Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Announces New Plan to Crack Down on Parking Placard Fraud and Abuse

May 25, 2017

Mayor Bill de Blasio:  Well, we are here to talk about one of the biggest concerns for all New Yorkers which parking. And I want to start on a very personal note, although today I have a different experience, for many years as a driver I experienced the challenge of trying to find a parking spot in my own neighborhood. And there are many, many New Yorkers who know what’s it like any given night to be looking for 15 minutes or 20 minutes or a half hour for a parking spot. And it’s not one of the more pleasant parts of life in this city. Something we are trying in so many ways to address, obviously first and foremost by creating more mass transit options so people don’t need to have a car, don’t need to use a car. But there’s still a lot of people who have a car, need to use a car, and parking is one of the biggest quality of life concerns of all New Yorkers. And that means that people are very, very sensitive about the way the parking spaces are available or not available to them. New Yorkers want to know that where there are parking spaces that they’re going to be handled fairly. And there’s tremendous frustration when people feel that a parking space should be for the general public and isn’t. I understand why that infuriates drivers so much because I too was infuriated when I saw anything like that.

So we need to make sure that there’s real integrity in the way parking is handled, and that goes to the issue of parking placards. We’re announcing today a set of new policies, and they are very tough policies. We will not tolerate the misuse of placards by anyone. We are going to be very clear, to all City employees from a whole host of agencies that placards must only be used as designated, and not abused for personal gain. We’re going to be adding a number of new enforcement measures and new personnel to enforce the rules. We’re going to make clear there are real consequences for anyone who abuses a placard. We’re also going to say to the agents who provide the enforcement that they have to be consistent in the work they do.

I have a lot of respect for our public employees, I want to say this at the outset, I’m a firm, firm believer in the role of government. I think we have an extraordinary number of really good public employees who do things the right way. We have a lot of people who enforce the law the right way, but to all of those who are supposed to make sure that there is not abuse of parking placards, we’re going to hold them accountable as well to make sure they do what their job description requires. I was troubled to hear about this website that showed footage of enforcement agents not doing their job, that’s unacceptable to me. And we’re going to invite the public to help us in this enforcement effort by putting any information either online or calling it into 3-1-1, and our enforcement personnel will be looking for those public reports, we welcome those public reports. Someone put together a website that shows public employees not doing their job, we don’t criticize that or look away from that, ignore that we want to use that as a tool to make sure that the public’s interest are being protected.

So this plan we’re announcing today will crack down on the misuse of parking placards all over this city, and we’ll hold all public employees in all agencies accountable. Again, including the people whose job it is to enforce these rules.

There’s two things we have to be careful about, a parking permit that is issued legitimately but then used inappropriately and secondly, an illegitimately parking permit, one that’s not authentic. And we see too many cases where people manage to get over with something that’s actually not an authorized parking permit. We need to address both of these problems head on.
Now there are good reasons for the existence of parking permits when they’re used the right way. There are legitimate reasons that public employees need to use parking permits as part of their official duties. If that’s all we were talking about here this wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is when they’re misused. Everyone knows that we added additional permits recently as part of the settlement of outstanding legal cases and outstanding labor negotiation issues. So everyone knows the City has to make decisions including in stations where it may not be our preference, but sometimes we have to strike a compromise. And when we compromise it’s sometimes to make sure we don’t end up in a worse situation in terms of the public interest.

But what’s clear, regardless of the number of permits, is they have to be used the right way, and we have plenty of ability to crack down when they’re not used the right way. I think what’s happened in the past too often is there weren’t clear consequences when someone abused parking permits. We’re going to make clear today that there are very real and tangible consequences and we’re going to beef up the enforcement capacity to find the wrongdoers and make sure that they experience those consequences. So we will not tolerate any misuse of parking permits, and I have to say very bluntly, it’s an insult to the people of New York City when a parking permit is misused. It’s an insult to people in neighborhoods all over this city who work very hard, who don’t have enough times for their families, who need every minute they can for the good things in life, and end up spending a huge amount of time searching for a parking space. They deserve better, the people of this city deserve better than that, and we’re going to make sure that’s what fair for the people of this is city is what’s happened – happens all over.

The rules are straightforward, but what we need now is a much clearer understanding of how we will enforce. So these are some of the new plans that we will be putting in place. First of all, regarding the new Department of Education placards, and I want to emphasize that’s one piece of the situation, we’re concerned also about the placards that have been provided to police and other first responders, we’re concerned about enforcement by DOT, all of these matters are part of this plan. So this is one standard for everyone, every City agency is a part of this, will be held accountable.

In terms of the new Department of Education placards, they will be issued for particular parking places at particular schools, and it will be a violation to use the placard anywhere else. They are not transferable under any circumstances, and it’s a very important point, you can’t lend them to a colleague or a friend or a relative, that’s fundamentally unacceptable. They will be reissued every year, which means there will be a constant mechanism for checking to ensure that each employee is handling their placard properly. And we will create a new office within the Department of Education that will be responsible for accounting for the use of each placard and for auditing schools to make sure their practice is appropriate.

As I said, the Department of Education is only one piece of this plan. And anyone who thinks, in any agency, that they will be able to get away with the abuse of their placard will quickly see that the new enforcement capacity is not like anything they’ve seen in the past. So I forewarn everyone who has a parking placard, hear my message today, use it the right way or you will be caught and there will be consequences. And again that’s to employees of all our agencies. I always want to think the best of our public employees, but we know this is an issue and a problem that’s been going on for too long, so we have to be resolute.

Therefore, we’re also announcing the creation of a Placard Fraud Enforcement Unit at the NYPD who report directly to the Chief of Department, and this will be a major priority for the NYPD. In addition, we will be hiring 100 more traffic enforcement agents who will be focused on placard enforcement every day. And we will dedicating an additional 16 police officers to work at hot spots around the city where there’s been a history of placard abuse. Their job will be to identify misuse of placards and the use of counterfeit placards. We will also be adding additional towing capacity, so I want this to be very clear – again to anyone who thinks they can get over – we will be adding additional towing capacity, which means you’re going to go have to find your car someplace else if we find you abusing these rules. Before anyone thinks it’s a clever idea to misuse our placards, my advice is you better get to know where our impound lots are because you’re going to end up visiting them if you misuse our placards. Now let’s be clear, there need to be consequences. One of the most profound consequences will be that anyone found in violation will have their placards permanently revoked. And abuse cases in certain instances will be turned over to the Department of Investigation for further action. Those are some of the things we can do today.

We also believe over the next few years that we’ll have additional technology that will allow us to do even better at finding violators. We’ll be, ultimately we believe, be able to scan entire blocks simultaneously looking for violations and be able to pinpoint them much more quickly. That technology is coming. In the meantime, in addition to all the information the public has brought forward before and again, I welcome those who have created websites to continue to post what they see and City officials will be monitoring those websites for information we can use. But to any New Yorker who sees what they believe is a violation of the rules regarding placards, please call 3-1-1 and report it immediately. Bottom line is all New Yorkers need to know that are City employees are here to serve you, not serve themselves. And we will be very resolute in cracking down on any inappropriate behavior. A few words in Spanish.

