Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on News12 and Takes Questions From New Yorkers

September 25, 2024

Amanda Bossard: Hello everyone and thanks for being with us here on News 12, where local matters. I'm Amanda Bossardand this is Ask the Mayor. It is a pleasure to be back here with you for the next half hour as we are giving you a unique opportunity to ask Mayor Eric Adams your questions right here on the air.

So the number to dial is (718) 861-6800. It will be on the bottom of your screen throughout the program for reference. And with that, we are very happy to welcome back tonight, joining us virtually this time, New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Mr. Mayor, a pleasure to have you back with us and looking forward to getting all those questions and answers tonight.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Great to be here. I would love to have been in the studio, but I was at Bidens' reception for the U.N.G.A., U.N. General Assembly. And so this was the closest thing to race back here to Gracie Mansion so I wouldn't miss the show.

Bossard: And given the busy day you've had, we especially appreciate you making time. As we do wait for calls to come in this evening, I will kick off the conversation and ask you off the top about some of the recent changes that have happened in your administration. We've had four high level officials who've decided to step down over the past two weeks. My question to you is, should we expect any more resignations or changes at City Hall in the days to come?

Mayor Adams: You know, it's a constant change in government. When you look at the fact that many of them have been with me for three years, close to three years, it's a very high stressful job to be at the high end of government. And we look at what Dr. Vasan has done, and he's still with us, he's going to be with us until the end of the year in December to make sure we have a smooth transition. Same thing, Chancellor Banks, he communicated with me some time ago that Eric, you know, I basically I've run out of gas and I want to give you my all. He has done an amazing job as chancellor. And we sat down together and came up with Melissa Aviles-Ramos to come in. And she came back from higher ed and we started grooming her.

And so there's always changes. You know, look what happened when we lost the first woman fire commissioner. You saw that we have now an amazing commissioner, Commissioner Tucker. This city has a deep bench. There's always going to be evolution and movement. And we're looking forward to continuing to do the great things we've done in this city.

Bossard: I do want to take a moment to touch on some comments made by Bronx Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this afternoon. She posted on X and she called for your resignation. She said, I believe we have the post here in her words. She said the flood of resignations and vacancies threatening government function, nonstop investigations will make it impossible to recruit and retain a qualified administration. What is your response to these comments from the congresswoman?

Mayor Adams: Well, I'm really surprised to hear her call for the resignation of the second Black mayor in the city. Here is a person who has stood up for those who were convicted of wrongdoing and saying that they should not be held accountable. So I mean, you know, the public really takes that with a grain of salt.

We know that we can't listen to the noise. Look at the numbers. More jobs in the city, the city history, what we're doing around housing, what we're doing around public safety, the decrease in crime, decrease in homicide shootings, our transit system is safer. You know, what is unique about this administration is our ability to stay focused. I don't listen to those comments that come from a, you know, just basically a no show congresswoman. She's not doing constituent services in her district. I do constituent services every day as the mayor of the City of New York. I don't know when the last time they saw her in her congressional district.

Bossard: And tonight, your message to New Yorkers about the conversation surrounding resignation.

Mayor Adams: It's clear people come and go. I have over 300,000 city employees. You know, when you work at the high end of government, it's a strain on your family. Dr. Vasan was telling me how much, you know, he missed being with his family. You miss baseball games. You miss, you know, functions and activities. This is a 24 hour, seven day a week job. And many of the individuals in government now, they were here during COVID.

We cycled out of COVID and what happened next, 217,000 migrants and asylum seekers we had to house in this city. It's demanding. And you know what? You give as much time that you can give when you're showing up 100 percent. But when it's time to move on, as Commissioner Kavanagh stated with me, she says, Eric, I want to start a family and I want to, you know, start that part of my life. I respect it. They served us well and we should be happy. They are true professionals and great New Yorkers.

Bossard: All right, Mr. Mayor. Appreciate you speaking on those topics. I do want to turn our attention to some local issues that we've been following here, specifically the police involved shooting that unfolded at the Sutter Avenue subway station a little bit more than a week ago. I wonder what your reaction was to the body camera video that was released late last week and what it shows.

Mayor Adams: I saw it the night of. We're looking right now at the shooting, but people didn't see him running towards the police officer with a knife trying to stab the police officers. You know, when you look at these videos from the comfort of your home, you're able to hit pause. You can hit rewind. You can have time to think and say how you would have done it. That is not life in the real world of policing, particularly in our subway system.

Things happen extremely rapidly. I patrolled the subway system and I recall wrestling with a woman with a knife who was trying to stab another woman. It is extremely fast moving. Those officers took a great deal of patience to talk to a person with over 20 violent arrests, 20, to talk with them repeatedly. Please drop the knife. Drop the knife. They hit him with a taser. He pulled the taser out and he attempted to harm those police officers. And thank God he didn't harm the passengers.

Our hearts go out to the family members. It's really painful. I spoke with the mother who, her daughter was one of the passengers that was shot. It's painful when innocent people are shot due to the actions of those who really started this dangerous encounter.

