Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds In-Person Media Availability

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. Thank you all for joining us today for our weekly in-person media availability. Special thank you to our student journalists here from PS 889.    

The mayor has once again convened senior leadership here at City Hall to answer your questions. Whether it's keeping people safe, revitalizing our economy, or making our city more livable for working class New Yorkers, our administration is working every day to build a stronger New York City. We look forward to asking your questions and updating New Yorkers on our efforts. 

Joining us today we have Mayor Eric Adams, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Chief Advisor to the Mayor Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce Maria Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar,  Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg, Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Tiffany Raspberry, and New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol. Without further delay we’ll take some questions for Mayor Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thanks so much, DM Levy, and I'm really happy to see student journalists from PS 889. I know it was a conversation we had with the Councilwoman, the Chair of the Education Committee, and true to your words, you brought in our scholars. I was just telling first deputy mayor, we should think about rotating our young people in often to get this experience. 

We just want to, on the top, release a special report on social media and mental health. We're seeing that this work is really cascading throughout our entire country. When we talk about public safety, this is an aspect of it that is often ignored. This report on social media and mental health is something that the U.S. Surgeon General has also proposed putting warning labels on social media platforms. We stated how important it is, and we're going to continue to look at how we lean into this work. 22,000 parents are guardians and caregivers on social media habits and mental health status. This is extremely important. I really want to thank Dr. Vasan for his pursuit in this area. 

Rebuilding the economy means putting people to work. We have some great announcements that we have done around this issue. Record numbers of jobs in the city, 4.73 million jobs, New York, is the highest in the city's history. These record numbers come with different initiatives, such as local community hiring initiative that we're doing, our hiring halls partnered with DC 37 leadership, and the $1.2 billion that we're going to be rolling out in the first phase of this in the local community hiring through DCAS. We're saying if you're getting these RFPs from the city, you have an obligation to hire in the communities. Zip codes where at least 15 percent of the population live below the federal poverty threshold or in NYCHA. These are the type of employment opportunities we want to put out. 

Pools, making more livable city means improving the public spaces. For all New Yorkers, this Thursday, city pools will open for the summer, and with that comes an investment of more than $1 billion to build and improve our city's pools over the next five years. Additionally, as a reminder for restaurant owners with outdoor dining shares, the deadline to apply for our permanent Dining Out NYC program is in five weeks of August 3rd. I love the outdoor dining, and a lot of people seem to enjoy it as well. They can visit diningoutnyc.info for more. 

This summer will be a celebration of New York City's unrivaled summer offerings. Summer in New York is probably one of the best places to be in the country. Individuals can go to nyc.gov slash summer to learn more, everything from concerts to theaters in the parks, just a host of things. Last thing, Macy's fireworks. One of the ways our administration is increasing the possibility of New Yorkers this summer is by, for the first time, offering 10,000 free tickets to view the Macy's 4th of July fireworks at prime viewing locations in Manhattan. Tomorrow at 10 a.m., New Yorkers can visit nycjuly4th.com to grab some free tickets. We're looking forward to that. 

Charter Revision Commission, I know there's a question that's going to come up today. We're moving ahead. Thanks so much to former Senator Diane Savino, I don't see her in here now. Thank you, Diane, for doing just an amazing job moving this forward, tough, difficult topics. Your team really made sure that voices were heard. I want to thank you. There's a few more dates that are coming up that's on the screen. We want to encourage people out. New Yorkers have a lot of opinions, 8.3 million people in the city, 35 million opinions. Turn it over to you, DM Levy.
Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you very much. To ask a question, please raise your hand and then we'll take some questions. Amaris is going to call on folks. 

Mayor Adams: How are you, Juliet? 

Question: Good, how are you? 

Mayor Adams: Good. It's been a while. 

Question: I have a question and then my student intern, since we're into students here, we'll have a second question. Since there is no congestion pricing, perhaps in the immediate future or at all, what is the city doing? How is it addressing congestion on its own, on your own? What is the plan to address congestion?

Mayor Adams: A combination of things. I don't think the ball has been spiked, mission accomplished. I think the governor's going to make the decision on how to move forward. There are a series of things we're doing, from building out bike lanes to ensure proper enforcement. 

When I was a captain, I was the traffic stat captain. One of the biggest problems with congestion is double parking. On delivery, double parking. Vehicles are double parking to slow up traffic, it's a safety hazard and so we're going to continue to enforce those ways that we believe is preventing traffic from moving forward. Then we have to have a first-class subway system so that people can get out of cars and get in our subways. We're seeing after a slight uptick in January in crime, the numbers, February, March, April, May, the numbers have substantially decreased. We put the thousand officers into the subway and I think in  combination with Deputy Mayor William-Isom is doing with the SCOUT Initiative, you'll see the continuation that people are going to feel comfortable. 

A lot of that traffic happened because of COVID and because people stopped feeling safe on the subway system. We need to turn that around, that should be the primary commute for New Yorkers. We're going to do our role and I have faith in the governor and the team in Albany to do their role up in Albany. 

