Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on PIX11's 'PIX11 Morning News'

August 30, 2024

Hazel Sanchez: For the first time, 3-K programs are now available in every school district. A major investment in early childhood education comes with a very hefty price tag, though. Mayor Eric Adams joining us live this morning to break it all down, and he is joined by Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar. So good morning to both of you, and thanks for taking the time to speak with us this morning.

Mayor Eric Adams: Good morning. Great to speak with you. And you're right, a hefty investment, $3 billion when you look at it. We are making a very clear statement that we put our children first, so we put our future first.

Sanchez: Yeah, I mean, this is $100 million added to improving early childhood education. This is on top of the $514 million, which was restored as part of your budget back in April. So can you kind of lay out how all this money is going to be allocated?

Mayor Adams: The D.M. did a great job with her team, and I'm sure she can run down those numbers for you.

Deputy Mayor Ana Almanzar, Strategic Initiatives: Absolutely. Good morning. It's great to be with you. We designed with our partners at City Council a 10-point plan that goes all the way from making sure that those kids and families who didn't receive an offer initially, after we made an offer to 94 percent of those who applied on time, over 42,000 families and children throughout the city. We are working with City Council, with a working group, to make sure that the plan is effective and it works for all communities.

We're looking to the system and see where the seats that are available and where the families are, that we can make the matches specifically by zip code, by school, by non-profit provider. We're also investing $42 million in our special education seats. We have been able to open about 450 seats for special education, when we estimated that the number at the beginning of the school year was going to be 300. We're still aiming at having about 700 seats for special education for early childhood by the end of the year.

It's a continual work, and the better we do that job, the more families we can serve specifically for those children who are ID'd to have a special need throughout the school year. We're also investing in thanks to the mayor for all his work in this $25 million for Promise NYC. That is to allow families who are undocumented and their children, they're our children as the mayor mentioned yesterday, and we offer them an education. And for those families, about 1,000 families will be able to benefit and bring their child to a childcare provider throughout the city.

We're also working to make sure that our families who are requesting an extended day for childcare get that offer. So we don't have to, the family won't have to get money out of their pocket to pay for those extra hours between the time the school opens and closes. So we can open those seats and have them access to match the hour of childcare to those that they work. And we're looking at about 1,700 families for that particular program. It's a great investment. As you mentioned at the beginning of the segment, 150,000 children have access to childcare throughout the city. It is the largest investment and the largest expansion any administration has done for early childhood education.

And not only the money that has been invested in this program, but also the working together with the New York City Public Schools, with HRA, with ACS and Department of Health, all the agencies throughout city government, including our partners across the hall from city hall, from City Council, we're working with those to make sure that we implement a plan that works for all families across the city.

Justin Finch: Now Mayor Adams, one of the key components of this 10 point program is expanding outreach and also recruitment. What will that look like, especially in such a culturally diverse city like ours?

Mayor Adams: Oh, so important, $5 million because I often say we can get it. We have to make sure our New York is actually get it as well. We got it so they have to get it and we must go out and recruit in the inner cities to show people the benefits of child brain development, the benefits of the socialization that comes with early childhood education.

We know that if we don't go out and let everyday New Yorkers know how, what this program is and how available it is, we're not going to get the numbers that we deserve. We did not see this participation before in previous years. We saw the 94 percent increase, we're now at 100 percent and 8,000 additional seats for those parents that didn't sign up on time. We are reaching the target goals that we want.

Sanchez: Well, that is good news to hear. Mayor Adams though, as school is about to start though, a lot of people are talking about public safety, particularly on the subway. So even though subway crime is down more than 5 percent from last year, there have been those attacks on the subways. There was a stabbing on Monday night in Washington Heights and a lot of parents and students are very concerned. Let's listen to one person that had to say and then talk about it on the other side.

[Video plays.]

Person on Street 1: I don't feel safe. I don't know what measures, you know, we're going to take to make sure that this doesn't happen or continue to happen.

Person on Street 2: I stopped taking the train a lot freshman year because there was a stabbing on the train station where I got off at and I just started taking the bus instead.

[Video ends.]

Sanchez: So how do you respond to that, Mr. Mayor?

Mayor Adams: You know, remember in the beginning of the year, I often remind folks in the beginning of my administration, when I use the comment that people must feel safe and be safe. And, you know, I took a lot of criticism for that because I fully understand as a former police officer, it's about feeling safe as well as not only the stats, do people feel safe?

We have 4.1 million daily riders, five felonies a day. Robberies on our subway system is the lowest in recorded history. And as you indicated, we saw in seven months after that first month of an increase in crime, we saw a consistent decrease in crime for seven straight months with the visibility of our offices. And I'm not making this up. The stats show when you do an analysis of New York City in comparison to other big cities, we're the safest big city in America.

We're going to continue to do what we have to do, hats off to the police officers, not only monitoring over 3,000 protests that take place in the city and other serious issues around terrorism threats and public safety, they're doing an amazing job. We must get the other apparatus of the criminal justice system to do their job. There are too many repeated offenders and we need the power to get involuntary removal for those with severe mental health issues.

Finch: All right, and staying on public safety concerns here, there's been a 41 percent spike in crime in Central Park. The NYPD recently released new surveillance video of three suspects wanted for a robbery earlier this month, and investigators do believe this is likely part of a migrant crime wave. Now, aside from stepping up police, what else can be done to prevent this, mayor?

Mayor Adams: Well, it's, and I think that is when you find any group, if it's a gang of any sort that's committing crimes, you want to zero in focusing on that. And that's what the chief of detectives, what we have been doing. And what we've noticed that I've shared over and over again, once you catch these individuals, bring them to justice, you're finding the repeated revolving door criminal justice system.

Everyone must be engaged in this process. If the police is doing their job, everyone else must do their job. When you look at 342 people arrested for shoplifting that have been arrested 7,600 times in this city, those numbers are mind boggling that these people are continually able to come on our streets and do dangerous things for innocent New Yorkers. But we're going to do our job. Everyone else must do their job as well.

Sanchez: Okay. Mr. Mayor, real quickly, your nominee for corporation counsel, Randy Mastro, he, he underwent a marathon day of hearings. He was under the microscope for sure. Speaker Adrienne Adams saying the Council has to represent the entire city, not just a selected official. So are you considering anyone else for that position by any chance?

Mayor Adams: We're going to let the process play out. And I think that this is the beauty of democracy in America. We have several forms of government that show the checks and balances of one's authority and I respect the process. And so they're going to vote.

My job is to present a candidate. He's a very qualified candidate. We have even former governors, former corporation counsels came in and talked about the great work he has done. And now it's up to the City Council. And after that, we'll make a decision of the next step in the process. This is a beautiful city, a beautiful country, and we're going to follow this amazing process that democracy represents. Okay.

Sanchez: We want to end this on a light note. We will see you at the West Indian Day Parade that's being broadcast here on PIX11 on Monday.

Mayor Adams: Yes. And hats off to PIX11 for really covering this amazing display of Caribbean heritage. We're looking forward to it.

Sanchez: All right. Thanks so much. Mayor Adams, Deputy Mayor Ana Almanzar, thank you so much for your time this morning.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Almanzar: Thank you.

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