Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds Virtual Media Availability

February 13, 2024

Deputy Mayor Fabien Levy, Communications: Good morning, everybody. My name is Fabien Levy and I serve as deputy mayor for Communications for the City of New York. We hope everyone is staying safe and dry during today's storm, and we appreciate you all joining us this morning for our weekly media availability.

Like Mayor Adams said yesterday, we are strongly encouraging New Yorkers to stay home today, if not absolutely necessary to travel. As such, we made today's regularly scheduled weekly media availability virtual. And to ask a question, please utilize the raise‑hand feature.

I want to start today by thanking all of the public servants across our city government who moved quickly and decisively over the past few days to prepare our city for the storm we're experiencing outside right now and keeping New Yorkers informed throughout the way.

Hundreds of thousands of our city employees have worked around the clock to keep New Yorkers safe and up to date about today's weather. Because of these efforts, New Yorkers have been able to make smart decisions and keep themselves safe. Thank you to the entire team for your effort.

As I often say, delivering clear, accurate and accessible information is one of the administration's top priorities not only during moments like this one but every single day. That is why the mayor has once again convened senior leadership to answer your questions and address important issues.

So, joining us this morning is Mayor Eric Adams, First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Chief Advisor to the Mayor Ingrid Lewis‑Martin, Chief of Staff Camille Joseph Varlack, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development and Workforce Maria Torres‑Springer, Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams‑Isom, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar, Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg, New York City Department of Education Chancellor David Banks, New York City Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tisch, New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol and New York City Police Department Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny.

So, once again, to ask a question, please utilize the raise hand feature, but first, I'm pleased to turn it over to Mayor Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much and thanks to the entire team for helping us plow through this first major storm, snowstorm that we've had this year. I was out in Queens at PS 140, my old public school, and I was just really pleased to see how the Department of Sanitation and the crews were out there plowing and salting the streets.

And I really want to thank New Yorkers. Jessica, I think they heard you. They were not on the street, cars were not out there, people were home enjoying their families. And I really want to thank New Yorkers for taking this seriously, because we did and we want to urge New Yorkers to continue to do so. And the men and women of the Department of Sanitation, OEM and the entire apparatus were all in full display.

We do want some to go out, and those who are voting, today is election day in Queens and in the Bronx, and we want to encourage you to go out. Commissioner Iscol and his team have been coordinating with the Board of Elections and the Department of Education and monitoring any possible impacts the storm will have on polling sites. DSNY made sure that the sites were clear so that people get to the polls and exercise their constitutional and democratic right to vote.

And rest assured we'll continue to serve the city. Immediately after handling the snow, we're going to deal with any trash removal. Gone are the days where we allow trash to sit on our streets for days after snowstorms. We're going to immediately address that issue. So, really job well done. I'm going to turn it back over to Deputy Mayor Levy.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, mayor. And just to be clear, for folks at home watching, when the mayor says travel, travel by public transportation. Please do not take your automobile. Next, we want to hear from Commissioner Iscol get a quick storm update. Commissioner Iscol?

Commissioner Zach Iscol, New York City Emergency Management: All right. Good morning, everybody. So, so far today we've observed about three to four inches of snowfall. We expect about four to six inches in total accumulation throughout this event, with the rest of today really remaining with some light to moderate snowfall into this afternoon.

We've observed gusts of 30 to 40 miles per hour, which also have been diminishing this morning and into the afternoon. We're now observing one to two feet of coastal flooding in New York Harbor and Jamaica Bay as well as further areas further north into the Sound.

Down in the southern parts of the city, the tide is peaking and should start to ebb in the next one to two hours. The tide will peak further north by City Island around 2:00 p.m. And as the mayor said, just a huge thank you to all the teams that have been working over the last few days in preparation for this event.

I encourage all New Yorkers to continue to remain cautious. One of the things we are concerned about later today and into tomorrow morning is as the temperatures warm up, we could see some of the snow melt that could then turn to ice when it refreezes. So, that is something to consider on the roadways.

And then once again, always encourage all New Yorkers to sign up for NotifyNYC. It's our city's public communication system. It's available in 14 languages, including American Sign Language. You can sign up by calling 311, downloading the app or going to nyc.gov\notify. Thanks so much, and back over to you.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, commissioner. We're going to actually just go right down the line. Commissioner Tisch, you can give us a DSNY update.

Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Department of Sanitation: Sure. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm going to give a quick update on the Department of Sanitation's snow clearing operations. So, we have thousands of sanitation workers working through the day today and all night. We started mainly as a salt spreading operation. We ran all 700 of our salt spreaders. We put salt on every street, every highway, every bike lane in the city. We've done multiple passes at it.

At 8:45 this morning, we hit plowable accumulations – which are two inches – first in the Bronx and then quickly in other parts of the city. And at that point, we deployed our fleet of 2,000 Sanitation trucks, which double as snowplows. And so they are out there. They have been out there for hours. They will stay out there for hours. They have already completed a full pass of the city and they're going to keep going.

Just as a reminder, we don't do primary, secondary and tertiary streets anymore because the Department of Sanitation has the highest headcount that this department has had in the past two decades. We are able to put every street on a route and deploy every route at the same time, and that is what we have done today.

One final reminder for New Yorkers. We got the streets, we got the bike lanes, we got the highways, we're doing our thing. We need property owners to do their thing as well. And that means four hours after the final flakes fall, we need all property owners to clear paths on the sidewalk in front of their property so that the sidewalks are safe and passable for New Yorkers.