[Mayor speaks in Spanish]

With that, I want to now turn to a man who’s going to be front and center in this new enforcement effort. He’s done outstanding work already in creating the Vision Zero initiative. A lot of New Yorkers are alive today in large measure due to his excellent efforts. He now will be one of the people taking the lead on this new crackdown on the inappropriate use of placards. My pleasure to bring forward, Chief of Transportation for the NYPD, Thomas Chan.

[Applause]

Chief Thomas Chan, NYPD Transportation Bureau: Good afternoon. In an effort to work on the issue of illegal placards and placard abuse, the New York City Police Department will be cracking down on those issues throughout the City of New York. The New York City Police Department will be formulating a new unit under the jurisdiction of the Chief of Department to oversee the placard enforcement. Sixteen dedicated enforcement personnel in the Transportation Bureau citywide task force will be on patrol throughout the city to identify counterfeit placards and misuse by City employees. This information will be collected through 3-1-1, through our community contacts, other City agencies, and we will formulate hot spots and target those areas for enforcement. On the second level, we will be hiring an additional 100 traffic enforcement agents for placard enforcement specifically. The City will hire these agents and deploy them also citywide based on the information. Currently over 1,500 traffic enforcement agents are assigned throughout the city to do enforcement. They too will focus on the issue of improper use of placards and illegal placards. We will also have our patrol borough investigations unit. Every borough has an investigation unit. They will be tasked specifically to go throughout the areas where we have unauthorized use in local boroughs around precincts, court houses, and other government buildings where police department vehicles may be parked illegally or have unauthorized placard use. Collectively through those three efforts the new unit, the traffic enforcement agents that are currently out there, and also will be hired in the future, and also the patrol borough investigations units will be targeting individuals for summonses, for towing, and possible disciplinary action if they continue to park illegally. Again, we will be working very closely with our counterparts, with our elected officials, with our other City agencies, and with the Mayor’s Office to address this particular problem. Thank you.

Mayor: Thank you very much, Chief. I appreciate it. I want to bring forward someone who we work with all the time on transportation issues because he’s the chair of the transportation committee in the City Council, but I also want to note that Councilmember Ydanis Rodriguez represents a district – and I’ve spent a lot of time there – where there is not enough parking and his residents need to know that the parking that’s there is available to the people and not going to those who should not have it. So you certainly know what it’s like to be in a neighborhood where each parking space matters, and I want to thank you for partnership in this effort and everything else.

Chair of the transportation committee in the City Council, Ydanis Rodriguez.

[…]

Thank you very much, Councilmember. I want to make one more point before we open up to questions. You know, the point the Councilman raised about people who have placards doing illegal things – I want to really emphasize this. When someone who’s a public employee parks in front of a fire hydrant, they’re putting lives in danger. Someone who’s a public employee parks in a crosswalk and then people have to go – who are crossing the street – out into the flow of traffic, again, that employee is putting lives in danger. It’s not about the convenience of public employees. It is about the needs of our people, so this is going to be equal opportunity. We’ll be looking at every City agency [inaudible] treating everyone the same. We’re only going to ask people to do their job and follow the rules, but I need to be very clear. Public employees don’t get to be above the law, and parking in front of a hydrant – especially that one drives me crazy because it literally could be stopping the Fire Department from doing their job at any given moment, and that’s fundamentally unacceptable.

So let’s take questions now on this announcement and then we’ll talk about other topics after.

Question: Chief Chan, could you give me the breakdown of how many of the new officers and agents you’re getting for Staten Island?

Chief Chan: We do not have the breakdown of the exact numbers, but what happens is we will have enforcement in every borough.

Question: [Inaudible] you haven’t decided yet?

Chan: That has not been decided.

Question: And then also how much is all of this going to cost?

Mayor: We’re working on the cost estimate, but we fundamentally believe this initiative will pay for itself. Again, we’d love nothing more than for the abuse to end, and then there would not be as many fines coming in and the fees – you know the revenue coming in, but we believe certainly initially it will pay for itself. Go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible] once it stops paying for itself –

Mayor: Again, we’re starting with what we have today. We have a real problem with placard abuse. Everyone knows that. We believe there will be, unfortunately, many people who have to experience fines to get the point. It will pay for itself for now, and if it turns out the problem is greatly reduced we can apply those officers to other tasks.

Question: [Inaudible] traffic agents, there seems to be sort of a culture of willfully ignoring what are plain violations of the law. What leads to that sort of blind eye?

Mayor: Look, I think there’s a kind of problem in public service we’ve seen for a long time that people think they’re doing each other a favor. But that’s not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s gone on for decades. It’s not acceptable. The video has been very powerful. The notion that we have traffic agents literally walking by obvious violations – that’s not acceptable. Now let’s be clear, we as the people who run these agencies have to make the standards very clear, the consequences very clear. I’m sure some people need new training. We’ll make sure that happens, but it is a culture that was tolerated for a long time, and it’s – look, it’s good to be respectful and kind to your fellow employee, but it’s not good to break the law, and it’s not good to break the rules. It’s as simple as that, but I think it was just something that got tolerated for a long time.

Question: I’ve had traffic agents tell me several times that they cannot – they’re not allowed to – ticket City-owned vehicles with official plates. Will that change and if so is there a system by which the employee assigned to that car can be punished rather than it going into some pool of City violations?

Mayor: Again, before I turn to – there’s three people who might have a piece of that answer – Chief Chan and Margaret Forgione the COO and Department of Transportation, and Laura Anglin who is the Chief Administrative Office for First Deputy Mayor Shorris and has played a crucial role in putting together this plan. Thank you very much, Laura, for your leadership. I’ll start and then anyone who wants to add to the answer. I do believe an element of this is that the training of our officers has not been all it could be. I think it’s fair to say sometimes a traffic agent may be confused by mixed messages in a situation, but it shouldn’t be confusing in a lot of cases. There’s either a placard that authorizes someone to be in that particular place, or there isn’t. Or there’s a certain kind of license plate that does, or there isn’t. I think we have to do a better job at making sure the supervision and training is sharp and consistent. That is a real issue to be addressed. I don’t think that explains away the situations where an agent understood fully that it was not either a formal placard or it was a placard that didn’t apply in that particular situation. So I think there’s clearly situations where the warning signs were ignored, but I’m sure there’s other cases where it was a good faith effort to make sense of something that might have been complex, and it was hard to do. It’s our job to improve upon that. Who wants to speak further?

Chief Chan: We’ve been working very closely with the Department of Transportation, and recently they’ve trained over 400 of our agents from Manhattan South and also Manhattan South Tow Pound. Again, this is to identify the proper placards that are authorized, that there are counterfeits. Know that some of those questions if the agent is not 100 percent sure that this is a proper permit and things of that nature, so we are working on that in terms of our training with our officers, but also I mentioned to you that the patrol borough investigations unit – they’re going to look specifically over at areas where we have department vehicles – the courts, the borough locations where we have police officers responding to. That’s been problematic historically, the local courts here in the Bronx and every borough itself, so we are looking to make sure that we’re going to get even enforcement throughout the city itself, not one particular borough.

