Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Older Adult Town Hall

January 25, 2024

Watch the video here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gKOEDF_gXc

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. It's so good to be out here at Elmcor Lefrak. You know, this is a place I knew so well. People know me as the Brooklyn borough president, but I grew up in Queens, you know, and I would come over here.

Lefrak has, you know, just has held it down. This community has held it down for so many years, and you know, really want to thank you for what you have done. And this is a series, this is number nine that we are doing our older adults town halls to hear from you.'

We've done other town halls. We've been out here. This is this is the best part of the job coming out speaking one‑on‑one and hearing from you.

And so I'm going to turn over to my rat czar but I just really, listen, think about it. It's been only two years, two years, and right, who said that? I want to give you the mic. Two years, January 1st, 2022, when I was campaigning in 2020, 2021, I stated on my analysis of the city I stated crime was trending in the wrong direction.

The educational system, our children were not learning, there were real gaps in our educational system. The housing crisis that we were facing. On January 1, 2022, I became the mayor. Covid was here. We didn't know if our schools were going to be open or not. We were unsure.

Businesses were leaving the city. No one wanted to be on the subway system. Crime, homicides were going up. Shootings were going up. We had ghost guns on the streets. Businesses were hurting. Bond raters had us a low bond rating. Those are the folks who determine if the city is being operated in a fiscally responsible way.

People said, Eric it’s going to take you about four years, five years before you can turn around the city. And I didn't know what they were talking about. I knew what we could do.

So, two years later, homicides are down, shootings are down. We left the year in 2023 with crime decrease in five of the seven major crime categories. 4 million people back on the subway system. No one wanted to be on our subway system. I stated in months I was going to remove all the encampments off our subway system so that people are not living on our subway system. We put a plan in place to do that.

Bond raters increased our bond rating because they saw how we were becoming more fiscally managing the city. We saw our children are outpacing the state in reading and writing in the state. 100,000 summer youth jobs, we decreased the cost of childcare from $55 a week down to less than $5 a week if you make $55,000 or less.

With a partner with our amazing partners up in Albany, like Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar we were able to increase the income tax credit. And even in NYCHA, we did free broadband for NYCHA residents so they can have access to the Wi‑Fi, the Internet.

What we did with our youth, 100,000 summer youth jobs, never been done before in history. Put more people who were homeless in permanent housing in one year in the history of the city. Built the largest number of affordable units in one year. 62 [million] tourists have come back because they figure our city is a safe place, a great place to come and visit, putting money into our budget.

Just a complete turnaround in two years. We were grinding, stay focused, no distractions and grind. We were trending in the right direction.

Then what happened in April of last year of 2022? We started getting migrants coming to our city from outside, it started from Texas now it's all over the country, about. We had 172,000 migrants and asylum seekers that had come to New York. That's 1.5 the size of Albany dropped in our city without any help on the federal level.

And so people stop me every day, because you know when you're the mayor people, everything is your fault. You know, this guy lost his boo, he saw me, he said, Eric, it's your fault. So, everybody started asking, well, Eric, why don't you stop the buses from coming into the city? It's against the law. I can't do it. Well, Eric, why don't you say you're not going to put them, put folks up in housing? It's against the law. Why don't you have people go back to the states that sent you? It's against the law. Why don't you allow them to work, which they want to do? It's against the law.

So, the federal government dropped this on my lap and said you can't allow people to work. You cannot deny housing, food, shelter, clothing, washing, clothing, all the things that you'll do for an adult. You cannot tell people they can't come through the buses here. All those things I cannot do.

Eric, it's your problem. It's costing us $12 billion over three years — $12 billion — we already spent close to $5 billion already. And it's coming from somewhere. That's the problem that we're facing.
And we've got to manage and navigate our way out of this, not one child or family sleeping on the streets. We're doing what we have to do, but I want you to understand because I have to speak directly to you.

So, what do we do? We were projected to get 100,000 migrants and asylum seekers to be in the city. We didn't get 100,000, we got 172,000. But I told the team, since we're not getting any money from Washington, what we must do is decrease the number of people who are within our care.

We were able to get over 50 percent of those who have come to the city, we were able to get them self‑sustaining. We allowed them to get on their own, take care of themselves, they're out of our system. We have less than 100,000 that's in our system now. Over 60‑something percent are moving on with their lives, doing what needs to be done.

But I want you to understand, this was dropped in your mayor's lap. And you did not elect me to tell you about a problem, you elected me to solve the problem, so I've got to solve the problem. That's the bottom line. It's on me. I gotta make it happen.

And I came from a household with a mother who had six children and she would get up every day and go to the Amistad daycare center and cook. I knew what these students ate every day because mommy had a Tupperware bowl and brought it home to all of us. And there was not one day that mommy said, you know, baby, y'all not going to eat. She found the way.

I don't care if she had to go to ask the neighbor or if she would hit a number, somehow we ate. So, she never said there was a reason you can't, so I don't know a reason can't. I'm going to get us through this.

But you need to know what they dropped in my lap, same thing they did to David Dinkins. And check this out. Look at the cities that this character from Texas is sending the migrants and asylum seekers from. Look at the cities. Chicago? Who's there? Black mayor? Los Angeles? Who's there? Black mayor? Houston? Who's there? Black mayor? Washington? Who's there? Black mayor? New York?

Who's there? Black mayor.

You see the hustle? And then they went away and said, well, you know, when you get them in charge, they don't know how to govern. That's the game.

So, we have a lot to do. We have some good things. I got this amazing commissioner of the Department of Aging. She's the real deal. And I'm just so proud to have her as part of the team. She has really focused on our older adults and we have our team here across that's going to answer your questions, whatever questions you have, we want to answer them.