In the past two storms, we saw the sidewalks became pretty treacherous and we don't want to see that after this storm, especially given that tonight the temperatures are going to go down below freezing and we could have flash freezes on the sidewalks. We want those sidewalks safe tomorrow. We don't enjoy enforcing these rules, but our enforcement team certainly will be out tomorrow enforcing these rules. It's a matter of safety. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, Commissioner Tisch. Next, we want to hear from Chancellor Banks about DOE operations.

Chancellor David Banks, Department of Education: Yep. So, New York City public schools has had a more challenging morning, as we've heard from parents across the system.

So, just to put it into context, we had done a lot of work to prepare for today. And when the mayor and I spoke yesterday early on about notifying parents and getting ready, it was the right call to make. Our superintendents were notified, our principals, our teachers were ready. We worked with our unions, parents were notified and we were all set and ready to go.

And then just shortly before eight o'clock this morning, we began to get word that parents and students were having difficulty logging in. And those systems are completely tied to the work that we do with IBM. IBM is the one who authenticates the users and the usernames. And in a word, IBM was not ready for prime time. And that's what happened here.

Our entire team had been geared up and we told them that almost a million students between 7:30 and eight o'clock this morning would be coming online to go to school. And at around that time, they said, we were overwhelmed with the surge as though somehow they were [inaudible] that there were so many folks who were coming on.

So, to say that I am disappointed, frustrated and angry is an understatement and I want all parents of our students across the entire city to understand that I share the frustration that many of them had to endure from this morning.

Now, that was not every student. We had thousands of kids who were able to get on with no problem. We've been working throughout this morning with IBM senior officials, together with senior leadership here at City Hall. And as we are in this press conference now, I just want to report that we are up to about 850,000 folks who are on now, that includes students as well as our teachers.

So, IBM, throughout the course of this morning, has expanded their capacity. Their capacity should have been at full expansion from the very beginning. We wouldn't have been where we are. But we've been able to still put our young people in the best position to take full advantage of this remote day.

We had also, for those who did struggle, we had a backup plan that was already built into our messaging to parents and families. So, many of our students had an opportunity to activate on work assignments that were given to them. It was not a wasted day, but it was a frustrating day for far too many parents. And that is unacceptable.

To me, I want to apologize to all the parents and families across the city. As I said, this was a test. I don't think that we passed this test. And so we'll be doing a full analysis of what happened here because we don't expect this to be the last remote day that we have. And we'll work harder to do better next time, but that's where we are at this point in time. But the system is back. Things are moving along very nicely at this point.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you very much, chancellor. All right. We'll open it up to questions.

Question: Hello. Can you hear me?

Deputy Mayor Levy: Yes, we can hear you. And folks, just a reminder, please be ready to unmute your line immediately upon being called on. Go ahead, Juliet.

Question: Yes, I was clicking on there. Okay. Glad we're connected. Thank you. This is a question for Mr. Mayor and the chancellor. So, when you talk about this technical difficulty, has that been identified for the remote learning issue? I mean, was this a lack of an upgrade in the system?

And also, how have you been notifying students and parents about the progress here? Because I've been checking Twitter and there was maybe one or two notifications from the Board of Education about what was going on, and I don't know if you find that sufficient?

Chancellor Banks: So, we, through our superintendents and their communication with the principals at the schools, have been trying to stay in contact with as many of our students and families as possible at the local level. But we were deeply immersed in working with IBM to figure out and get to the bottom of this.

As I said, there will be a deeper analysis once this is all said and done. Our focus was on trying to work with IBM to build the capacity and to make sure that we got everybody online. And so, as I said just a moment ago, we're up to about 850,000 who are on now.

So, we did have these glitches very early on. Folks are on now. We should be having a very successful afternoon. But when all this is said and done, we'll be able to do the fuller briefing on exactly what happened and why IBM did not have it, was not ready with its capacity to start the day.

Mayor Adams: And let's keep in mind, the chancellor has put in place communications mechanism on the local school level. So, you know, Twitter is not the primary form of communication for the DOE. We communicate with students and parents throughout the year. It has really put in place a massive form of everything from e‑mails to other ways of communicating with parents. And we're going to continue to do so.

And every moment in the New York City public school is a teaching moment, we should never move away from that. Remote learning is going to be with us for a while. We're going to continue to see the various iterations and the goal is to get perfection and there's a journey to get perfection.

But IBM, I'm hoping this was a teaching moment for them as well. We expect more from our partners and our vendors to give us the product that we are paying for. And today they did not do that.

Question: So, I have a couple of questions about remote learning. Number one, I wonder if you can tell me what things were done to make sure that the 35,000 or so migrant children were able to have computers or iPads that would help them get on and if they were given any instruction or their parents were given any instruction on how to get on to the system.

Secondly, I wonder if any parents had opted out? I know some have. I wondered if you were concerned about power outages that would've prevented students from getting on. And the UFT sent out a thing saying teachers were being threatened with theft of service if they didn't stay on all day. I'm sorry, those are a lot of questions, but I hope you can answer them.

Chancellor Banks: Well, certainly for the migrant students who've come in and their families, folks who are provided with the devices that were necessary for today. And so those students are treated just like any of the students who were already here. We don't show a distinction between them. So, that's the answer really to that part of it.

