October 18, 2018Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much Fredrina, and thank you for everything you do on behalf of your fellow residents and I know you put a lot of heart and soul into protecting interests of all your fellow residents. I want to thank you for that hard work, and I want to pick up where Fredrina started, that the last winter was really tough for residents of public housing. It’s not what we ever want to see anyone go through. Mother nature threw us a curveball – there’s no question we had a spell in the winter that was literally the coldest we had ever experienced in a half-century, but we also found out that a lot of what we depended in public housing for heating, for our residents, wasn’t working and that cold spell was really a wake-up call. In previous winters we knew there were problems but last winter brought it all to bear in a really clear way that a lot of change was needed because our residents deserve better. There’s been a lot work done since last winter to get ready for the winter coming, to do better. This is going to be a long journey to getting our public housing buildings to the place they should be but what we’re going to talk about today is some major that we think will make this next winter better for sure than last winter.I want to thank everyone who’s here – you’ll hear from [inaudible] my colleagues. I want to give a special thanks to the folks who are leading these efforts now at NYCHA who are really working every day to try to change things. Special appreciation to our general manager, Vito Mustaciuolo – I hope all of you have watched whenever there is a problem Vito does [inaudible] his power to not only address the problem but to go to the site to try and see firsthand what’s happening and try to make and immediate difference. He’s got a responsibility for 400,000 people’s housing. It’s like being mayor of a city unto itself. But to his great credit he makes it a point to really get there, try and do everything he can to make an immediate impact which is what we saw of him for years and decades in his work at HPD as well, previously.I want to thank our new heating director for NYCHA, Javier Almodovar, who was showing us some of the new equipment earlier – that’s going to make a big difference, and all the NYCHA staff – in the midst of the challenges that we’ve been discussing over the last couple of years, I think there’s often been a lack of recognition for the hard work of the people who work at NYCHA – it’s not easy. They have been dealing with a lack of investment for decades and yet they work really hard to keep things going so I just want to express my appreciation to everyone who works at NYCHA – often doing a lot with very little and who care deeply to make sure the lives of the residents are better.
Thank you as well to folks at Henry Street Settlement who have always been so wonderful about hosting us for different gatherings.Now, I want to just reflect. Again, last winter – yes, record-breaking cold and what we saw was obviously unacceptable – over half of NYCHA developments had the heat out for over a day at some point. And it was clear as a result of that we had to do some things very differently. Obviously one of the most important things you can do with any organization is bring in new leadership, and we’ve got leadership in place with Stan Brezenoff and Vito Mustaciuolo who I think are already showing the people of New York City and the residents of NYCHA a very different approach. They have been working this spring and summer very intensely and I can tell you from the different meetings I’ve been in with them that they’ve been entirely focused on improving the heat situation. They knew from the beginning a lot had to be done – they believe they can make a real difference. At the same time it’s important to recognize that we should not ever stereotype a situation – we should look at it for what it really was. And the truth about last winter is there were somethings that managed to work despite the bitter cold. About 45 percent of our NYCHA developments, covering about 100,000 of our residents, either never lost heat at all or had outages only less than 24 hours. Now we want to see no outage ever, I want to state the obvious, we want to see perfect heat, all winter long, all developments, but I will say that we want to make sure, especially, that as many developments as possible never have an outage and that if there is an outage it’s resolved the same day. I am pleased to say that at least in the case of 45 percent of our developments, and that again covers about in this case 100,000 residents, because it was a lot of our smaller developments – for those quarter of NYCHA residents, their winter experience was a lot better than unfortunately what a lot of other people went through. So as we look at how we’re going to make the step by step improvements the plan today has elements that will reach all of NYCHA – will reach across all 400,000 people, and then elements that will focus on where some of the need is greatest and where some of the problems have been most severe. Specifically, some of the solutions today are targeted to help 87,000 more residents who have seen some of the most acute heating problems. So I want you to think about this way – the plan is system-wide but with a special focus on the buildings housing 87,000 people that are some of the ones that’ve had the worst problems that we think we can come up very immediate improvements for.Now, what’s system-wide? Well, for example, we’re adding 50 skilled heat plant technicians who will be ready to intervene any time there is a problem. That’s a lot of personnel. We’re adding five new mobile boilers that can be brought and deployed quickly anytime there is a crisis and then moved wherever else they are needed. We’re also acknowledging a problem which I think for a lot of us was really troubling on top of the physical problem – was that the repairs seem to be made and folks at NYCHA thought they had gotten the job done but then for some residents their own specific apartments still didn’t have heat. So perhaps the larger building situation was improved but some apartments were still not receiving the heat. That’s not good enough obviously.So, what we’re putting in place is an interactive phone system where once the repairs have been made, residents will be notified, and they will be able to reply back, “Yes, my heat is coming on,” or, “No, it’s not.” If the answer is, “No, it’s not,” then that will lead to follow up right away.Now, as for those improvements that will reach 87,000 residents with – in buildings that have some of the most acute problems. That will involve replacing old boilers in 14 developments and then adding new mobile boilers to six other developments. Also, 46 developments will now have their heat managed by outside entities. These will be third-party experts who are going to be specifically trained to fix these type of heating systems.So, when we add it all together – look, I understand deeply – I have spent a lifetime in public service and throughout have had a lot of opportunity to talk to NYCHA residents to hear about their lives. I understand why people are frustrated. I understand why they need to believe that real results are coming and they have to see evidence of it.We think these investments will make an impact and they are part of something obviously much better. Everyone knows now the latest number – $31 billion in unmet capital needs for NYCHA. We are doing everything we can to start turning that around including the $3.7 billion new dollars that we’ve spent in the course of this administration and amongst that is $200 million for boilers.The new agreement we came to with the federal government willingly obligates the City to another $1.2 billion in new spending and could be more than that going forward. These are the kind of things we have to do to really solve the underlying problems. It’s going to take a lot of other pieces. It will take federal involvement that we’re still waiting to see a lot more of.It will take State involvement we’re still waiting to see a lot more of. It will take innovate, new approaches and we will have a lot of announcements in the coming months on those. But what we can say is the actions we’re