Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on FOX5's "Good Day New York"

April 12, 2024

Curt Menefee: New York is getting a new soccer stadium and a whole lot more. The City Council gave the go-ahead to build the city's first standalone soccer stadium in Willets Point's Queens. It's part of a major redevelopment plan that also includes affordable housing, retail and open space. 

Rosanna Scotto: All right, joining us this morning from Gracie Mansion, Mayor Eric Adams and the deputy mayor for Housing, Economic Development and Workforce, Maria Torres-Springer. Nice to have you both here. Mayor, I think the headline is you and the City Council actually agreed on something. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Listen, more than what we realize, oftentimes is profile and the media, the things we disagree on. When you do an analysis of what Adrienne Adams, the speaker, and the council members and what this administration has done, we've landed the budget plan two years in a row. We're going to do it again. We get some real stuff done. Yes, we're going to disagree. We're supposed to. That's what government is. They have been a great partner. We were able to deliver this amazing project up for New York City. 

Scotto: Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer, can you tell us how New Yorkers will really feel the benefits of this? 

Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce: This is a generational project. We're going to bring not just a new soccer stadium so that the world's game finds a home in the world's borough, but 2,500 new affordable homes. 

We're also going to build new parks, a new school, new retail, a hotel. It's important. We're remediating 200,000 tons of contaminated soil, actually. We're building a whole new neighborhood that will deliver not just new homes, but 15,000 construction and permanent jobs to clean. It's a huge win, not just for the area, but for really every New Yorker. 

Mayor Adams: We've been trying to do it for years, guys, ladies. We've been trying to do this for years. Hats off to Bloomberg's administration, de Blasio's administration. But we're known as the finisher. We are able to go in and look at these long visions and actually make them final in the days to come. This is one of them. 

Menefee: Let me ask you one question about the financing, because $800 million privately financed, from our understanding, but the city comptroller says that you left $500 million on the table by leasing the land instead of selling the land.

Deputy Mayor Torres-Springer: We disagree, and we disagree because the facts don't lie. Here's what I think we should focus on. Not just the $800 million of private investment to build that stadium, but $6 billion in economic output right over the course of the next 30 years because of all the jobs that will be there and the 15,000 construction and permanent jobs. 

So, the numbers speak for themselves. But really, this is about making good on decades worth of promises for the people of Queens, where we're helping solve the affordable housing crisis. We're doing in every part of the city, making sure that we think about and advance projects that really make a dent in the housing crisis this city is facing. 

Mayor Adams: Part of the problem is this. Some of us view life half empty, others view half full. I'm a half full guy. We're doing our thing, We know we got those naysayers on the sidelines. They've never been on the field, on a pitch, kicking and winning goals. We're winning goals. We got a goal here today. Those who want to rain on our parade, listen, they're going to be at our parade when we bring the World Cup in here and we get a soccer stadium here in 2027. 

Menefee: I'm with you on that half full versus half empty thing. Mayor, you started off by saying you and the City Council actually have a good relationship. One of the things, though, that's come to the forefront here lately is the new requirement that all elected officials have to fill out a form in order to talk to senior staff members and commissioners there in City Hall. The City Council has really pushed back on this. What's your take on this and why are you doing this right now? 

Mayor Adams: It's untrue. You don't have to fill out a form to speak with my senior leadership. They do all the time. Form calls are exchanged, emergency interactions are exchanged. This is when you want to coordinate a meeting. This is when you want the leadership to come into your district. 

We want to make sure that if an assembly person is asking and a council person is asking a senator, we want to coordinate it all together. We found that we have not been coordinated and maximizing our resources. This is a way to do so. The same form I have been using for 10 years. People stop me on the street and say, president, and now, mayor, I want to meet with you. I give you a link. You fill it out. It is evaluated and we and we make it happen. 

Scotto: But mayor, the City Council, the City Council. 

Mayor Adams: One more thing that's important. Every level of government, congressional, state and city are filling out the form.

Scotto: But why is the City Council coming out and saying that this is cumbersome, that it's retribution, because you were angry when they required the Police Department to fill out all these new forms. You said it was going to be cumbersome for the for the Police Department. Now there's this new, edict for the City Council to do it. 

Mayor Adams: It's not new, as I stated. 

Scotto: But is it cumbersome? They're saying it's cumbersome and that it's retribution.

Mayor Adams: There's a little irony in that. Filling out a few questions to state so we can better collaborate and organize how we want to deliver service to our city. I don't want my deputy mayors and my commissioners and other individuals of being duplicative as we try to get the job done in this in the city. 

This is not cumbersome. If New York is doing when they meet with me for 10 years, it has been successful. While mayor, I have sat down and communicated and inquired thousands of people, almost 25,000 as borough president. We did it in an organized way. After two years in office, I realized we have to coordinate this stuff better. Trust me, they're already filling it out. Congressional members have filled it out. Assembly members, state lawmakers have filled it out. Council members have filled it out because they know this is the best way to get stuff done. 

Scotto: Can we talk about e-bike safety? They came to your steps of City Hall where you work yesterday. There's a growing chorus in New York. People are very concerned about their safety. D.O.T. is talking about widening the bike lanes. That's not the problem. The problem is that these people are going fast on these e-bikes and they're hitting people who are crossing the street, sometimes in the crosswalk.

Mayor Adams: Rosanna, I am not the choir. I wrote the song. We need to organize and rethink our streets and really lean in. We have removed thousands of illegal motorcycles, mopeds, three wheelers, these electric bikes. We have removed them off our streets, some that are not being used correctly. You should not be riding these devices on our sidewalks or running the lights. 

So we have really cramped down on it, hats off to the NYPD. Now it's up to the City Council to collaborate with the state to look at everything from licenses to how we want to stop the sale of some of these bikes from coming in. I'm with the public. I am tired of seeing them being disrupted. I gave an edict to the commissioner who has been implementing it. We have removed thousands from off our streets. We need our lawmakers also to chime in. 

Scotto: I actually saw police actually pulling somebody over on an e-bike going too fast without any kind of registration on it. But I'm just saying we don't need wider bike lanes. They're not using the bike lanes. They're going fast in the bike lanes. They're going faster than cars.

Mayor Adams: And we need and we need enforcement. That's what we're doing. There's something a lot of people don't realize. Many of these bikes are being used in illegal crimes. 

We're finding people carrying guns, doing robberies, and using them as escape tools. We have been taking a real proactive approach. But now we need to look at the stop of sales, making sure that we don't even have the illegal batteries that are causing some of the fires. There's a combined effort that all of us must come together and resolve. 

Menefee: All right, mayor. We're out of time, actually. I didn't even get to bring up rats and contraception. 

Scotto: Rats and contraceptives? Okay, all right.

Menefee: That's what we're doing, right? 

Scotto: That's for another day. 

Menefee: All right. We appreciate you taking the time to join us, Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer. Thank you so much.