Question: My question more directly is will the fine be passed onto the employee if it’s a City-owned vehicle?

Chief Operations Officer Margaret Forgione, Department of Transportation: Yes, when a City employee receives a parking summonses, we already have a system in process where they do either adjudicate it or pay it. We are following up very carefully with all the City departments that do have parking permits, and with the Department of Finance who is the keeper of all the summonses, to make sure they’re being dealt with properly. And a further answer to your sort of original question, we do work closely with the department if we see individual permits being abused and we will rescind one, and with our new efforts now what we’re going to do is step it up and go back to the administration of that department and make sure there are kind of consequences for that employee. And if it borders on something, really depending on the infraction, it could also be appropriate for DOI as well.

Mayor: Marcia?

Question: Mr. Mayor, even before you issued the new permits to teachers, I went to school after school and found dozens and dozens of abuses and violations. If you go around police precincts, you will also see dozens and dozens of violations. My question to you – are you really going to tow cops’ and teachers’ cars and really, really, going to do it?

Mayor: Sure.

Question: Why?

Mayor: Because it’s against the rules. It’s as simple as that, and look, the chancellor is here. She’ll speak to it. Chief Chan will speak to it. They are not going to tolerate misuse of these placards by their employees. It’s not fair to residents of neighborhoods, and again, anyone who validly needs to do something as part of their official duties will have the opportunity to do that. If someone is going – works at a school, has a placard from that school, they’re designated to be in that spot, you’re not going to have a problem, but if you don’t have such a placard then you have to park like the rest of us and find a space the way anyone else would.

Question: [Inaudible] questions. Number one, do you have any idea how many placards exist in the city now and does the city have the ability to actually change the fee for placard abuse or do you have to go to Albany and get Albany to approve it?

Mayor: Okay, I’m going to start with the first one. On the second question – and Laura has a long history in Albany, you may know the answer. Any of the things we’re proposing today, if they require Albany approval, you’ll clarify that in a second. On the numbers – I have on the number of placards issued, I’m not an expert, but I’m going to tell you what I’ve received. NYPD has issued 44,496. DOT – 54,020, and DOE as we talked about the other day approximately 50,000. So the combined numbers is 148,516. Used properly they are part of doing your job as a public employee, and they don’t take up a lot of parking because you’re only using them when you need to. Used improperly they create a huge problem for everyday New Yorkers. That’s the difference here. Laura, on the state legislature?

Chief Administrative Officer to First Deputy Laura Anglin: The additional $100 fine that we’re proposing we can do that at the city level. If we were to go above that, we would have to go to the state legislature for authorization to do that.

Question: [Inaudible] do it yourself, but the state has to approve it?

Chief Administrative Officer Anglin: The additional $100 that we’re proposing as part of this plan we have the ability to impose ourselves. If we wanted to go above that amount we would need to go to the state legislature to increase it above the $100.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Right this plan does not require Albany.

Chief Administrative Officer Anglin: This plan does not require anything from Albany, correct.

Question: [Inaudible] Right behind you is teacher parking. [Inaudible] they’re given a placard by the schools, and they’re allowed to park there. My question is you’re giving out these 50,000 extra placards, and schools are in such bad state educationally. What is this going to do to improve education of the children?

Mayor: I’m happy to answer the question, but it has nothing to do with the question of parking placards. It just doesn’t.

Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: I respect – we’ve known each other a long time – I don’t follow the logic of your question. We have a whole vision for improving our schools called Equity and Excellence. It’s online. You should look at it. It’s having a huge impact in the Bronx. The parking placard issue is based on a fair concern, which is there are a lot of public employees who either in the work they do day-to-day need to park as part of their official duties in the appropriate locations, and then there’s other who come to work and – look, this was again based on legal actions and labor negotiations where we came to the conclusion that the only fair compromise was to issue these placards as had existed in the past as you know, but with a much clearer, more stringent set of rules. And it’s not just DOE. It’s going to be NYPD – every agency where we’ve seen placard problems, we’re going to address. This has to be addressed because it is a problem in our city. It does not – it has no bearing on how we address the problems of our schools. Overall we have a separate plan for that.

Oh wait, someone who hasn’t gone yet? In the back.

Question: So if the city acknowledges there’s not enough parking to go around, why won’t the city consider building more municipal lots?

Mayor: I didn’t say we acknowledge there’s not enough parking to go along in that sense. What we’re saying here is we would have more parking available if folks with placards weren’t abusing those placards. Now again, there’s lots of people that don’t abuse them. I want to pick up on Ydanis’s point. Most – the vast majority of city employees – are law abiding folks who do everything the way they’re supposed to. It’s a small number who abuse, but they are taking up spaces that should be going to other purposes and that New Yorkers could use. On the broader question, look, this is a big question about the future of the city. We believe fundamentally the notion is not to ever-increase parking. We’re going to gain about half a million people in this city. We could be building parking garages all day long. That’s not the solution to the problem. The solution to the problem is to make more mass transit available, which we’re doing – the ferry service, the select bus service, the light rail. We’re going to be doing a lot more like that. That’s where we solve the long term problem. Car-sharing is another area we’re going to be getting into more and more that we believe in, that reduces the need for people to have their own car sitting in a parking spot on the street a lot of the time only to use it a small amount of the time. So there’s a lot that we have to do, but we’re not going to build parking garages as the core solution to this problem.

Okay, Jillian?

Question: So I mean in many of the photos that I’ve seen of the placard abuse, it seems to be a problem, as Marcia pointed out, too, in and around police stations, and with people who are either police or saying that they’re police or whatever. Is there an issue with having the enforcement mechanism be part of the NYPD if a large amount of the people who are using or possibly misusing placards are also in the NYPD?

Mayor: I think the NYPD over the last few of decades has done and extraordinary job of addressing internal challenges. You go back in history, you go back to 1970s, 1980s there were a lot of issues in the NYPD, but the leadership in the NYPD has systematically improved the internal controls and the accountability measures and has created a much higher standard of integrity. That’s a fact. So I have total faith in the leadership of the NYPD to make this happen. I know how committed Chief Chan is. I’ve heard Commissioner O’Neill speak with real frustration and emotion about the fact that he finds it absolutely unacceptable for police officers to violate simple rules like this, and we’re going to make sure for all public employees it’s a single, clear standard. If you have a placard for a reason, and you’re using it the right way, you’ve got nothing to worry about. If you misuse it, you’re going to have a problem.

Someone who hasn’t gone yet?

Question: What’s the timeline on the technological solutions? When are the deadlines for when you’ll have them in place? And why not have barcodes on the placards you’re going to give out to school personnel now? Why wait for however many years?

Mayor: Laura can speak to both of those, so come forward on the – we are foreshadowing bigger technological solutions, but that’s a ways in the future. Some sense of how far away or how close? And then barcodes, good question, I’m not an expert on the placard design.

