Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Community Conversation

May 28, 2024

Commissioner Fred Kreizman, Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit: Good evening. My name is Fred Kreizman, commissioner of the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. It's truly a pleasure to be here in Astoria, Queens. This is the mayor's 29th Community Conversation. This is besides the mayor's senior town halls and youth town halls that he makes sure to do in all five boroughs. It's a pleasure to be hosted here at the Frank Sinatra School of Arts, as well as by Principal Gideon Frankel.

It is a historical, amazing recreational cultural place, Astoria, Queens. We have Astoria Park, a recreational facility. Athens Park, that has amazing cultural events in the summer. We have historical location like Steinway & Sons. We have Kaufman Studios. We have the Museum of Moving Image. We have amazing people here, like Tony Bennett, who helped make this place possible, as well as our own Bishop Taylor, who always leading for the folks in the housing.

When talking about housing, no place comes close to Astoria when it comes to housing facilities. I just want to really thank also our District Manager in CB1, Florence Koulouris, who is so active.

At this time, I just want to go quickly through the dais as I introduce the dais. I'll give it over to Council Member Julie Won, and then Assembly Member Jenifer Rajkumar, then the mayor will speak. Quickly, I'm going ask people no applause. When I announce someone's name, please stand up for a moment so you can be acknowledged. With no applause. We'll save all the applause to the end.

We have the mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams. The deputy mayor of Health and Human Services, Anne Williams‑Isom. The deputy mayor of Housing, Economic Development and Workforce, Maria Torres-Springer. Deputy Chief of Staff for the First Deputy Mayor Meagan Chen. Chief Infrastructure Officer for the deputy mayor of Operations, Alison Landry. Chief of Staff for Deputy Mayor Strategic Initiatives, Jason Parker. NYPD Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart. DYCD Commissioner Keith Howard.

Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manny Castro. The Human Rights Commissioner and Chair Annabel Palma. Health and Hospital CEO Dr. Mitchell Katz. Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health Executive Director Eva Wong. Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Chief Financial Officer Aaron Anderson. DSS First Deputy Commissioner Jill Barry. We have ACS Commissioner Jess Dannhauser. MOCJ Director Deanna Logan. The DOE Chief of Schools Danielle DiMango.

We have End Gender-Based Violence Acting Commissioner Sethi Saloni. We have Department of Finance Director of Outreach Kieran Mahoney. SBS Executive Director Dynishal Gross. Mayor's Office of People Disabilities Chief of Staff Sara Rawshanara.

And to my right, we have Councilmember Julie Won. Assemblymember, Jenifer Rajkumar. Department of City Planning Commissioner, Dan Garodnick. Department of Buildings Commissioner, Jimmy Oddo. New York City Emergency Management Commissioner, Zach Iscol. DOT Commissioner, Ydanis Rodriguez. Department of Consumer Worker Protection Commissioner, Vilda Vera Mayuga. Department of the Aging Commissioner, Lorraine Cortes-Vazquez. Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue. HPD Commissioner Adolfo Carrión.

Office of Road Mitigation Director Kathleen Corradi. Office of Asylum Seeker Operations Director Molly Schaeffer. Mayor's Office of Climate Environmental Justice, Executive Director Elijah Hutchinson. DEP, Beth DeFalco, deputy commissioner, EDC. Senior Vice President of Neighborhood Strategies Adam Meagher. Department of Probation, deputy commissioner Joan Gardner. NYCHA, Executive Vice President Dan Greene. Sanitation Chief Iggy Azzara. Fire Chief Joseph Ferrante.

We’re also joined by NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry, Chief of Patrol, Chief John Chell. We have, as well, Queens North CO, Chief Bastedenbeck. The Queens XO Chief Ray Portes, 108 CO, Captain Tony Wong, 114 CO, Deputy Inspector Seth Lynch. PSA 9 CO, Captain Miguel Figueroa, 115 XO, Captain Hameed Armani, the CEO of School Safety Inspector Mulet Sanitation, District 1 Superintendent Milton Bullock. We also have the Principal Gideon Frankel, again, thank you for hosting us, and Deputy Chief of Community Affairs Richie Taylor. At this time, I shall hand it over, Julie Won, councilmember, then Jennifer Rajkumar, then we go over to mayor.

Councilmember Julie Won: Thank you so much, Fred. Good evening, District 26. It's so good to see you all. If we haven't already met, my name is Julie Won, I'm the current councilmember for this part of Astoria, Long Island City, Sunnyside, and Woodside. It is such an honor to be here with all of the leadership of the city. This is quite the lineup, I've actually never seen this in real life before.

I am so incredibly glad that in our community we're actually right outside of the site where even just a few months ago, so many of my community members were inside and outside were actively working towards making sure that innovation Queens reflected the needs of our community. I have got to give a special shout out to Evvy, who is also here from Community Board One. Evvy, can you wave? 