The concern about power outages, there's always a concern and that's part of the reason why we build in a backup plan in case we don't have the power or in case we run into a situation like we did today. There's still work that students have that they can shift to where they won't be able to do the synchronous learning with their teacher in real time, but they have other assignments and things that will actually keep them still engaged. It is still a school day for them and it's still an opportunity to learn.

I didn't see the statement from the UFT, so it'd be difficult for me to respond to that about teachers and like the theft of service concerns. That's something I'll have to take a look at.

Question: So, just a question echoing some of the others. There's been a lot of frustration from parents today after problems with remote learning. I just had two quick questions.

For the chancellor, I think you had mentioned that there had been simulations to sort of prepare for today. So, I'm wondering if you could talk us through what those were and why they didn't seem to anticipate what happened this morning?

And then for the mayor, I was wondering, you know, yesterday you said if you're a parent and you're not willing to navigate a computer for your child, it's a sad commentary. Do you feel like you regret saying that or do you have a little more sympathy for public school parents this morning?

Mayor Adams: There was a specific question that was raised and the question was specifically around those who stated they did not want to log on. And our children experienced learning loss and particularly in math. And I believe if one is saying they're not willing to take that extra step, but they're overwhelming, as we just stated, over 850,000 did. That is not the energy we should be showing right now. Our children have to catch up, they have to be engaged. And that was the spirit of what I came from knowing what I know my mother had to go through to get us through on snow days.

Chancellor Banks: And I would say also, we certainly share the frustration. Back in November, late November, maybe early December, we did what we would consider some form of a simulation in trying to be prepared for a day like today.

But again, you can't fully simulate a day like this unless you're telling all, you know, close to a million kids to just stay home and we're going to practice for a snow day. So, what we did was we had all of the students with their devices in school making sure we were testing everything out and the kids had a level of familiarity and they were as ready as we could make them. But that's not quite the same thing as if they were actually home and now trying to log in.

And when we did that, everything worked out fine. That's why I'm concerned about what happened here and IBM's response that we didn't realize, you know, over 900,000 kids were going to get on at the same time. Duh? That's what this was for and that's what we were preparing for.

So, I share the frustration, but I think our team, our internal team, checked all the boxes of the things that we were supposed to do, but we'll do the post mortem on this and figure out what happened. I think as the mayor said, it's a teachable moment. It's an opportunity for us to learn.

The good news is that as we are speaking here now, the numbers are close to 900,000 families who are on. So, it is not a completely wasted day. We got off to a very rough start. We'll figure that out and work to get that better the next time.

I got an e‑mail from a student earlier today, which was a study in perseverance. I wish I had the name of the school, but this is a young man who said he tried 20 times to get on. And on the 20th time, he was able to get on. And the reason, he persevered, because that was the core value that his school has as one of their mantras, that when you are faced with challenge, you don't quit. So, you continue to push through.

Now, to try 20 times, I think any of us would say that's a big deal for any student to do that. And this young man was in contact with his superintendent and principal and to say I stood up for the ideals of my school that's why I didn't quit until I finally got on. And I think we need to lift that up and I think that was part of what the question that was raised with the mayor yesterday.

Sometimes we're going to face challenges but you don't quit and you hang in there and I know parents are frustrated, but we don't try once or twice and say, you know, the DOE didn't get it right. My kids are heading outside to play in the snow. That's not what the response should be either. And so we work really hard, all sticking together and together we'll figure it out. We'll get there and we're close to 900,000 folks who are actually already on.

Mayor Adams: And I just want to emphasize that I think, chancellor, what you're saying is so important. What our children learn in school around academics is one thing, but our children are watching us, perseverance, dedication, reaching roadblocks. These are all part of the core values and development of our children's full personhood.

And you hear me all the time quoting what I saw my mother accomplished because watching her core values. And that young man stating that I persevered. These are difficult roads our young people are going through right now, and we want to give them all the tools they need to understand that, you know, life is not going to be crystal stairs. There are challenging moments. Let's push through them. Let's persevere. Let's stay focused. No distraction, and let's grind.

Question: Two questions. First on the simulations. Was IBM involved in that, you know, considering you're saying they dropped the ball today, I guess, why weren't they prepared for this, to the best of your knowledge?

And then kind of separately for the mayor, yesterday a couple of state lawmakers introduced a bill that would ban the 30‑and 60‑day rule. I know you've said this is really important for keeping the shelter census under control. Are you concerned about this bill and are you going to lobby to try to stop it from becoming law?

Mayor Adams: Think about this for a moment, I wonder did the lawmakers who introduced this bill, did they go to Washington and communicate that this should not be happening to our city? This is a national crisis that has been placed in New York.

And if we followed that theory, we would've had 177,000 migrants and asylum seekers still in our care, 177,000. And instead of that, we came up with a real plan that allowed people to take the next step on their journey in this country and pursuing the American dream.

60 percent of those children and families, over 50 percent of those with children and families are now taking the next step on their journey, over 50 percent. Over 80 percent of the single adults are now taking the next step in their journey in pursuing the American dream. No child or family should grow up in a hotel or in a HERRC or in any other non‑traditional household.

We are being not only responsible, we are being humane as we invest in the future of our migrants and asylum seekers. And so build that state that we should permanently keep people inside a HERRC, it's just not a responsible way to address this issue and we want to continue to make sure that we get it right and that's what we have been doing, getting it right.