DJ, who is, let me have one DJ before I turn it over to, do we have? So, this is, we want you to fill this out and place it on your refrig at home. It's an emergency contact.

So, if there's ever any medical emergency or any type of emergency, the police officer, the EMT, whomever, could be able to look and get the information right away, your name, your emergency contact, if you're allergic to something, because sometimes you could get medicine and you could be allergic to it like penicillin and other.

So, you can fill it out, any loved one or if you're here representing a family member, it's just simple information, it's yours to keep, it's not ours, and just place it on your refridge so that people can be able to contact right away. So, we're excited to be here with our whole team. Come on, rat czar. Nothing I hate more than rats.

But we have an amazing, amazing leader that has really zeroed in. From the time she came in, we started to see success. So, why don't you just give us the whole rundown of what you're doing?

Kathleen Corradi, Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation: Thank you, Mayor Adams. I'm excited to be here. I'm going to speak a little bit about the work we're doing city‑wide. Good? Okay. About rat mitigation.

So, our strategy is fairly straightforward. What we are working to do is take away rat's access to food and shelter, cutting off their pipeline of what they can eat and breed and where they live. So, there's a lot of tremendous changes that have already happened and more coming down the pike about cutting off the all‑you‑can‑eat rat buffet.

So the Department of Sanitation is making sweeping changes to how New Yorkers are interacting with waste and how our waste is managed. So, we had changing set‑out times last April. That means garbage sitting on the curb for shorter periods of time, outside of our commuting time so New Yorkers aren't walking past garbage, cutting off time that rats can access that.

And then there's a whole containerization plan, a roadmap — 99 pages, in fact — about how our city is going to work systematically to make sure we're cutting off rats' access to food. We're already seeing that in our commercial businesses. All food establishments and chain stores are now required to put their garbage in containers, which means it's more orderly, it's more sightly, and rats cannot access it.

Across the city, we have great partners. Department of Health is working to respond to every single 311 complaint that comes in about a rat, a rodent. Department of Health goes out and inspects, does a letter to those property owners to make sure they understand exactly what they need to do to remedy that issue on their property.

In our rodent mitigation zones, we do twice a year inspections on every single property so we really understand where the rat issue is and then can target resources to those areas. We work extremely closely with New York City Public Schools, NYCHA and Parks to make sure that city-managed properties have the same burden and expectation that our private property owners.

We are truly in this together. So, I'm excited to be here, answer questions and ask you to join this partnership with me. So, I want you to get informed, get engaged, we can do rat academies, you can learn everything you need to make sure your property, your apartment is clean and pest free. I have some education materials here, but this is a journey we'll take together. I can't do it alone, we can't do it alone as a city. We need all New Yorkers bought in, and I look forward to working with you on this.

Mayor Adams: Great. Excellent, excellent. We're going to bring on two real partners and then we're going to open the floor.

Listen, don't have a better friend in government than this great councilman right from the area. When this center was closed, you know, he fought, fought, fought, got it open. That's the type of work he has been doing, really pushing through some real innovative things whenever you call on him.

Forward-thinking, always on top of his community right from his neighborhood. Nothing is greater than that, Councilman Francisco Moya.

City Councilmember Francisco Moya: Thank you. Thank you, mayor. Thank you so much. Thank you for that. And I want to give a big round of applause to Mayor Adams for all the great work that he's done. He is truly a tremendous leader for our city, and this is the type of leadership that we need now more than ever.

And I just couldn't be prouder to be back here at home in Lefrak. This is what I call campaign promise, campaign kept. When I ran in 2017 I said we're going to bring back the Lefrak senior center, and we know how difficult it was to get to this point.

And we could not have done that without the great help of Lorraine Cortés‑Vázquez. Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for all that you do. And thank you to Mayor Adams, who stepped in at the right moment when we were getting stuck with a lot of red tape and bureaucracy that said, you know, it was going to delay the process for us to have this senior center.

But that's the type of leadership that we have in this mayor who said, no, we need to make sure that these doors are open for our seniors here in Lefrak. And that's all thanks to him. Thank you, Mayor, for all that you do.

And I'm going to shout out Kaz who's a Lefrak resident born and raised, right? Born and raised. Give it up for him.

And I'm going to be very brief because I know that we're short on time here. But I have to thank the people who run this organization. [Saida], thank you for all the great work that you do.

To my boo, everybody knows that's my [booler in the hooks] does a tremendous job for running our senior centers here. It's an incredible thing.

But I'm going to end it with this: it's easy to criticize when things are going wrong when people say that. Right? This mayor took on a monumental task that no one anticipated and he is managing the city better than anybody else.

And I'm going to tell you something right now. I lived through eight years before that. And we had gone through Covid, and now we have this migrant crisis going on here. But yet what happens now? Crime is going down. Campaign promise, campaign kept.

Making sure that our seniors are fully funded with all the necessary resources that we need. This is the type of mayor that we have right here. And he's the type of mayor that comes out into the streets at all hours.

I called him with a problem on Roosevelt Avenue. I got a text at like one o'clock in the morning and he's like, brother, I am here. And I'm like, oh, no! I thought it was a joke. And he walked those streets and he took care of that because that's the kind of mayor that he is. He cares about this community. He cares about this city.

And we cannot forget that. We can never forget those people that stand up and are our voices in government in times of need. And I couldn't be prouder to stand next to this mayor and all of his team here in this administration that are doing an amazing job. Thank you, mayor, for all that you do. God bless you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you, brother. Thank you. And so we're going to bring on the amazing, amazing assemblywoman. You know, you could never miss her because she's always in one of the flyest red dresses you could find.