As you can see, we're a very engaged community, we are a very active community, and we're a very vocal community. Even though we may not always agree on everything and see eye to eye, I know that we have so many leaders, especially from our NYCHAs, we have Corinne Haynes from Queensbridge Houses along with Bishop Taylor, Sugar Ray.

It is the largest public housing unit in the whole entire country right here in this district, as well as one of the fastest developing markets for land use in Long Island City, also in this district, and some of our most historic parts of Astoria and Long Island City and Sunnyside all culminated together with the largest, fastest-growing Asian American Pacific Islander population, especially in Woodside. For the Himalayan community, for the Nepalese, Tibetan, I can go on and on. We have the largest population of newest arrivals in our district. We have 38 shelters total, 28 migrants, all culminating right here in the heart of Queens.

We are all here together to make sure that your voices are heard and I really hope you recognize that even though we may not always agree that the leadership is here to listen, and that we're all here to work together to make sure that we are successful in everything that we're creating, to find common ground in our neighborhoods for the best and prosperity of all. Thank you so much to Mayor Adams for being here and all of his leadership community. I'll now hand it off to Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar.

Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: Good evening. I'm so thrilled to be here in Astoria. Allow me to reintroduce myself. I'm State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar. We made history when I became the first Indian American woman ever elected to a New York State office. I'm so proud to be here tonight. I come from a family where my parents immigrated to this country with just $300 and a suitcase. My mom was born in a mud hut in India, and now I get to be a state representative. I am so grateful for this opportunity.

As a state representative, I have been proud to deliver huge wins for diversity and inclusion. I was proud to lead and win the fight to make Diwali a school holiday in New York City, making sure that 600,000 Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh and Jain New Yorkers were finally seen and heard and recognized by their government. We didn't just stop there.

We continued to make the impossible possible by passing my bill to create the first-ever Asian commission in New York State government. Just today I was with the governor in her mansion as she appointed for the first time Asian Americans to this brand-new Asian commission that's going to bridge the gap between Asians and their government. Then my law that gave domestic workers human rights for the first time. That means 300,000 domestic workers, mostly immigrant women and women of color, will finally have the same protections as all other workers. I want to thank Mayor Adams for his incredible support in all of these initiatives.

Finally, back in December, I was speaking with the mayor about the needs of New Yorkers, and he said, we need the power from Albany to close all of the illegal smoke shops in our city. There are actually 36,000 illegal smoke shops in our state right now. I applaud him for having always that clear vision for what New Yorkers need. He needed the power from Albany to close those shops, and I was proud to lead the charge to close those smoke shops by authoring the SMOKEOUT Act, because I said, we got to smoke them out and shut these illegal smoke shops down once and for all, because they're harming the legal cannabis market.

I'm proud to say that we launched Operation Smokeout, and so many provisions of the SMOKEOUT Act were passed in the state budget. I want to applaud the mayor for, in a short amount of time, already shutting down over 200 illegal smoke shops in the city of New York. Stay focused, no distractions, and grind. I learned that from Mayor Adams. I think that that kind of focus, that 24/7 hard work to every issue, is what he brings to this city. Thank you so much, Mayor Adams, for everything that you do, and I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much, Astoria, for allowing me to come out and to bring the team to come out. Pray for you, brother. I pray for you. I pray for you. As I was stating, and we'll have a few disruptions as we go on, but as Jenifer stated, the assembly woman stated, stay focused, no distractions and grind. Why do I know that so well? Try being a third-grade student walking into a classroom and seeing a dumb student on the back of your chair. Try praying every day that you didn't have to read so the children won't mimic you, and learning in college that you were dyslexic and not dumb.

Try watching a mother raise six children, and able to get us through that all of us were able to become productive citizens. Try figuring out if you're actually going to be able to remain in your home because she couldn't have the mortgage paid on time. They used to have this thing called the [inaudible] where the neighbors would chip in. I know what it is to have people distract you. I know what it is to inherit a city. In January 1st, 2022, crime was surging by 40 percent. Jobs were not coming to our city. We were dealing with a real employment issue. Tourism was not here.

No one wanted to be on our subway system. There was this five letter word that many of us forgot, it's called COVID. We were wearing masks everywhere we traveled to. Our children were not learning at the rate that they're supposed to learn at. We had an overwhelming number of city employees that did not have contracts. Some were as long as 13 years. Our police officers were waiting for almost eight years for a contract. Housing was not being built at the level that it ought to be. When I was out as a bar president knocking on doors of NYCHA, residents said, "Why are you bringing masks to those people? You're wasting the mask on them."

I gave it to them anyway. When I knocked on doors, parents opened their doors and they told me that their children did not have high-speed broadband, that they couldn't go online when we were doing remote learning, and their family members could not do telemedicine because they didn't have high-speed broadband. Two years later, we have more jobs in the City of New York in the history of the city. Two years later, we have the fourth largest tourism return to our city. 4.1 million people on the subway system using our subway system every day.