So, for State Senator Hoylman and Assemblymember Cruz to propose this bill, I say to them, this 30‑and 60‑day humanitarian response to this is what they should look at and do an analysis. Not one child, not one family, not one individual has to sleep on the streets of the City of New York.

What we have done is working. I drive around the city all the time and see do we have encampments? Do we have people sleeping in large tent settings? No. Other cities are now looking at what we are doing. And so it's unfortunate that this bill has been introduced. I'm going to speak with lawmakers and show the data of what Deputy Mayor Williams‑Isom and the team has done.

The successful humanitarian response to a crisis that... It is not of our doing. And I would love for the assemblyperson and the senator and everyone else to join us as we continue to call on Washington, D.C. to do their job and call on the Republicans to put in place real immigration reform. We responded to the crisis and we are going to continue to do so in a humanitarian way.

Deputy Mayor Levy: And I think we have a couple more....

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams‑Isom, Health and Human Services: Sorry. Yes. I just wanted to add, I was reading this morning about Denver and how Denver is in this exact same situation right now. And something that the mayor in Denver said, which our mayor says all the time, is that this is about striking a balance.

None of us is happy about this, right? None of us is happy to have 67,000 people who have come here for an American dream and can't work. But we as localities only have a limited amount of tools that we can use, and so time limits are those tools.

And as soon as someone can come up with something better, some additional support, some ability for people to work, we are willing and able to listen to that. But right now, Denver, Chicago, Massachusetts, all of us are in the same boat.

Camille Joseph Varlack, Chief of Staff to the Mayor: I think I would also add, DM Anne, that we are happy to work in partnership with all of our lawmakers and we have extended that opportunity repeatedly.

We have regular calls with elected officials, and if there were any concerns or questions or any interest in understanding what the impact of this legislation would be, we would've been willing to have that conversation.

Deputy Mayor Levy: The only thing I would also add is that Comptroller Brad Lander was on NY1 last night on Inside City Hall and specifically talked about how the 30‑and 60‑day notices were an effective tool at managing our population and our care. So, even the comptroller agrees with the mayor on that he's doing the right thing here. Chancellor, there was a question to you about IBM?

Chancellor Banks: I don't think IBM played a role with us in the simulation. That's why we'll do this analysis. Perhaps they should have been, but we certainly expect for them to deliver on what we contract with them to do. We pay IBM a lot of money and the contracting services that we have and we expect for them to be able to deliver, whether they're part of a simulation or not. But we'll do all the post analysis.

But I do think it's very important to say to parents as well to just thanking the parents and the numbers are continuing to grow as we're sitting here, well over 925,000 families that are on. So, folks are in and active and engaged as we speak.

Question: So, that's an interesting, chancellor, you just said that IBM wasn't involved in those simulations in December. Why not? If they were going to be the ones that ultimately when it was a real situation like today, they would be the ones that would have to deal with this?

And looking ahead, is it a case of once a month? I think if you were watching Channel 7 at 5 yesterday, I suggested once a month do a drill, have this so that there's muscle memory, both, you know, the technology but also parents and students so that when they do have to do it, they're up to speed.

Chancellor Banks: Well, I certainly appreciate the suggestion and there are a number of suggestions that have been made and there's a number of things that we will have to do. The ultimate way if you want to be fully prepared is to have everybody stay home and do this because that's what remote learning actually looks like.

And I'm sure that parents would not be pleased if we had everybody stay home while we were doing drills. It's part of the reason why we tried to do it while we were actually in school, test it out as much as we possibly could. But we're going to look at all of it and try to figure out how we have our readiness level even higher the next time around. But certainly appreciate the comment.

Question: Hi, good afternoon. I wanted to ask, I guess it's a couple questions rolled into one. The first for Chancellor Banks. I know I had heard from some teachers earlier today that they could not take attendance. I guess maybe I already know the answer because you said there's more than 900,000 people logged on, but has that specific attendance tool been adjusted?

And I guess my second question is, you've been very critical of IBM. Would you look at perhaps pulling this contract going with another operator because this will be part of the school life going forward?

And then thirdly, I know months ago when we had that rainstorm and all the schools flooded and you got a lot of criticism for not closing schools, you said you were going to do a audit or analysis. Have you completed that analysis or audit and did that or the findings from that kind of play a role in the decision to make today remote for students?

Chancellor Banks: Well, I think working backwards, the decision around doing this ultimately is made collaboratively together with the mayor who was ultimately the one who makes the decision. I called the mayor early on to say my strong suggestion was that we close the schools given what the projections were, which at that time, anywhere from five to eight inches of snow and perhaps even more.

And so we've done a lot of analysis around, you know, what it would take for us to close the schools. Closing the schools affects everything in New York City. And so that is not a decision that is left to me singularly to do. And so we work on that collaboratively. There were a couple other questions. Did we get the other questions?

Mayor Adams: IBM, changing vendors.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Yes, changing vendors.

Chancellor Banks: You know, all of this will be done, all of this will be done as part of our analysis going forward. So, we don't have any definitive answers on that right now.

But I will tell you, I was extremely angry to hear this morning that they were not ready, and that was unacceptable to me. Completely unacceptable.

And it remains unacceptable even though we are in a much better place right now. So, there's a lot of work that we have to do in figuring out what we'll do going forward.

Deputy Mayor Levy: I think the last question was the...

