Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds In-Person Media Availability

April 30, 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. Thank you all for joining us for our weekly in-person media availability. As the mayor often says, New York City is not coming back, we are back. Our administration is laser-focused on protecting public safety, rebuilding our economy, and making our city more livable. 

The perfect example of how we're doing all three is through our executive budget that invest in the working-class people who make this the greatest city in the world. These efforts span our entire administration, which is why the mayor has once again convened senior leadership from across the city government to discuss the work that we are doing every day for New Yorkers. 

Joining us today are 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 Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, Deputy Mayor for Housing Economic Development and Workforce Maria Torres-Springer, Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, Deputy Mayor for Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar, Chief Counsel Lisa Zornberg, and Director of Intergovernmental Affairs Tiffany Raspberry. Without further delay, I'm pleased to turn it over to Mayor Adams. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks. Thanks so much, Fabien. We are always clear. Our message came into office two years and four months ago with a clear mission: protect public safety, rebuild our economy, and make the city more livable for all New Yorkers in general, but specifically, working-class people. Don't just listen to me, don't take my word for it, just look at what The San Francisco Chronicle has stated. 

Last week, they wrote, "With world-famous nightlife, a robust dating scene, and a thriving tech community, it, being New York City, seemed the ideal spot for someone like Gupta. A recent study found that tech workers who leave the Bay Area are most likely to move to New York. Now flush with wealthy investors, companies big and small, and thousands of Bay Area defectors, New York has cemented itself as the nation's number 2 tech hub." Not only are you coming here to meet a new boss, but you come here you can meet your boo. 

The numbers don't lie, keep showing you guys these shots over and over again. You want to write the narrative that New York is not winning. Look at the graph on public safety, safest big city in America. Big Apple gets bigger. Look at the close second. Some are decreasing. Look on the bottom. Look at that. The bars don't lie, folks. 

That's why I'm so optimistic every day. We're not coming back. We're back. Bigger, better, and stronger than ever. This is an amazing, amazing job by this team that comes up here every day. Three things overshadow; recidivism, those who are dealing with severe mental health issues, and the third is random acts of violence. You move that off the table, the numbers will start coming clearer. Really good job, good work. Marsha, you should do a special on this. 

Really exciting what we're seeing. The Big Apple is doing well, but public safety is also the prerequisite of prosperity. While crime is going down across the city, we are laser-focused on keeping New Yorkers safe. We see a lot of hate today, and unfortunately, we have seen a rise in hate crimes across the city. It's something that we're focused on, and we're seeing this across the nation. That, coupled with the way our children are being influenced by social media, it is having a major impact on the spread of hate across this entire country, if not the globe. 

One place where we have an opportunity to stop that hate from growing is our public schools. Chancellor Banks has really focused on this, this morning. We announced the release of a new curriculum of public schools to teach students from grades 6 to 12, a very important time in their lives, about hate crimes and bias incidents, as well as the impact hate has on individuals and communities. The curriculum is called Teaching About Hate Crime and Their Impacts. Historically, I don't ever remember that we have focused on teaching our children these very complicated topics that are playing outside of the ABCs and 1-2-3. 

We have to start using these environments where our students are to develop their full personhood, and how they live together is so important. Not only academically smart but emotionally intelligent. This is important. The goal is to provide training for educators and help them develop their lessons to stamp out hate. In recent weeks, we have seen so much vile antisemitism. We've seen islamophobia, anti-Sikhism. We've seen attacks on LGBTQ+ community of hateful terminologies. The goal is to be clear that there's no room for hate, and it starts with our young people. 

This curriculum is important and we need to educate these young people. We need to meet this moment as their brains are still developing as they are learning and approaching young adulthood and as they are being bombarded with so many terrible messages on social media and even as we move through our streets. It includes five lessons that empower educators to enrich students' understanding of diversity, sharpen critical thinking skills, enforce a culture of increased civic engagement. 

Students will learn to identify motives and behaviors which are so important that cause hate crime, examine the impacts of current hate crime trends on communities, and design initiatives that promote inclusion, conclusion, and collective action. These children are ready. They're ready to engage in this conversation and move us in the right direction. This is important work and we're not only educating our students in a holistic manner but also teaching them the dangers and influences that are susceptible to giving them the tools and skills to identify and address. Identifying the problem, solving the problem. 

The economy, we announced yesterday, First Deputy Mayor Wright and I were out at York College. We are really excited when you look at one of the issues we had to lean into back when we took office was Black unemployment. The numbers were dismal. For the first time, we are seeing Black unemployment go below 8 percent. This is the first time since 2019. We are rebuilding our economy and it starts with jobs, over 4.7 million jobs. More jobs in the history of the city. We need another bar for that, also, by the way. I don't have Katie here, so someone else can join me. Oh, here is Katie. 