You know, just really, really hard. She's going to tell you something. I'm sure she's going to share the initiative that all of us are aggravated about, her initiative that she's doing, Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.

State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: Good afternoon, Lefrak City. You're feeling good this afternoon? Well, allow me to reintroduce myself. I am State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar. I'm the first Indian woman ever elected in New York State.

And everybody said that that would be impossible, but we did it. And the reason that I did it was for you, so that I could live this life of love and service for my community every day. That is my passion. That is what I do 24/7.

And I have to tell you that one of the first committees I asked to sit on in our state capitol was the Committee on Aging, and that is because you have worked hard your whole lives and now you need someone that's going to work for you.

So, I have focused on elder abuse, making sure that you are protected from scams and fraud. Also social isolation. Loneliness is like smoking 10 packs of cigarettes a day. That is why I've secured money in the state budget to bring AI technology into homes to make sure that seniors are not alone.

And yes, as the mayor mentioned, I introduced the very popular SMOKEOUT Act, and that is to finally close all of the illegal smoke shops across the state. There are 35,000 illegal smoke shops in this state, at least 1,500 here in New York City. If my bill passes, finally local authorities will have the ability to close these shops once and for all. And Mayor Adams is going to be able to close them within 30 days. So, everybody is so excited about the SMOKEOUT Act. Are you excited about the SMOKEOUT Act?

All right. We're going to get it done this year and take care of this problem once and for all. And I would like to say I work 24/7, but it is an honor to do it in partnership with the greatest mayor of New York City, Eric Adams. I have never met anyone who loves his job as much as this mayor.

And this is the leader that you want in a time of crisis. And we were in crisis. We were coming out of the Covid‑19 pandemic and he let us out of it and now we're back. Jobs are at an all‑time high. Crime is down.

Now we're facing multiple other crises. We have a housing crisis. We have a migrant crisis. But when you have a crisis, this is the leader that you want in charge, and he's giving life back to the city, he is all over in every corner of the city, going into communities where no one has ever gone before, and empowering us and giving us a seat at that table of power.

So, I want to thank you so much, mayor, and we will always stand behind this mayor.

Finally, hold on one second. I have to say thank you to the great commissioner of Aging, Lorraine Cortés‑Vázquez, someone I got to know, and she loves government. She loves making government work for the people. So, thank you so much. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. So, we're going to open it up. We're going to open it to the questions. How are we flowing, flowing team? Who's asking the question for Table 1?

Question: Hello.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: My name is [Margaret Batson]. I'd like to ask you for help to get some more money for to express our program at the center.

Mayor Adams: At this center here?

Question: Yes.

Mayor Adams: One thing we were successful in doing is making sure in all the budgetary crises we're facing that we did not cut, we did not close any of our older adult centers. We kept all of them open.
Funding is so, so tight, as I shared. We're spending, you know, $12 billion projected on the migrant and asylum crisis. But we are looking to see the more and more we decrease the number of migrants and asylum seekers in our care it's going to free up more and more money.

That's why we're able to do some of the restorations we did to the Police Department, to the Department of Sanitation, Department of Parks. We want to continue to bring down those numbers. If we can bring down the numbers and stop people from coming in through the front door, we could use those dollars for what we really want to use them on, such as centers like this.

We would get anywhere from 4,000, 2,900 to 4,000 migrants and asylums a week — a week — and we had to find housing. If we bring down that number the way we're doing, I think last week or the week after was the first week, we had more leave then come in. If we could keep that projection, we'd be able to free up the money and do the things we really want to do as an administration. Hello.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. My name is [Colin] from your Public Engagement Unit. I'll be asking the question on behalf of our table. I'm here with [Olga, Fredis, Melba, Carmen, Clemente, Jose, Hilda and Carmen]. And we had a really good discussion. Our question was mostly, what can the city do to establish parking relief for residents of Lefrak City?

Mayor Adams: Interesting. Tell me more about that. Somebody tell me more. Tell me more. What is it? Parking around the area?

Question: Well, the question was really based around Citibike parking lots, Citibike taking up a lot of space.

Mayor Adams: We have some DOT, okay, it's a nice jacket you're rockin'.

Queens Borough Commissioner Nicole Garcia, Department of Transportation: Hi, good afternoon everyone. My name is Nicole Garcia, and I'm the Queens Borough Commissioner for New York City DOT. So, when we did our outreach process for Citibikes, we met with various civics, presented to the community board. Over the course of the expansion Phase 3 which encompasses Lefrak, we had met with more than two dozen community organizations, elected officials, et cetera.

Where we could site Citibike stations, we absolutely gravitated to, you know, the sidewalks or the areas where we wouldn't take up parking spaces. We did site, there are a number of them in the roadbeds, but what we can do particularly around this area, because I think there are two near this complex… 

My staff is here, and more than happy to meet with the tenants association or whomever I need to do to see if maybe there's something we can do with the curb regulations adjacent to those spaces. There might be outdated regulations, and we might be able to, you know, reclaim some of the parking spaces.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. So, let's have a conversation around it. We have to do a balance, a balance of the increase in demand. What's your ridership now? What's your ridership now with bikers? Do you have those numbers? It increased substantially.

Yes, so we have to balance making sure we have alternate transportation, particularly in Queens, and make sure, we want to make sure that we don't take all the parking spots. So, it's a balance. It's a sweet spot we have to reach. How are you?

Question: Fine, how you doing?

Mayor Adams: Good. I didn't say how you look.

Question: Welcome to our center.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Question: Good to see you. My name is [Ruby Mohammed].

Mayor Adams: Love Ruby. Ruby texts me all day and night.