talking about today are an important step to getting the heat back on in as many NYCHA development as possible and making people’s lives better.We believe in fairness in this administration. The goal of this term is to become the fairest big city in America. We can’t do that if we cannot improve the situation at NYCHA constantly. We believe it is doable. We believe it will take a huge amount of work and we believe it will take real time but we believe we can make life fairer and better for NYCHA residents on a regular basis.Just a few words in Spanish –[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]With that, I want to turn to the Chair of the Housing Authority. I want to just emphasize – I told you about the approach that Vito takes and how much I admire it. I want to express my admiration for Stan Brezenoff. I have asked him, from the beginning of this administration, to take on one difficult task after another. He has always stepped forward and he does it with an incredible energy and can-do attitude.And we have been in countless meetings in the course of this year about how to fix something that I think a lesser person would say, “No, that’s just too much, I’m not going to take that on.” But Stan has not only taken it on, he always finds another thing that we can do better. And he has an endless wellspring of ideas of what we can do to make life better for 400,000 New Yorkers who are NYCHA residents.So, Stan, I want to express my great appreciation as I turn it over to you.Interim Chair and CEO Stanley Brezenoff, NYCHA: Thank you, Mr. Mayor –Mayor: Yeah, you’re good.Interim Chair Brezenoff: I’m technologically deficient.Thank you, very exceedingly generous. So, it’s good to be here on the Lower East Side. As the Mayor noted, last winter was truly one for the books. And it created in NYCHA – out of a recognition of what happened during that difficult heating system, of the need for aggressive actions on our part. And since – I know you’ve heard about this, I was not here earlier.Since Vito came on in February, he and his team have been focused on a variety – a range of things – some capital, lots operational – to begin to address the kinds of issues that arose last year.There have been capital improvements, enhanced staffing and management, improved communications with tenants, data improvement across our entire system to expedite repairs, streamline reporting, and stop outages before they happen.But I have to note, as great and as tangible as those efforts have been we haven’t been able to fix everything. There is no magic wand and as you’re all aware, as we painfully are, the heating plant infrastructure is old and not completely reliable throughout NYCHA.So, yes, we’ve made a lot of repairs. We’ve had the benefit of the Mayor’s contributions to NYCHA that have been invested in boilers, mobile boilers, new boilers, infrastructure, and so on, and we’ve increased our staffing and so on, but the most important thing you’re going to see this year, I believe, is in the management approach to dealing with the heating imperatives within NYCHA.As the Mayor noted, 41 of our sites are now under third party management for heating. This has two benefits, obviously. They are an additional resource for 41 of our sites and it frees up our remaining staff to concentrate on other developments. When there are issues that we can’t fix right away as I noted, the Mayor’s resources that he’s made available to us, will allow us to place new mobile boilers, five of which we will be keeping in reserve.This is in addition to the repairs that were made.
Many of our residents have had repairs made to their boilers plants and will have much warmer winters as a consequence of that. We need to now focus on those that have repairs coming in the future. We’re still awaiting funding on – for new boilers at their homes. Some of that money is from the State.This winter we hope to demonstrate that through effective focused management we can make inroads on the kinds of issues and problems that manifested themselves this year while keeping our fingers crossed that the winter is not as harsh as last year.Mayor: Amen. Amen. Thank you, Stan. I especially like that last part. Thank you very much. I want to turn to two elected officials who have been extraordinarily focused on the issues and concerns of public housing residents and have tried to do a lot to help the people it their districts.First, State Senator Brad Hoylman. And the good news is that your constituents, Brad, at Lower East Side 5 – that’s one of the sites that will be getting a new boiler and I know it will make a big difference.State Senator Brad Hoylman –[...]Mayor: Okay we are going to take questions about this announcement and then we will take questions about other topics. Yes?Question: So I have a question – I know six of the developments are getting mobile boilers, is this a temporary fix or is there a plan to eventually install permanent boilers and if that’s the plan, I mean why not just install a permeant boiler instead of a mobile one?Mayor: Vito, you want to take this?Acting General Manager Vito Mustaciuolo, NYCHA: Sure, so the mobile boilers are really to supplement and replace existing heating plants that are not fully functional and operational. But the plan is in those developments to put in new heating plants. And as the Assembly member mentioned some of that is tied up in –Mayor: Wait, you got a Senator and you’ve got a Council member.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Sorry, Senator, sorry, my apologies.Mayor: There’s only – unless there’s an imaginary Assemblyman.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: My apologies, Senator. Some of that is tied up in state funding.Question: Just so I’m clear, these are, wouldn’t be easily fixed with just a permeant boiler, it’s a full heating system that would need to be replaced?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: That’s correct.Question: Okay.Mayor: Gloria.Question: Mr. Mayor, can you just talk a little bit more about these outside managers that are coming in to deal with the heating, how much is that going to cost? And why is the City opting for this option?Mayor: I’ll start broadly and pass it to Vito. The why is straight forward, we need more capacity. And I’ve said to Stan and Vito you know that when they need something it’s my job is to get it for them and to ensure that they can keep doing more. And so when you think about the sheer the problem of the physical plan of NYCHA and the current staff trying to keep up with that, it makes sense that if we want a different result we have to add more personal and by going to these outside firms we can get a lot more personal into the game, thus allowing the existing NYCHA staff, you know to focus on other needs and I think that is going to allow us to deal with more of the heat problems simultaneously. Do you want to speak to – did that cover it all or did you?Question: Well, what is the cost?Mayor: The cost? Do you want to speak to it?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo Sure between the two contractors, the cost is just under a million dollars a month.Question: A month?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Yes.Question: For how –Mayor: And the heat season is officially – I’ve always wanted to get this answer.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: October 1st through May 31st.Mayor: Okay.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: But this will be for the full year, this is –Question: $1 million a month for the next year, or for just this year?Mayor: So that’s an eight-month heat season, right –Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: No they are covering the heating plans, some for hot water and for upgrades during the summer time as well, so this is for twelve months out of the full year.Question: So is there a 12 month contract in place?