Ingrid Lewis‑Martin, Chief Advisor to the Mayor: Katie is right here. 

Mayor Adams: Why are you hiding? You're normally in the front row. That's Menashe. Menashe does that. My dear friend Katie, crime is down and jobs are up. By the time the year's over, you're going to be quoting that well with me.  

In all seriousness, our economy is recovering and it has been moving in the right direction, but it has not been equitable. That's why we lean into the issue around Black unemployment rate. We have lowered the Black unemployment rate citywide by 26 percent since coming into office. It is now at its lowest level since 2019. We know we have still more to do, but we know we're trending in the right direction. We announced an initiative that really is an urban way of attracting the people to the jobs that are available in the city because we have thousands of jobs that are available. 

I was with J.P. Morgan this morning with Jamie Diamond to talk about internship and employment. We have this amazing new ad campaign going out, Run This Town, an advertising campaign to connect New Yorkers to jobs. We're going to show a part of that video? 

[Video plays.] 

Mayor Adams: You're going to be seeing this video everywhere. Pretty soon you're going to see ads on buses throughout the entire city. It's about reaching New Yorkers where they are with our hiring halls, which is really local. This campaign is really an invitation challenge to New Yorkers to be part of the community. You can't complain about it. We have to be about it, about delivering the goods and services to our city. We're going to couple this with our Jobs NYC initiative and our hiring halls. 

This new campaign will more easily bring the public and private sectors together. We're not only focusing on private-sector job, we're going to be focusing on public-sector jobs as well. Thank you. Say hello to everyone out there. 

Livability, as always, in order to make the city more livable, to actually be able to afford to live here, yesterday we formally kicked off a public review of City of Yes. A little bit of housing built throughout the entire city. It has to happen. It is so important. We were really happy to have Shams DaBaron with us. These zoning changes are another two for us to address a citywide housing crisis. 1.4 percent vacancy rate. We said it over and over again. We want to build a little bit more. 

When you think about it, 59 community boards, folks, 59 community boards throughout these community districts in New York City, and in 2023, 10 of those community districts built as much housing as the rest of the 49 combined. That's just unbelievable when you think about it. It's a city-wide effort of saying, "Yes in my backyard, yes on my block, yes in my community." We can't just chant, "Housing is a right." We have to participate in it, but this is our city, and it must be a city-wide initiative. That's how we're going to make our city more livable. 

It takes many forms, but one critical way is by improving health in our communities. 80 percent of New Yorkers get one package delivered per week. That's more than six million people. Almost one in five New Yorkers get four or more packages per week. 90 percent of everything New Yorkers receive arrives by truck. That's a lot of packages. It's a lot of trucks, and we know we have to do a better job in monitoring this. 

The Department of Transportation last week announced that it's allocating $6 million to an off-hour delivery program to provide financial incentives for businesses to shift deliveries to the off-peak hours of 7:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.. Truck deliveries during daytime business hours contribute to traffic, increase carbon emissions, and greater safety risk for pedestrians, cyclists, and others. By providing financial incentives for businesses to shift these deliveries they receive to off-peak hours, trucks will spend less time in traffic. You see them all the time. 

This is a very important initiative. Hats off to Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez for doing so. We're not trading one problem for another. We're going to make sure this doesn't bring extra noise, and we're never going to compromise our safety. The financial incentives include the installation of low-noise equipment for delivery vehicles, building security retrofits to enable unattended deliveries, and safety equipment, et cetera. 

Lastly, it's going to allow us to shift 62,000 daily trucks to off-hours deliveries by 2040. Really good stuff. New Yorkers have a voice, and last, livability, and then we open up to question. Starting May 1st and through June 12th, all New York City residents, 11 years or older, regardless of immigration status, can vote in the People's Money, our city-wide Participatory Budgeting program. I was the first borough president to do participatory budgeting when I was a borough president. We are allocating $3.5 million of city funds available, and New Yorkers can decide on their favorite projects by visiting participate.nyc.gov. 

Last year, this program funded 46 projects in your communities, including violence prevention, job training, and community gardens. We have 8.3 million New Yorkers, and they're going to give us 35 million opinions because that's how we do it in New York, and now that we are going to hear the opinions from our journalists, I turn it back over to you, Fabien. 

Deputy Mayor Levy: Thank you, mayor. Let's go. 