Question: Okay. My question is we need more policeman presence in this community as well as the community center, within the district of Lefrak City, which is District 35.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. I have the amazing Chief of Patrol. I don't think we've ever had a Chief of Patrol like Chief John Chell and Kaz Daughtry, Assistant Commissioner. These guys are unbelievable. You know, let's talk about that, chief.

Chief John Chell, Patrol, Police Department: All right, Ruby, what do you need? In the whole area? Just tell me what she needs. You want more police officers around the center, is that what you said? In the whole area?

Question: Mounted police. Mounted police.

Chief Chell: You want mounted police?

Question: [Inaudible.]

Chief Chell: All right, so what I'm going to do is, you know Inspector Portalatin at 110 CO? All right? So, what we'll do is we'll talk after this meeting, we'll see where we can put some extra cops at special times for you, right, for this community when you want to see them because we have to feel safe, right?

When we see cops, we feel safe. It's not about numbers, we feel safe. So, good inspector here, we’ll grab a little Ruby private group and he'll walk you through some extra cops we might be helping you with. That's pretty easy for us, right?

So, we could work something out. We can do two things at one time. Fair enough? That's your man right there.

Mayor Adams: And Inspector Portalatin, when I got that call from Councilman Moya about the plaza and how it was out of control, Inspector Portalatin met us over there that night. It was around about one, 1:30 in the morning.

We walked up and down Roosevelt Avenue. The level of prostitution we saw there, brothels that were open. It was really problematic. The inspector said, mayor, all I need is authorization and the support to get this cleaned up. He went in, he cleaned it up. He did an amazing job and we're going to make sure that we deal with the prostitution problem that's happening on Roosevelt Avenue. And so let's have that conversation. I didn't know you had mounted here at one time.

Question: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Okay, you know, so let the chief look into the deployment of police, okay? And if you have children, we need more police to come on the job. We're getting a lot of people who are retiring. The numbers are decreasing. We want more and more young people to come into the Police Department.

So, tell your nieces, your nephews, whomever, to sign up and take the police test and become a member of the New York City Police Department.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Yes, feel free, and any of these topics that any of you want to go over, feel free.

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: Good afternoon. I'm Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart. When I first took over the position about two years ago, I think people got the wrong opinion that we only do youth basketball, and my vision was completely different.

I said, how about the parents, the older adults, now we even have disabilities, deaf, hard of hearing and low vision. Now I have my AARP card for at least 10 years now so I'm very fond of this situation.
But listen, so Commissioner Vásquez and I, the mayor has one mission, as you know, GSD, Get Stuff Done. Now, you can use however you want to, but I'm going with Get Stuff Done. So, Commissioner Vásquez and I, we got together. There has never been a liaison police officer in any precinct or housing facility.

Within six months, we did the GSD. We got it done. Now when you walk into the precinct, our community affairs officers with the light blue shirts and sweaters, if you have a problem with any crime or any, you need resources, that's where you go to.

Our community affairs officers, they're in every precinct. I think it's the 110. Where's Police Officer Williams? So he's here. You'll get his number after we leave. I'm sure everybody knows him. They should know him.

This is something that we have to look forward to as older adults. We all have family members. My mother's still here. My father, he transitioned about two years ago. But we have to take care of our older adults. That's very important to us.

So, in Community Affairs, too, there's a booklet that I have that we have printed for you. I want you to take a look at it. These are everything we do with our older adults, our Community Affairs. Paint and sip. maybe water, whatever you want to sip.

We have karaoke, self‑defense. And the person who teaches self‑defense, he's here today, P.O. Castro… No, detective, excuse me. He's here today.

We have biking for older adults. We have presentations with our Crime Prevention Office about scam alerts. We do that throughout the whole city. We were doing one now in Chinatown, over 300 people were there. So, we're going to make appointments in this community to get it done. But just this list that we have that we do with our older adults, and we also do visits to the senior housing, too.

We want to make sure that you guys are treated fairly, and you guys know the NYPD, that we're here for you and will always be here for you. So, if you have any questions after come see me and I'll take them. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: So, what Commissioner Stewart did, he has a senior liaison. Is that the senior liaison to who we just met?

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Senior liaison in every precinct so you don't have to navigate the complexity of the precinct, see your senior liaison in every precinct. This was never done before. And he has placed an e‑commerce safety trading place. Every precinct, every PSA, there's a camera, you don't have to go to the precinct, if you sell something online, you could go there, it is monitored, because you have a lot of people that are scams, where they would sell something online, you would go there, and either they'll rob you or harm you in some way.

He placed cameras at every precinct where you can go, you could do your trade in a very safe manner. So, he has really transformed the Community Affairs Unit, really exceeded more than we could ever expect, and we really thank him for what he has accomplished.

Question: Welcome, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you, man?

Question: Welcome, welcome, welcome. My name is [Adrian Turner] and I've lived in this complex nearly 50 years.

Mayor Adams: Wow. Wow.

Question: October of next year will mark 50 years. My question is there is a heating issue with some of the apartments in this complex. Is there any way for the city to step in and help us with this issue?

Mayor Adams: Anybody from HPD that's here? Are we connected, is this, this is on private, what's… 

Question: Private, private. Private.

Kevin Parris, Director, Queens & Staten Island Planning, Department of Housing Preservation and Development: So, hi, good evening, everyone. My name is Kevin Parris, I'm here with HPD. This is a situation where I feel after this is over, I can come over and get some more information from you on how we can best handle that situation that's happening here. So, if we, you know, I'm up here, when this is over, I'll come right over to your table and we can connect on some information and, you know, figure this out.

Mayor Adams: Because, you know, the law is clear on heating, you know, what the temperature should be. And so we will definitely connect you with, you know, where the heating complaints go to make sure we can navigate that. And then we'll look at the history of those heating complaints to make sure that folks are getting, you know, their proper heat.