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: Can I just add a few, there's a few other items that and I think people are going to start seeing more and more of this in New York. We're a region woefully dependent on truck traffic, 90 percent of our goods come through truck whereas the rest of the nation it's 70 percent. 

Building out or building back out our working waterfront area so that we can start getting shipments from barges and decrease our dependency on trucks which are a large factor in congestion. We are obviously working on that through federal, some federal funding that we got to improve our piers so that they can be used for that loading and unloading. The recent announcement on city control of Red Hook Container Terminal gives us another huge asset to enlarge and ensure that the blue highway is used and we are starting to see a lot of private interest in converting to blue highway. EDC released a request for information and they had many more responses than they expected of companies big and small that want to start using barging as their primary way of moving goods. 

You combine that with cargo bikes which you see a lot more on the streets today. DOT has passed rules that allow wider and longer ones in the bike lanes so that more companies can go from barge to cargo bike and we've also added incentives for trucks that want to do overnight deliveries so that we get some of that congestion dissipated throughout the 24 hours instead of concentrated into 9 to 5 business hours.

Question: What about Lyfts and Ubers that just proliferate, they're everywhere? You don't feel that causes congestion? Is there any plan to cap that, limit that?

Deputy Mayor Joshi: There's a balance. One, there is a cap on it now. There was a… It was lifted but it's been reinstated so there were about 10,000 EV licenses that were given out. The vast majority of those went to individual drivers who were already active drivers and in essence whenever there's a cap, prices go up because scarcity makes prices go up. When there was a cap, the amount that these drivers were paying to lease a vehicle for a week kept going up and up. When they were able to get an EV license straight from TLC they all ended up saving hundreds of dollars a week. 

It is always a balance to ensure that we're watching out, watching for what the effects of a policy are on working people. That cap is back in place and as the mayor said one of our biggest asset is our public transit system and so the balance of people making a decision to use an Uber or Lyft versus public transit is a really important balance and every way we can support that balance tips in favor of transit is something that is a huge step forward in dissipating congestion.

Mayor Adams: A guy stopped me a few weeks ago and said you need to do something about this congestion then he hopped into his Uber

Question: The U.S. Surgeon General has declared gun violence a national health crisis especially among young adults. Is this a crisis in New York City and how are you directly trying to address this?

Mayor Adams: I think the U.S. Surgeon General caught up to us. 2022, the president came here after I asked him to look into what gun violence is doing. The over-proliferation of guns is a real problem and we have been leading from the front all the mayors across the country for the most part look towards what we're doing. 

We removed over 15,000 guns off our streets. It's unfortunate that we have almost a revolving door system of those who are severe, extreme recidivists such as the individual who shot Detective Jonathan. He was arrested 20 times and the person who was in the car with them was in possession or potentially in possession of a gun. He was out on a gun charge. And so we're doing our job as the police but the criminal justice system includes judges prosecutors and the fourth arm that many people ignore are the lawmakers. Our laws must look at those who carry guns and those who are extreme recidivists and then we need to stop the manufacturing and producing of guns on our streets. The Supreme Court recent ruling is going to have a major impact on gun safety across this country. The police department we are laser-focused on getting rid of guns off our streets and I think the Surgeon General's report is going to highlight how we were front and center on this topic from the beginning. Gun violence is a real issue in our country. 

Question: Thank you. Mr. Mayor, the council overrode your veto on the How Many Stops Act about six months ago, it's supposed to, under that override, actually take effect this Sunday, so that's when it's supposed to start being implemented. Is the NYPD ready to do this? What is this going to look like Sunday? Do they have new cell phone software that will help with this reporting? Separately, on to the… 

Mayor Adams: Let me answer that first. The commissioner should answer that question. Commissioner Caban and the legal counsel there I know they have been in anticipation and getting prepared for it, but they can answer directly how the implementation is going to be.

Question: On a separate issue with the budget being due in less than a week. Councilmembers spent this past weekend, including Councilwoman Rita Joseph, holding various rallies calling for cuts to be reversed on a variety of fronts and we're just days away from the deadline. Are you concerned that the budget's going to be late given that there's so many outstanding issues and then I also want to ask your participation in the talks. I know you were out… Your participation in the budget negotiations. I know you were out in the Hamptons this weekend as a lot of these talks were happening. Are you actually personally involved in the talks or are you delegating everything to Jacques and the rest of the team?

Mayor Adams: First of all, the beauty of democracy is that we could have a council person here that understands the budget conversations and how we work them out. It's only one aspect of the job. It is not the only aspect of the job. 
We've stood with Councilwoman Joseph at pre-K sites. We collaborate with her and her district. Because we negotiate fiercely for what we believe should be in the budget and not in the budget, it shouldn't get in the way at all of the cordiality that we show because we understand we're on the same plane. I'm the pilot, co-pilot is the speaker, and I say this over and over again. I don't know how many times I can say this. We're going to land this plane. We should record each year when you ask the same questions and we continue to land the plane. Speaker Adams and I are extremely competent. We are great leaders in this city. We're going to be fierce advocates for what we believe, no matter what it is, but we constantly show that at the end of the day, 95 percent of the things we both agree on. Two blue collar people, came from blue collar parents. We're going to take care of blue collar working class people in the city. 