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: So we have a two year contract in place for each of the vendors, with an option to renew for two additional four year periods so it can be up to a ten year contract but it gives us flexibility that we can either opt out of the contract or continue it for a ten year period.Question: And was there a public bidding to do this or did you –Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Yes this was all competitively bid and in fact one of the vendors had already had five developments last heat season under the same contractual oral agreement.Mayor: Okay, Monica.Question: Hi, Mayor. We are live on Facebook again. Carol Moore is at the Castle Hill Houses, she hasn’t had heat or hot water. So many families have told their stories. 320,000 people had complaints last year. Is this going to be a worse winter? What are you saying to them now, before the winter starts –Mayor: As what the whole – let me just speak to that and then take your second part. The whole reason we are here is to say we think since these two new leaders came on board they have spent all spring, all summer preparing for the winter. We believe this coming winter will be better. We do not believe it will be perfect. We believe it will be better. It’s not going to be perfect. There’s a lot more work to do. We are dealing with of course so many buildings that are over a half century old and a lot of equipment that’s old. But what we do know is that the measures we put out here, some of them will reach all NYCHA developments like having teams that can respond quickly, skilled technicians that can respond quickly, we are going to have a lot more of those. We are going to have more mobile boilers we can bring into play. We also know as I said for 87,000 residents, that’s almost a quarter of the people who live in NYCHA, that their specific problems are getting special attention. We think they will feel tangible improvement compared to last winter. So look, we don’t know what Mother Nature is going to throw us but we do know that the team at NYCHA has but some real improvements in place.Question: But it hasn’t been Mother Nature for so many of these families, it’s been management and they are very upset about it.Mayor: Well again, I’m saying to you I think it’s both and we need to fix the problems and these investments [inaudible].Question: Expediting permeants and expediting the work, is there a way to declare this an emergency like other people have suggested?Mayor: This kind of activity you are hearing here is absolutely consistent with a sense of urgency. We are putting a huge amount of resources in. The message that Stan and Vito have clearly received is whatever they need that the City can provide, we will. We cannot do it all alone though. And I keep saying because I think anyone and my colleagues in government understand this, anyone who is looking at this objectively understands, we want to fix these bigger problems, we will need the federal government at the table, we will need the state government at the table, we will need a host of other bigger reforms and those announcements are coming soon too. Go ahead.Question: Mr. Mayor, if you’re hiring, I see 50 new heating technicians, why is it necessary for these separate contracts?Mayor: I think it is just about again capacity to bring them in quickly from the outside and bring in skilled people. Go ahead.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Right sure and so as the Mayor indicated, the contract is really to supplement our existing workforce. For our heating plan technicians, this heat season we are going into heat season with 300 heating technicians which is a 20 percent increase over the last heat season. The numbers that the Mayor gave about the 50, these were technical support staff that we did not have in the past. So we are hiring stationary engineers this heat season. In fact they already are on board. They will provide 24 hour a day, seven day a week coverage, to respond to downed heating plants. But again we are shifting resources to the developments where our vendors are not covering.Question: So are they going to be like roving technicians or are they going to be –Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: So they are much more skilled, they are not the heating plant technicians. They are more in a supervisory capacity. But they have a higher skill level. And they can actually make repairs as well so they will be assigned by borough and then we will have roving teams on nights and weekends.Mayor: Okay, yes.Question: You had said, the press release say 12 new boilers, is that – I know you had a different number there. And it also says that boilers will be replaced. So is this a whole sale replacement of the boil from soup to nuts, top to bottom, brand new boiler or this more like we are replacing some parts?Mayor: I thank you for being attentive. I did not see the press release. My remarks say 14.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: So there are 12 that are complete and there are two that are near complete.Mayor: Look at that.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: So it will be 14 shortly.Question: And is it a brand new boiler, 2018 brand new boiler?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: These are brand new heating plants, correct.Question: Who are the two contractors?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: National Grid and GS Hell – I’m sorry Hall, GS Hall.Question: And it’s two companies?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Yes.Question: [Inaudible] and this was last year’s announcement or maybe it was early this year, the plan to install 39 new boilers at ten different developments. Is that a part of this, is this a separate thing? Is that old plan been set aside? You know what I am referring to?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: I’m sorry?Unknown: 11 developments.
Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: 11 developments? Thank you. Deborah.Question: Want me to ask my question again. Last January you announced or the Mayor announced a plan to install 39 new boilers in ten different developments. I don’t understand how that plan meshes with what’s being announced today.Unknown: Here’s the article if you want to take a look.Mayor: If you’re not clear we’ll get it all cleared away.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Yes, I’m sorry we are going to have to come back to you on that.Question: [Inaudible] last January that the City was spending $82 million –Mayor: We got you, we got you. We will get you an answer. Yes.Question: So aside from the boilers is there any other work being done to correct other heating problems like you know, roofs that are leaky or sealants that need to be cleared? Outside the boilers is there any more work being done to fill up those gaps that causing the cold, you know there’s a hole in the window or –Mayor: I think what’s describing is day to day repair work. I mean, let me ask it this way – the essential issue in the heating problem is the boilers themselves and the distribution lines.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: That’s correct.Mayor: I agree with you if you had a broken window or something that doesn’t help at all but I think that’s about individual repairs right?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Right so the Mayor did give us money last heat season and we are continuing with this initiative to either repair or replace defective windows. Last year we replaced or repaired 760,000 windows in buildings where we were – we focused on buildings where we were suffering with heat outages or we were receiving a high number of heat complaints and that initiative will continue this winter as well.Mayor: Greg.Question: This is actually back to Willy’s question because without getting into the numbers and all that stuff – what happened last January was you made an announcement that you were going to but some money into this and put some new boilers in. And there was a back and forth about it and then you accelerated the process in March and part of the acceleration was design-build. So you had three categories. One was, we don’t do anything, second one is we accelerate it ourselves, the third one is design-build. My understanding is that design-build is now off the table. Is that correct?Mayor: No.Question: So what is the status of that?Mayor: That’s an excellent question. Design-build is not off the table, design-build requires a federal waiver and we are still waiting, we’ve requested it duly and we believe that it should be coming to us soon but we have still not