Chancellor Banks: Yes, yes. So, attendance is still being taken all throughout the system. We never offer up attendance figures until much later in the day. Around 3:30 is when we generally have a solid sense of where we are and that might even be a little bit more delayed given the delay that we had in even getting folks on, but as soon as we have those numbers. But the preliminary data that we have suggest that our numbers are not off from what a normal day would be.

Question: Thank you. For the chancellor, I have a question for the chancellor, one for the mayor. I wanted to ask the chancellor, if there were communications beyond social media or beyond Twitter and Facebook, we heard from some parents that they were confused and a little concerned and they felt they weren't getting the communication they needed. So, I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about what other communication methods you use to reach parents this morning?

And then for the mayor, the City Council has authorized legal action on the FHEPS voucher and the veto that you issued that they overrode. I'm wondering if you've given any thoughts or had any communications with the Council on ways to sort of adjust that effort?

The argument from the council is that the voucher program will actually help issues like the migrant influx and move people into permanent housing more quickly. So, I'm wondering if you could give an update on that at all.

Mayor Adams: Yes, thank you, Jeff. The issue we're having is an inventory problem. We are at a historic housing shortage with over 10,000 households with vouchers. Think about that for a moment. 10,000 households have vouchers and then the shelter system unable to find a home.

And the cost of what the City Council is proposing will cost $17 billion. So, not only are we dealing with a cost factor, but we have a shortage of housing. So, you aggravate the problem when you're now going to give thousands of more people vouchers to compete with those who will have vouchers in their hands.

So, the way out of this is, number one, to build more, and that's what our City of Yes proposal is about, and that is what we are discussing with Albany right now. The governor gets it, I get it, we all get it and we don't want to aggravate a problem.

And then we look at the proposal, a person gets a letter stating that they are behind in their rent, now they're eligible for a voucher.

Listen, good intentions, you know, because we want to be as supportive as all New Yorkers as possible, but a real financial burden on the city and taxpayers' dollars, and it just does not address the issue that we have an inventory problem.

And as I've always stated, we're going to always follow the law, lawful law. We believe that their move was unlawful and it is up to the corporation counsel. We were not served with the lawsuit. Right now, they took the first steps towards it. And we look forward to speaking with them to see how we can resolve this issue.

Chancellor Banks: And I would just add to the first part of the question around comms. We put a statement out very early on letting folks know the challenges that we were facing, but the ongoing communication really flows more locally through schools and school principals.

And they send out e‑mails and various e‑blasts and a wide range of ways in which individual schools communicate with their school community. Not every level of communication is directly what is coming specifically from the chancellor, but school and parents know to be in contact with their principals at the school and the principals know to be in contact with their parents and families. And we've had that happening throughout the system.

Mayor Adams: And even – we should be clear – even if it was perfect with IBM doing what we expected them to do, there's a reason the word "glitch" is in the dictionary. I mean, there's no perfection to any of this. We've witnessed glitches all over the place.

You know, in the morning, I do an interview with many of your stations, and your stations tell me, hey, we have a glitch, we cannot hear you. The goal is to learn from what we do, get it right, and those vendors that we communicate with and that we have, they have to live up to the expectations that we expect.

And that's what the chancellor's saying, that's what I'm saying. But let's also take this moment as instructional and teaching moments. And I think that young man who stated the word perseverance, we need to really hear what he stated. And these children are teaching us that they're not ready to surrender as soon as they get to a bend in the road. That's not the end of the road. You just gotta make the turn. And that's what we did.

Chancellor Banks: We're up to 977,000 that are logged on as we speak.

Deputy Mayor Maria Torres‑Springer, Housing, Economic Development and Workforce: Mayor, if I could go back to the comment you made earlier about the city's inventory problem. I wanted to remind folks that we recently released the findings of our housing vacancy survey. Now, of course, the city has been in a housing emergency for way too long, but the results of that survey show that the crisis has deepened.

The vacancy rate in the city is 1.41 percent. That is the lowest it has been in the last six decades. We have households that are making less than 25,000, 86 percent of them are severely rent burdened, which means that they pay more than 50 percent of their income in rent. And essentially a functional zero vacancy rate for units that are $2,500 and less.

I say all of this to just remind everyone that while the housing crisis is deep and complex, we believe that it is solvable, and it's solvable if every level of government acts swiftly and with urgency. We are doing that on the city end with the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity proposal, which is the most pro‑housing and comprehensive proposal really ever seen in the city, with the five neighborhood plans that are advancing through the process, adding tens of thousands of new units, and the record‑breaking numbers of HPD in terms of units financed that are city subsidized.

But we cannot do that alone, and so, as the mayor mentioned, to tackle the inventory problem, to finally change the trajectory of our housing crisis, we need partners in Albany to ensure that we have the tools to increase supply in the city as well as partners in the federal government. government to make sure that we can expand the resources needed, again, to boost supply.

And so while these numbers are heartbreaking and staggering in terms of the housing vacancy survey, we know that there are some clear actions that we can take in order to finally bring relief to New Yorkers who really need it. And so we're encouraged by those discussions, and we'll continue to grind to get it done.

Deputy Mayor Levy: DM Maria, can you just repeat again the percentage of available housing that you just said?

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: 1.4 percent, that is the vacancy rate, a historic low in the last 60 years.

Deputy Mayor Levy: And just to be clear, that's affordable housing we're talking about?