When I was out in the Hamptons for the day, because I'm allowed to go and rest, we were still in constant contact. I have a great team. Jacques is doing an amazing job. These leaders up here, and I want to be clear on this, if the only way we can run this city is Eric looking over everything, then we're in trouble. You build a team so the team can do their job, and I'm very engaged in the budget conversations. In fact, the speaker and I communicated yesterday around the budget. I said, how's it going? What do we need to do? Et cetera. We're going to continue to do so. We're going to land the plane. I can't say that anymore. We have the same conversation every year in Albany, every year in the City Council. What do I say all the time? We're going to land the plane. Do we land the plane? 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Deputy Mayor Levy: Yes.

Question: Is it going to actually land before June 30th?

Mayor Adams: We're going to follow the law. The law requires us to have a budget by a date, and the speaker and I, we're committed to, as we've always done, to follow the law on doing so.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor Adams: How are you? 

Question: From FOX 5. Good to be with you today. 

Mayor Adams: Good to see you. 

Question: Now, back in January, you held a community conversation on 33rd Street, and a concerned resident had expressed to you how unsafe she feels walking in the area of 14th Street and Avenue A. In your response to her, and I think everyone here can agree, you said what's happening there is disgusting, but you told her that we're going to fix it. 

We know what happened a few days ago, but that block is not the only problematic block in the city. We have 125th and Lex, we have 8th Avenue by Port Authority, we also have Penn Station. Typically what happens, what we see happens, police officers will go, and then it'll cool off for a bit, but then it's this ongoing cycle. My question to you, mayor, is what is your plan to not only clean up this problem of these bad blocks, so to speak, and not just putting a cosmetic solution to this problem, but to actually get to the root of the problem, to once and for all truly make these specific blocks safe?

Mayor Adams: 14th Street, I know it very well. I've been out there personally several times, and anyone who lives in that area, the councilman over there have reached out to me. I've reached out with a team over there. If anyone knows that area, they know how terrible it has been for years. I don't think any mayor has ever walked that block like I have, and how we have cleaned up the encampments, illegal vending. We have been doing operations over in that area repeatedly to clean it up. 

What happened over the weekend? Someone stabbed three people. I believe that's what you're talking about. That person from preliminary reports is dealing with severe mental health issues. How do we deal with underlying reasons? Give us what we ask for from Albany. Allow us to do involuntary removal. Put the money into SCOUTs that we're doing. The underlying problem is what we have been attacking as an administration. There are people who are on the street with severe mental health issues that can't take care of themselves, and we need to be honest about that and give us the authority to give them the care that they need. People were really, if you go back and look at the reports, when we talked about involuntary removal, we got criticized from all over the place, but we were steadfast, and we continue. I don't know, what's the numbers, how many people we removed off the street? Do you have that?

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, Health and Human Services: I don't have the involuntary removal number, but I also want to remind you, mayor, that there's many people who have left the streets voluntarily and gotten connected to services. To your point, this is not something that started in 2022, and it's not something that's probably going to be solved right away. It's an issue that the whole country is dealing with when you talk about the combination of homelessness, of the opioid crisis, of all of the things, the mental health issues that people are dealing with. It needs a comprehensive approach, and you're right, it shouldn't be cosmetic, but it has to be constant, it has to be consistent, and it has to be a whole of government and community approach.

Mayor Adams: Yes, and it needs to be cosmetic as well as substantive, because we don't want encampments on our streets, and we don't. I know what LA looks like. I know what other cities look like, and it doesn't look like that here in this city. It was looking like that before I became mayor. In that precinct, every week, they're doing operations to clean up. We have a 30 percent decrease in crimes from the last year, so we're seeing substantive issues. 

These police officers are working, and do you have to repeatedly go after, 125th Street and Park Avenue has been a known drug location. 125th Street and I think it's Lexington Avenue. I've spent three days there in the subway system. I've just spent three days there with the team to change the lighting. We walked the whole 125th Street corridor. You have a combination of an oversaturation of drug treatment centers and clinics. You have an oversaturation in that area. I walked there with Congressman Espaillat and other community leaders, so we've been on the ground. We've been on the ground, but this problem has been festering for years, and we are willing to hit the streets and address it in a substantive way, and I'm proud of what these guys are doing in all of these precincts to address it.

Deputy Mayor Levy: I would also add that in that specific precinct, while the felony crimes have dropped by 30 percent, that's obviously not enough because we're still having situations like we saw this weekend, so the NYPD is going to be implementing a foot patrol over there that will be specifically focused on quality of life issues and having a visual presence there in the neighborhood.