Chief Administrative Officer Anglin: So it is a long term solution. First, we’re going to annually reissue the placards and try to make them more difficult to counterfeit, so that’s going to be an ongoing thing on a basis. We’ll make it more challenging for them to be counterfeited. So long term technology we’re probably looking in the range of a maybe three-year solution. It will be a comprehensive solution not just for the placard enforcement program, but also tied to the meters and other transportation ways to make people’s lives easier to park as well. So really that’s a multi-faceted long term solution that we’re currently, you know, basically developing, starting to develop now.

Question: [Inaudible]

Chief Administrative Officer Anglin: I think – you want to answer the barcode question?

Chief Operations Officer Forgione: Yes, I think rather than barcodes what we’re really interested in doing is building on some efforts we’ve already begun with NYPD. As people may know we now have our pay-by-cell program where NYPD has a device, and based upon the license plate they simply basically tap into a database that says whether or not that vehicle has a parking session in operation. If not, they issue a ticket. So where we want to go is we want to have all of the license plates associated with all of the placards in a similar system, so as NYPD goes down a street they punch in a license plate, they see whether or not it has a permit, they keep on going. If it doesn’t, it gets a summons, end of story. And it could really be quite sophisticated in that a lot of permits sort of end at 6 p.m., so if it’s 7 p.m. and that vehicle is parked somewhere it shouldn’t be, you know it can really be a refined system that has a lot of benefits. So that’s what we’re exploring now, and we’re working toward. We know that other cities have begun these sorts of systems, so we think it’s reasonable for us to do it as well.

Question: Would you describe some of the anti-counterfeiting security measures that you’re going to put in place on the new placards?

Chief Operations Officer Forgione: Well we try not to reveal all those details.

Mayor: Don’t describe too much!

Chief Operations Officer Forgione: Right, so we’re very focused on the holograms. We’re focused on the sleeve that they go in. We work, as the chief mentioned, we work very carefully with NYPD, every police officer and traffic agent has an enforcement guidebook. We can make copies of these available, which is very clear on what the legal permits are, so we need to continue to refine all these efforts to make sure they can easily do their job.

Question: Mr. Mayor, Councilmember Rodriguez just said when people kind of have an expectation of a spot – a free spot awaiting them – it makes them more likely to get in their cars and drive, and I know some critics of the 50,000 placards to the DOE have made that argument not as a parking issue but as a traffic issue, and I’m wondering whether you agree with those concerns that this is going to create a lot more traffic because people expect to have a spot at the end of it?

Mayor: Okay, let me break it into a couple of pieces. There was a history of these Department of Education employees having placards. The previous administration acted differently, and that began a series of legal actions trying to rescind what the previous administration did – labor negotiation issues, etc. What we determined was that if we were going to continue in court and in the labor negotiation process, we did not feel confident that we could get the ideal outcome. This is often the case when we’re dealing with either a court of law or labor negotiation. It became abundantly clear that we would be better off compromising. So, is this a question of – if we were starting the world from scratch, would there be so many parking placards in the world? No. But if refers to the fact that they did exist for a long time and that unfortunately set the precedent that has real weight in a court of law and has real weight in the labor negotiation process.

So, once you say, okay that’s the reality, then to the second part of your question, does it encourage or discourage?

Well, it would encourage – really encourage if you could use the placards any way the hell you wanted, if you could abuse them easily and there was no sanction, if they were written in such a way you could use them anywhere. That would truly encourage the wrong kind of behavior which is the overuse of vehicles. Because this is drawn so narrowly and because there’s going to be a lot more enforcement and there’s real, tangible consequences we think it will, in the end, level off and say to our DOE personnel, if you have a valid reason that’s understandable but there’s a very limited number of spaces.

I know the Chancellor wanted to speak to that point about the fact that the number of spaces is not changing.

Chancellor Farina: The number of spaces are not increasing from what they are now. And there may be a sense of energy around the first couple of weeks where everybody thinks they’re going to be the first to get there because it’s first come, first serve. But I think after a while, people are going to realize that is time that is better spent having a hot breakfast or doing something else.

So, I do think that this is something that can be handled. I also expect this has happened in the past where principals will have meetings with teachers and in many cases they can rotate placards. I remember as principal six months, some teachers had it, six months, other teachers had it.

It’s going to have to be pretty much a school-by-school decision. The one thing that’s going to be on these placards that I think is really different than the past, it’s going to have the school number. So, it means that you don’t park the car in the morning where you live to have a safe parking spot because that’s not the purpose of the placards. The purpose of the placards is to get you from where you are, where you need to be.

So, by having that school number on the placard that already limits where you’re going to be. And as was also said it limits the amount of time. We know what the hours of school are. So, to have it parked there at eight o’clock at night is misuse of the placard.

So, I do think we have a lot of things in place. We’ll be sending out a letter to all staff, being very clear, in my opinion, that public transportation is still the best. I know the other day it took me 25 minutes by train to go where it would have taken two hours by car. And I really urge people to keep thinking that way.

Mayor: And just to follow up that point. Again it’s a first come, first serve system with limited space in front of each school. Individual employees are going to have to make a decision but I think the Chancellor’s absolutely right that what’s going to become really clear is, you could drive a long way and not get the space that day and then you’re going to be hunting for a parking space and you’re going to have a certain amount of time to do that in.

I don’t think it fundamentally changes the reality which is that public employees should use mass transit to the maximum extent possible where they only can get somewhere conveniently with a vehicle – car share, carpool, be dropped off by someone.

But the notion of going someplace to park a vehicle is the least good option and this doesn’t fundamentally change that.

Question: Has it only been the CSA that brought legal action? Has the UFT brought legal action –

Mayor: It’s ongoing. Laura’s probably more familiar than I am with this but there was a series of both legal actions and labor negotiation processes.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: They’re definitely two different things but the fact is we clearly had to look at all these pieces and determine where they’re going. We do this all the time in what our Law Department does all the time, when there’s a legal action. What our labor negotiation folks do all the time is we got to figure out where we think things are going and what we think is the best way to achieve our goals including sometimes what we think is a smart compromise and a timely compromise.

So, we can get you the chapter and verse. But no, this – we believe that the ramification of the CSA situation clearly affected how we were handling everyone else and it was not going to be real debatable in the end.

Question: I’m just curious why – you said that this is cultural problem that’s existed for a while. Why are you doing this now?

Mayor: Because it’s just the classic situation in government that we’re certainly – we experienced too. You take on a whole lot of issues. And for us, the first few years of this administration were about moving a proactive agenda. More and more we’re finding other areas that need attention. It’s been a problem but this new decision obviously put a point on it and that made clear to me that it was a moment where we could revamp the whole approach.

Who has not gone? Anyone not gone? Yeah –

Question: Mr. Mayor, you mentioned a new ability to sort of sweep full blocks –

Mayor: Correct. Coming up in the future. As Laura said, a few years ahead.

Question: Are there – that’s through NYPD technology? And are there privacy concerns around that?