Two years later, over 15,000 illegal guns removed off our streets. 53,000 ghost cars, illegal mopeds, dirt bikes, other cars and vehicles that were being used to commit crimes. Two years later, our children are outpacing the state and in reading and math because of what Chancellor Banks has done. We're teaching children healthy eating, breathing exercises, how to develop their full personhood. We've changed the reading curriculum. Now the state is following, and the entire country is going to eventually follow, two years later.

Two years later, we went after my number one enemy in the city, rats. I hate rats. We made the decision that we were going to containerize our garbage. People said it was going to take five years. In two and a half years, we're going to move to have all of our garbage containerized like other modern cities are doing. 

When I go to Europe and other cities, they say, how do you have so many garbage bags on your streets? It's not even there. Two years later, when you look at where we were, where we are with Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer has done, we have transitioned more people out of shelters into permanent housing in the history of the city.

More people were able to utilize FHEPS vouchers in the history of the program. We funded more affordable units in the history of the city. We took NYCHA residents, and remember I was talking about the fact that they didn't have high-speed broadband? We ensured every NYCHA resident in the city now has free high-speed broadband so their children can have the same thing that other children are doing.

When you do an analysis, people often say, wait a minute, we didn't know that. The victories we have done in this administration with this amazing team of people committed to the city. Now, we did it with 190,000 migrants and asylum seekers. I am not allowed to stop the buses from coming in. It's against the law. I'm not allowed to tell people that you have to get three meals a day in a place to sleep that is required by law.

I'm not allowed to say that you could work, that's against the law. Let me give you one even further. I can't even allow people to volunteer and give them a stipend. That is against federal law. With all that we encountered, go look at other cities. Go look at other cities and with other cities — no, no, no. Don't touch her. Let the female officer touch her.

Listen, no men touch — officers. Let the women officers. Stay focused, no distractions and grind. Let me end on this note as we open up to questions. NYPD went on some of these college campuses, folks, and on those college campuses, we saw rhetoric as we acknowledged Memorial Day on Monday.

We saw rhetoric of how much people hate America, how they want to destroy America. How they want the destruction of America. Let me be very clear. Yes, the poll said that 52 of Americans won't defend this country when it's attacked by foreign enemies. Yes, only 18 percent of 18 to 34 years old love this country. Yes, those polls say that, but let me be clear. I still pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stand, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I still think of my 19-year-old uncle who died in Vietnam and gave his life for his country.

Those who hate our country, those who want to destroy our country, those think they're going to yell down what we stand for, those who think we're going to be intimidated, and we're going to run, those who think they can just use their voices to out yell you, not in this city we call New York. This is our city, folks. This is our city. If you don't realize it, I want you to go back to 2001. Our center was a trade, was attacked. I was a lieutenant at the time seeing that building collapse. On September 11th, 2001, when I was there, we were all afraid, but everyone focused on September 11th, 2001. Let me tell you the date I focus on, September 12th.

We got up, teachers taught, builders built, retailers sold their goods, and those who yelled and screamed at us and thought they were going to break our spirit. When New York got up, America got up, and we will always get up because we're resilient. I spent 22 years wearing a bulletproof vest protecting the children and families of this city. I'm going to do it as a cop, as a state senator, as the board president, and I'm going to do it as your mayor.

We're going to always get up, New York. Why don't we open the questions and hear from you? Again, thank you for allowing me to come out and be with you. Thank you for allowing me to be with you. The men officers, I got women officers here. If women want to jump up and yell, let the women officers handle it. I don't want you handling a woman protestor. Now, if the guys jump up, do your thing. Let's be clear. They better not get in this circle. Come on, let's open up. Now that we got all that yelling out of the way, let's open this up.

Commissioner Kreizman: Just want to just stress one thing. We started this thing as a six o'clock to seven o'clock, and if your question is not asked, we'll go through all the tables. There are question cards in front of every single person. We ensure to get back with you. We have a member of the mayor's offices, every single table with community affairs officer at every table. Jot down all your issues that were discussed because we discuss with policymakers.

Again, we're just asking you to be brief, straight to the point so we get through all the questions and be respectful because everyone who came out tonight cares about the community. Take care. Table one.

Mayor Adams: Yes. How are you?

Question: Good. Good evening, everyone. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to be here tonight. My name is Hossam Maksoud. I'm the CEO of Community Care Rx. We service over 10,000 clients, residents in group home settings, drug addiction programs, assisted living. Today my question is about mental health. My question to you, mayor, we have a demand, but we don't have enough supply. In other words, we have over 3 million people with serious mental health issues in the state of New York between the age of 18 and 25.