Mayor Adams: That's what has overshadowed, and I keep saying this over and over again, that is what has overshadowed the amazing success of this administration. Severe mental health illness, random acts of violence, that has overshadowed how well this is because if it bleeds, it leads, and if all you're reading about is those random acts of violence, you believe the city's in disarray, and it's not. This city is the safest big city in America. The numbers prove that, and we're going to continue to become safer. 

What's up, JR? 

Question: I'm well. 

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Quite well. Good morning to the team. Good morning to the young journalists. Mr. Mayor, last Friday, two teen boys disappeared in a wave at Jacob Riis Park in Far Rockaway. This is a mother's worst nightmare. She's a friend, and she's a friend of the Rest Talk Show. She is mentally broken. In this sphere, I was wondering what resources might be available to her. Since last Friday, she's just been [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: No, it has to. It's unimaginable if I get that call that something were to happen to Jordan. you pour so much into your children. These young boys were not doing something wrong. They were doing what young boys do. I think all of us, have experienced something of that magnitude. It's hard. It's painful. You never really recover. Every birthday, you remember every time you hear the word Rockaway, you remember. Our hearts go out. There are many services in our CAU. We're going to try to assist the family as much as possible. 

It's a painful moment. It's one of those tragedies that hit us. All you can do when it happens is, you look at your child and you hug them a little harder. Any given day, you could lose a loved one. It was just a real unfortunate. When I got the call, we put the drones up right away. We dispatched personnel there. We tried our best to recover those young men. These were good kids. It's just an unfortunate situation. There's not much you could do in a situation like this.

Question: Yes, her name is Aminatu Noah. I've been in touch with her. I told her I'll try to follow up and see what we can do. The second question is the presidential debate in two days where we have the president and the former president. This could set the stage for the new president of this country. Do you think that the winner of this debate has an edge in the outcome of the election?

Mayor Adams: I think that it's a great opportunity for the public and the voters to hear your position. I think President Biden has a record to run on. What he has done, again, on our economy, public safety, even what he has done for those who were struggling with student loans. He has been extremely creative in what he has done. I look forward to the debate. 

I cannot make it any clearer. I nicknamed myself the Biden of Brooklyn. I'm one of those true friends, because good friends walk in the room when others walk out. If I'm with you, I'm with you. I think that's something that many of you criticized me for. Loyalty and friendship is something that seems to dissipate throughout the years. I think the president has done a good job and he's going to continue to do a good job. This is a tough time to be a chief executive right now because people are angry. They're hurting.

The lack of affordability, the issues that we're facing. There's a lot of anger out there. I think that if once he lays out his plan, people realize that he can continue to chart a course for the future.

Question: Hi. My name is [inaudible]. If you want one thing at school lunch, you have to take the whole tray and the whole lunch just gets thrown out and it wastes a lot of food. There's a lot of food….

Mayor Adams: Say one more time. You said food, right? It was being thrown out because.

Question: Sometimes kids just want one thing from the tray, but they make you take the whole tray of food. It just wastes a lot of food. Is there anything you can do to change this?

Mayor Adams: Yes, I like that. I like that idea because you should not be forced to put on your tray and waste it. We should look into that. I'm going to have the chancellor speak with you and learn about exactly what you just stated. Because if you're saying that's happening, we need to speak with the food service workers and say that's not what you should do. People should take the items that they want so that no food is wasted. My mother was a food service worker. She would never force anyone to take something on their tray that they're not going to eat. I think that's a great example, because we don't want to waste food. The fact that you raised that, we're going to look into that, okay?

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Can I add, we're the only city, I'm sure we're the city with the largest composting program for schools in the nation. Every school has composting. I hope yours does as well. When you, when I was in school, you had to scrape the tray. When you scrape that tray into a bucket and it's filled with food, that food goes two places. It goes to our DEP facilities. DEP stands for Department of Environmental Protection. It goes into a huge egg. We call it digester egg. It's cooked up. It's turned into gas, which you can ultimately use to power things and heat homes. Or it goes to another facility where, again, it's cooked up and broken down. It turns into really vitamin-rich soil that you can use in the ground to grow vegetables, flowers, plants, or trees. In New York, although it's not going in your belly, it's not going to waste.

Mayor Adams: We should do a little video on that, DM, on what happens. Because that would motivate our young people to know what happens when you recycle. We should do a little learning video on that. It doesn't take away from what you said. I would rather to make sure we give that food to people who need it. That's a great question. We're going to look into that.

Question: Mr. Mayor, over the weekend…

Mayor Adams: What's happening? What's happening?

Question: Over the weekend, Mike Mulgrew wrote, and Harry Nespoli in his capacity as head of the Municipal Labor Committee. A quote, it's become apparent that this administration is unwilling to continue this work in good faith. He withdrew from the Medicare Advantage proposal. Quote, the city has delayed our current in-service and pre-Medicare retiree health care negotiations for months. We no longer feel that it is in the interest of our members to be part of the process. This administration has proven to be more interested in cutting its costs than honestly working with us to provide high-quality health care close to city workers. Now, close quote. I remember you guys had a really big announcement about the contract and some breakthrough things. What happened?