Mayor: It’s not here yet, first of all. So, we have to work it through.

Chief Administrative Officer Anglin: Okay, so we would work, as we did with our pay-by-cell program, we would work very carefully with NYPD. We would be the ones providing a lot of the information and they would be the ones with the handheld devices that would access it.

Mayor: Okay.

Question: [Inaudible] privacy concern aspect of sort of you know using technology, using cameras to take in a whole bunch of information on a block and then start, you know –

Mayor: Let me try and see – stay with me here. My understanding is – what it would do is just about the placards. So, it’s about a publicly-issued privilege and ensuring that that was being used properly. We’re not looking into people’s bedrooms, you know. This is just – are they using placards properly. Correct?

Chief Administrative Officer Anglin: Yes, and it’s not public information.

Mayor: And it’s not public information. Yes, sir.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: It’s the whole [inaudible] it’s the core point we’re making. The goal here is not to make parking easy for people when we don’t have it. If we had it, you know, there’s some schools as you know that happen – the way they were built long ago, they happen to have available parking spaces. There are others that don’t.

This is not about increasing the number of spaces that we don’t have. The first obligation we have is to the people who live in the neighborhoods. And the parking spaces that there are for them. Whatever number of spaces we have at each school, as the Chancellor said, that’s not changing. It’s fixed. We’re done.

This is about now that any employee would have an opportunity to use that space appropriately – first come, first serve basis – if they’ve done everything right to qualify and if they don’t violate the rules.

Question: Mr. Mayor, this is an enforcement question. Are you just going to enforce it against people who have City-issued placards because the State issues lots of placards, the federal  government issues lots of placards, and there are plenty of abuses of those placards as well. So, is this limited to just the City or are you going to –

Mayor: Excellent question, so first –

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Let me start and again my colleagues will jump in. The fake placards is a broad crackdown. We want to get rid of the practice of, you know, treating informal placards as viable – like a union card, that’s not a placard. Someone putting a piece of clothing or a cap associated with a public agency, that’s not a placard. A placard is a placard. You either have one or you don’t.

And if you don’t have one, you don’t get to act like someone who has a valid placard. So, we’re certainly going to be instructing our agents to crack down on that.

On the question on the State and the federal, I think it’s fair to say, from my knowledge and I’ll look to my colleagues, I don’t the numbers are anywhere near what they are for the local level because obviously the local level is where the vast majority of government happens.

But we take very seriously that those State and federal placards have to be used properly. I don’t know if we see an abuse problem on that front – anyone can speak to that or Chief? If we have an issue there or if we think that’s not the core?

Question: At the courthouse area, you’ll see a lot of people who say they’re court officers and they often park in no standing and other places –

Mayor: Yeah, I’m not familiar with it, so let me let the experts talk to it.

Chief Administrative Officer Anglin: Those vehicles have been summonsed and upon occasion as well towed by NYPD, so they can speak to that more. In terms of the larger permit effort, we would like to work with federal and State entities that issue permits. We have some coordination now but we’d like to take it to the next level and refine it further.

Question: [Inaudible] parking agents will go after the whole world or [inaudible]?

Chief Chan: The placards that are currently in use, on the back of those particular placards there are restrictions that identify how and where they can park their vehicle. Again, no parking on hydrants, bus stops, and things of that nature. So, that’s clear so our officers and agents will be taking enforcement and action when they deviate from those particular restrictions.

Question: [Inaudible] whether it’s a City, State, or federal placard, if there’s an abuse, there’s an abuse?

Chief Chan: They are obligated to follow the same rules.

Mayor: Okay. Yes.

Question: Will you retaining the data – per Ben’s question – when you sweep a street in a couple years, or it will only be a check and then you delete it?

Mayor: Again, I’m going to caution that we don’t have the technology yet so I don’t think we can speak to that. I just think that is too speculative. We’ve given you a hope of – what we hope to do but it will be years before that’s in place.

Question: Mass transit, obviously, plays a big role in this and you’ve spoken about some of the mass transit that you’ve proposed. Can you think of any new mass transit on Staten Island you’ve implemented or proposed in the last four years?

Mayor: I’ve said before that we are looking all over the city for where we can do new things whether it is Select Bus Service, whether it is ferry service or obviously in one case light rail. And we’ve said that we’re going to watch that to see how it goes, to see if there are other places we can implement it.

So, every part of the city is being looking at including Staten Island. I don’t know what the latest – I’ve spoken to the Transportation Commissioner about what she’s talking about in her congestion plan. That may have some new items of that nature. I’m not sure yet.

I don’t know the latest on what we’ve seen in our effort to look at Select Bus Service including for the North Shore. So, we’ll have an update soon as part of the congestion plan but my simple argument to you is – we have proven is now that the City of New York can substantially add to the amount of mass transit and we will continue that effort.

Question: But you haven’t done any on Staten Island –

Mayor: Again, I’m not – I’m holding on the Select Bus Service issue because I’m not familiar with anything that we’ve solidified there but the congestion plan is coming and it may have ramifications for Staten Island.

Who – okay, you’ve gone before. Go ahead.

Question: There’s a – as far as the DOE – there’s a significant number of employees who aren’t based at a specific school who need to travel to different schools. I’m wondering if you know how many placards are going to be issued to those type of employees and also how enforcement will work since presumably you won’t have a specific –

Mayor: So you’re – I’m going to see if we’re talking about the same thing here. Someone who has – either comes [inaudible] or a specific – comes out of a region whatever, it has to go to a specific school for a meeting or something like that. 

Question: [Inaudible] who work for the – I think some schools share social [inaudible].

Mayor: If they’re City employees, right. So I’m going to start and anyone can correct me if I’m wrong. It’s the same dynamic, there has to be a space available if someone’s going for a 12-noon appointment and all the spaces are taken up, all the taken spaces are taken up. So they have to find parking on the street like anyone else would and feed the meter like anyone else would, or they have to again, take mass transit, you know, carpool whatever it may be. If, I presume if they made some sort of arrangement with the school that there would still be a space available they could use that space appropriately, they have the right kind of placard, that’s conceivable. But I think this whole plan discourages people from using their car unless they absolutely need to. Does that –

Unknown: [inaudible] first come, first serve.

Mayor:  First come, first serve. Which means that most – a lot of those cases there just won’t be a space available.

Yes?

Question: Did you discuss this new crackdown plan with the major unions involved, and if so what was the response –

Mayor: We, from my understanding and my colleagues may be add more, we informed them of it. It has, you know, it’s not – this is a not a labor negotiation issue. The previous issue was because the placards existed in the past. Enforcement is our business. We’re going to be very respectful, this is not a gotcha situation. Again, I have immense respect for public employees and a vast majority of them play by the rules. But there’s a culture problem, there’s a culture problem that there was a lot of abuse tolerated, and even unfortunately some of the enforcement agents either haven’t been trained right or have gotten sloppy in the way they do their work. We aim to fix that. So, we’re informed the unions, but it was not subject to any kind of negotiation or anything like that.

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wonder if you think it’s a bad optic to –

Mayor: Louder, please.