Question: Oh, I have two questions, that's a surprise. The first one is this. In December, you said that if you were given the authority to close down illegal pot shops, you could close them all down within 30 days. Now the legislature has given you your wish. You now have the authority to close down the illegal pot shops. It's April 30th, I'm wondering if you can have them all closed down by May 30th, which would be 30 days, or what is the plan? 

Mayor Adams: Here's the plan. A great plan, ideally, we would've loved to have the police department not have to be deputized, but they have to be deputized. Now that the law passed as a procedure to actually make it implemented after they sign a bill in Albany, the governor signs the bill, now there are steps we have to do here also, and I was just educated on all the steps we have to do. 

While this is taking place, the team has already identified the locations, we already have our operations in place, and what we want to do in addition to that, after we close a shop, they have to get a hearing within five days. We have to make sure we have the infrastructure within OATH to manage those hearings, so we don't have a run on our hearing process, but we have the infrastructure in place. The PD's on board, Deputy Mayor Banks has been a team leader on this with the sheriffs, so you're going to see an operation of finally going after these illegal shops. 

Question: What's the date? Can you do it in 30 days? 

Mayor Adams: We are going to make a substantial dent in 30 days. 

Question: My second question has to do with the hate crime education plan that you just announced, and I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the demonstrations we're seeing on the college campus of Columbia, NYU, that have been spewing a lot of hate, and what's been in the atmosphere, what's being heard all around the city is driving your concern to try to get the minds of students before they get into the same pattern that you're now seeing on college campuses, and how does this relate to what we're seeing at Columbia, what we're seeing at NYU, Pratt, other colleges? 

Mayor Adams: I like that. That's a good question. We used to do this in the police department, we used to police in the ideal and not the real. We didn't create what was in the cities that we were policing, and we were almost ashamed to talk about those things. We never talked about hate crimes when I went to school. We didn't talk about it even in college. We have to start being honest with ourselves that our children are coming into a different environment. 

During those young impressionable years, they may sit in the classroom with someone that wears a yarmulke, a hijab, a turban. We try to ignore it and don't act like this is a reality. What we are hoping to do in the Department of Education under the leadership of Chancellor Banks is to take a different approach. Let's be honest about these conversations. By the time these children graduate, they're not looking down on each other. They are going to have a different approach to it. 

That's what we're hoping to do. We force a real dialogue. Something that has not been done in schools in our city and I don't know even if in our country. We want to act like these isms don't exist. We want to act like everything is a wonderful world, and it's just not. It's shades of gray. 

Question: Really, how do you deal with it? Social media seems to have made it acceptable, that's a terrible word, but have made it acceptable to spew hate. When you have kids who see social media all the time, how do you counteract that and how do you tell them it's not acceptable to hate, that what you should do is respect people for their differences? 

Mayor Adams: Now, think about it for a moment. Look at the holistic approach we have been saying. What you're seeing right now is the materializing of what this administration has been talking about. People were saying, "Why y'all going after social media? Why y'all demanding that they stop feeding poison to our children? Why are y'all putting breathing exercises in schools so children can manage their emotion? Why y'all holding Breaking Bread, Building Bonds almost four years ago so that people can learn to appreciate diversity?" 

Now you're seeing all the things that Eric was talking about, this hippie approach to life that people used to say, we are broken in so many places. What we have been doing as an administration is not to ignore that. We saw this building up for years. When you do an analysis of all of these initiatives – when Ingrid and I were talking about Breaking Bread, Building Bonds in Borough Hall, of having different groups come together and sit around and talk to each other, we live in a diverse city, but we are isolated. Now that isolation has become a weapon against us. 

The goal is to fight social media, what they're doing to our children. The goal is to continue to do very creative ways such as our faith-based initiatives, our Breaking Bread, Building Bonds, to teach in our schools about diversity. We know we have to build this from the ground up, and now folks are starting to see this is what this mayor was talking about. If we allow this to get out of control, we're going to reach the moment that we're in right now across the country. 

Deputy Mayor Levy: Marcia, I would just add first to the question that you asked, no, hate is not acceptable ever, but we've already been underway on this hate crimes curriculum. About 900 middle school and high school principals have been already trained on this, we're going to continue to do that, and then the principals and assistant principals or vice principals are going to train their teachers to do the same. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, how are you doing? 

Mayor Adams: Good, how are you? 

Question: Good. I have two questions for you about the situation at Columbia. You talked about this a lot in recent days and you've said that university leadership has not asked the NYPD to be on campus, but there was an asterisk and they wanted officers around the perimeter. My first question is, could you tell us a little bit about the thought process behind that? Is the idea to have police officers there as a standby in case something escalates quickly?  