Mayor Adams: Nothing. Nothing. Hold on, Lisa. Nothing. Michael has a job to do for his members. I'm sure he would tell you how well we settled the UFT contracts, how well we did for teachers when others were not. The goal in this business is you have to separate individual issues from the overall mission. That's how he feels about the health care plan, the Medicare Advantage plan. That's that. That is not how he feels about the role he played in assisting with us to get mayoral control, how what we're doing in building new schools. 

I think people personalize the response on individual issues. He feels that way on that issue. No one has done more for our school system in two years in an administration like we have. We have to deal with this issue that we're facing. Lisa, you wanted to talk specifically on this issue?

Lisa Zornberg, Chief Counsel to the Mayor and City Hall: Oh, just to add, mayor, the negotiation that the reporter referenced, first of all, it took place before this administration. It goes back a while. You're correct that it was negotiated closely by a prior administration and supported by the Municipal Labor Committee, which consists of many unions in the city, not just the UFT. Those are the, that's the factual background.

Question: You had said that you think it's important for people who are concerned about what's happening more broadly, urban policy. After the pandemic, we had the rollback of the earned income tax credit, the unwinding of Medicare. Many problems that were put in place to help us through the period of time. You saw this blow up, not just you had the immigrant crisis, which is ongoing, and this huge problem with the social safety net. 

Reverend Barber is convening people in Washington for this Poor People's Campaign this Saturday. You said people should march on Washington to try to put these issues on the agenda. Do you think the Democratic Party does need to pay attention to these issues that impact 85 million low wealth and low wage voters, which were a third of the electorate?

Mayor Adams: Listen, the focus is we need to be focused on working people, something that I've stated over and over again. Everything from what we've done with earned income tax credits to decreasing the cost of child care from $55 a week to less than $5 a week, to investing in our foster care children, paying their college tuition, giving them life coaches to reduce their Metro Cards, to giving high speed broadband to every NYCHA resident in our city for free. 

You just constantly see this roll out of investing in working people. That should be the model across the entire country for not only Democrats, but Republicans. Republicans control the Congress right now. We need to reinvest in children, families and working people. That's what we're clear on. I'm a lead by example here in this city with our amazing W's that we've done in investing in working people.

Question: The Charter Revision Commission put out its preliminary report yesterday, and it singled out public safety legislation as an area where the City Council should be required to hold more public hearings and move more slowly. 
Is the issue in your view that public safety is like the most important realm of legislative activity in the council and therefore deserves more scrutiny? Is it that the council members know the least about public safety and require more education? Why is it, why is that particular area – ? 

Mayor Adams: I'm surprised that anyone would say that. “Will I be looking and ask people to look at public safety?” Public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity. If we're not safe, we will never prosper in this city. Community people came to us and sat down and stated we want to have more input in what happens with public safety. 

When I hear, I think I'm one of the testimonies that commissioner, the commissioner of Department of Correction, stated when they put in the bill to end solitary confinement, which we don't have solitary confinement. That was really tricky the way to use that terminology. They didn't even talk to the head of the union. That's significant. When we make these major policy changes that deal with safety of employees and citizens, we should speak to everyone. There should be a holistic approach because safety is everything. I've made this clear throughout my entire career. Public safety is a prerequisite to prosperity and we must be safe.

Question: There was an attempted sexual assault that happened in Central Park yesterday. Very scary for many New Yorkers. Do you have an update on this? Is there anything you can say to ensure that this person will be caught? I know there was conversation about potentially adding cameras to certain bike paths in Central Park. 

Just one more question I have for you, today on FOX 5 Banks was saying he's considering banning all cell phones in school and Hochul was considering banning smartphones in the DOE. Will the DOE take a step further to ban all cell phones in school?

Mayor Adams: Yes. The, first of all, horrific incident and we will catch him. individuals in general, but specifically women should have a right to walk the streets to write the right to enjoy our city without an animal like that carrying out a terrible act like that. Our hearts go out to the young lady that's involved. Our office is canvassing in the area and we will find him and we will bring him to justice. 

The cell phones, everyone knows that cell phones are a distraction. Many young people see that as a distraction, sometimes used as bullying and other things in school. One of the biggest pushbacks, believe it or not, are parents. Some parents really want to have accessibility to their children throughout the day. We need to find a sweet spot. 

The chancellor is really looking into it. I sent former Mayor Bloomberg a communication yesterday after his op-ed that he was right. The distractions that come from cell phones is serious and we can't ignore that. many of us in this room didn't have cell phones when we were in elementary, middle and high school. It's something that we have to focus on. 

I'm open to finding that sweet spot to sort of get parents in a comfortable place. Because 9/11 changed the game. A lot of parents were really afraid when they couldn't reach their children during 9/11. We just have to find a sweet spot. I think we can find that.

Question: It's my place to stand. I can't see. 

Mayor Adams: How's it going? 

Question: Good. How are you? 