Question: Is it a bad optic to be issuing more permits in a time when transit officials are predicting a summer nightmare because of the repairs that have to made at Penn Station, and the expectation that many more people will get in their cars and drive.

Mayor: It’s not an ideal situation, there’s no question about that Marcia, this was not something we would have done of our own volition if there wasn’t a history here that created a precedent that complicated our situation legally and in terms of the labor negotiation. It was something we decided was unfortunately the practical thing to do and the necessary thing to do. But I don’t care about the optic, I care about the results. This approach which did not exist in the past, and I think it’s the central point, we’re not going back to your grandfather’s situation with school placards. We’re going now to an entirely different situation that’s much more rigorous, much more limited. I think that’s going to medicate any negative situation.

I think what’s going on with Penn Station is a wholly different issue, and obviously the vast majority of our schools in the outer boroughs are not anywhere near the core of Manhattan. But, look, I think what’s going to happen as per usual, Chancellor is right, folks at first may think oh great, you know, there’s going to be parking spaces. And they’re going to quickly find there really aren’t that many parking spaces and if you get there five minutes later than your colleague there is no parking space for you, and then it’s a total pain. And those who think they can get over are going to find there’s real consequences and that word will spread quickly. So I think that will allow us to contain that situation well.

Let’s see if there’s anything else on this before we go to other topics.

Question: [inaudible] schools with the white placards that are used for bus loading, however the Department of Education employees park there so buses have to double park. Will these placards allow the DOE employees to park in these bus loading areas?

Mayor: I appreciate the question, and I’m thinking back to the – PS 372 where my kids went to school, and I saw that kind of situation as well. So I’ll ask whoever wants to answer it. There are times when the school bus is there, and there’s times when the school bus isn’t there. And the vast majority of time the school bus isn’t there right, maybe a school bus in the morning, in the – obviously in the afternoon for drop off and pick up, or for a field trip or something like that. But the vast majority of time there’s not a school bus in front of the school. I’m looking at the experts over here, hey experts –

Unknown: [inaudible] the rules are going to be [inaudible]

Mayor: But wait, wait, wait, just stay on this point because I’m trying to illustrate. The vast majority of time in front of a school there’s not a school bus just sitting there?

Unknown: Correct.

Mayor: So, my point is the spaces generally that are meant for ongoing use, there – that’s what the prime reason is. Now, on this question of how you accommodate school buses either drop off, pick up, or when they’re there for a field trip, speak to it Margaret.

Chief Operations Officer Forgione: So pretty much every school in the city has a parking regulation: no standing 7 [am] to 4[pm] school days. Some schools also have a no standing 7 [am] to 4 [pm] school days except faculty parking with a little rider underneath the sign that everyone has. Those signs originally were installed many, many years ago, decades ago when there was these itinerant teachers would go from school to school and spaces were designated for them. We haven’t designated those spaces in at least 30 years but we have not removed the ones that are there. So the schools that will utilize these parking permits that we’re talking about today are at those schools that have the faculty parking. So it was never – there’s no intent ever to have a parking placard in a no standing 7 [am] to 4 [pm] school days because that’s where we want parents, school buses, taxis, whoever to safely get the kids to the curb to discharge them to enter the school. So, parking with a permit cannot be allowed with that regulation.

Question: [inaudible] across the street [inaudible]

Chief Operations Officer Forgione: Okay, I’m – we’re happy to look into that further with you and then loop in NYPD and DOE if we need to.

Mayor: Okay last call on this topic, yes?

Question: So, on the placard corruption [inaudible] there’s vehicles that have adulterated license plates, missing license plates, bent license plates, all kinds of other violations. Will Chief Chan’s unit be looking at that as well?

Mayor: Chief?

Chief Chan: In terms of comfort plates and things of that nature, when the license plates are covered or they’re damaged and we can’t actually read those license plates, that is a summons – it’s a summonsable event whether it on the – parked on the local city street or their actually operating the motor vehicle. I’ll use an example, if there is a motorcycle and they puts the license plate underneath the bumper which is buried underneath and where the only way you’re going to see that license plate is if you stick your head underneath his motorcycle to see that. So there we can actually issue a summons a moving violation, or parking violation to that. We’ve gone after covered plates, I believe back in 2013 we might of only issued like 1,400, 1,400 summons for that violation. In 2015 I believe we issued close to 25,000 summonses for those violations, parking violations that’s $65 dollars a pop. If an agent walks down the block, he sees a plate that’s covered with that plastic, he can issue that summons, right, it doesn’t matter the location, that vehicle has an improper display of that particular license. So we’ve been working on that, we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in 2016, almost a reduction of 50 percent, and we’ve seen a reduction this year in terms of the use of those. But again, we’ve concentrated on it in individual precincts and our personnel, our integrity officers in the police office make sure that they are utilizing – not utilizing, police officers are not utilizing those things on their license plates. But again, we’ve – it’s a vast improvement from a couple years ago.

Mayor: So just to put a point on that, again, we will be monitoring those websites regularly. We want to encourage everyone who participates in putting video on those websites to recognize we see this as an example of crowdsourcing. We welcome those reports, and we will be monitoring them and acting on them. But the more traditional approach, anyone who sees placard abuse just needs to call 3-1-1 and it will be followed up on.

Last call.

Question: New Yorkers are hearing you say, in many instances take public transportation, don’t drive when possible. Acknowledging that you’re Mayor, there’s only one Mayor and of course you have your schedule, what do you say to folks who are saying that you don’t lead by example enough by taking the subway more and by, you know, at least when possible taking the new subway line that’s right near Gracie Mansion down to City Hall.

Mayor: My life and schedule are well known, and what it would do in that case is add a whole lot of time to moving around, and that’s not in the public’s interest. So, you’re right, there’s only one mayor, and every minute of my day has to be used effectively on behalf of the people, and that’s literally seven days a week, 365 days a year. There’s no day when I’m not working on this job in some form or fashion. And there are times when I take the subway because I just obviously like to see what’s going on and there’s times when I take the subway because it’s the faster way to get somewhere, which is particularly true going to Midtown sometimes, particularly true around the holidays, for example. But, in the end, people want to make sure that I’m getting things done for them all the time, and so that’s the first imperative here. Look, until 1999 – I started NYU in September of 1979. I bought a car in the summer of 1999. So, for 20 straight years, I lived in the city and only got around by the subway. I have plenty of understanding of life in the subway and I still use it consistently enough to keep a good sense of things. But no, the number-one thing I owe to the people is a good use of my time. 

Question: When you were in the City Council or when you were Public Advocate, did you have a parking placard?

Mayor: Yes, I did.

Question: Did you ever – you know, cheat a little bit?

Mayor: Look, I tried to – I honestly believe I did it the right way. I know those zones really clearly of where we were allowed to use them and where we weren’t. There’s a map on the back of the placard. I was very consistent about that. And I’ll tell you why, Marcia, it was one part I was trying to do the right thing – it’s the other part that I believed if you didn’t you’re going to get a ticket.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I never got a ticket for misuse of placards. I got a ticket sometimes for not paying my meter in time, but not for misuse of placard. I believe I did it the right way. 