My second question is, are there any updates about the students who occupied the building overnight? Has that changed the NYPD's involvement now that they're barricaded in this structure there? If you have any updates for us on that. 

Mayor Eric Adams: You said the thought process behind the police department or the schools? 

Question: Well, I guess both. You guys seem like you're working together on this to some extent. 

Mayor Adams: Last week Camille had a meeting with all of the presidents and we communicated with them as well. This is a challenging moment for presidents and I am not trying to make it appear as though they don't want to create an environment where children can be educated and also respect the tradition of peaceful protests on our college stages. 

I think many of us here in our collegiate years protested. I know I protested for South Africa and apartheid. I know all of us experienced – I protested with Amadou Diallo. When I was at New York City Technical College, I participated in protests. I participated in protests in John Jay College. This is a very challenging moment for them, but it's also a teaching moment. 

Our college campuses cannot be used to a call for the extermination of any group. Some of the terminologies that were used were just really harmful and despicable. That's not who we are as a country. You can't call for peace by using violence. That's not acceptable. I believe it's imperative that we continue to coordinate with our presidents. We're going to respect their right to determine when they want police involvement. When they ask us, we're going to carry out the necessary exercises with a minimum amount of force to not in any way harm faculty or students or law enforcement personnel. 

It was unfortunate what happened at NYU that people were throwing bottles and chairs. Thank God those officers had on helmets to protect themselves. It's the right balance. What was playing out with taking over buildings, you have to be very careful because it could continue to elevate, and we cannot allow the elevation of actions like that. The police department is going to brief me later. We're going to communicate with Columbia and make the determination on what the next steps are that we're going to institute. 

Question: The police presence at the entrances to the university and outside, is that more coming from you? We just want to have the police there just in case or is that coming more from the university saying, "We want you to be outside but not inside."? 

Mayor Adams: Universities. They asked us to come into all the entry points to monitor that. I've said this over and over again, you will be surprised how many people that are on these grounds don't attend the schools. The unwillingness to show ID, they are folks who are coming in and just really, I believe, that they are coming in and they are hijacked in almost this entire operation. Police have to protect the streets. The entry to the school is on the streets, and it's important to protect the streets, protect the passes, the right of way, students who are going to the school. 

Now, you may have 500 people who are protesting, but you have thousands of students that are just trying to pass the final. They just want to get into school and pass the final. We cannot allow them not to be able to continue to do their job. In this city, you can have a duality. People can protest, but the city can still function. They should be able to function without intimidation, without violence, without attacks. 

When you do an analysis, this police department, out of those 500-something protests, you're not seeing people injured. You're seeing police managing the balance of the right to protest and the right for people to go on with their lives. It may not be illegal to say some of the things that we've heard, but I think it's immoral. We should not remain silent because there's no room for hate in the city. 

Question: On that issue with just – Sorry about that. 

[Crosstalk.] 

Mayor Adams: It's all good. 

Question: Chris Glorioso, NBC. On that issue of balancing legitimate expression, political expression, descent, and also trying to make sure we don't have hate environments, what is your estimation? How much of these demonstrations at NYU and Columbia are characterized by hate? How much of them are characterized by legitimate expressions of dissent? 

Mayor Adams: I don't have the exact numbers, and I would be wrong if I were to tell you 50/50, 40/60, I don't know. I do know when we do an observation, there's some familiar faces that we have witnessed in many protests. I'm sure if you were to quiz them, what is it about? They probably don't even know. I don't know. I think there are concerns on both sides of this issue. 

People have a right to display their concerns, but it should never reach the point of violence. It should never reach the point of hate. The violence we can handle due to the legality of it. The hateful terminology, I think protestors should police themselves and say, "This is not what we stand for, this is not what we are about." I'm not seeing enough of that. 

Question: Thank you. Didn't realize there was a fellow Chris. Mr. Mayor, Hassan Naveed, your former executive director of Hate Crimes Prevention, was fired last month. He was not given a reason, he's telling us. I'm wondering if you can share the reason of why he was fired and who ultimately made the call to fire him. Your press office actually put out a statement saying he had put himself before fighting hate crimes. I'm wondering if you can also clarify what exactly that means. 

Just on two other topics, with Arva Rice, the interim chair of the CCRB, we reported last week that Deputy Mayor Phil Banks has been pushing for her ouster since last summer, including introducing a person who was never appointed to the board as her replacement. I'm wondering, were you aware of what DM Banks was doing there, and did you support his activities?  