Mayor Adams: Good. 

Question: Yesterday, my colleague, Courtney Gross, NY1, our chief investigative reporter, had a really good story, a good piece of journalism if you want to watch it, on the conditions inside MDC, the Brooklyn federal jail. She said there had been a murder this month, constant lockdowns, roaches in the food, bad equipment. 

What's your reaction to that? If you haven't seen the piece, do you generally know about the conditions inside the Brooklyn federal jail? What do you think that says about the federal government taking over Rikers?

Mayor Adams: I think what they should do is allow Rikers' federal receiver to go over there and do the job over there. I think it's ironic that we talk about what our jail is doing when right here the federal jail is having similar problems. 

So the viewers would know the mayor doesn't control the federal jails. There's some real problems there that they need to look at. I think it's important for them to correct them. We've been hearing about these issues for years. It was a good piece that she did.

Question: A question on migrant services. There is a report by our Spectrum News colleagues a little further upstate that your administration, state officials negotiating having migrants who were sent upstate for shelter come back to New York City. We didn't have any information about how many or when. Do you have that information? What is the scope of this effort and why?

Mayor Adams: Yes, first of all, and either Camille or DM Williams-Isom can go into it. I don't think people realize the awesomeness of handling 200,000 people. 200,000 people. You have to daily figure out and we still get what, about 1,100?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: 1,000 last week.

Mayor Adams: We still get 1,000 a week. Can you imagine that? 1,000 a week. 4,000 a month that we're handling. We sit down, these ladies in the teams, they sit down every day figuring out how do we manage this. It's amazing that they would accomplish the task. Do one of you want to go into it?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Yes, I will. We don't have any intentions and there's no plan to bring people back here to New York City. We actually, as are working with the Jewish Family Services up there with our contract to resettle people. They have the MRAP program that the state does, again, to resettle migrants. 

That is what I think we really need to do, especially, it's the summertime now. Children and families are out of school. How do we make sure that we get people connected and integrated into the community? That is our plan and that's what our plan has been and that's what it's going to continue to be.

Mayor Adams: People should be allowed to work. That's the foundation. People should be allowed to work in all jobs that are open, including lifeguards, after they go through the training. Whatever job people can fill, we need to allow people to work. A job is dignity and people need to be allowed to work. I cannot say that over and over again.

Question: What plans do you have to improve New York City public schools?

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry, plans to?

Question: What plans do you have to improve New York City public schools?

Mayor Adams: Always in the constant evolution of improvement. Yesterday, I was just really proud to stand with the chancellor yesterday. What he did around reading to really be bold enough, and I want to encourage all you young people, to be bold enough when in your heart that something needs to change to do it. 

People are going to criticize you, but if in your heart it needs to be done correctly, do so. He changed how we taught reading in the school system, and by doing that, he was able to put us on a trajectory that now we are continuing to lead the state in reading and math. 

Second, yesterday he announced changing how we do math. it's amazing how many, particularly girls, struggle with math because you were told that you can't do good in math. We want to change that whole dynamic about the school system. He's building nine more new schools. He has gone in to deal with some structural issues that our schools have been impacted on. We have reinvested in our pools to get our pools back open. 

We have put in place dyslexia screening so our children won't believe that they're dumb, because I'm dyslexic also, that they can learn differently and they can continue to excel. He did a major announcement with children with special needs of investing in children with special needs by having a new deputy commissioner now look over the entire apparatus. 

We're going into better food in school. Our food has been feeding your health care crisis. We now want you to have food that can feed healthy. We're teaching you breathing exercise, meditation. We're improving and having young people talk to each other so we can deal with some of the anti-ism in our school system. 

There's so much to do, and we want you to help us in what we can do by giving us input like you gave us. What is your name? I'm sorry. Right here that gave us the food. 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Yes. Okay. Thank you for that. It's a constant evolution, because as long as I can remember, there were always things that needed to be done in schools, and we're going to continue to improve on that.

Question: Two questions from the Post. The first one, in the Post over the weekend, you're backing Ron Kim for the 40th Assembly seat, despite the police unions backing his challenger, Chen. Why did you rain on this race, given Kim's defund of the police history, but also since it was your only public endorsement in today's primary? 

Second question, the Charter Commission released its first report yesterday, but lacked any recommendations to address public safety. How would you like the commission to actually address public safety?

Mayor Adams: I want any candidate that is going to be supporting the City of New York. That is who I am. I didn't do a formal endorsement. I went out to show my support of some of the things that Assemblyman Kim assisted us on, and we want to continue to do that. Who's helping broken class New Yorkers? That is important to me. 

We did a great job of both Tiffany and Ingrid going up to Albany with Diane and the team. It's about what do we do to make the city more affordable, and Albany can assist us to do that, and I'm going to stand with any candidate that's going to carry that out for us. I've been very clear on that. I'm consistent about where I stand on these issues. I'm also not a one-issue person. We've got so many things going on in the city. I may disagree with you on one item. It doesn't mean I'm going to look at the totality of what you are doing for making our city affordable or for working people in the city. That's my primary focus as the mayor of the city. 

