Transcript: Mayor Adams and Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation Corradi Announce the Launch of the NYC Rat Pack

July 28, 2024

Kathleen Corradi, Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation: Good morning and welcome to Sunset Park for a morning of service and an exciting announcement in New York City's rat mitigation efforts. I'm Kathy Corradi, citywide director of rodent mitigation, and I want to start by thanking the partners who have made today possible. New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, New York City Service, New York City Parks Department, and the Parent-Child Relationship Association, who's hosting today's cleanup event.

I'm thrilled to be standing here with agency partners and the New York City community as we take another step in improving the quality of life for all New Yorkers. Now it's my privilege to introduce the person whose name strikes fear into the heart of New York City rats, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Who would have thought, Kathy, that we started out as just one head of a rat, now we have a whole rat pack, You have done an amazing job. I want to thank our crew here who are joining us as we do this cleanup. Kathy has really taken this war on rats to the street, and we all know what we feel about rats. We want them out of our neighborhoods, out of our homes, out of the streets, and we can do it together. This war is so important.

Rat sightings, due to the work of the Department of Sanitation and what our rat czar has carried out in a very real, on-the-ground way. Sightings citywide have gone down 12 of the last 13 months, and our massive trash revolution strategy is getting millions of pounds of rat-attracting trash off our streets. In November, we will have a 70 percent containerization of our garbage, so those all-you-can-eat buffets are going to be off the streets that rats enjoy so much.

We're really proud of the city's efforts of going after public enemy number one, and those are those pesky rodents that or have seen far too often. Now we're doing something new. We're recruiting an entirely new generation of the Rat Pack. As was sung when I walked up, you don't have to be Frank Sinatra in the crew. It's just a different type of leader to fight the rats, and we want you to join up and become a member of our Rat Pack. You don't need to sing.

All you have to do to become a member, to be an official New York City Rat Pack member, and get the swag, the hat, this t-shirt to prove it, and the confidence to go after those pesky critters. You will have to attend a two-hour New York City Department of Health Rat Academy session that will give you real instructions on how to deal with rodents. Two, participate in New York City Service rat mitigation event, New York City Service is a real partner throughout the city. A lot of our corporate and community groups come together and go after those basic services in the city, and volunteerism is a real win. Three, go out on a rat walk, hosted by our city's own rat czar, Kathy Corradi.

Those three items will allow you to join and become a member of our Rat Pack, and you can be proud to lead your community to a rat-free environment. This is how we get it done, how to shut them down, and we want to keep it from happening again with rodents taking over the streets of our city. From cutting our rats' food supplies to closing down rat havens, Rat Pack members will be able to defend their communities from rodents, and achieve our goal of making New York City the least rat-friendly city in America.

From day one, this has been our administration goal, is to improve the quality of life of all New Yorkers, and thanks to our citywide integrated pest management strategy and our trash revolution, we're giving rats the boot. Out of our community, off our streets, and improving the quality of life of all five boroughs, really excited about this initiative. If you're ready to enlist, go to [nyc.gov/service] and search "Rat Pack." That's [nyc.gov/service] and search "Rat Pack."

We need you to help reduce the rat population in our city, and the rat swag will be your badge of honor as you walk through your communities. They know you're doing something great to keep our city clean and the streets clean, and this is a good volunteer group you have put together, Kathy. Thanks so much, and we're really happy to have with us, we got to get you a blue t-shirt, you know that? Our amazing assemblywoman, she will come after Kathy, give us some basic instructions, and she'll come and greet us as well. Kathy?

Corradi: Thank you, Mayor Adams. Now we're going to have lead into service, so for our volunteers, we're going to work with Nicole and the organizers to get you suited up to take on litter and cleanliness in the park to fight rats, and we're going to be joining in the service as well. Nyc.gov/service and search "Rat Pack," and we're looking forward to you formally joining the NYC Rat Pack team.

Thank you.

State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: I'm State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, I'm a newly minted member of the Rat Pack because we own this city, not the rats. Full disclosure, I was very close to Mickey Mouse for many years, and I even stood in a line for three hours just to get Mickey Mouse's autograph. You can ask my mom. Now Mickey Mouse and I are at an impasse. We had a falling out because there are three million rats in this city, and that's one too many.

This administration is making incredible progress. I want to thank this city for taking care of the Rockaway right-of-way in my district. For years, it was an illegal dumping site. Finally, the Adams administration, this is the first time the city has taken it so seriously and I want to thank the administration for coming to my district and finally cleaning the Rockaway right-of-way illegal dumping site.
Of course, it's the trash revolution, so we are implementing full trash containerization across this city. Other cities around the world do it, Barcelona does it, Paris does it, Buenos Aires. If they can do it, we can do it. Gone are the days when the trash bags are sitting on the curb. It's an all-you-can-eat buffet for the rats, but those days are over. We also have the Queens composting program that took the food scraps off the streets and that lowered the rat sightings by 55 percent. We are on the road to progress, and we are all here to say, as one united rat pack, that this is our city and this city does not belong to the rats.

[Crosstalk.]

Mayor Adams: Any questions before we get started? Great, let's go out and kill some rats. How are you?

Question: Are you able to tell us just a little bit more about what the people will be doing, just like their -

Mayor Adams: Yes, sounds like a plan. All right, Kathy?

Corradi: For the New York City Rat Pack to officially become a member, you have to participate in three events. That's a Department of Health-hosted Rat Academy, a volunteer event hosted through New York City Service, and then a rat walk with me. What we have today is we have the Parent-Child Association, who are pillars in this community, and they're doing cleaning and greening work in the park today, so cleaning up litter, some care of our mulch areas, and really putting back into the park, Sunset Park, which is part of their community.

Question: I was wondering about the solitary confinement law and the state of emergency.

Mayor Adams: Yes, yesterday we signed, I signed an executive order to call for a temporary pause in the execution of the law that was put in place. It was called in solitary confinement, but as we know, we do not have solitary confinement in the state of New York. There were some parts of it that were extremely dangerous to the inmates. The monitor, as well as the correction commissioner, was extremely concerned. One of them dealt with the inability to restrain inmates while they were being transported to court. That is extremely dangerous, and all law enforcement personnel is aware of that.
We just want the judge to have time to analyze the law and decide the proper way to implement it without bringing harm to the inmates and bringing harm to the correction officers and civilians who are assigned. It's just a temporary pause to give them the time to do that proper analysis.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: That's a great question. It should not be a long period of time. I believe they're looking at sometime around October to do a final analysis. The goal is we want to make sure the spirit of the law does not get in the way of the implementation of the law, so that we do not have prisoners, inmates or correction officers that are harmed in the process.

Question: Do you have a statement to the City Council in light of this?

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry?

Question: Do you have a statement to the City Council, do you have a message to the City Council in light of this?

Mayor Adams: Yes, public safety and justice goes hand in hand, and they're the prerequisite to prosperity. We could get there together with the right communication. All right. Let's go clean up. Thank you.

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