With that said, we don't have enough psychotherapists, we don't have counselors, we don't have psychologists, and even when they are available, the nonprofit organizations and organizations all over the city cannot afford the new rates. I want to know, and I completely understand, it's not just a city, it's an Albany issue, it's a federal issue, but I want to know what the city is doing about it. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging that the state and the feds need to join our call for what we need to do about severe mental health issues. This administration has approached this head-on. When we came into office in 2022, you saw encampments everywhere. We saw people living on the street with severe mental health issues, we saw bipolar schizophrenic drug use, all the things you saw, and we said we're not turning our backs on that. We're going to reach it head-on. Dr. Vasan has been leading Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Can someone from Department of Health– oh, right here. Dr. Katz from H + H.

Dr. Mitchell Katz, President and CEO, NYC Health + Hospitals: Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you for the question and the concern about fellow New Yorkers who are suffering from mental illness. I am very proud, acknowledging all of the difficulties you said, that we have Elmhurst Hospital in the area, our phenomenal CEO Helen Ortega is here, and that we're able to care for people with the most severe mental illness, but I think, as you say, we really need major changes from the state Medicaid, from private insurers to recognize that there needs to be mental health equity. Just like people need to see a medical doctor, sometimes they need to see a mental health professional. We would like to be able to do that both in city facilities and nonprofit facilities, as you say so that people can find the right environment for their care. Eva, you want to add?

Eva Wong, Executive Director, Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health: Yes, I hear you talking about not having enough people really doing the work. I want to let you know the Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health has been working on strategies with over 15 city agencies for the last year and a half to address the behavioral health workforce crisis. We understand that we need more people in the pipeline and we need also to support the peer support workers and community health workers who are also part of the ecosystem of caring for New Yorkers. Those strategies will be released and shared as soon as we can, but letting you know that this is an issue that we are really working on, knowing that we do need more people doing the work and we understand that stigma is always an issue when it comes to mental health.

That's another effort that I'm working with my city agency partners to tackle that is community-specific. One thing I do, I didn't bring many, but if you go on the website of the Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health, this is one of the samples of a palm card, because folks might not really still sometimes get lost of what number do I call if I need mental health support, but it's 988, which is the hotline, 24-7 hotline. You don't have to be in crisis. You call if you need resource and you're wondering, you're trying to help a loved one. We want people getting help earlier before they hit the crisis point and have their condition worsen. ODM wanted to add.

Deputy Mayor Anne Williams-Isom, Health and Human Services: I just wanted to add what you made another announcement about today at the Topper when you talked about your focus on young people and Teenspace, and how in six months we've had 6,800 young people who have signed up to use technology in order to get their mental health. About 56 percent of them say that they feel better already. The Mayor's focus is not just on serious mental illness, not just on making sure that we get care, but really focusing on so many of our young people who we know are suffering and giving them what they need in the platforms in which they need it, and so using social media in a positive way.

Mayor Adams: I assume you're in this line of work. During many years ago, we advocated to close mental health facilities. When we closed them, we did not match it with the funding to give people the care that they deserve. That's why we're seeing so many people who are dealing with severe mental health issues. What we have done, we've waited with a revolving door. We wait until they commit a crime. Then we send them to Rikers Island. 54 percent of the people on Rikers Island right now have mental health issues. Almost 18 percent have severe mental health issues.

We're getting ready to close Rikers Island. I believe we need to think about opening a state-of-the-art facility where we could have the necessary beds we need, give people the care that they need so they don't have to see the streets as an alternative, or commit an act and eventually be incarcerated. That is our focus we need to be focusing on. Thank you very much.

Commissioner Kreizman: Table number two.

Question: Hi, Mr. Adams.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: My name is [Sherrise Palomino.] I'm the Director of Advocacy at New Yorkers for Parks. Our question at our table is, the City Council said that there's at least $1.6 billion in additional funding, would you be willing to reverse the 5 percent pay cuts to parks which risks over 600 jobs, reverse cuts to libraries, education, and youth programs?

Mayor Adams: First, let's be real clear of the budget I want. You're clapping a long time, brother. I heard you. I heard your first clap. No, you're sitting there clapping, clap, clap, clap. [Laughter.] The budget I want is not cutting parks. Here's what we inherited, folks. Not only did we inherit the almost 200,000 migrants and asylum seekers that costs us over $4 billion and they're going to cost us even more, and although we don't see it, it didn't stop. How many did we get this weekend? How many did we get migrants and asylums? We got 1,100. We're getting over 4,000 new arrivals a month.

At one time over the summer, we were getting almost 16,000 a month. It's unbelievable when you think about it. Other cities, people are sleeping in precincts, hospitals, airports, not here in this city. We had to manage that, but then we had another problem. The previous administration put in place dollars for permanent programs was sunset in dollars. We didn't have any money for summarizing program. The dollar sunset it. Then we had all of our city employees for the most part but didn't even have a contract. We had to settle.