Just to follow up on Marcia's question too about the weed shops, when does that 30-day clock start? 

Mayor Adams: It started a year ago. I always wanted them closed down. Now we have the tools, we have the authority, and we're going to start kicking into place. On the 31st day, don't be standing in front of City Hall saying, "Hey, I saw a weed shop," because they're going to continue to open. We have to continue to close them. We have the tools now, when they pop up, we can close them. That's the tool we needed and we are going to execute that plan, and we're going to become a model for the rest of the country that's dealing with this. 

New Yorkers asked for this. We fought for it. We got it, but trust me when I tell you there will be those that even when we close them, they're going to try to find a loophole to open them again. Our goal is to say, "Give us a tool." Thanks for what Tiffany did, Ingrid, Diane, going up and we have the tools, so we're going to execute. 

To speak about Arva, Arva was an interim. She was acting. Everybody keep, they forget that she was acting, she was not appointed as the chair, she was acting. For two years, it remained acting. All of my DMs come give me advice, but the buck stops with the mayor. She was acting, she could stay on the board. I'm lost that people don't see that the mayor should appoint who he wants to be his chair. That's baffling to me. 

These are not lifetime positions. You don't stay there forever. "Great job, good job. We want you to stay on the board and continue to give input." She has been great with the Urban League. She has good advice. We want you to be there. I want my chair. You've acted, you held it down for us for two years, but now this is an acting position. No one is forcing anyone out. It's about, do you want someone that's going to be your choice? Should it ever be a permanent chair? I'm lost on that. 

She was in an acting capacity. She did a great job. She stood up in her acting capacity. Now we need a permanent chair, so we could deal with the issues on CCRB. We're seeing an increase in hate crime. You are given a responsibility in a role, you're in charge of hate crimes. I'm seeing an increase in hate crime, so to believe that you're fired because you're Muslim, as many Muslim staffers that I have, and I can't go into the details of it because there's a lawsuit. Let the lawyers figure it out. People have to live up to what they're hired to do. Taxpayers deserve that. 

Question: With Ms. Rice, I'm just curious, is it performance-related that you want to replace her – 

[Crosstalk.] 

Mayor Adams: I wanted my chair that I appointed. The previous chair that was acting did a good job in the acting capacity, they did a good job in an acting capacity, but when you come into an administration – two years, this wasn't immediate. You come into an administration, you then, look, all the boards, all of these deputy mayors up here, they have a portfolio of boards. They're looking over all the boards and they're making the determination. Those who are holdovers, they're making the determination on who they want new chairs. 

We appointed many new chairs. This is what all these deputy mayors are looking over and doing and making that determination. We wanted a permanent chair, and that's what we've done. She can still remain on the board. 

Question: Hi. Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor Adams: How are you? 

Question: I'm well, sir. How are you? 

Mayor Adams: Good. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, I want to pivot back to a few months ago and Executive Director Jacques Jiha was here when I asked you about the assistant school safety agent positions. Now I've learned that you, the city, has gotten the okay to create the title and hire 400 assistant school safety agents. There's a DCAS hearing next week, May 8th. It's on the DCAS website. Mr. Mayor, with this assistant school safety agent, it's 18 to 21-year-olds, which is wonderful. It's union job, union benefits, 237. 

My question is, I see we have the jobs town hall going on, but is there going to be any collaboration between, say, for example, Deputy Mayor Almanzar and the Department of Education, Chancellor Banks, and his team to get this information out to our rising 18-year-olds and also our young people in the extended education programs that we have to let them know that "Here is this opportunity, it's brand new, it's 400 jobs for our youth, 18 to 21," and get this information out to them that this is a start, like that ad says? Because the ground floor is just the beginning. This is the ground floor for our 18 to 21-year-olds, and it's also addressing our school safety agents shortages in the schools. 

Mayor Adams: Well said. 

Question: Is there going to be a collaboration and how are we getting this information out to our communities and our youth? 400 jobs for 18 year olds. 

Mayor Adams: Well said. Number one, we were big on [inaudible]. A lot of people talk about removing school safety agents out of schools. I was very clear on the campaign trail. That's not going to happen. Yes, ma'am. DM Almanzar, we have been doing just that. Everything from flyers at train stations, partnering with our local electors, doing the hiring halls, making sure that our faith-based community is involved in it. Exactly what you're saying. Far too often good jobs remained vacant because no one was going on the ground communicating directly with them. 

Commissioner Pennock over at DCAS really partnered with DC 37 to really put in place hiring halls in the box has been a real win for us. We're going to do just that, let young folks know about this job as a school safety agent. 