Your second question was? Public safety, that's very interesting because you said we didn't have anything on public safety, and then someone else on this side said that we seem to be primarily focusing on public safety.

Question: I think I said that it's focused on public safety, but then the report wasn't showing that.

Zornberg: First of all, just so it's very usual for charter revision commissions to do two-step process. Three-step, really, or four. The first step is you hold public hearings and you hear voices of New Yorkers. You solicit city agencies. You solicit the City Council. You solicit electeds. You solicit everyone who is interested in a New Yorker in submitting their ideas. That has happened. 

Then the next step is that you have public hearings, and there have been multiple of those. At this point, the next step, which, again, this is quite usual, is to put out a preliminary report that summarizes many of the ideas and issues and testimony brought to the charter commission. That has happened, too. That's a preliminary report. That's not the final report of the commission, which they will vote on, I believe, towards the end of July. 

This is a preliminary report, and in the report, there are recommendations relating to public safety. Specifically, the report that was put out yesterday identifies that the Charter Review Commission has heard multiple voices saying that when certain legislation affecting public safety has been proposed, sometimes key stakeholders are unaware of it or unaware of its cost or unaware of its impact on public safety prior to a vote. 

What the staff recommended in that report on public safety is that the Charter Revision Commission continue to consider and continue to hear testimony about how procedurally there can be more transparency and more public input and more agency and expert and stakeholder input on proposed public safety legislation before it's voted on. I anticipate, given that that's the recommendation, that there are, I think, half a dozen more meetings coming up for public testimony and input, and views can be put in writing as well. All of those will now continue to focus on more specific recommendations for how to accomplish that. 

Then the commission, just to finish the process, after all those additional public safety hearings and input, will confer and deliberate, and then it's up to the commission to decide what among the proposals it's heard and its consideration it proposes now putting on the ballot in November to go straight to voters.

Question: My question is about the device, but my question is addiction. the school is going to be closed, and many families will know this. I think you have experienced this as well. The kids, they are getting addicted by the device, and they're spending so much time in the device, and then every family has an issue with the kids because of the addiction. 

My question is, are cities thinking about how they can cut the [inaudible] and address that problem, the addiction of kids in the device? Because summer is coming, and then all the kids will be at home, and they will spend most, many times on the device. 
Second, about the update of the Section 8, any updates of Section 8 when people can, buy or when the next process will start?

Mayor Adams: Okay.

Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Housing, Economic Development and Workforce: Happy to answer the second question. The Section 8, the reopening of the Section 8 waitlist, that happened June 3 to June 9, and so the application period itself is closed. We received about 633,000 applications, so that's a lot, right? That's like the size of Miami, of other major cities. 

What happens now is that waitlist for the Section 8 vouchers, which will approximate about 200,000, that will be set by around August 1. From that 200,000 waitlist, individuals, families will be called off of that list for those vouchers at a clip of about 1,000 a month. 

We were happy to be able to reopen that waitlist. It has not been opened in 15 years, and it just confirmed what we all know and we talked about repeatedly, that we continue to be in the midst of an affordable housing crisis, and so it gives us extra motivation to continue all the work that we are doing in the financing of affordable housing, in the clearing of zoning barriers, in really getting at the root of our affordability crisis, which is the lack of supply. That's the update on the Section 8 vouchers.

Mayor Adams: Your question on the programs for the summer. Not only did we, did 110,000 young people for Summer Rising, 100,000 Summer Youth Employment, but we also put out a list of other alternatives that families can do in the city. 
We encourage our young people to be involved in internship programs, mentoring. You have an intern here that you can learn so much for. We want to really encourage our young peoples and families to find some good ways of continuing their education..

Question: My name is Ethan from Action 89. My question is what motivated you to be the mayor of NYC?

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Nice question. The betrayal, betrayal. This city has betrayed families. It betrayed my mother who was raising six children on her own when she needed quality food. They gave her food that was unhealthy. It betrayed me. I had a learning disability and it did not allow me to get the services I deserve. It betrayed my sister. My mommy was working three jobs. Sandra had to stay home and raise all of us. She lost out on her childhood. It betrayed those who were unsafe. It betrayed us when we had aggressive policing that took place in the city. 

There was just a constant betrayal. There was a young man who was arrested when I was in the 88th Precinct for a robbery in a short period of time. His dad was serving time in jail. His mother was addicted to crack cocaine. He was out of school for a substantial period of time. No one even stopped to find out about him. It was all that betrayal.Seeing 30 percent of the inmates at Rikers Island being dyslexic when we should have been there for them.

I saw the city betray everyday people. I knew we could do a better job in stopping that betrayal. We have done that in this administration because the people who stand up here now are committed to ending that betrayal. Get a few folks from over here.

Question: Thank you. A follow-up on the Michael Mulgrew question. Yes. Are you concerned about other members of the MLC pulling their support, following suit? Do you have in mind alternatives regarding those cash savings, those health care savings, should this plan continue to falter?