When you combine $4 billion coming out of nowhere, will you look at sunset in dollars that we have to now find money for, when you look at all of these additional expenses that came out of nowhere, we have to balance our books. Any of you that are homeowners? If you're homeowners, you know you have a budget for a year, and if all of a sudden your roof caves in, you then expect your insurance owner to come in and pay for while insurance owner for the migrants and asylum seekers was Washington, D.C. They didn't come with the insurance payment, so now it's come out of taxpayers' dollars.

I just walked with Councilwoman Won who just left. I walked with her when we had one of our HERRCs, when people are lingering outside, the quality of life. I'm saying I don't want to cut hospitals. I don't want to cut libraries. I don't want to cut any of this stuff. The law requires that I balance the budget every year. There's not one agency in this city that when I say that, "Listen, we have to find $4 billion." No one is saying, "Eric, take it from me. Take it from me."

That's why everyone had to do a little. We said everyone has to do a little. Then, because we managed the budget so well, bond rate is raise our bond rate. Then we said we don't have to take the last peg that we are about to do. We don't have to do that last leg level of cuts. It's easy for the city council to say, "Let's just spend, spend, spend."

We can't get it right. We're still in negotiations. There may be some stuff that we can put back into the budget, but we have to be smart for the fiscal uncertainties that we're facing. We're with you. I love my park. Sue Donoghue. Sue, she got applause even when we told people not to applause because people know how much Sue Donoghue is committed to the park. We're with you. We just got to get it right. We can't make a mistake and not have the money to make sure we're paying out teachers, our police officers, et cetera.

In other states and municipalities, when that COVID money ran out, you know what they did? They laid off. We did not lay off one employee and we did not raise any taxes. That is not what other municipalities are doing.

Yes. Okay, see you later. On your way out.

Commissioner Kreizman: We got table number three.

Mayor Adams: Number three on this side. Stay focused, no distractions and grind. There's more of us than them. Always remember that. The loudest don't make you the majority.

Question: Mr. Mayor, thank you. I don't know how I got selected to ask this question.

Mayor Adams: [Laughter.] Because everybody loves you.

Question: First of all, I want to thank you for NYC Kids RISE. Debra-Ellen Glickstein, who's the co-founder of Urban Upbound, helped us get over 200,000 kids in kindergarten, this asset to go to college. Thank you for making that happen. I guess to contextualize this, Hunter's point, in 2001, there was 10,000 units slated to be developed. No affordability there. After that was built, the south side had some affordability built there. Move a little bit over north to Queens Plaza. Tremendous development there. Go a mile north to Astoria on the peninsula, tremendous development there.

However, Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing development in the country. We got hit with the pandemic. Our brothers and sisters came out of shelter. Where did they come? To the 32 hotels that are in Long Island City. After the pandemic, then our brothers and sisters from the migrant population came, and where did they go? To the 32 hotels in Long Island City. That literally set our community back 40 years. Before the pandemic, before the migrant crises, we had folks working in the hotels. We had the community on an upswing. Now, if something isn't done, it'll take us 40 to 50 years to recover.

Here's a simple fix. I've talked to 11 landowners in this area from 40th Avenue, right in front of Queensbridge Houses, from 21st Street to Vernon Boulevard to 38th Avenue. If we lifted the IBZ, which nobody wants, it was put in place years ago to protect the values of the land so that industry could afford to operate. There's no more industry operating, and all the landowners want the IBZ moved. If we do that, it'll change the complexion of Queensbridge houses forever. Now watch this. The reason why this is important is because this table is concerned about quality-of-life issues where our children go to school.

In order to get to the libraries, to the parks, and to PS 112, 111, 76, Grown Up Green, Voice Charter, they have to go through these arteries from 40th Avenue, 38th Avenue. That's a war zone. We got to lift the IBZ, and we got to rezone it. I want to thank you for bringing this breadth of administrators, and these folks are awesome. I thank you for that. We need to address– and then there are pockets like this probably all over the city. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Who's that?

Commissioner Kreizman: Dan Garodnick.

Mayor Adams: Dan is here. First of all, I don't have to tell you, but Bishop Taylor, what he has done in the Queens big section. I remember doing COVID meeting you. I think it was 6:00 AM in the morning or earlier delivering food on the ground, doing the real work. We cannot thank you enough for what you did during COVID seeing your entire operation. He was the bishop, but he was driving the forklift, packing the boxes, delivering the food. It was really amazing to see. I thank you for that.

Dan, you want to talk about that? Listen, I coined the phrase, "Build, baby, build." We need to build. We have an inventory problem. We have 1.4 percent vacancy in our city, so people who don't understand that, and what Dan is trying to do with the City of Yes, we have to build more inventory. Our zoning laws were racist on many levels. It prevented people from living in communities. We have to build more, and that's what Dan is attempting to do. Do you want to touch on it, Dan?

Dan Garodnick, Director, Department of City Planning: Sure thing, mayor. Thank you very  much. First, to the point about building more housing, as many of you know, the mayor's charged us to go big on housing and to find a way for us to deal with what is a historically low vacancy rate of 1.41 percent, which is hurting all New Yorkers. The price of rent, gentrification, homelessness, the imbalance of power between landlords and tenants, we have a real crisis. It's not a couple of years in the making, it's not 5, 10 years in the making, it's many decades in the making.