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: That is all housing.

Deputy Mayor Levy: All housing!

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: All rental housing.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Which means affordable housing is less.

Deputy Mayor Torres‑Springer: That's correct. So, it's functionally zero for units that are, that rent at $2,500 or less. Just think about that. We should all let that sink in as New Yorkers, as people who have a stake and a role to play in ensuring that we turn the tide on this crisis.

We're resolute here at the city level. The mayor has ensured that we use every tool at our disposal to finally bring relief for New Yorkers. And it's time to make sure that every other level of government joins us in that mission with the same level of urgency.

First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright: And I just would also want to add in $17 billion of vouchers does not solve that problem. It's building more housing, which is what we're focused on.

Mayor Adams: Right. And that's such an important message, Jeff, that first deputy mayor mentioned, because you have over 10,000 vouchers out there and people are in shelters. Now you want to give additional vouchers to people who are in housing, they're in their apartments.

You want to give them vouchers to now compete with those who are in shelters when you have a basic zero affordable housing inventory. We got to really think this through. Idealism collides with realism all the time. The realism is we don't have the inventory.

Question: So, I've got a couple of questions for you. On this simulation part for Chancellor Bank and for you, Mr. Mayor. So, it's unclear to me, it sounds like the issue that you're having on doing simulations are kind of a bandwidth issue. So, what's preventing the city from simulating the kind of bandwidth issue we're having today prior to, right? I mean, I don't know if there are details you could get into how that would work, so I'm curious about that.

I'm also, you know, wondering if you're reconsidering the snow day policy in terms of giving kids off the day for snow days. I'm sure my kids would be interested in hearing how you answer that question.

And finally, you know, on this kind of thing Chancellor Banks was getting at in terms of IBM being at fault here. I mean, I guess this is for the chancellor and you, Mr. Mayor. I mean, what kind of example do you feel like you're setting for kids when, I mean, this is the city's responsibility, IBM's a contractor, what example are we setting when we're telling kids like, well, it's their fault?

Mayor Adams: No, I don't think we said that it was the fault of children. And you know, I'm fortunate that I met your children, and I'm not sure they want to stay home all day with you, you know... But seriously, we're not saying it's the children's fault.

Chancellor Banks: I don't think he was suggesting, Mr. Mayor...

Mayor Adams: Oh, IBM. IBM. I'm sorry.

Chancellor Banks: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Listen, the ultimate responsibility is the mayor of the City of New York. That's my ultimate responsibility. And we're going to do an analysis of what happened and we're going to identify what happened and we're going to put things in place to prevent them from happening again.

But listen, I'm a computer techie. I know that glitches happen. Some of the best ideas, they happen. And it is my responsibility as the mayor to identify what's wrong and make sure we rectify that. And that includes conversations with IBM, who is our vendor.

And IBM had a responsibility, the chancellor and the New York City Public Schools told them ahead of time of the volume. They should have been prepared, and their lack of preparation falls in the mayor of the City of New York.

It's my responsibility to deliver the service that we are expecting. And that is what we're saying. And part of that responsibility is to go back and revisit what IBM did wrong, and if there's something we can do better, we're gonna do better as well.

Ingrid Lewis-Martin, Chief Advisor to the Mayor: Yes, Mike, Mike. Oh, I'm sorry, chancellor. Mike, it's interesting to me because if we said that we were the ones totally at fault, we wouldn't be telling the truth. And part of our responsibility is to give accurate information.

The press is always yelling at us, you don't tell us the truth. You're not being accurate. You're being inaccurate. So, the chancellor explained to you clearly the issue rested with IBM not being able to handle the capacity, which they are contracted to do.

So, that was the reason for the malfunction.We're not blaming IBM, we're just explaining it was a malfunction and it was on the part of IBM. He also explained that he and his team, to their credit, went through lengths to try to prepare the students as best they could.

But hindsight is a perfect science. We realize now that perhaps maybe he'll do a weekend drill, he can get parents to opt in to doing a weekend drill on a Saturday. And he can let IBM know this Saturday for the next hour or so all of our students will sign on so that they can learn. But this is the perfect science, hindsight. But he did the best that he could, and IBM is at fault and that's just the reality of it.

Chancellor Banks: Let me just say the other thing on the snow day. A lot of reporters asked about the snow day. The reality is that in the years past, we had a number of extra days that we could kind of have, we could kind of play around with and use the snow days if it was necessary. We are by state law mandated to have at least 180 days of school in order for us to be in compliance and not be subjected to major fines. So, we have to get 180 days.

Over the last several years, we've added a number of other days to the school calendar: Diwali, great example, Lunar New Year, we have a number of these that have been added over the last decade that have been added to the school calendar, which are great because we are celebrating the diversity of our city.

But what has also happened is we have subsequently reduced the amount of available flexible days, if you will, days that if in fact it was a snow day, you could just have a snow day and everybody could just go outside and have fun. If we were to do that now, we would subject ourselves to not meeting the requisite number of days that we must meet for state law.

And that's what we have to be extremely careful with. That's one of the benefits of having the remote day. This is not a day off. It's a remote day. It's a different way of learning. It's still happening. We just had some challenges with it today, but we can't just tell everybody to take the day off.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Chancellor, so just to clarify, you're saying by law this had to be a remote day and not a snow day?

Chancellor Banks: Absolutely.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Great.

Question: Hi, hello, mayor, how are you?

