making sure that we’ve opened the beds that need to happen. So I don’t think that we have been unsuccessful. I think post-pandemic, we know that there were a lot more people who have been on the streets. We know that there are a lot more people who need support, and I think we’re doing a great job.
Last night, I’ll just say this, I was with a group of people who are starting a new, it’s gonna be a new initiative that we’re gonna start soon, combination of Police Department, nurses, and the Department of Homeless Services. It was amazing to see these group of people who are like, okay, what are we gonna try now for the most chronic people who are on the streets so that we can bring them in?
It’s very complex. And so I know that other people around the country come to New York City to see what we’re doing. So I don’t think it has been a failure. I think we’re in the process of doing a great job and gonna continue to do a better job.
Question: Yes, and I just wanna be super clear. We’re specifically talking about the areas around Penn Station and 8th Avenue. Those have been, we’ve been told by business owners how poor conditions are there. And specifically the critique is revolving door so people get picked up by the city for various reasons, touch various city services, but they don’t really end up pulled out of homelessness.
Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: But ma’am, the word that you use, revolving door, is not something that happened in the past three years. That’s something that we’ve been struggling with as a nation when you talk to people who have been chronically homeless. And so we have special projects that we’ve been doing in those areas, whether it’s on 125th Street, whether it’s in the Bronx, whether it’s 42nd Street, whether it’s 34th Street, to have teams, multi-agency teams of people to work together so that we can address people where they are so that everyone can get the help that they need to bring them in.
Mayor Adams: And your observation and analysis in those specific areas are accurate. And when we came into office, we clearly stated this system of taking someone off the street, giving them medication for one night, letting them go back out, and you keep doing it until they commit a dangerous act, then you send them to Rikers Island. Over 50 percent of the peoples on Rikers Island are dealing with mental health. I think 18 or 14 [percent] are dealing with severe mental health.
So that’s why we stated that, hey, we need to do this thing called involuntary removal. And you remember what happened when I announced that? Everybody would say, oh, look at this evil guy, Eric Adams, trying to take people off the street. People are on our streets that don’t know they need care. And for us to continue to walk past them and act like we don’t see them, I refuse to do that. And so we had to actually start retraining even the hospital personnel to say, you have a right to hold a person, to stabilize them, to start building community.
This is what Dr. Vasan was all about. This is the help we needed from Albany that we’re asking for. We know that there’s a population on the street that when I went out there and started walking through the subways, going to 34th Street, going to Penn Station, and you see the individuals, many of them don’t know they need care. And if we’re not bold enough to say we have to now take stronger actions, then this is going to always exist. And we were bold enough to do that. We’re still pushing forward. Keep trying new initiatives to find that sweet spot. And as the DM stated, over 7,000 people we took up the street.
Now, in this city, if we go to you and say, we want to take you off the street, and you say, no, I don’t want to go. I want to live on the street. That’s what the city says you’re allowed to do. Remember your City Council passed a bill that says people should have the right to sleep on the street. So we know what we have to do, but we need the whole team of government to be on the same page.
And what you’re seeing right now is what I say all the time. Idealism collides with realism. That’s what we’re having in this city. And I’m idealistic, but I’m realistic. And I know we can address this problem if everyone is on board. And that’s part of the initiative that DM Williams-Isom announced the other day. So we’re with you. I don’t want people living on the streets of this city.
Question: Good afternoon, mayor.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Good. Good to see you. Good meeting to all of you. About this new initiative that free travel to New York, it’s so good, and it brings so much light into the city. And when people come from other cities into New York, it obviously causes a lot of challenges for you. But it also brings positivity. And to see how New York has progressed in the last two years, the real story unfolds through the eyes of the people who are coming. So what do you think about it?
Mayor Adams: Now, what was the initiative? I didn’t hear the first one. Which initiative?
Question: We can travel freely from New Jersey to New York right now. Anybody can travel. Buses, planes, it’s all free.
Deputy Mayor Levy: That’s because of the problems that they had in Jersey. And so the governor did a free New Jersey train, I think, for a week only.
Question: It’s good for all of us. We want people to come and see.
Mayor Adams: Jersey has more money than us. [Laughter.] Yeah, no. That was not permanent. So don’t go writing an article that is permanent.
Question: But people come here, they spend the money.
Mayor Adams: Yeah, no. And listen, I tell tourists all the time, I hang out on 42nd Street, and I tell tourists all the time, come and spend money. We want you to spend money. And whatever we can do to get people to come over to this great city, like the $62 million that came last year, fourth largest total in the history of our city, we’re going to continue to do. And the projections are even higher.
Since we continue to be the safest big city in America, people continue to want to come here. So the goal is to do it without taking money out of the pockets of our MTA system. We need more money to run one of the most complex systems on the globe. And so I think that Jersey did it because they made a mistake. You know, we tried not to make those mistakes. So we have to put that money back. Listen, good to see you all. It’s going to be a hot week. Enjoy yourselves.
August 27, 2024 New York NY
Sources: Midtown Tribune news , NYC.gov
Big New York news BigNY.com