Bossard: You mentioned the tasers, and I believe we got a question on social media regarding that topic coming in from Anthony Mainville, who posted over on Facebook. How come tasers aren't as effective as they should be, Mayor Adams? And I wonder your response to Anthony on that topic.

Mayor Adams: And I'm glad Anthony asked that question, because policing is not like the movies. You know, if you're in a movie with a director and can say, cut, and action, and shoot the taser and it works automatically, that's not what real policing is like. Tasers must… Both prongs must hit the flesh of the individual, and if they're wearing thick clothing, or the person pulls out one of the prongs, the taser's not going to operate. It operates the way it's supposed to when both of those prongs make connection, and you're able to give that electric jolt in the process.

And then they have to be strategic, because if they would have tasered him too quickly, he could have fallen to the tracks, he could have been hit by the train, all of those things go through the mind of a police officer when they're trying to take that action in the split seconds that they have to make the decision. So we're looking at new tasers with just one prong, but these are tools that you escalate to the level that you need. They started out with voice commands, they started out with tasers, they escalated each level. Their goal was to bring this person to justice, not to harm anyone.

Bossard: Appreciate your response on that, Mr. Mayor. I believe we have our first caller of the night on the line. Sheila has dialed in from Highbridge. Sheila, thanks so much for tuning in. What's your question for the mayor tonight?

Question: My question is, is that how can I connect to the Housing Connect? I've been a New Yorker all my life, and I recently moved to the Highbridge area by the Undercliff. And for seven to five years, I have applied in this Housing Connect, and I have yet to be called, yet to be called.

Mayor Adams: Thank you for that call. Let me share this with you. Number one, keep trying. Don't give up. I speak to a lot of people who have been connected to housing talks about how they refuse to stop and they keep applying.

But I also want to be extremely honest with you. We have a vacancy problem in this city. We have some housing developments that we have done where you have maybe two, 300 units with 20, 30,000 people applying for those apartments. That is why we have the City of Yes initiative, so that we can build more housing. And reach out to your local Council person and tell that Council person to vote for the City of Yes. You can't have a city where you have 59 community boards, and 10 of them have built more affordable housing than 49 combined. That is just unacceptable.

We have to build more, but the 1.4 percent vacancy rate, we have an inventory issue, ma'am. And until we address that inventory issue, we're going to continue to hear what you just stated. We have built and increased our affordable housing by 4 percent to over 25,000. We transitioned more people out of shelters into permanent housing in one to two years in the history of the city. More people use FHEPS vouchers in the history of the program. So we know it's a real issue, but we need to build more housing.

Bossard: And City of Yes just approved by the City Planning Commission today. Now it will make its way through the Council, so we will see how that evolves in the months to come. Still a lot more to come here tonight on Ask the Mayor with Mayor Eric Adams. (718) 861-6800 is the number to dial if you have a question. We're taking your calls and more when we come back right after this. Stay with us.

[Commercial break.]

Bossard: Welcome back to Ask the Mayor here on News 12 with New York City Mayor Eric Adams joining us once again. I do want to kick off this block touching on a topic that you've talked a lot about over the last week or so and that is the ghost car crackdown that's going on across the city right now. You and your team have been going after them on the roads but now we're looking at going after them while they're parked. Can you expand a little bit about those efforts that are now underway and some of the results it's already garnered?

Mayor Adams: One of my favorite topics, you know, the ghost cars because these cars have, they have gone unchecked for years and what we realized when we started doing an analysis, many of these cars are being used for criminal behavior, for robberies, for assaults, hit and run. God forbid if you're struck by one of these cars and they don't have insurance or registration, you are now liable for that.

And so we started with the governor and our other team members in the area to go after the toll booths. We went after the toll booths and we started catching a substantial number of these cars at the toll booth but then we understood that many of these cars are being parked. So the 2,100 that we were able to identify at toll booths, we started driving through the communities, particularly we have high crimes, high shootings, high robberies. And thanks to Deputy Mayor Banks and Commissioner Tisch, we were able to put in place a task force, a team that's now going out and identifying these cars.

So far we have identified over 200 cars that we were able to remove, ghost cars, within a short period of time. We're really excited about this initiative and we're sending the right message. Your're not going to park without place, without registration, without insurance and go out and commit crimes. We have not only taken these cars up the streets, then you add it to the over 20,000 illegal scooters, dirt bikes and mopeds, it shows that we're making our streets safer.

Bossard: Definitely something we see a lot of, especially in the Bronx and Brooklyn, so I'm sure a lot of people at home happy to see them being taken off of the streets. I want to turn back to some of our callers on the line tonight. I believe we have Anthony who's dialed in from Kingsbridge. Anthony, thanks so much for calling in. What's your question for the mayor?

Question: Thank you.

Bossard: Go ahead.

Question: Mr. Mayor, I'm wondering why aren't you focusing more on extra training for the Police Department? The fact that they shot two innocent people on the train instead of apprehending the gentleman without shooting these innocent people, I think it's a tragedy. In addition to that, the fact that when they're entering apartments and dealing with people with mental issues, the outcome is always that the person that they're apprehending is killed. So I think that the lack of training is not being… Lack of training with the police officers, it's been proven. So I'm wondering why you're not focusing on the extra training?