Mayor Adams: Good.

Question: All right. So, my question is any idea how many, the percentage of the students they appeared in the class and how many students absent in the class?

Chancellor Banks: Well, we don't have the full numbers on the attendance just yet. So as we said, we get those generally later in the afternoon, we'll have official numbers that we'll be able to release. But we are now over 1 million users who are on. So, we are now over 1 million users who are on. That is a big deal.

Now, that includes all of our students as well as our staff who are on. But that's a big number, and that's a number that we were expecting would be our number if we had gotten this right from the very beginning. So, ultimately we were able to get where we needed to be, but we just got off to a rocky start.

Mayor Adams: Perseverance.

Chancellor Banks: Perseverance.

Question: Good afternoon. Thank you for scheduling this during my daughter's nap since I'm sitting home with her. Mr. Mayor, I just want to ask, so we're talking about here, our children needing to catch up because of remote learning during Covid.

So why is this method being used now, which is not as effective as in person? I know you're saying we need to hit this 180 days. It's obviously not mandated that we have to do it today, as Fabien just said, but we can make it up in the summer.

So, why not make it up after the school year like we've done, I did my entire life? And like what accounts for a full day here? Like how many hours do they need to log into to account for a full day?

And just to go over with IBM, you said IBM wasn't part of the simulation. So, what did you specifically have to do to prepare them for the surge of users today?

Mayor Adams: The chancellor will answer the second part. I'll answer the first part. Remote learning is a tool that has been introduced into our system and it is a well‑used tool. It's going to continue to have iterations. It's going to become better and better and better.

During Covid, I had so many remote interviews from many of you that are on this call right now, and many people are home working remotely. And so if it's good for us to do our everyday business, it's also good to help educate our children.

And then the chancellor had also lesson plans, had lesson materials that would also assist those students. And so remote learning is here to stay. It is not going away. It's here to stay. And some students actually achieve well on it. You know, some of the studies that I've read over some achieve even better on that independent style.

And so yes, when we were children, you know, we did things differently. But it's hard to believe we're no longer children. There's a whole new flock of children and they embrace technology. We've been using remote methods for mental health support, which has become extremely successful. Our children use their devices. They're not intimidated by the devices. They know how to use those devices. And we're going to continue to get a great iteration out of remote learning.

And I think the chancellor made the right decision. And we're going to continue to get it to the point that we know what remote learning is going to continue to improve on. Chancellor, you want to answer this?

Chancellor Banks: Yes, just one final thing I would just say. Listen, we did a lot of planning, and we're going to revisit that planning. But you know, Mike Tyson was known to say, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.

And so we got punched in the mouth, and we got knocked back, but we didn't get knocked down. And that's why we're over a million people that are on now. So, you take a hit, we've not had to do this in quite some time, and so you start to get ready.

So, there are a lot of suggestions that have come in. They will continue to come in that will help us with our preparedness for the next go around and we'll do better next time as well.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Chancellor, just to be clear, Craig's question was about just extending the school year later. To do that, that would require union contract negotiations, changing the camp schedule, all of that. There's a number of things that go into that. Can you talk about that a little bit, maybe?

Chancellor Banks: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Those are not, it's not as easy as simply saying, you know, just take this day and just add it later on. So you're right, those are all subject to union negotiations and the like, so there's a lot of complicated issues that involve when you started saying you're going to extend the year.

And it impacts families as well, so we don't take those things lightly. And so, and beyond what the mayor, you know, the mayor had said that the learning loss from Covid, but even if we didn't have learning loss, it's a day of school. It's a day of school.

And kids, we want our kids to be in school. And we are going to see, as we move further into the future, we're going to see remote learning playing an even bigger role. We're going to see it happening more often for a wide range of reasons, not simply snow days. There will be a lot of other things that are happening that will cause us to have to do this. And we'll get better every time that we do it.

Question: Hi. I was hoping, Mr. Mayor, you could respond to the CCRB report that came out yesterday that showed a pretty huge spike in civilian complaints against police officers last year in 2023. The number I think was more than 5,500 complaints, which is the most in a decade and 50 percent more than in the previous year.

Are you concerned about this trend? Do you think it has anything to do with, you know, the increases in stop and frisks that some of the street teams have been doing according to the federal monitor? And is there any kind of conversation you're going to have with the police commissioner about this increase in complaints?

Mayor Adams: We're going to analyze the report. I haven't had an opportunity to do so. I want to look at the report. We're going to identify if there are some officers who are not properly carrying out what the police commissioner expects and what I expect.

But we have to look through the report. And I believe that we can get the balance that we are looking for. We can have public safety and justice. Cops are extremely more engaging in the communities. As you know, we removed over 13,000, I believe, guns off our street. We continue to drive down crime.

And we want to make sure that we look at the report to see where these substantiated. Because there's a difference between a report and substantiation. And so I'm going to analyze the report and I'll have a conversation with the police commissioner, because we can have public safety and justice, they go together. That is what I have dedicated my life to doing, and we're going to continue to move in that direction.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, mayor. Before we go, Chief Kenny, do you want to give a little bit of an update on the situation last night up in the Bronx?

Chief Joseph Kenny, Chief of Detectives, Police Department: Yes, thank you. Good afternoon. So, I just want to start off by saying that last night's incident in the Bronx, this was a random shooting. I know when it initially started, there were some thoughts that possibly it was an active shooter scenario, but it was not. This was a random shooting that occurred on a Number 4 train between two rival groups.