received it.Question: When did you request it?Mayor: We - I can get you a chapter verse we requested a while back. But again we believe the way should be clear to get that done and we’ve made that request very clear to HUD, and we need them to act. From my understanding, the state has done what it needs to do. We’re ready to do what we need to do when it comes to [inaudible] but we need that federal piece. Marcia?Question: Mr. Mayor, some residents may regard this whole situation as pretty grim, because as you said yourself a lot of the heating situations are old and they haven’t been repaired and Stan Brezenoff told me just last week you have the money to do 182 new boilers out of a total 2,097 over the next three years. It’s a very small percentage of new boiler replacement. What do you say to these people who are living in buildings with old boilers and have no hope of being repaired anytime soon?Mayor: Well, I am a little more hopeful than that. I don’t disagree with what you said or Stan’s characterization. I think this is about using human ability to overcome some of the physical problems. Now, again the way I look at is you’ve got about 100,000 people. So about a quarter of our residents last winter either did not have an outage, or if they had one it was resolved the same day. And again, I am looking for perfection. But I think we would both agree and I’ve certainly had this experience living in private housing too. If you lose the heat just for the day that’s a lot better than losing it for longer than that. So that’s about 100,000 people. We believe that this plan we’re discussing today will reach about 87,000 people in a very high impact way. That’s taking us up to about half the population of all of NYCHA when you combine those two pieces. But I think these other new capacities are going to make a big difference. If you have more skilled technicians, if you have more mobile boilers – you’re going to be able to respond to things. It’s not the same as getting a brand new boiler, you’re absolutely right. It’s not the same as the idea we would like. I think the conversation we’ve all been having over the last year or two really comes down to something very basic. We believe in public housing in New York City. but we need $31 billion that we don’t have. We’re going to have to do our damndest to help people nonetheless. What I appreciate about Stan and Vito is that they’re trying to find every innovative way. And I think a lot of the people on the ground and developments are doing the same thing. They’re going to make whatever they have work the best they can but this will give them more ability to make things work. So my message to people who live in developments that lost heat is I truly believe this will be a better winter. I don’t think it will be perfect, I think it will be a better winter.Question: [Inaudible] talk about the fact that many people who live in housing last winter had to buy their own heaters, turn their ovens on, do all kinds of things to compensate for the fact that they have no heat. Are we looking at the same kinds of situations [inaudible] people –Mayor: I think the truth is we’re not saying we think everything is going to be perfect this coming winter. You and I have talked about this. I don’t think New Yorkers like to be taken down the primrose path. If people want to hear that we’re not out of the woods yet, I am happy to tell them. But we’re not out of the woods yet. I wish I had a different message. But what I can say is I think some real improvement is coming. And I think we can make a real difference. And I think for example, something as the councilmember was talking about, something as basic NYCHA now saying to someone – is the heat back on in your apartment or not. If its not, we’re going to come and try again to get it right. I think residents will really appreciate that, because it’s not accepting a broken status quo. It’s saying our job is to keep fighting to get done everything we can get done for people. So I would just say to you I think it will be better this coming winter, and I then think it will be after that because all of these improvements are going to continue to deepen. Yes?Question: Two questions on this. I think the first is for Vito – having to do with the outside agency. Does that require any union sign off on that? I guess I know a lot of these workers are unionized. How do you kind of get around that [inaudible]?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: So there was full disclosure to the unions that were involved. And in fact we even modified the contract language based on some of the feedback from the unions. But again as the Mayor indicated we’re not displacing any of our staff. As a matter of fact we added more staff in addition to these outside contracts. So it’s not as if we reduced our staffing levels. In fact we increased it by 20 percent.Question: And the other issue is Mr. Brezenoff said that [inaudible] the biggest improvement has to do with changes in the management approach dealing with it. Do you agree that there management issues as far as how this was handled last winter?Mayor: I think there was every kind of issue. I think there was – it begins with – and again I’ll keep saying it because we have to acknowledge reality. If you’ve got buildings that are average over half century old and physical equipment it’s well past its prime consistently throughout the developments. Everyone is playing from behind then. And not enough resources to make the kinds of fixes that we want to make as quickly as we want to make them. So that’s the backdrop. But unquestionability there were missed opportunities to take what we did have and maximize the impact to help people. And there were missed opportunities to look for new solutions. Like the things you’re talking about here. So I do want to give a lot of credit to Vito and Stan, they looked at the situation with fresh eyes. They said hey, here’s some new things we can do that could really help. They needed money which we provided. But they did come up with new approaches to improve the response time. And I think that’s really important.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: I am sorry. I can – to go back to Willie. What was handed to me – so the announcement was $200 million investment to replace nine heating plants at 10 developments. And I am happy to say that those contracts are out on the street for bed.Question: $200 million from the City?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Yes. Question: The announcement you were referring to was to [inaudible] last year –Mayor: Can I, can I just. I am sorry I don’t want interrupt you. But can I say to the communications people here for the government. I think it will help all of us if you would very quickly today put up a quick comparison chart of what we announced at the beginning of the year and how this connects with that. Because I think everyone is trying to understand these pieces. These are very fair questions. But you guys could step it up a little by providing a fun fact sheet for everyone. So we will get that. Question: What was [inaudible] Vito? I didn’t –Acting General Manager Mustilimo: We’ll confirm.Mayor: We’ll just get you one sheet for all of you that makes it very clear. Okay, yes.Question: Two questions, first is just on the management piece. It is my understanding that former director of heating, Robert Knapp was demoted and put in charge of the Gowanus Houses so now he has some sort management role within NYCHA. Why is that? Management issues are some of the problems that NYCHA has had over the years. Why is it sort appropriate to take someone who kind of failed in one task and put them in another that also involves a lot management of people?Acting General Manager Mustilimo: So Mr. Knapp is presently serving in his civil servant title as a superintendent at Gowanus Houses.Interim Chair Brezenoff: Can I?Mayor: Yeah, please.Interim Chair Brezenoff: Let me [inaudible] since I made the first reference to management issues. Management issues don’t necessarily connote, they might individual failure even responsibility. What Vito has done, that the Mayor has supported, what I have supported is on a look at the way that the heating outages, heating problems are effectively managed