Okay, last call on this issue. Okay, going to new issues. Mara?

Question: Mr. Mayor, yesterday, you know, you said that the Trump budget could potentially lead to cut food stamps for about half-a-million children in the city, but the city’s executive budget cuts the Emergency Food Assistance Program by about $5 million. So, I guess it’s a two-part question. Why cut that funding? And does that makes sense in the face of what could potentially be –

Mayor: We’ve spoken to this before, I’ll speak to it again. The Emergency Food Budget – we’ve been absolutely consistent on over the years. We make sure the money that is needed it there. I checked with Commissioner Banks. The last time one of your colleagues asked this question, I said is there any part of the food pantry, soup kitchen system that is asking for, right now, additional resources? The answer was no. We’re totally current at this point. We’re in a negotiation with the Council, but it’s based on determining what that number is. We’ve never failed to meet that number, and we would do that again. And so, they’re really apples and oranges. The City of New York, and particularly my administration, ever single year has produced the resources, versus the federal government that is doing something that, as I said yesterday, could affect up to 1.7 million New Yorkers negatively. Some could lose food stamps, some could see a reduction in the amount they get. Either way, you’re talking about a lot of New Yorkers losing food they need. So, they’re apples and oranges. 

Question: So, you’re saying, if I’m understanding this correctly, that throughout the year, if the need is there, you will fund those pantries?

Mayor: We have consistently done that. Yeah. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: I met with them. I didn’t just hear, I walked up to them. I was impressed by their devotion to their cause at an early hour. It was like 7:20 in the morning. I was like, that’s commitment. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: We have put on the table the executive budget, which is my statement of priorities within the resources we have. We’re constantly reassessing our resource picture, and that can change. Revenues can go up and down, and also the Council every year has brought forward its priorities, and that has a big effect on the final outcome. So, I’ve said to the seniors the other day, I understand why they’re so concerned. Our focus this year was on senior affordable housing. You saw the huge investment – almost $1.9 billion we moved into the affordable housing plan to reach a lot more seniors and a lot more low income people. What we’re trying to do with the mansion tax, what we’re trying to do with the property tax break for seniors in Albany – that’s my number-one focus right now. The Council’s highly focused on senior services, and I think we’re having a very productive dialog, but that’s going to come to fruition literally in the next week or two. 

Question: This morning, Governor Cuomo spoke about Penn Station fix, and he mentioned that he’s willing to oversee the fix, but it’s really focused on State funding. What is your reaction to that?

Mayor: I want to be clear – now, I got a question yesterday, when I had a conversation with the Governor about this yesterday – there was a question that – I don’t know which of you, or if one of your other colleagues who is not here asked – seemed to imply the Governor had suggested city funding to address the Penn Station situation, and I reacted as I’ve reacted in other matters lately – that the city is not going to be providing money beyond the obligations that we have to meet on so many other areas. The Governor said to me very straightforward – that was not anything he said or was intentioned, and he believed that the journalists had misinterpreted his words. We agree that that was a misinterpretation of his words. So, I want to say very clearly, the Governor did not imply the city investing towards Penn Station and we’re not going to invest towards Penn Station. I also want to note that the Penn Station situation is first and foremost because Amtrak has been starved of funds. And I want to say this is a chance for Donald Trump to do something for his hometown and provide additional resources for Amtrak, and I agree with the Governor on that as well. I will not that our members of Congress did a great job in the omnibus and the continuing resolution, getting some addition resources in for Amtrak, but it’s much much more that is needed, because this is a problem going back decades. And [inaudible] anyone think this is just directed at Donald Trump, I remind you after the derailment in Philadelphia – I believe that was a year, a year-and-a-half ago, there was an outcry all over the northeast about the need for the federal government to invest more in Amtrak. That’s the best way to solve the Penn Station situation. But the city will not be adding resources to that equation. 

Question: Councilman Borelli and Matteo are asking the city to fund a study of the health risks of Fresh Kills. I was wondering, would you put up half-a-million to study that? Do you think it’s worth the money?

Mayor: I spoke to Councilman Borelli yesterday evening. I had not heard about his report until he reached out to me. I have not seen his report. I take the issue very seriously. I promised him that we would review – in other words, the report he’s put out – that we would review that right away and then we would think quickly about what it means in terms of anything further. But it’s just too new. I have to see it and my team has to see it to be able to make an assessment. We take the issue very seriously and he and I had a good conversation about it. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, with Fleet Week near and the details coming out of Manchester, can you reassure, again, New Yorkers and visitors who are going to be enjoying this event that the NYPD is taking further steps [inaudible] security. 

Mayor: Absolutely. As I said yesterday, NYPD constantly makes tactical adjustments based on each incident we see around the world. We – look, we’re blessed to have the biggest police force in the country, the biggest counter-terrorism force of any police department in the country – constantly, day-to-day, hour-to-hour, making adjustments. People should feel very confident that when they’re in New York City, they’re in the safest big city in American overall. This moment in history we’re going through, it’s not the first time in history we’ve seen things like this. In different parts of the world, there have been times – I remember when I was in Italy with my family in the 1970s and ‘80s, there was a spate of terrorism – the red brigades in those times. And it was a very, very difficult time in Italy, and there were a lot of people who suffered as a result. But what that nation had to decide, and everyone has to decide with each generation is, are we going to let it change who we are? We can’t let it change who we are. We have to go about our lives. We can’t change our institutions. We can’t change our habits. There’s always danger out there in the world at one form or another, but we have to be resolute about living the way we believe is right. But as a question of the NYPD – I have no question that every effort is being expended to keep people safe.

Question: I pose the question because when you hear Teresa May saying that there’s an imminent follow-up event like that, not necessarily in the United States, but we have [inaudible] –

Mayor: I think people should recognize in the 15 years since 9/11 how consistent that success of the NYPD has been in addressing potential incidents, obviously working ever more closely with our federal partners in recent years. The intelligence gathering capacity is unbelievably strong, and I’ve seen it through the classified briefings. There’s always – as I said yesterday, there’s thing we can’t guarantee, but if you’re talking about how has the NYPD done over the last 15 years in stopping terror attacks – outstanding record of achievement. If there is anything we think presents specific and credible threat, we will tell the people that, but there is no such thing at this point. I don’t know what Prime Minister May was referring to, but I assume it is a very specific danger that might affect Britain. But no, in this city, we consistently speak to the people if we think there is anything that’s a specific and credible threat. We do not have that at this point. 

David?

Question: I have two very unrelated questions. The first one is, so you asked for a partial hiring freeze when you put out the budget. Do you think that the city’s headcount has grown far enough? And, if so, why is it that the budget – in the document itself – has thousands more positions that have been budgeted that are currently filled right now? So, is that what you’ll be calling a hiring freeze? 