So, yesterday at 4:37 p.m., we received multiple 911 calls at the Mt. Eden Jerome Avenue train station that we have shots fired and multiple people shot on a northbound Number 4 train. 44 Precinct personnel respond very quickly. There we discover five people shot at the scene, three up on the platform, two down on the street, and then later on we find that we have a walk‑in at BronxCare later on.

So, as far as our victims go, we have one male DOA at the scene, five non‑fatal shooting victims. We have two females shot. four males shot. The ages range from 14 years old to 71 years old. Everybody's removed to three area hospitals, St. Barnabas, BronxCare and Columbia Presbyterian.

All right. We have one male who's unfortunately one DOA. He's shot in the chest. He's a male, 35. We have a female, 14, shot in the foot. We have a male, 29, shot in the arm. We have a female, 29, shot in the face and neck. We have a male, 14, shot in the leg and ear, and we have a male, 71, years old shot in the thumb.

What our investigation reveals is that we have two groups known to each other. They get on the train. We have one group getting on the train at 125th Street in Manhattan. We have the other group getting on 161 Street in the Bronx near Yankee Stadium.

Once the groups come together on the train there's a verbal dispute that quickly leads to physical fight. As the train is pulling into the station at Mt. Eden, one round is fired inside of the train car. If you can imagine a chaotic scene, you have a crowded train pulling on to a crowded platform, one shot being fired, now everybody's trying to scramble to get off the platform.

At this time, we have 19 discharged 9‑millimeter shell casings. We have three shell casings on the subway car, we have shells on the platform as well as on the street. As of right now, we feel we have three shooters. We have one POI possibly identified from one group and we're still working to identify the other two.

The motive we believe for this incident is going to be gang-related between these two rival groups. We have a wanted flyer. And if anybody has any information, they can call 1‑800‑577‑TIPS. And that's where we are right now, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Chief Kenny, will we be able to get that photo out through DCPI?

Chief Kenny: The photo is already out. We did the request for media this morning.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Great. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: And we will solve this crime and we will bring the people responsible to justice.

I just wanted to sort of, there was an article on our new food program, and it reflected on, you know, that food is being wasted for the most part. If you were to look at, there's a couple of things I wanted to note about the article.

Go back to the previous screen? If you would look, you would see that those are fruits and vegetables and grains. The left bag is a bag of what looked like greenery, and the right... I mean, the left photo and the right photo is fruits and vegetables that you see, and the rice, it looks like brown rice or grain. It could be couscous as well.

Number one, our meal participation is actually up nine percent, and all students have multiple options every day so they can choose what they want to eat. And much of the food students don't eat, because we have a holistic approach of what the chancellor is doing, it goes into composting. Even the trays and the utensils is part of our, the culinary is part of our composting program.

And so this is not trash, it's composting. We'd rather it goes into the bodies of our children, but we're not wasting anything as we have a holistic approach of dealing with improving our environments as well.

And the chancellor has done some amazing stuff like the cafeterias are participating in programs like shared tables or food donation programs for any food that we can share with our neighbors.

But we have been clear this is not a vegan initiative, this is a healthy initiative. Our children are dealing with real healthcare crises in the city. And we are being extremely bold and forward thinking that we're not going to dictate to parents what they feed their children at home.

But taxpayers' dollars can't feed healthcare crises. I've never heard a doctor say, make sure your child or an adult get their daily dose of pizza and Chicken McNuggets. That's not what they say.

If you go to the next screen? Here's the food plate: fruits and vegetables, 50 percent of the meal, grains, 75 percent of the meal. That's what that picture showed. We are in alignment with the recommendations that are being made on how to turn around some of these healthcare crises that we are facing. Dr. Vasan put a major initiative in place of how do we improve the life expectancy rates and how do we improve the health of our children?

Go to the next slide? Diet and academic performance. This is what the chancellor is focusing on. He talks about the entire child and not just a one‑dimensional approach. And the full focus of what the chancellor is doing around meditation, breathing, eating, academics.

Good food and good nutrition, schools are in a unique position to provide students with opportunities to learn about and practice healthy eating behaviors. If they don't get it from schools, many of these students never get healthy eating habits.

Eating a healthy breakfast is associated with improved cognitive function, especially memory, reduced absenteeism and improved mood. This is the CDC, you know? And adequate hydration may also improve cognitive function as well.

A child stopped me in the school the other day, we were talking about making sure you get in your eight glasses of water. He says, all I drink is soda, I don't even drink water.

We can't stay on this path. And the bold initiatives we're doing is to say we are going to make sure our children get a healthy start not only mentally but physically and emotionally. That is what this chancellor has done. And the plate that I show when I say 75 percent, that is the fruits, the vegetables and grains to combine is 75 percent of what our children should get.

And that is what we saw in that bag. That bag should go into the bodies of the children, but if it doesn't, it's going into our overall plan of composting a holistic approach. And so I know people like to say, let our children eat whatever they want. That is what they do at home.

In schools, in hospitals, in ACS, all of these places that we feed people, we have an obligation not to feed the healthcare crisis. And it's a bold initiative, and hats off to the chancellor and our office of school foods and our entire team of willing to take this huge step forward in creating healthy environments for our children. I just wanted to share that. Thank you.

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you all for joining us today. Be safe today.