All right? So, we're going to connect, you will connect with HPD and we're going to make sure we coordinate. Okay?

Question: Good afternoon.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Okay. I'm [Edith Williams.] I'm a member here at the Elmcor and I'm so glad to meet Mayor Adams. I've never seen you in person, but it's good to see you and meet you and everyone else is here today.

Mayor Adams: Please tell me I look better in person, you know… 

Question: You look just like your picture. You look just like yourself. You look just like yourself. I have a question, but also I have a message from my son. He said his name is Michael Williams and he brought you to John Jay College when [he was on the] 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement.

Mayor Adams: Wow. Wow.

Question: Do you remember that?

Mayor Adams: Yes, I do.

Question: He's a detective now and I'm his mother.

Mayor Adams: Wow, okay. Love it. Thank you.

Question: He said to tell you that. Thank you.

Question: Okay. My question is, it may not be to you but someone can let me know. We got introduced to Century Transportation last year for the seniors and a lot of us can't get AA, so we can't get a Access‑A‑Ride. But this was ideal for us because they told me that I was too good in shape that I couldn't get Access‑A‑Ride.

So, but this new Century person is on the scene and I want to know, will it continue for us seniors here?

Mayor Adams: Do you know anything about it, you do?

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázques, Department for the Aging: Yes. Yes, it will. We made a commitment last year under this administration because the mayor calls Access‑A‑Ride inaccessible. And so we looked at our transportation services and tried to do borough‑wide transportation for group and individual trips.

And you know, it's been a challenge, just because, as he said, the budget. And we're looking at that, but we are committed to expanding transportation. As a matter of fact, assemblywoman, we are submitting a budget to the state for more transportation dollars.

So, we are working very, very closely on that. But our commitment is that through the rest of this year those services will be there for you. All right?

Mayor Adams: And because transportation is, you know… We have to be able to move around. And we have to really transform the, I like to say, the inaccessible ride experience. We have to, we need to go to the hail services where you could do the e‑hails. There's more we could do and we're really leaning into that.

You know, there's alternative methods and we have to think outside the box. 

Question: Okay, this is me.

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry. You know when it's going to start up again, she asked.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázques: It should have already started up again, but I will… No, it's not going to be August.

Mayor Adams: We'll get you the exact date. Okay?

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázques: Yes, we'll give you an exact date and I'll have Ryan speak to you. All right?

Question: Thank you so much.

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázques: No, thank you so much.

Question: Good afternoon, everyone.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: And good afternoon, Mayor Adams. I'm so happy to see you here.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Question: It's a blessing to have you. And this center, GP3 is excellent. They do everything for us. I'm glad that I, you know, I'm here. And I retired like about five years ago and I had nothing to do. I worked for the government. I had nothing to do. So, when this came into place, I was right on it. And I'm very blessed.

But my question, I had every question that everyone said, I had already said it. This is what they answered. But I do want to ask about the animals that work in the complex. It's just horrible. Everywhere you… 

Mayor Adams: Is it raccoons, or what?

Question: No, animals, dogs, cats.

Mayor Adams: Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.

Question: And it's ridiculous the way, I know they said that you can have the animals in your apartment, hardship. But they tell them not to walk them in the area in front of the building. That's where you see big ones — not small ones, but they're big. And they're like people. And they're all in the elevators, they're coming downstairs, everywhere. And I'm afraid of some of them.

Mayor Adams: Right, right.

Question: And everywhere you walk you're stepping in the stool. You smell it. I mean you, you walk your shopping carts. We're seniors and we shouldn't have to live this way.

Mayor Adams: Right, right.

Question: And most of us, all of us are retired but the way we live here, and we pay a lot of rent. And somebody has to address all the problems that everyone had said here. It needs to be addressed. So, I'm praying that this happens for us.

Mayor Adams: Yes. So, it's just really, we have our CAU team. Who's, is anyone here from...

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázques: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Okay. So, let's set up and speak with the management about, you know, just, you know, people picking out for themselves after their pets.

Mayor Adams: All right. Okay. Y 'all know Karen?

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázques: Yes, they met her.

Mayor Adams: Okay, Karen and I have been running for a long time. Solid, solid sister around senior issues. So, let's sit down with management and talk about that. Okay? Right.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Wow.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Wow, wow. Wow.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: So, we'll definitely… 

Question: [Inaudible.]

Assistant Commissioner Ricky Wong, Government Affairs, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Hi, Mr. Mayor. Ricky Wong, Assistant Commissioner for Government Affairs at the Health Department. So, hearing about this, the dog attack, so the Health Department's in charge of actually licensing and monitoring dogs in the city.

If there was an attack, we want to hear about it because we will follow up and investigate. So, I'm happy to get your information later. We want to make sure that one, the dog is properly licensed and also has the vaccinations as well, two, and we want to make sure the other person the injured party is okay as well, too. So, I'm happy to follow up with you afterwards.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Okay, so we're on it. We're on it, okay, with the dog. All right?

Question: Thank you… 

Mayor Adams: You're quite welcome. You retired from which agency?

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Okay. Good, good. Thank you.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is [Martine.] I'm from the Department for the Aging, NYC Aging. On behalf of Alan Linden Boulevard, we wanted to know what is going to happen and what can be done with the tree root situation that's breaking up the sidewalks in Southeast Queens. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: I know Parks and DOT play with that. Who I got? Parks or DOT? Parks? Okay.

Jacqueline Langsam, Chief of Operation, Department of Parks and Recreation: Good afternoon, everybody. Jackie Langsam, Queens Parks Commissioner. We have a program, Trees and Sidewalks program. It is for single family residents. Is this a condition… Where did the person go?