Number one, we need to take action citywide to build a little more housing in every neighborhood, which will have a real impact on our crisis while not doing the sort of drastic changes that individual neighborhoods frequently fear. Now, at the same time, we also have neighborhood plans. As you know, Bishop Taylor, we're in the process of talking about plans for Long Island City, and on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn, and in East Bronx, and Jamaica, and in midtown Manhattan, we've got plans for different areas of the city.

We want to think about how to thoughtfully grow communities in a way that respects their needs, provide infrastructure investment, create housing, create jobs, the whole thing. Then, the third piece of the puzzle, of course, relates to IBZs, IBZ policy, manufacturing, manufacturing policy. We just recently, as part of our City of Yes for Economic Opportunity, that is proposal two of our three City of Yes series, are creating for the first time new manufacturing zones, for the first time in 60 years, to promote growth, to create opportunity, to preserve manufacturing in areas where it deserves and needs to be preserved.

The City Council has also charged us to come up with a plan, citywide, for IBZs and industrial policies, citywide. That is something that is currently underway, which will open the very question that you are asking, which is, "Are our lines properly drawn for manufacturing, for IBZs?" We understand that they're not perfect, but we also need to be thoughtful about where we open the door, what we do and when. I take your point, I know we're going to talk about this further, but this is a live question both on IBZ policy and also on the need to create a lot of housing. We certainly look forward to working with you.

Mayor Adams: Bishop, you're saying that some of these areas where we have IBZs are potential housing? Did we pay that rent? What's going on with the lights? Yes.

Question: Like Dan said, they were developed to protect the manufacturing industry. What I'm saying is, where the IBZ that I'm talking about in Long Island City is not protecting industry. It's degrading community.

Mayor Adams: You're saying it's housing potential.

Question: Big housing potential. Big time.

Mayor Adams: I've always felt that way. I felt that we're not going to have these big floor plates manufacturing anymore. People are doing smaller projects. Many people are working out of their home. I always felt that when I was borough president in Industry City in Brooklyn, we need to look at how do we change and so we need to really look at that, Dan. Mr. Mayor–

Question: This block- I'm sorry. There's two large land masses that are ripe for development. Largest in the city.

Mayor Adams: Yes. We need to really, really look at that. Commissioner, carry on.

Commissioner Adolfo Carrión, Housing, Preservation and Development: Thank you, mayor, and thank you —

Mayor Adams: Wouldn't you like to have that more housing? Wouldn't you like to turn that into housing, Commissioner?

Commissioner Carrión: Absolutely, sir. We're facing a crisis. We're tackling it head-on. I have to tell you, we are fully engaged, fully engaged with the Long Island City community and working with the councilmembers to plan the future of Long Island City in all its manifestations, and part of that conversation is tens of thousands of units of affordable housing, 100 percent affordable housing. The city owns two major sites in Long Island City that are in active discussions now.

In addition to that, in Astoria over the last 10 years, we financed almost 2,500 units of affordable housing, but the mayor has charged us as the commissioner of the Department of City Planning said to build, build, build. That's why we built the most affordable housing, that we financed the most affordable housing in calendar year '23 in the city's history and we're going to continue to do that. We look forward to that engagement.

Mayor Adams: I really think that we need to look at some of these IBZ zones. There's a lot of these zones I think they're outdated. We need to be aggressive in how do we convert them into housing or do mixed-use like what we're doing over at the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. How we're looking at we're going to keep our ports, but at the same time, all that waterfront, that waterfront shipment not save just for long shore man.

People want water fuse. Bishop, let's figure this out. I think you're onto to something. We need to build more housing. Now, in this area, Astoria, when I was a transit cop on the seventh line and the end line, it didn't look like this. I wish I would've had a few dollars. This place has changed. Unbelievable from what it looked like. Yes, ma'am.

Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm good, how are you?

Mayor Adams: Good.

Question: My name's Karisha. I am speaking on behalf of our table.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: We are moms. I'm a new mom. We are educators, principals, police officers, lawyers, so I have a question on behalf of our table. How can we structure the funding so that we don't waste taxpayer dollars on paying off lawsuits or overtime, maybe like police overtime, so that we can prioritize libraries, schools, especially the 3K program, which is going to be directly impacting my family, for example, essential services that our seniors and that our families rely on so that they can be properly restored and funded?

Mayor Adams: Who [do] I have from the DOE? Okay. First, I want you to understand, every child that wants a seat is going to have access to a seat. When you look at the pre-K, because you hear a lot of noise about the pre-K and the 3K, it was not funded. The former mayor knew that the funding for pre-K and 3K was going to sunset. We had to find the money to continue, which we are able to do. Then when you look at the fact, 94 percent of those who have already put in for seats, 94 percent, they already have them. We have about 2,000 that are remaining.