what could be brought to bear. And that includes technological things, response systems as well as management focus to give us a better shot at managing and preventing heating outages. Look, throughout private housing in New York City there are heating outages. The key is how quickly, how well you can respond. What can you do to prevent those? And when we talk about management and operations, we’re talking about putting in place the means of addressing those issues. So I just wanted to be clear about that.Mayor: Thank you. Yeah.Question: The lead special advisor, do you want to do that now or –Mayor: Say it again.Question: The lead specialist.Mayor: Lets finish on the heat and then we’ll come to that. Yeah, Gloria?Question: Mr. Mayor, two questions. What do you say to folks who see these outside companies that are going to come in? And is that a – is the city in any way moving closer towards privatization? Do you see that as some of the things that you’re going to have to do this – bringing in these outside companies is in a way a version of that?Mayor: No I don’t think that’s privatization the least. I think that is every day in New York City, remember it’s a vast, vast government. And there’s a lot of things where we have to turn to private sector experts. This is not a new thing. But you’re talking about – I mean it comes back to the whole dialogue here. You’re talking about here and urgent situation that needs urgent solutions. Here’s a way to get a lot more expertise quickly to apply to a heat season that we’re in right now. Of course we had to do it. And I think, you know, the point being that we are keeping our public workforce strong and the fact we’ve added to it, but we simply needed more capacity and we needed it quickly and we needed highly skilled people. So, I believe fundamentally in public housing. We’re going to defend public housing intensely, but because of the challenge of public housing, because it has – I mean, it’s really simple, it was chartered by the federal government and the State, it was supposed to be funded by the federal government and the State. They stopped doing it decades ago on the level they were supposed to. We’re left with a contradiction. We just can’t throw up our hands and leave 400,000 people in a tough spot. We’ve got to do everything we can think of, and here’s a way to bring real capacity to bear right now to address these heat problems. It does not contradict in any way our commitment to it being public housing. Question: Mayor, one of the things that we heard from a lot of tenants last year who were without heat is a level of frustration – they’re paying their rent, they’re doing everything right, not living here for free and their heat doesn’t work. Have you given any thought to the idea of rent credits? If there is, you know, longer –Mayor: I just want to be straight forward, we can’t do that. It’s a chicken and egg problem. If we start taking away resources, it’s only going to make the situation worse. These apartments are heavily subsidized. This is a way to ensure that hardworking New Yorkers have affordable housing, no one pays more than 30 percent of their income in rent. That’s something we guarantee in public housing, but we cannot lose that revenue source. Our job is to make the situation better and refunds don’t make it better, they just don’t. Question: Accountability – Felix Ortiz is watching on Facebook, he wants accountability, he wants heads to roll is the way he’s saying it –Mayor: Monica, respectfully, that’s not how you get things done for people. We are putting forward a plan with new leaders who know what they’re doing, who have a proven track record, who are now hiring a lot of other people who have a proven track record and bringing in outside expertise. I get the emotions here, I really do, and I feel for everyone who’s been through this, but I think they want results. I think they want to see something change, so –Question: Accountability isn’t a way to get results?Mayor: We’ve covered it. Okay, thank you. Question: [Inaudible] Vito for a second on the – you mentioned that you did have discussions with the unions regarding the outside agencies. Other than the contract language changes, did you make any other concessions to the unions in order to be allowed to do this and are you able to specify the contact change?Acting General Manager Mustaciulo: So, we have ongoing discussions with all of the locals that are involved and so, honestly, I can’t speak to that right now, but there are ongoing conversations. In fact, I meet with them almost weekly. Mayor: And I want to give Vito a lot of credit, he’s had a very, very positive working relationship with the union and I want to give the union credit. They’ve tried hard to come up with ways to help us address these problems. Interim Chair Brezenoff: So, I just want to add something – the contract is structured – you know, structured that way to allow for periodic evaluation. So, it’s two years – two years –Acting General Manager Mustaciulo: It’s two years and then two, four-year –Interim Chair Brezenoff: Options – so they’re going to have to prove their worth to continue and that’s a major part of this approach, to assure a quality performance by the outside [inaudible].Mayor: Yeah, so that’s the point, the outside contractor gets to the previous [inaudible]. Outside contracting is not forever – if it’s working we do more, if it’s not working we do something else. Yes, Marcia?Question: Mayor, if the State has promised you $450 million over the last two budgets, why haven’t you received it? Is it something that the State has to do to free the money up? Or do you have to fill out some form?Mayor: No, we’ve done everything we have to do.Question: [Inaudible]Mayor: Marcia, that’s a question for the State. We’ve done everything we’ve had to do. It’s been obviously a very public matter. I appreciate the Senator’s comments. Look, we have not only invested, as I said to you, $3.7 billion in new money in five years – that’s never happened in the history of New York City before – and we agreed willingly to an agreement with the federal government which obligates us to at least $1.2 billion more. There’s no question that the City has skin in the game. The State’s holding back that money, I’d like them to release that money, because clearly a lot of big work is happening right now. I do think the State’s looking at the larger process with the monitor, I respect that, but I think the most productive thing would be to release the money so we can get to work with it. Question: [Inaudible] there’s no monitor yet, is that the thing –Mayor: You have to ask them, I don’t want to put words in their mouth?Question: Are you frustrated by it? I mean, what’s –Mayor: I’ve made the point a whole lot of times and right now I’m just going to work with what I have until where we can get to the day where we get that State money. And there’s a parallel fight to get federal resources as well. Okay, anybody else on this announcement today? Going once, twice – okay, you had that lead question, which is consistent with this so let’s keep going on anything NYCHA-related. Go ahead –Question: I wanted to ask – so you made this announcement about the lead – the special advisor for –Mayor: Hold on, this is still – okay, you’ve got to go?Unknown: Yeah –Mayor: Okay, great. Let’s just see if there’s anything NYCHA-related, like the lead is NYCHA and other things, and then we’ll reset. Okay.Question: You made this announcement – two of the agencies that are most directly involved in handling lead issues in the City are NYCHA and the Health Department. At NYCHA you have an Interim Chair, at the Health Department we don’t have a Commissioner right now, and you’ve named the Sanitation Commissioner to handle lead. Why is it so hard – why has it been hard to fill both this role and the role of the Health Department?Mayor: I think you’re –Question: [Inaudible] hard to fill those two roles, if it has been hard. Mayor: Thank you. It has not been hard. Question: But they’re not filled. Mayor: I would disagree with you.Question: Any why is – what does the Sanitation Commissioner have to do with lead now and know about lead to help in her [inaudible]?Mayor: Thank you. I really – I just ask people – I really believe in a neutral