Mayor Adams: The question, was it for a single family residence or was it for...

Langsam: The apartments.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Langsam: Well, it is not part of this. It would not be considered under part of this program, but we can have somebody look at your tree and see if there's anything that we can do. But usually it's the responsibility of the homeowner at that point.

Mayor Adams: For the multi... Okay, so the multi unit, it's the responsibility of the homeowner. And so how do we notify them that they have to correct the problem?

Langsam: Well, we'll go, I will meet with you afterwards. We have our forestry director here and we will look at your condition and we will just make sure that that's the situation and we will follow up with you and send you to the right place.

Mayor Adams: We know, do we have the location. Ma'am, do you have the location where it's located? She shares the location.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Okay, okay. All right, great.

Langsam: Okay.

Question: Good evening, everybody. So, my table had some concerns about the Wyndham Garden Hotel in Rego Park being turned into a shelter for men. They have some concerns, really safety concerns, basically because it's too close to Lost Battalion, okay, sorry.

Mayor Adams: Too close to where? To what?

Question: Lost Battalion.

Mayor Adams: Lost Battalion.

Question: Yes, it's a gym for children.

Mayor Adams: Yes, yes.

Question: And the seniors, sorry. It's next to Burger King, a lot of restaurants where family goes. It's across the street from the parks and it's not too far from school and public schools.

Mayor Adams: Yes. No, very familiar with it. We were, as I stated, when you have a hundred and something thousand people that are into the system, we are required to find housing for them, and we had to spread it throughout the city. A large portion are in Manhattan, but we had to go throughout and find when we can find hotels and open space.

It's not a desirable condition, but we'll make sure Commissioner Daughtry, he and his team and Chief Chell, they're going to go look at that specific location because the person who's in charge of the location should also make sure the place is kept in appropriate condition. Commissioner Daughtry?

Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, Chief of Staff to the Chief of Department, Police Department: Yes, thank you. I kind of think I know what you're talking about. Basically everybody's just hanging around outside, people feel a little unsafe to walk by them with their kids and stuff like that, especially when dismissals when they want to go into McDonald's.

So, what we're going to do is I'm going to go there, I'm going to speak to the precinct commander. I think that's the 112 Precinct, right? It's the 112? Oh, it's 112, right? Yes. So, I'm going to speak to the 112, and right around the time where there's a lot of people traveling, we'll make sure we put two posts over there so people can feel safe,

But this is happening throughout the whole city. If they're not doing anything, if they're not committing a crime, they're just standing there, like what can we really do? But what we will do is we'll put officers there to make people feel safe, right?

Question: Burger King, not McDonald's.

Commissioner Daughtry: Burger King. Yes, I know the, listen, I used to play at that Lost Battalion Hall over there 30 years ago, so I know exactly what you're talking about. All right? Yes, I do. I'll go there right after this and take a look at it. Yes, ma'am.

Question: [Inaudible] temporary situation?

Commissioner Daughtry: Well, let me… 

Question: ...located there?

Commissioner Daughtry: I'm sorry?

Question: Would it be a temporary situation?

Commissioner Daughtry: What, the officers?

Question: No, no. The people… 

Mayor Adams: The goal is we don't want to be in this business. We don't want to be in the business of permanent housing people in hotels. That's not the business we want to be in.
Now, people have criticized us because we have a 30‑day and 60‑day commitment. We're telling single adults we're willing to house you for 30 days. After 30 days we're going to give you intense services, support, but after 30 days you have to become self‑sustaining.

For children and families, we're giving 60 days, and the same thing. But we're not, no one that needs additional time, we'll be as supportive as possible, but you have to have a clear end of the process, it can't be permanent.

And so we don't want to be in the business of opening these hotels, we want to eventually transition out, we have to stop the flow coming in. We're getting folks out, but it keeps coming in in the thousands, and our goal is to eventually get out of this business.

You know, we need the federal government to do its job or we can stop the flow that's coming inside our city. But we don't want a permanent, these shelters propped up throughout around our city. That is not our goal.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Hold on. Just to backtrack off what the mayor is saying. This is the reason why we have Community Affairs in every precinct. This is the reason why we have community affairs officers in housing and transit. These questions that you're coming up with, go to the precinct, speak to community affairs officers.

I don't want you to sit here and have a situation and you go home and we don't take care of it. That's why we have these conversations. These conversations that you could go right to the precinct, report them… Trees, sidewalks, or people in shelters. These are why we have the liaisons in all precincts.

So, in the future, if you have a situation that you want to bring up, and the CO is here, too, and if he's busy, go to community affairs, report what's going on. Because what happens, you are the ears and eyes of the community you have to let us know.

Public safety, the responsibility is shared. You work with us, we work with you. We have these meetings, you have a problem, oh, it's going to be solved. But if we don't know what the problem is we can't solve them. Okay? Thank you.

Mayor Adams: It's so important what the commissioner stated. The community affairs officer is your direct contact. If you're having a problem with a condition, unsafe condition in the area, let the Community Affairs know that. That's why he created the senior liaison, so you can speak directly to him.

The inspector or the CO of the precinct may be busy, but that's the job of Community Affairs. This is a new police department and mindset where we want to engage directly with the residents of our city.
So, you know your Community Affairs officer here? This is not the 112, this is not the same precinct where the problem is. This is the 110? Okay, so make sure you get the 112, 112 Community Affairs officer. We should get, do we have a… 

Yes. You know what we need to do? We need to get, every center should have, you know, the name and probably even a picture of their liaison. You know that, in every center so you don't have to… 

You don't have to guess. You go in, you see the face, you see the name, and this way you'll know who it is, because you may come from a different location here and it may not be your precinct. So, let's, all right?