What the previous administration did, they used as success that, "Hey, we have thousands of seats." Then when we came into office, we said, "Wait a minute, let's look at this." We were paying for seats, not children in seats. We were wasting taxpayers' money, what you're talking about. What we did, we went in and said, "Let's reconfigure and make sure we have the seats, because it's not only– It's infants and toddlers, it's 3K, it's pre-K. We had to figure this whole mess out that we inherited.

Even with that, we've been able to get 94 percent of our parents to get the seat that they deserve and we're going to get to the 100 percent, because I pulled the team together and said, "I made a commitment, we're going to live up to the commitment." Right now, we have 2,000 more parents in these seats, but we got 9,000 empty seats that your tax dollars are going to pay for. That just doesn't make sense for me.

When we talk about overtime for police officers, do you know we've had over 2,000 protests in this city since October 7th, over 2,000 protests. We had to call police officers in, held them in tours. These police officers, people have been spitting at them, throwing things at them, assaulting them. One officer had a chair threw at him and lucky he had a helmet on because it dented his helmet. In spite of all of that, they have continually responded.

We don't want to do overtime. These officers don't want to do overtime. They want to go home with their family members, but when you have thousands of people on our streets that's decide they're going to stop traffic, they're going to prevent emergency vehicles from coming through, these officers have to respond and we holding them longer tours in order to do so.

The way we have managed taxpayers' dollars, they are independent agencies that do an analysis of how well your govern a city to make the determination of what your bond rating is going to be. They've done that with us. All of the bond rating agencies have raised our bonds.

They said, "This mayor is making the tough decisions and he's doing it with the compassion, and he's doing it smartly for the future of this city. We're not wasting money. We're making sure that every dollar that you pay in your tax dollars is going to go to the services that you deserve. You have not been getting your money's worth. We want to make sure you get your money's worth. Did you have a boy or girl?

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Okay. I have a boy. I only have one, but it feels like six.

Question: Right here.

Mayor Adams: We're grinding. We're grinding.

Commissioner Kreizman: Table five.

Mayor Adams: How are you, ma'am?

Question: Good. How are you?

Mayor Adams: Quite well.

Question: Thank you, mayor, for this opportunity. My name is Jean. I'm a parent of a public school student. New York City is required to lower class sizes over the next three years. Virtual learning was announced today as one way to alleviate for the 2024-'25 school year. Most school districts in Queens are oversubscribed and this will be a very costly mandate to implement. Does it make sense for high-performing schools to be required to follow the mandate when there are youth programs, afterschool programs, library programs, affordable housing, community programs that are facing budget cuts? One other issue that our table brought up, are the proliferation of illegal e-bikes and moped riders who don't follow traffic laws and facilitate criminal activity.

Mayor Adams: I just love your question. I love your question. Here's what we had to do, folks. We are mandated by 2027 to close Rikers Island. Mandated by law, 2027. What's the price that it costs us to close it now? Balloon to? Who has that number for me? I think we're up to $13, $14 billion to build four more jails. After we build the four more jails, we have 2,000 people who we don't know where we going to place because the four more jails won't hold all the people that we have in Rikers Island. Think about that for a moment. Instead of us paying into housing and all those other things, we're going to use taxpayers' dollars to build four more jails. Four more jails. Watch this lady. We've got four more jails that we have to build, so the money is going to go to that.

As you stated, and when I said to my lawmakers in Albany, I said, we have schools of Brooklyn… Bronx Science, Bayside, Stuyvesant. Why are we dropping their class sizes? Why are we using money to drop class sizes in those areas when they're excelling? We should be focusing on dropping class sizes in those schools that are struggling to make sure, but there's no reason because I don't want to cap these programs that we have in many of these schools because we don't have enough classes, that just doesn't make sense. We need you to raise your voice. I'm with you. I see eye to eye with you.

I think you are right on that we could be using taxpayers' dollars better. We could make sure those schools that are excelling, they're not the ones that are saying we want to limit to the number of people that are coming to our school, they're saying just the opposite. They're finding ways to make it happen. Brooklyn Tech doesn't have a class size issue, now we got to lower Brooklyn Tech.

We're going to take from prominent schools who are doing it successfully and take from those schools who are not. I think it's the wrong thing to do, but we got to follow the law. The law requires us to do so, we got to follow the law, but we need advocacy to say, this law is not making any sense, but you're right. I agree with you 100 percent.

Commissioner Kreizman: Table six.

Question: Thank you. Peace and love. Good evening, everyone.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Peace and love, Mr. Mayor Adams. How are you doing? I'm sure like every table here, table six we had a lot of discussion. Before I get to our question, I just want to take a moment. Bishop Taylor, who has done incredible work in Queensbridge, spoke about housing. I definitely think we need more housing, 100 percent in Long Island City, but I think we need to change the structure or the definition of affordability because more housing has been built, but there seems to be more people that's homeless here in the city. I think that's super important.