Mayor Adams: No, we are, Anthony. And let me share this with you, Anthony, because you said something that's very important. You said that when the officers respond to the homes of people with mental health, severe mental health issues, it turns out to be a tragic loss. That is just not true. Hundreds of thousands of responses, police officers respond to those with severe mental health issues. Some of them have weapons and they're able to deescalate without any injuries at all.

Now, we hear about the high profile cases and it's unfortunate when someone loses their life, like the person who had a gun to the head of his mom, police officers had to take actions. Or if someone is holding a knife at the neck or the head of their loved one, police officers have to take action. We don't hear about those hundreds of thousands of cases that are carried out effectively, and B-HEARD. The new initiative we put in place where mental health professionals are able to respond to deescalate the situation.

But I want to deal specifically with your question about training. We have extensive training. We have something called the FATS machines that go through several scenarios on when to shoot and when not to shoot. We also have something that's called a house at the range where you walk through to make these quick judgment calls. And so there's extensive training of dealing with severe mental health people and how to deescalate.

As you saw in the video, they used a taser. He pulled the taser out. He ran towards the police officer with the knife. No matter how much training you get to deescalate, you have to make these calls to save lives. And no one wants to see an innocent person killed or shot in the process of doing so.

Bossard: Mr. Mayor, thank you for that response. In the interest of trying to get in as many calls as we can. We're going to turn to Jean, who has dialed in from Canarsie. Jean, what's your question for the mayor tonight?

Question: The question for the mayor tonight is, I mean, as we can see, first of all, kudos to you, Mr. Mayor. And as we could see, we see Washington is not helping you as much as they should for the migrants' problems. So does the state. It seems like, you know, not too many people would actually survive this fiasco. But you are. You are doing an excellent job. My question is, what is the long-term plan for that? Because as we know, we have a lot of migrants. The state is not providing them with work permits or even if they got a work permit, they don't have enough jobs for them to work. So what is the long-term plan we have?

Mayor Adams: That's a great question. I'm not sure if it's Jean or John, but either way, that's a great question. Over 217,000, and you're right, we're not getting help from the federal government like we should. We need real immigration reform from our federal partners. But here's the process. You stated that there's not enough jobs. No, to the contrary. There are so many jobs that are available, not only here in this city, but across the entire country, where people are saying, Eric, we will take the migrants if they are allowed to work.

Such a small number are getting work permits. It is not helping us. People should have the dignity to vote. Listen, we have Ukrainian migrants and asylum seekers. We don't hear much about them because they have the right to work. If you can have the right to work from Ukraine, you should be able to do it from South, Central America and from West Africa as well. We need to get people to right to work.

Bossard: All right, Mr. Mayor, thanks so much. We'll revisit this topic on the other side of the commercial break. We'll be right back with Ask Your Mayor right after this. Nishan is on.

[Commercial break.]

Bossard: Welcome back to Ask the Mayor with New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Mr. Mayor, I'm so sorry. We're coming up against a commercial break as we were addressing the migrant crisis and I just wondered if you had any final words on the topic.

Mayor Adams: Yes, I think Jean was accurate. When you think about it, many people when this first happened, they were asking, Eric, what are you doing to our city? Why is this happening to us? They were not aware that I had no authorization to stop the buses. That's against federal law. I had no authorization to allow people to work. That's a federal decision, to work. That's a federal decision. I had no authorization to deport people who may be violent to our city. Local city law did not allow me to coordinate with ICE. I couldn't even allow migrants and asylum seekers to volunteer and give them a stipend. That's against the law as well.

I was required by city law to give them a place to sleep, educate over 40,000 children, give them three meals a day. We had to carry out this $5.6 billion budget, a burden on our city. And an overwhelming number of migrants and asylum seekers that are here are saying one thing, we want to work. We want to contribute to the American experience. This is a city of immigrants. We know that we can do a better job and give people the dignity to allow to provide for themselves and their families.

Bossard: On the other side of the issue of federal support, we just announced earlier this week that $164 million is coming to Brooklyn to reimagine the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Can you outline a little bit what that's going to bring to not only Brooklyn, but New York City as a whole?

Mayor Adams: Modernizing our waterways to turn it into what we like to say, the highways where we can use our waters to transport tools and equipment. It's going to build out the infrastructure in the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. We're going to turn that into a multi-use facility where you're going to have housing and jobs.

We want to really thank the Sunset Park community for their contribution. This is going to be a 21st century job, the state-of-the-art infrastructure builder. We're really excited and we want to thank our federal partners, particularly Congressman Jeffries, the minority leader, and Majority Leader Schumer, for really the contribution in making this happen. It's going to be a greener city and we're going to build a cleaner city by using these great opportunities. Hats off to Congressman Dan Goldman for bringing that money home to our city.

Bossard: All of that happening on the Brooklyn waterfront, so a beautiful place to invest in our future. Mr. Mayor, thanks so much for being with us here on Ask the Mayor once again on News 12.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Bossard: We appreciate your time and getting to all of those questions tonight. And thank all of you for tuning in and calling in. We'll see you next time.

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