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Okay. We have Lieutenant Bodden who's my right hand wo‑man and she will take care of that so after that you can stay with her get the numbers of all of them.

Lieutenant Jackeline Bodden, Police Department: Absolutely. Unfortunately, the 110 liaison is not here, but before the end of the day I'll make sure you guys all have their contact information.

Mayor Adams: We're going to put it up. We're going to also put to put the photo of… I don't know how we're going to do it, we could even do one.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: We could do it through the older adult clubs.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: We provide the information the way the lieutenants started the program.

Mayor Adams: Got it.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: One by one. All right?

Mayor Adams: Okay, let's do it.

Question: No, I'm going to jump around because they have to leave. Brooks is visiting and their bus is leaving and their question is, what is the city doing with raccoon infestation in Southeast Queens?

Mayor Adams: Kill 'em.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: They say you can't.

Mayor Adams: All right, we'll cage them, we'll cage them.

Assistant Commissioner Wong: Good afternoon everybody. Again, my name is Ricky Wong. I'm the assistant commissioner for government Affairs at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

So the first thing everybody should know about raccoons is that they are wildlife that are in the community. They were actually here before we were, so, and they're actually protected under state regulations.

Now, there are some circumstances where if a raccoon appears to be sick or injured, people can call 311, and we will have our contracted animal care control go out and take a look and assess the situation. And of course, if there's something going on with that raccoon as far as being sick or injured, they will take it away.

However, if you are a private property owner and you have raccoons just coming to your backyard because you're leaving dog food or something else in the back out there or like they're just coming in, you know, getting to your bird feeders or something else like that, you know, they are part of the environment.

You as a property owner are actually responsible and you have to hire a state licensed wildlife trapper to remove them off your property. And when they remove them, they don't kill them, they actually take them off the property and place them somewhere else, because again, they are protected under state regulation.

So, I want to make sure that folks are aware of that, but if you're happy, I can speak to you one‑on‑one and give you a little bit more information.

Mayor Adams: Okay, so take it back, you can't kill 'em. Don't be saying Eric told me to kill 'em, you know? So, take it back. Don't break the law. Go ahead, brother, yes. I'm sorry?

Question: Same question, but… 

Mayor Adams: But you can kill rats.

Question: The problem we're having is [inaudible] the lot behind us [inaudible] I don't have a dog or leave any food or [inaudible] material [inaudible] cover my garbage can. But the house behind us, they have a garage, semi-abandoned.

Mayor Adams: Got it.

Question: And they're living in the crawlspace in the garage.

Mayor Adams: Got it.

Question: Now, you know, a fence means nothing to a racoon.

Mayor Adams: Right, right.

Question: Right? So, literally when my next door neighbor [inaudible] go over there, discuss it with them, they are like more or less like we don't see anything, but they're not doing any investigation. But we see them. We have them on video.

Mayor Adams: Got it.

Question: [Inaudible.] All right? And we even show it to them. Now, they're kind of hibernating right now, but I know it's going to be an explosion of them in the next couple of months.

Mayor Adams: Got it, got it.

Question: Be walking side by side with [inaudible].

Assistant Commissioner Wong: Yes, I'll come talk to you after, at the end of the meeting.

Question: And like you said, we can't kill them, I know [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Right, right. Got it. Okay.

Assistant Commissioner Wong: I'll come speak with you after the meeting.

Mayor Adams: So, we'll find out, we'll get that location.

Question: Okay.

Mayor Adams: Okay? Yes.

Question: Hi.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Hi, I'm great.

Mayor Adams: Good.

Question: I'm a volunteer at the Benjamin Rosenthal Senior Center right here, and one of the things that I feel is important is the conversation about scooters, electric scooters and e‑bikes.
And I had heard that the police were going to start confiscating those bikes, and I haven't seen any action like that, especially in, you know, where I live, all in Queens. I live in Fresh Meadows, and I have to keep turning my back, I have to looking behind me so that some kid doesn't run me over. So I was wondering if you could really institute something that's going to help us.

Mayor Adams: Yes, and I don't think we have been at a town hall of any form where that has not come up, but I'm going to turn it over to Chief Chell.

Chief Chell: So, I'm sorry you haven't seen us out there, but I can promise you we've been out there. When it comes to scooters, illegal mopeds, ATVs, I'll even throw ghost cars in there with the fake plates and the plate covers. That with smoke shops, those three areas are probably our number one, two, three, number one quality life issues.

And quite frankly, it's also a crime issue with the scooters. I wish I could take you out riding with us. In the last two years, mostly like 16 to 18 months, under the mayor's direction, what he directed us to do, because like I said, quality life and crime. We've taken over 45,000 of these bikes, ATVs and cars off the street.

Mayor Adams: Say that number again.

Chief Chell: Over 45,000. Dangerous work, arduous work. But one of the things we're changing, to your point, we're going to try to...the mayor always tells us to be more strategic on what we do.
So, with the Queens DA's office, from one of the [inaudible] twice a month now we're starting next week, she's renting two rack trucks to add to our rack trucks and we're going to start driving around certain parts of Queens. And when they're unregistered on the street, we're going to take them right then and there like we already started doing.

So, it mitigates chasing, it mitigates anyone getting hurt, and we can still get to the goal we want to be to. And maybe I'll take you out so you can see us do. Maybe if you're strong enough, you can get one of those bikes on the rack, I'm not sure. All right? Trust me, we're doing it.

Mayor Adams: So, we're with you. It's a nuisance. It's dangerous. We hear it in every town hall. It's a safety hazard, it needs to come under control. We're with you. 45,000, that's the real number.