question, so the neutral question is, has it been hard or has it not been hard. The answer is no, it has not been hard and I’ll tell you why. In the case of the Health Department, the Commissioner did an outstanding job for almost five years, she left a matter of weeks ago. Her longstanding First Deputy has been running the Department who was one of the crucial people running the Department all along. We’re in that process right now. We’ll have an announcement pretty soon. I think you’re going to see a huge amount of continuity no matter what – so, that’s not a problem. In the case of NYCHA, I’ve been clear that I think Stan and Vito are doing an outstanding job. As long as Stan wants to keep doing the job, I want him to keep doing the job. So, the word interim is a fascinating word. If Stan calls up one day –Question: [Inaudible][Laughter] Mayor: He’s a true public servant. The word interim to me is, Stan says to me one day, I’ve got X-number of months left to give. We will certainly be in high gear in the process of finding a successor. But right now, we’re focused on trying to address the issues at hand and we’ve got a team that’s doing it. In the case of having what we could call a Lead Czar – Kathryn Garcia has done an absolutely outstanding job at Sanitation, again, almost five years now. She’s proven she knows how to get the job done and has a very, very strong managerial team. And I want to particularly commend her for I think the last few winters outstanding performances by Sanitation. She’s someone between her career at Sanitation and her career at Environmental Protection who knows a lot about operations, knows a lot about various regulatory issues, knows a lot about having to work across agencies and has an agency that is working well and we believed fundamentally could free up the time to take on this new responsibility. There’s a parallel here to what we’re doing with Lorraine Grillo in terms of her very, very effective work at School Construction Authority and her strong team there allowing her to free up time to play leadership in terms of design and construction. This is a model we find is working. So, Kathryn’s mandate is to work on the lead issue across all agencies. It’s a Vision Zero-approach. New York City has done something extraordinary since 2005, lead paint exposure in children is down 90 percent. We want to get that to zero, we want to end it once and for all. But that will involve working with not just public housing but even more so private housing. More of the problem is in private housing at this point. It will also involve working with our schools and it will involve making sure that the follow-up in each individual case, God forbid any child is exposed, the goal is to get that exposure down really quickly. It can be done but it takes our Health Department, it takes our Health and Hospitals Corporation. So, she is going to be in charge of reading a single, unified approach across all agencies that literally can pinpoint any apartment or any child at any moment and make sure the maximum effort is being applied there. And I absolutely think she’s got the skill and the bandwidth to do that. Yes, Greg?Question: In July, I think it was, you announced that you were going to expand the lead inspection in public housing and also to expand it to private housing. 130,000 –Mayor: The 130,000 is just public housing. Question: Public housing, correct – and then also that you were going to go back and try to reach out to the 850 kids, or whatever it was who were in the [inaudible] microgram. So what’s the status of both of those right now? Have you actually begun the 130,000 [inaudible]?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: So we are nearly complete with this group of work to put the contract out. I think the announcement was that it would take us about six months to get a contract in place and that we would start the physical inspections sometime in the early 2019.Question: So you haven’t begun [inaudible].Mayor: That it’s – it’s, no, it’s consistent with the announcement that it was going to take about six months to put the apparatus up and running. The beginning of the year we then go through the 130,000 apartments – again this has never been done – with advance technology that can prove once and for all whether there is lead plaint present. The goal – I mean it’s astounding – when Vito – this was Vito’s idea, I want to give him a lot of credit and this is why new eyes are so important, in the entire history of NYCHA and the entire history of the lead paint issue goes back to 1960 when lead paint was banned in New York City, no one had ever figured out a way to determine once and for all whether all of our apartments had lead or not. This technology is going to allow us to have finally a base line that says okay, X number of apartments, there’s no lead, we never need to go back and worry about lead, we can put all of our energy into the ones where we actually have some evidence there is lead. It’s a very important effort, it’s going to be revolutionary for this agency, but that’s going to begin – the physical part begins early in the year.Question: The kids?Mayor: The kids, that’s an ongoing effort with the Health Department and H & H, we can get you an update on where that stands but part of what I want to have the Lead Czar do is put all that together into one unified approach and be very public about where we stand on it. Yes?Question: Mr. Brezenoff in the last couple of week expressed a number of concerns and reservations with the possible appointment of a federal monitor at NYCHA. I’m wondering if you have any regrets of binding the city in a settlement like that. And second, the judge, Judge [inaudible] openly questioned in court whether a receiver should - might be more appropriate for NYCHA. I’m wondering what your thoughts on those –Mayor: No regrets. Respect the judge greatly and, you know, he’s obviously looking closely at the situation to figure out what the right balance is. We want to make sure the day to day work of NYCHA can go on and can be as strong as possible while addressing the bigger issues that are very pertinent in the consent decree, the health and safety issues, we have to strike that balance. Because there is a whole lot that happens every day and NYCHA goes way beyond that consent decree. I think the judge is sensitive to that. Okay, anything else on NYCHA? Yes?Question: Back to the 130,000 inspection apartments. Initially I think there has been some confusion over whether or not it is going to be actually abating whole sale these apartments or if it’s going to be remediation. Can you clarify that? And what I mean by that is remediation being a quick fix, like okay, lead paint controlled, abatement being you’re getting this to be a lead free NYCHA.Mayor: Can I – can I start and then let my colleagues jump in. The 130,000 apartment effort aims to clarify what we’ve never known. For example, there are going to be apartments that there’s just no – no indication of lead whatsoever, and they would therefore no longer be part of the universe we address. We’ve never had that knowledge on a system wide scale before. That’s going to allow for a lot better use of time and energy and resources to protect people. And then on the second question, I’m not an expert, but I will simply say it really comes down to what is doable in the situation where we find ourselves in and I think everyone humanly thinks, you know, couldn’t we just rip everything out and make it perfect. The laws always acknowledged that that’s can often be very difficult and that that there is different ways you address the problem to make it safe and that’s what we have to figure out in each case.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: I would just add to what the Mayor said, so the remediation is in response to a visual assessment and is based on a presumption. So I have to – we actually perform the [inaudible] of testing, the physical testing of these units, we will have concrete evidence if there is or is not lead based paint. Based on that information we will put together a plan of action that will either abate to the lead and abatement can either be removal or encapsulation. But until we have that information, that data, it’s really kind of hard to lay out with a plan of action would look like.Question: So if I understand, it is not a wholesale commitment to be lead free NYCHA?Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: No there is – it is – we just don’t know what that plan will look like until that testing has been concluded.Mayor: But yeah I think you’re saying two different things. There’s a commitment to making sure every apartment is safe. The law – exactly – the law makes clear that there is more than one way to do that. We’re going to do the best one we can get done in each case. Go ahead?Question: Accountability, I know you don’t like that word –Mayor: I have no problem with the word, I think you’re missing the answer but go ahead.Question: A lot of the families want accountability. They have sick children, they want to know that someone’s going to be held responsible for that fired criminal charges, how do you feel about that?Mayor: I think it is absolutely right to say people are going to be held accountable. The Chair feels he is accountable, the General Manager feels he is accountable, I feel I’m accountable. We’ve taken the actions that we know how to take to make an impact on people’s lives. When someone should be fired, they will be fired, but firing is not always the answer and again I’m just not going to go down a list of who should be fired. When there is a situation where someone should be fired, they’re fired. Go ahead, Marcia did you have something?Question: My question is, on November 20th of last year you said that there were four children who tested positive for lead poisoning when the day before you received email communications from Wiley Norvell that said 202 children had tested positive for lead. I’m wondering why you decided to go with the lower number to downplay the seriousness?Mayor: No, Marcia, that’s just not accurate. There’s – was a host of different measures being used. Look, we’ve been – we’ve talked about this issue a lot over the past couple of years. We tried to do a lot to address it. Obviously the whole administration’s been focused on kids from the beginning. So we want to make sure kids are safe and the problem in this whole discussion is there has never been a single standard. The federal standards changed over time. Different laws required different things. We’ve all been trying to speak to this without having a common language. But the bottom-line now is this is part of why I think it’s so important to have a Lead Czar and to have this comprehensive effort in NYCHA to go through all the apartments is we want to get to a place where every New York can understand once and for all exactly what’s going on in public housing, exactly what’s going on in private housing. We do know that we brought lead exposure as a city 90 percent since 2005, so something is working that’s protecting kids, we want to get it to zero. And we want to make that very transparent and then God forbid any child ever exposed. One thing the science does show us if you catch that quickly and you get that kid support, that exposure can go right back down and that’s the number one thing to do for the safety of that kid. So that’s what we’re trying to do. Okay last call on this, we will go to other topics.Question: Just following up on that, you know, acknowledging there was numerous kind of figures out there, the fact that you did chose the lowest one to present publically –Mayor: Yoav, again –Question: You don’t agree –Mayor: I think it’s just there’s – I understand the impulse in the media to parse these things. I’m saying if anyone looks objectively, there are so many moving parts here and so many different standards to play that it’s not, you know, I sat around and had a huge menu of options and I said oh let me take this one. That’s just not the way it works. We are getting in information all the time. The laws were changer, the standards were changing, we tried to respond to each one as we had it, and we were all trying to understand the details of this because as you know this all emanated from an original problem of not realizing that the inspections had stopped in the previous administration. So everyone was trying to play catch up to understand what happened and what we need to do to fix it. I’m not interested in re-litigating which sentence was used when, I’m trying to fix the problem, and I think this is – having this Lead Czar is a crucial new step in that process.Okay guys, we’re going to go over to off-topic. I want to give you guys a chance to escape.Question: [Inaudible]Mayor: Hang on a second Monica, we’re going to come back to you, we’ll come back to you. We’ll come back to you. We’ll come back to you.Question: [Inaudible] talk about –Mayor: We will come to you in a moment.Question: On street safety. On Monday, a bus driver will be sentenced to a maximum of 30 days for killing Citi Bike rider, Dan Hanegby, in 2016. The conviction [inaudible] partly on the judge’s release of [inaudible] in that case. I want to – two part question. First, did you see the video and what were [inaudible]?Mayor: I have not seen the video.Question: And secondly, should punishments for killing a cyclist be more than 30 days in jail?Mayor: I think – look, let’s start with the fact that any of our public servants go out there to serve people every day. And Lord knows this is a horrible thing when this happens. It’s horrible for everyone involved.The laws in general – I want to generalize the point – the laws rightfully across the board for everything involving street safety are getting tighter and tighter. I think they need to keep getting tighter. So, I want to make a general point. If someone negligently killed someone – not accidentally but negligently killed someone, I think there need to be very harsh penalties. But I haven’t seen the details of this case. Okay, go ahead.Question: Yeah, we were talking earlier – the woman sitting next to the president – about rats. And we did a story at the Claremont Consolidated Houses. I’m sure you saw the video. I’m not sure if you did. Did you see the video?Mayor: I have not seen the video.Question: Hopefully, Eric, you can share the video with him. It went viral. Our viewers were outraged. And a woman, Asia Clemente, says her toddler was bitten by a rat. Vito was there to tour just yesterday. What do you want to say to the families who say not enough is being done? This is a public health hazard – rats.Mayor: It’s absolutely a public health hazard and we don’t accept it. I want to thank Vito for going up there. Vito can talk about the actions that are being taken but we don’t accept it. We’re going to have to fix that situation and I think a transfer has been offered to that family because obviously that was a horrible –Question: [Inaudible]Mayor: We’re going to make sure a transfer is offered –Question: Thank you, Mayor.Mayor: And – but no, that’s not an acceptable way for anyone to live. Why don’t you speak to the things you’re doing there.Acting General Manager Mustaciuolo: Sure. We actually first learned of this over the weekend and the staff responded immediately by sending exterminators as well as maintenance staff to actually patch the holes. By Monday we realized that we needed more resources so we’re bringing in a [inaudible] company that actually there started today – yesterday, met with Sanitation. They offered some great advice as to how we can properly store the debris, the garbage. Right now we have our compactors out of service until we can clean them. They should be back online by the end of this week.We did robo-calls to our residents last night. We sent out notices to all the residents. We are actually going out and purchasing garbage pails for their apartments –Question: [Inaudible] Gibson wants you visit, Mayor. Would you be able to visit families –Mayor: At some point, yeah.Question: You will?Mayor: At some point, for sure.Question: Mayor, I wanted to ask you about the Democracy NYC program and these letters that went out to a list of inactive voters or you were seeking to reach out to inactive voters. Can you give us some clarity on how that list was made, what thought went into the letters? You know some people who got them, they called the Board of Elections, they were actually active voters. They were confused. They –Mayor: Yeah, the key word