First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright: If I could just also add, the Career Pathways is a big priority of the administration under the mayor and the chancellor. I have been making those direct connections with employers. One other thing I just want to note is that the chancellor was a school safety agent. You start at the bottom, now you're here. We certainly believe in that career trajectory. I do just want to clarify one thing as it relates to cannabis. The law was passed, but then rules have to be enacted before we can do anything. That's still in process. It doesn't happen overnight, but we're ready to go. 

Mayor Adams: Yes, well said. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wanted to follow up on Chris's question. Did you specifically speak to Arva Rice that it wasn't a performance thing that you wanted specifically to appoint your own chair? 

I also wanted to go back to the corporation counsel. I wanted to know, has she submitted a letter of resignation to your office at all or indicated that she's resigning from that position? You floated the idea that you are potentially looking at somebody else, and when is that effective? 

Mayor Adams: Thank you. I don't go into private conversations. We all know that. Personnel decisions are decisions I make with this team that's sitting up here. 

Question: Has the judge submitted a letter of resignation? 

Mayor Adams: I don't go into private conversation and into office interactions. This team up here makes the determinations. 

Question: Two questions. 

Mayor Adams: How are you? 

Question: Good. Two questions. One local, the Tony Di Napoli swimming pool in Greenwich Village, it closed down temporarily in 2019. Still is not open now, and it's not going to open in 2024. What's going on there? When's that swimming pool going to open? It's on – 

Mayor Adams: Okay, Meera. 

Deputy Mayor Meera Joshi, Operations: Hi. I might have turned this off instead of on. I apologize. Yes, that is a building and the pool facility that needs renovations and upgrades. It is one of the high priorities on the park's capital projects list. We're going through several scenarios to ensure that we can make the best investment for the neighborhood to bring the maximum amount of recreation space, as well as being able to do it in a cost-effective manner. 

Question: The other question is, the $58 million that was cut from the libraries on the budget cuts, you've restored a lot of agencies' funding. Libraries, as far as I know, have not been restored. Is there any plan to restore them and have them being able to be opened on Sundays, which now no one can? 

Mayor Adams: It's very important. The administration did not determine that library should close Saturdays and Sundays. Everyone was given instructions to find efficiencies, they determined how. That's number one. 

Number two, the budget dance and music is still playing. Let's allow it to finish before we do a full evaluation. Speaker Adams and I have successfully landed two budgets through some very difficult times, and we're going to continue to do so. We know how important libraries are. I used them a lot when I was in school, we got it. That's why we were extremely understanding during the PEGs in January, there was no PEG in April, no efficiency challenge for them as well. Let's let the speaker and the mayor and their team finish moving forward on this. 

Question: The libraries will be reopening? 

Mayor Adams: In New York City, we click our heels together and we know everything is possible. This is where dreams are made in the great city of New York. 

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor Adams: How are you? 

Question: Good. I'm going to also ask you about the protests. 

Mayor Adams: Okay. 

Question: Have you had conversations with the governor about the National Guard? That's my first question. What is your opinion on whether or not she should consider bringing them in if things continue to escalate?  

My second question is on the NYPD and social media, in particular, Chief Chell. I know originally, you said that you are supportive of them using social media to fight back against what they think is biased, unfair, or inaccurate reporting. 

Around the protests, Chief Chell has also been opining on the character of the students. I'm going to read something that he wrote recently, "Actions have consequences. No more suspensions. Let's try expulsion of these entitled hateful students. Pack your belongings and get up. Let's remove faculty and staff who have replaced their educational licenses for a license of hate, you're fired." 

I'm asking about it because obviously, this is his opinion, but on the chance that the NYPD does have to go in, doesn't this create a lot of tension when they do have to go in while he's putting out his opinion on what these students and faculty are standing for? 

Mayor Adams: First with the governor, as you know, as a standard belief, I'm not going to go into private conversations on what the governor and I talk about. By the way, she has been amazing for the city of New York, amazing team, and up to Albany, we got everything we asked for, basically. I cannot thank her speaker Heastie and Majority Leader Cousins, extremely excited what the year is going to bring. 

We don't need the National Guard. The NYPD is doing an amazing job in the right balance that is needed. These officers are commendable. I think that if any of you were there for the NYU, you saw the level of discipline that they showed. You're seeing a different approach to handling this, and our leaders were on the ground. They were not removed. They were on the ground. 