Question: Hi. Mayor Adams, what can you do? I'm reading this. Mayor Adams, what could you do to address the issue of public safety surrounding migrant shelters of the immigrants loitering, smoking, committing crimes. Can we add extra patrols? [Inaudible] by Queens Village, Hillside Avenue. Creedmoor. Creedmoor.

Mayor Adams: No, listen, you know, it's a setup for a disaster when you tell people, particularly men, young men, that you have to sit around all day doing nothing. You know, you can't work. There's nothing you can do. It's a real problem.

And we're going to police the area. We're going to make sure that we correct conditions as they come up. But as Kaz stated, Assistant Commissioner Daughtry stated, if someone is just standing there doing nothing. there's not much more we can do.

But our goal is to give them opportunities. And we need you to add to our pressure that we want to do with Washington to say let these young men work, let these families have a job. You're not standing in front of the corner somewhere if you have a job.

But it's a real issue for us. We see that at many of our locations. We see it in Floyd Bennett Field, we see it in Roosevelt Hotel, many of these areas. And we're doing our role as enforcement, but we cannot do it to the point that it's going to violate the law.

Question: When we first, when they first built the shelters there, the cops were there every day.

Mayor Adams: Right.

Question: They're not there no more.

Mayor Adams: Right.

Question: They just, you have to make that left to come in, to SNAP. They be walking in front of your car, they don't want to move. Where are the cops that used to be there?

Mayor Adams: Okay, and so we got the chief here, but what we don't want to do, and we want to be realistic with our population, because our manpower is down. And so every cop that, two, three cops that are fixed there are two, three cops that aren't going to be answering your calls of service when you need calls of service.

So, we have to balance our deployment of our personnel. We've done an amazing job of not duplicating our services anymore, not using police officers and for duties that they should not be doing.

But we want to balance to make sure we can do what's called special assignment where they will drive by, correct the conditions that we may see. But you don't want a cop fixed there, two, three cops fixed there, because you still got to answer the jobs throughout the entire precinct. But let us look at it and do an assessment, but it is a headache.

Question: [Inaudible] because they have approached our seniors now. Now it's a different level.

Mayor Adams: Right. Right. No, I'm with you. I'm with you.

Chief Chell: So, this is what we're going to do. And this is what we, sometimes you start from the ground level. I'm going to team up my partner Mark over there, Deputy Commissioner Community Affairs. We're going to go have a conversation in the center. Sometimes the people in there have to hear the concerns from the community and they might not know they're being inconvenienced. So, we start at the ground level, right? We get the messaging.

Number two, like the boss said, we have selected times where we call it directed patrol, where we'll stop by, walk the perimeter, say hello to security there. So, we can isolate some times you're talking about. I assume it's probably in the morning and late afternoons, I'm just assuming that.

Let's isolate some tight times, we can have that director patrol do that. We can go in the center and just have a nice conversation because they might not know how you're feeling and we'll start from the ground level. So, we'll take care of that for you, all right?

Mayor Adams: Yes, and that's so important because you're right, chief, because people are coming from different environments and what we normalize here may not be the environment that they're coming from. One thing I don't want you guys to do, I don't want you to snap on them.

Assistant Commissioner Daughtry: Hey mayor, if I just want to add just one thing, thing. Just because you don't see the cops at these migrant centers, we have air support. Our air support does directed patrols also, so they zoom in on these migrant centers, and if they see any type of anomaly of any type of criminal activity, immediately they're calling the ground troops to come over there and go there and check it out.

So, just because you don't see a cop there, doesn't not necessarily mean it's being monitored by… We have other ways of monitoring these locations as well.

Mayor Adams: Yes, but we're with you, we're 100 percent, what you are feeling, we know you're feeling, it's not in your figment of your imagination. We have to wrap our hands around it, because safety is both actual and perceived, they go together. Thank you, thank you for that.
Tell me about SNAP, is it an organization?

[Crosstalk]

Okay. Okay. Great. Love it. Love it. Love it.

[Crosstalk]

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry?

[Crosstalk]

Mayor Adams: Okay. And...

[Crosstalk]

Mayor Adams: I will love that. I will love that. Okay.

[Crosstalk]

Mayor Adams: I will love that.

Question: Okay, thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you for your question.

Question: Okay. Hi, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm good. How are you?

Mayor Adams: Quite well.

Question: My name is Helen. I'm the director of [Vladimir Garden] Senior Center. We're in a NYCHA building, and we have multiple pending repairs with NYCHA. One issue that I would like to highlight to you is that the roof above the gym needs repair, and it leaks every time it rains. And I'll make a ticket with NYCHA, and they'll come, they'll look at it, and then they'll close the ticket.

Mayor Adams: Okay.

Question: I have made this, I have made my Department for the Aging rep aware, Martine. She has escalated it to Department of Aging multiple times, but we still have not been able to resolve it. I also contacted our City Council, Sandra Ung, but so far nothing has been done.

Mayor Adams: Let's get on it.

Question: And it's leaking so bad that the floor is starting to warp.

Mayor Adams: Let's get on it. All right...

[Crosstalk]

Question: I appreciate your help.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Yes, we're on it. It's an arduous process. NYCHA's responsible for capital, we're responsible for interior and this is now verging on both. So, but we're working on them very, very closely with NYCHA. We have just established an exceptional relationship with them. So, we're on it.

Mayor Adams: Let's get, we're going to get it fixed. We'll get it fixed.

Question: Thank you.

Mayor Adams: You know, we don't want you to fall into the gray area.

Listen, thank you all. Good to see you. Keep lifting us up in prayer, power of prayer. You know that? Power of prayer.

###