Mayor Adams: We, listen, you said do I have a concern in others? I'm extremely optimistic because when you've been in this game as long as I have, you realize there are bumps in the road. They're not the end of the road as long as you make the turn. 
We're going to be fine. We're going to find a solution to this problem. The city is resilient. We've gone through so much. This is just one of those issues. We're not going to get caught up. We're going to resolve it. I have an unbelievable person over at Labor in Campion, she should be called Champion, because we settled 94 percent of our contracts. Is my number right? 95 percent of our contracts.

Deputy Mayor Levy: 100 percent of uniform.

Mayor Adams: 100 percent  of uniform. One contract was outstanding for 13 years. No one thought we could settle it. No one. This is just another issue on the stage of labor discussions. We're going to be alright. We're going to solve this. We're going to move forward. 

There's always going to be other issues in the city. You have a steady hand, green smoothie drinking, meditating mayor that understands stuff just happens in this city, but we're going to be fine. We're going to be fine. We're going to fix it. Renee is going to make it happen for us. Renee the Campion, Champion. 

Mona, how are you?

Question: I'm well, sir. How are you? 

Mayor Adams: Good. 

Question: I have questions for you as well as Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom. My first question for you, Mr. Mayor, is yesterday at the charter revision hearing, City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino testified. She asked the commission to put amending the New York City sanctuary rule on the ballot. 

Last week, other New Yorkers testified as well and also asked to amend the sanctuary rule. Not repeal it, amend it so that NYPD and ICE can communicate to how it was before former Mayor De Blasio changed the sanctuary rule. My question for you, Mr. Mayor, is what is your position on that? 

Then going back to my question now to Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom is when migrants are arrested, migrants that are in the city's care, on the city's dime, when they're arrested, is the city alerted of the arrest? Do they continue to be housed on the taxpayer's dime? 

Finally, also for Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom is what is the updated number, the latest numbers of the number of families in the city's care as well as single adult male and female migrants? Thank you.

Mayor Adams: First, I've been extremely clear on those who come to the city, commit a serious crime, after they serve their time, after conviction has served their time, they need to get out of our city. I've said that over and over again. I stand by that. I think that the modification that the former administration made, I think it was a mistake. I believe we should reexamine that. 

This is a city of immigrants and we should always allow people to come to this city and they should not be fearful of getting services in the city. If you commit a crime in this city and you need housing or you need social services, we don't say no because you committed a crime. We don't ask you to show us your arrest report. We provide services to those who are in need. I'm in support of providing services for those who are in need. We should not allow violent people to stay in our city after they serve their time.

Do you want to?

Deputy Mayor Williams-Isom: Let me answer the household types. Families with children, they're 50,900, which is 78 percent of the population. Adult families, 2,000. Single adults, 12,400, which is 19 percent. 

I also just want to remind you, Mayor, that we do have a code of conduct for the shelters and how you have to act and how you have to abide by yourself. You can't do inappropriate things and certainly not violent acts there. If you don't abide by your code of conduct, you can't stay in the shelter system.

Mayor Adams: Okay. We'll do this last question right here. 

Question: I'm actually going to ask you about an investigation that you personally ordered, which is the Exodus Hotel Program. Marjorie landed this inquiry, examination, investigation. The program took place from at least inmates in hotels that had gone from 835,000 to 83 million. In the process of doing that, she discovered that this program, Exodus, had hired a subcontractor that nobody knew about. Most of the money for security was going into that subcontractor, but not all of it was coming out. 

I have two questions. I had asked your criminal justice office to release Exodus' response to Marjorie's questions. She had very specific questions, and MACJ declined to release them. I'm going to ask you if you would commit to releasing that, number one. 
Number two, you guys are still using this, two or three different contracts with Exodus, despite what Marjorie found. Can you just give me some justification for doing that? The last thing is, did you ever have any conversations with John Sampson about

Exodus?

Mayor Adams: Oh, last one first. No, I did not. Second, I'm glad you indicated that this was my call for an inquiry. I'm a big believer in looking into wherever we need to look into, and the particulars around what can be released, what can't be released, I want to turn it over to the chief counsel, because we want to make sure we always abide by whatever rules are in place.

Zornberg: Look, this was, the mayor has always, even before I got here, and certainly since I've been here, not been shy about asking for, calling for investigations into anything involving waste, fraud, and abuse, and when appropriate. We refer those issues to DOI as well.

In terms of your second question about justification and ongoing contracts, why don't we get back to you? I know that there have been multiple interactions with Exodus to ensure that any current performance of contract is done with all kinds of oversight, but I don't have the details at my fingertips, and I want to make sure that information can be publicly released about that.

Mayor Adams: This contract was done prior to this administration, and it was terminated, I believe, December 23rd, 2023. This was a contract that was already in place, and if there are no legal reasons, we'll get back to you and let if we can release it or not. Okay? I've got to go. I've got to bounce. 

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