Mayor: So, let me clarify. We will have the final plan at the time of budget adoption – so, the next few weeks. It is specifically related to administrative and managerial positions. It is a limited hiring freeze. We will look at agencies where lines have not been filled consistently. We will look at positions that we are not convinced merit being filled. We’re not going to interfere with anything that was agreed to previously, but obviously there are a lot of lines that either haven’t been filled, or agencies are proposing anew. What we are also clear about is the frontline new hires have been absolutely worthwhile – additional police officers, additional traffic enforcement agents, additional pre-K teachers, additional Correction officers. All of that makes sense. We’re going to continue as we see needs to fill those needs. So, that’s really the differentiation, David. We believe that government should only be as large as it needs to be, but when it comes to frontline service, we certainly have identified in the last three years things where we needed to do more. I don’t have a doubt in my mind that adding teachers for pre-K was a tremendously positive strategic investment in this cities future. I don’t care if it added headcount – it was the right thing to do, it was a smart use of money. Sometimes people put this notion of a headcount on a bit too much of a pedestal. It’s one of a number of considerations we need to look at when we budget. But, equally, if we think something isn’t pulling its weight, I have no problem getting rid of it or freezing it. So, that’s what we’ll be looking at. 

Question: The other part of this – so, your Police Commissioner has referred to Oscar Lopez Rivera as a terrorist. Do you believe he’s a terrorist? 

Mayor: I believe he renounced terrorism. He was part of an organization that obviously did employ violence. He was not involved directly in that violence. He has renounced violence. Two Presidents of the United States came to the conclusion that he was worthy of commutation of his sentence – that’s fine, that’s all I need to know. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Say again?

Question: Did Jimmy O’Neill go too far?

Mayor: I don’t critique the Police Commissioner for offering his view form his prospective. He and I have a tremendous working relationship. We agree on 98 or 99 percent of the matters that come forward. At this point, I think it’s a perfectly understandable difference of perspective. 

Question: The Daily News has been posting this week on opioid overdose and [inaudible] in the Bronx and we had a story over the weekend about a [inaudible] nearby here, actually, where people have been going to use drugs, or use heroin. It was cleared out in 2015 – people are back. And experts say that it probably really make much of a difference to clear it out again. So, I’m curious to hear form you how you think the city can address locations like this, or this overall problem? 

Mayor: I don’t agree with the experts – the “experts.” I don’t know who they are, but I don’t agree with them. That was a homeless encampment that I visited with one of your colleagues at that point. It was cleared out and that encampment was terminated. What we’ve seen, according to [inaudible] up here in the Bronx, drug use specifically has been increasing at that site. So, seperate form the homeless issue, that’s not been, as far as I understand, the challenge there at this point. It has been a place where drug users have gone to congregate. I ordered the Chief to clear that out again, and we will add additional physical measure to make sure that location cannot be used. I don’t think it’s safe to have a place where people can congregate to do something that’s dangerous. And I don’t believe that that is ineffective. I believe that’s the right strategy to constantly limit the places where people can engage in illegal and dangerous activity, and then focus our resources on getting people treatment and connecting with them, which is what we’ve done with the HOME-STAT model. But obviously we do that with public health work as well. The whole point of our plan to reduce the number of opioid deaths is that we want to connect people to treatment. But if we’re leaving people in a dangerous situation on an ongoing basis, that’s not acceptable to me, so that site will be addressed very aggressively. 

Question: When will it be cleared out?

Mayor: I only had the conversation with the Chief two days ago, so I think in a matter of – certainly the coming days. 

Question: I hope you enjoyed your little stay here in the Bronx and come back [inaudible].

Mayor: I will be back.

Question: I’ve seen you and Borough President Diaz getting along fine.

Mayor: Let me just indicate to everyone in case anyone has the question, that these borough weeks will, if the people select me again, they will be an annual part of what we do. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: It’s – I think about the move forward very energetically. I’ve spoken to the Borough President about it. I know this is a passion of his. I’ve spoken to the Speaker of the Assembly about it – it’s a passion of his. All we need now is for the Empire State Development Corporation to authorize the resources, which were approved in the State budget. My hope is they will do that in their June meeting. Then, we’re ready to move forward with all the legal paperwork to make the project happen and our Economic Development Corporation is poised and ready to act. So, I think we’re one more step away from this thing happening, and that step will happen next month. 

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: You’ll have to ask the Empire State Development Corporation. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wonder if you and the Schools Chancellor could comment about the sexual abuse charges being brought against a superintendent of district 20. 

Mayor: Yeah, I would just say it disgusts me that someone we entrusted with protecting our children could engage in any type of sexual abuse. This individual was arrested and has been terminated by the Department of Education.

Chancellor Fariña: I would just – you know, what the Mayor said – within two hours of hearing of his arrest, he was notified that he no longer had a job and he was removed from payroll. So, as of yesterday, he’s no longer an employee of the DOE and will not become another employee of the DOE in the future. 

Question: Mr. Mayor, I just wanted to check in on the timeline of the examples of donors who didn’t get anything, or the op-ed. How’s that coming? And also, do you have a tally yet of your personal legal bills? 

Mayor: I don’t have a final tally, but we will speak to that soon. I am behind my own deadline on the op-ed because we attempted an initial draft and I didn’t feel it said what I was trying to say. So, I’m going to do it, but we’re not there yet. 

Question: Just to follow up on David’s question, you said that you’re supporting – Oscar Lopez Rivera had denounced the use of violence –

Mayor: That’s been established many times over, including by the two Presidents of the United States that agreed to commute his sentence. I’m surprised you’re asking it like it’s a new thing. 

Question: Well, I’m asking because –

Mayor: Respectfully, I don’t know if you know the history of the case if you’re asking the question that way. So, this has really gone over a lot, by a lot of people, a lot of journalists. It is a fact and the President of the United States – before the current officeholder was in position – the fact is there was a thorough process by the Department of Justice to evaluate a determination under President Clinton and President Obama that he deserved a commutation of his sentence, and one of the reasons was he had renounced terrorism. 

Question: I understand. And if I can finish, after he was released, after all of that had happened, he did say “all colonized people have a right to struggle for its independence using all methods within reach, including force.” 

Mayor: I don’t believe that is an inherent contradiction because I haven’t seen all of his statements, but I also understand that he’s talked about the difference between a democratic society, like our own, and a dictatorship, which is a different situation entirely. And there are colonized people around the world who suffered through dictatorship situations where they had no legal and democratic rights. This is not that. So, I’m conformable that I’ve spoken to this and I don’t have a lot more to add. 

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: Let me ask, is this a media question? You’re also media? 

Question: No, no.

Mayor: Okay, we’re only doing media right now. We’ll follow up with you seperately. 

Go ahead. 

Question: Just to follow up on Laura’s question, I thought the reason that he wasn’t released under President Clinton was because one of the conditions was he had to renounce –

Mayor: I’m not an expert on all of the history. My understanding is not that. My understanding is that another colleague of his was not slated for release and he felt as a matter of solidarity he wasn’t going to leave if his colleague was still in prison. You can check that history. I’m not an expert on it. 

Last call? Thanks, everyone.