there from what we understand is, very few – some, but very few were inaccurate. Look, any database has the chance of being imperfect. Apparently, that was a database we got from the Board of Elections. But the goal was the right goal because of what happened just two years ago.I know two years is a long time but you know two years ago we were all still in shock that 200,000 people were inappropriately purged from the voter rolls in advance of the Democratic presidential primary – a huge scandal. And you know I think there was such anger at that point – how could people have their voting rights taken away like that, and we have been searching for ways to fix the Board of Elections. As you know, many offers have been of them of resources in exchange for reforms. There are offers that have not been accepted.We’ve tried to get changes in Albany. That hasn’t happened. So, we’re doing a couple of things. Obviously, in terms of the fall election this year, we’ll have on the ballot – because of the Charter Revision Commission – new approaches for the City to notify people about when elections are coming and where their poll sites are. We’ve updated the accurate information positively, proactively.But second, later than I would have liked this possibility of sending these updated announcements to people became clear. Had that happened two years ago before the presidential primary, a lot of people would have been able to fix their registration in time and vote. So, that was the impulse.Was it executed perfectly? No, there’s no question it was not but it was the right idea. We now have to figure how to do it better. But I do want you to hear it was directly related to the fact that so many people were kicked off who should not have been kicked off two years earlier. We were trying to do something to avert that from happening again.Question: Can you just be more clear on where the list came from because your administration at first said a third-party vendor, then they named the third-party vendor, then that seemed to go back late last –Mayor: I’m not familiar with the details –Question: [Inaudible] you’re saying BOE, BOE says they didn’t give you the list [inaudible] –Mayor: No, no, no. I’m saying the origin of the data – the data sets were from the BOE by definition. They had them. They had to provide them to whichever vendor it was. My team can follow up with you because I just don’t know the mechanical details.Question: I have an education-related question. It’s, I guess, a follow up to a story a colleague published in the Wall Street Journal about, I guess, your proposed admission plan for a specialized high school. More than 300 children – kids, they’re not necessarily children – who weren’t proficient on State tests would get seats. And I know there is some criticism from parents who are concerned that maybe these children wouldn’t be able to keep up with the rigorous academics.Would you revise your admission plan or add remedial instruction to help keep these students – you know, allow them to keep pace in the rigorous environment of these specialized schools?Mayor: Well, first of all, I have not seen that report. What our initial analysis showed was that the academic standards of the schools would be essentially the same when this new plan was applied. So, I can’t speak to that particular detail.I can only tell you what all of the lead up to presenting the proposal told us which is when you composited grades and test scores, you ended up with in many ways a very similar capacity level in the students but you ended up with students representing a lot more of the city.That said, Lord knows there’s going to be a very intense, detailed legislative process over this plan. It has gotten a huge amount of attention. I actually think there’s been a really healthy debate. We believe the direction we’re going on which is based on this University of Texas model which has proven a lot of positive results, is the right direction. But of course, there will be give and take in the legislative process to try and figure out something that is workable and that folks in Albany are comfortable with.Question: And to follow up – I mean, do you have a response to the concerns of some parents who feel that this would really change the nature of the schools?Mayor: I don’t think it will. One of my children went to one of those schools. I believe in this kind of approach and I believe those schools have tremendous capacity. It’s somewhat similar to the bigger we’re having in other ways of diversify schools.Schools that have a really great teaching core and great leadership can work with kids of different abilities. But you’re talking here again – I don’t accept the premise there that this would have a major impact. The overall numbers we saw were that the student body – the new student body we created would be in many ways very similar in terms of academic ability.Yes, Gloria?Question: Mr. Mayor, I wanted to ask you, over the weekend, there was this Proud Boys event that lead to arrests and protests and a lot of coverage of it. I know you weren’t in town when that happened but your response appears somewhat muted to – considering what happened. There’s been questions about whether the Police Department handled the event correctly and if they arrested the right people or dealt with it. Can you just respond to that –Mayor: Sure.Question: And have you spoken to the department about this and just give us an update –Mayor: I’ve certainly spoken to the Commissioner. Look, I think this one was really unusual and I think there was a certain amount of confusion around it for sure. The PD has said very clearly that if they could do it over again they would do it differently. And it’s – we’ve learned from this situation that, God forbid we ever deal with something like this again, we’re going to spread our resources a lot more widely and keep a close eye on people when they disperse from the site. That was a missed opportunity.You’ve got two factions, if you will, that unfortunately both seem to engage in violence at times and don’t want to cooperate with the police. That makes this more complicated. But no, we’re never going to take this lightly. You know, I don’t think any of this belongs in New York City but because of freedom of speech, if it ever happens again you will see a different approach from the NYPD. Yeah?Question: Regarding the investigation into Mark Peters, what’s the status of your review of that report? And what was your reaction when you saw it?Mayor: I haven’t seen the report, I need to see it.Question: Your office [inaudible] said a couple days ago that it’s reviewing?Mayor: I have not seen the report, I need to see it. Okay, go ahead.Question: Over the weekend, State Senator Marty Golden took exception to the DOT’s street safety improvements on Gerritsen Avenue. Four people were killed between 2007 and 2016. I don’t know if you saw the video but Golden says your street safety measures will endanger the Gerritsen Beach residents. Do you have any rebuttal to that?Mayor: I have not seen the video. I look forward to it. I believe in Vision Zero and I’ve never said it’s perfect. Sometimes there is an issue the community raises, and that’s a fair issue, and we have to make an adjustment, but overwhelmingly what changes we made, even though a lot of times there has been initial opposition, overwhelmingly those changes have made people safer. That’s five years in a row of traffic fatalities going down, so I stand by that. But to be fair I’d have to see the specifics.Unknown: Time for two more.Mayor: Okay.Question: Back to the Mark Peters situation, report. Would you – I understand you haven’t read the report, maybe you saw a newspaper article about the report, but would you ever consider firing –Mayor: Been over this 100,000 times – anything personnel I’ll let you know if I have something to say but I’m not going to speculate on personnel matters. Rich, is that your hand?Question: I hope so.[Laughter]Mayor: It’s not your hand.[Laughter]Interim Chair Brezenoff: It’s Halloween.[Laughter]Mayor: Something’s wrong here.Interim Chair Brezenoff: It’s Halloween.Mayor: It’s Halloween.Question: Do you intend to buy a lottery ticket?Mayor: No.[Laughter]Mayor: No, no, no, no. I’ll stick with the money I have.Thanks, everyone.