I think that if there's a need for additional resources, we know how to pick up and request them. That need is not at this moment. Down to Chief Chell, we have a very opinionated of not only chief, commissioners, reporters, students, dishwashers, candlestick makers. Everyone has an opinion in New York. 8.3 million people, 38 million opinions. They love sharing it. I find that when you share your opinion, it's not bottled up. Let's just share our opinion, but let's be kind while we do it. Love and kindness would get us through this all. 

[Crosstalk.]. 

Mayor Adams: Chief Chell is a professional. 

Question: Good afternoon. 

Mayor Adams: Yes. How are you? 

Question: Hello, Mr. Mayor. I have a question about City of Yes housing. I know it's going under public review. District 30th, Queens, Middle Village, Glendale, those areas, there are concerns about power grids, about sewage that is older, about flooding, and they're concerned that proceeding with City of Yes in that area for fixing these things will create more problems. Could you please address that? How would you respond to those concerns? 

Mayor Adams: Well, there is always a reason not to build, but there's one big reason to build: 1.4 percent vacancy. People always talk about why we shouldn't build a little bit more housing throughout the entire city. Maria, you want to add anything on that? 

Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Housing, Economic Development and Workforce: Yes, of course. Thank you for that question, Monica. Here's what's at stake. We talk every week here, and we're like a broken record about it. I think what's good is that people are starting to sing the same tune. We have a housing crisis that the city hasn't seen in many, many decades. The 1.4 percent vacancy rate, the more than 100,000 people who are sleeping in shelters, what's at the root of that is we haven't built enough. 

As the mayor mentioned, the 59 community districts, 10 of them have produced as much housing as the other 49 combined. The City of Yes for housing opportunity finally provides us with a way of building more housing, a little bit in every neighborhood to make a big dent. Of course, we have to listen to every single question and address them. We did a full environmental review to understand what the impacts are. 

The reality is that while there is a big impact across the board in terms of housing units, the type of impacts that you are mentioning in terms of infrastructure, the environmental review is showing that that is not significant. We'll continue the work with every single community board because we have to, but to do nothing or to not build, to cower because there are concerns means that we are doing a disservice to New Yorkers, many of whom are facing insecurity. 

The final thing I'll say about this is that this is 100,000 homes, new homes over the course of the next 10 to 15 years, but it is also about jobs and economic impact, right? Because there are 260,000 jobs too that we can create if we build that number of homes. It's about $60 billion of economic output. One of the most staggering statistics that I saw, just to give everyone a sense of what's at stake here, our housing scarcity challenge in this region, you know how much it costs us in terms of economic output in any particular year? $225 billion for the region. 

That is what's at stake. It has both human consequences and fiscal consequences, so as we go through this process, we kicked off public review just this week. We're going to speak with every community board, go to work with borough presidents, of course, the city planning commission, and then finally with the city council towards the end of this year. 

A lot is at stake and we know that New Yorkers will be with us because when we stood at the rally yesterday, I hope everyone saw it wasn't just members of the administration, it was a broad, diverse coalition of New Yorkers, houses of worship, labor, tenant organizers, organizations representing seniors, representing young people across the five boroughs. That's the coalition that's now all singing from the same hymnal, and we're committed to getting this done and building in a way that makes sense for New Yorkers. 

Deputy Mayor Joshi: I just want to add – oh, sorry I think I've done the same thing. DDC and DEP at the start of the administration, we celebrated a significant amount of gray infrastructure, that's the sewer system in Southeast Queens that was completed, and that work is ongoing. Millions of dollars are being invested, and citywide, and this will affect Queens, we're also looking at every way we can do double duty; that is make all of our land absorbent so that we are able to handle the climate crisis that's ahead of us and the incoming rain at greater volumes and more intensity. 

As part of the state of the city, the mayor announced a five-borough blue belt plan, and that will include Queens as well. We can walk and chew gum, so as we develop housing, we will also be pursuing, because of housing and because of the climate crisis we're in, every resiliency measure possible. 

First Deputy Mayor Wright: I just want to say that, this team is extremely responsible. DM Maria's team, they're responding to all the needs. Each community should feel secure knowing that their needs are going to be responded to. Those two deputy mayors are joined at the hip. Housing and infrastructure go hand in hand. This is very, very thoughtful what is being rolled out, and it will benefit the city in all the ways that they have just mentioned. 

Mayor Adams: Hats off to Dan Garodnick, he's done an amazing job. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, how are you? 

Mayor Eric Adams: What's happening? 

Question: Same old. Maybe you can just clarify legally, just to understand with Columbia, now that these students have barricaded themselves in this building, is the decision not to go in because you legally can't because it's private property and Columbia has asked you to, or is this a conversation – at what point can you make the decision as the NYPD, something has happened, they barricaded themselves in, something happened there, the NYPD can go in? How does that work? 

Just following up on the death of Derek Floyd, the fire commissioner told us today that she wants to do everything she can to get him his pension and is working with city and state lawmakers. Wouldn't this have just been easier to keep him on the FDNY at that point? Somebody with a heart condition who was working full-time for the FDNY and he was one of 11 let go. How is that not layoffs if it was 11 people that were terminated or provisionary firefighters who have been there for years at this point? What is the categorization that your administration has of layoffs? 

Mayor Adams: First, we are in constant communication with the college daily, probably hourly. The strategy is a combination of what the commission's doing and what the college is doing. We're going to continue to do that and we're going to be very respectful. It's a really tragic situation. The young man transitioned. He was never qualified to be a firefighter because he didn't get through the academy because of his heart condition. We can't just say, "Okay, you were brought on to be a firefighter. If you don't qualify, we're just going to hold you on a payroll anyway." Can't do that. Just can't. That is not how you use taxpayers' dollars. We have not done any layoffs. We have not increased our taxes. In spite of what we have gone through from fiscal cliffs to the migrant asylum seeker, I think we're up to 191,000 now, we have not laid off –  

Deputy Mayor Levy: 194. 

Mayor Adams: A hundred and what? 

Deputy Mayor Levy: 194. 

Mayor Adams: 194. We have not. Our heart goes out to this family. We're going to assist as much as possible within our legal restrictions, but this was not part of a PEG, this was part of this young man did not pass the requirements because of his medical condition to become a firefighter. That's what he wanted to be. We commend him for wanting to join the New York's Bravest, but that is the reality that we're facing. We're in contact with the family, we want to help as much as possible. 

[Crosstalk.] 

Mayor Adams: No matter when you determine something, anything can happen during that determination. That's how life is. You could determine something on Monday and something could happen on Tuesday. That's just life. His medical condition did not allow him to become a firefighter. It's so unfortunate because he appeared to have been a great young man that would've been great to the FDNY, but that was the reality of what we were facing. We are going to be here for the family as much as possible. 

Deputy Mayor Levy: I would also point out, Craig, that the separation occurred before the November PEGs took effect. 

[Crosstalk.] 

Mayor Adams: How are you doing? 

Question: I'm doing great. I'm wondering what creative solutions are coming out of the Department of Education to address the attendance crisis that's happening right now with a lot of the students. Apologies if you've answered this before, but I haven't heard anything about what's being done to address the attendance crisis and what sort of outreach has happened with parents to find out why this is happening. 

Mayor Adams: Well, I think that, and we should have Chancellor Banks come in and give you a full overview of the different initiatives that we've done from Project Pivot and others to go and find those children, I'm not an expert on this topic, on what's causing this from happening, but a lot of children during Covid just never returned. We have to go find them. We have to give them the support they need to get them back into the school system. Covid created a lot of trauma for our young people. 

We talk about how it impacted adults and those adults who are not coming back to the work environment. Another conversation that Jamie Dimon and I had today, many adults haven't come back to the work environment. Many children haven't come back to the school environment. Chancellor Banks has zeroed in on that and I think that we should have him come in and give a full briefing of what his team is doing around that. 

Question: Thank you. Hi, Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor Adams: How are you? 

Question: Good. You described the occupation of Hamilton Hall at Columbia as an escalation of the situation, which obviously it is, but you also suggested escalation can lead to further escalation. Can you talk about what more precisely you're concerned about?  

Then on the Central Park, the rise in petty crime there, I know today Jeff Maddrey said that he would be sending in more officers. Do you have any numbers on how many officers you plan to send? 

Mayor Adams: I think Jeff did a briefing. I want you to communicate exactly with Jeff. I think we'll be at 40 million a year – 

Deputy Mayor Joshi: Of people that – and this is a pre-COVID number, of the number of people that visit Central Park, is a conservatively 40 million a year. It's going up, we suspect, post-Covid. It is very crowded, and thankfully so. It's a wonderful asset that the city has. It is a highly visited area in New York City. 

Mayor Adams: We saw those series of four serious crimes that were there. These guys are doing an amazing job. That's one of the safest parks in our city. We don't want a pattern. That's why Chief Maddrey understands the park is representative of the heart of the city. We're going to zero in on them.  

Listen, because of their response strategically and precision policing, that's why our numbers continue to drop across the city in those areas. We're going to zero in on that. They have a plan for that. The escalation, it starts with a tent and moves to other actions as we saw last night. We just have to closely monitor and that's what we're doing. 

###