Our question is on the conditions of public housing developments in this area, Queensbridge, Ravenswood a story in Long Island City, especially when we understand how someone's living conditions affects their mental health, their emotional health that ultimately drives their behavior. More irritation, more aggravation, more frustration. What is the city doing to ensure that the conditions of public housing are improved?

Mayor Adams: First of all, my female officers are getting a workout tonight. Thank you so much. You know what I'm saying? They're breathing hard and they are doing their thing.

They are doing their thing. Captain, you got one crew. DM Maria Torres-Springer you want to talk about housing? The number one thing I hear whenever — it has to be almost — it has become a bumper sticker. Affordable for who? Affordable for everyone. I need low income, I need middle income, and I need market because that's what makes the universe exist.

We fought so hard to increase the minimum pay raise. If you are a full-time husband and wife that works at McDonald's, do you know you don't qualify for some of the affordable units? People forget about the teacher and the accountant. We are hemorrhaging thousands of people that are leaving our city because no one is looking after the civil servants who their unions gave them the increases that they deserve now the city's no more affordable for them, so people want to just focus on low income.

Now, we need to deal with low income, but I need that cab driver, that fast food worker, that teacher, that accountant. We need them in the city. When people say, well, affordable for whom? Affordable for everybody. I want my son who went away to college to come here and be able to get a good job as a documentarian and live in the city and not say, "Well, I don't make enough." Some people say, "Listen, I make $6 over the minimum, now I can't afford it. Where do I go?" That's what dear Maria Torres-Springer has been doing. Why don't you talk about some of the stuff that you've been doing?

Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, Housing, Economic Development, and Workforce: Of course. Thank you so much for the question. It's clear. It's been said a few times now tonight. We need to build more housing because we have a supply problem. The last decade or so, we've added 800,000 jobs in the city, but only 200,000 homes. What that means is the vacancy rate that the mayor mentioned, it's basically zero for rental apartments. We have to build more and we have to build more affordable housing. That's why the mayor, in his budget, has invested more for affordable housing than any administration.

That's why in the last fiscal year, as Commissioner Carrión mentioned, we broke records in terms of the number of units that are available for extremely low-income families, formerly homeless families, supportive units. We're really proud of that, but we know we have to do more for both more housing and more affordable, and certainly, encourage everyone in this room to be very active as the City of Yes for Housing Opportunity makes its way through the public approval process.

You also mentioned public housing. I've been in a few different administrations and there was always a housing plan that was written. You know what was different in this housing plan under the leadership of Mayor Eric Adams? In our housing plan, chapter one was NYCHA, chapter two was homelessness because we understood that they all have to be connected and we have to in meaningfully invest in public housing, in homelessness if we're really going to make a dent in the housing insecurity that New Yorkers feel.

Over the course of the last few years, what has that meant for public housing? What that has meant is free broadband, for instance, for every public housing resident. It has meant standing up the public housing trust working with our partners in Albany that's allowing us new revenue sources to make the types of improvements that are needed in public housing. It has meant record numbers of units financed through programs like PAC. It has meant focus on the pillar areas, on mold, on trash, on pests across NYCHA developments. We all know, because 1 in 14 New Yorkers live in NYCHA, it's not going to get turned around overnight, but we're committed.

Finally, we have in this mayor and in this administration the right type of commitment and investment to make the types of changes across NYCHA developments. With their leadership now an amazing CEO and a new chair who are going to help us turn it around so that the residents who live across NYCHA developments get the quality of housing that they deserve.

Mayor Adams: Well said. We're with you, affordable. Go after our existing stock. NYCHA has been ignored for years and the victory they were trying to get Land Trust for years. We were able to get it through with the help of folks like Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar and others of– you all let Katie in. We've been able to successfully accomplish it, but we're with you. It needs to be affordable. We need housing.

Commissioner Kreizman: Table seven.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. This table would like to ask, how could the city along with the state take a look at the use of marijuana that is affecting the mental health state of our young men and women in the city, and also could you take a look at the rat infestation in Astoria?

Mayor Adams: Thank you for that. Again, she mentioned it when she spoke. I cannot thank Assemblywoman Rajkumar for her advocacy. Folks did not want to touch this. She gave a name to it, SMOKEOUT, and her bill just really generated the conversation for it. Those who are educators in here would tell you that our children in many parts of the city, they are high all the time. All the time.

You smell marijuana on them all the time and all the science is clear what marijuana and cannabis does to brain development at an early age. They're trying to self-medicate themselves. These illegal operations are targeting our children with these little gummy bears and candies. That is why we took this so seriously. Chief Chell and Commissioner Daughtry, they have been focusing on the hundreds of shots. I believe and I will continue to say there is an organized group that's behind using these different shops as franchises because they're all selling the same product, the same packaging. They get up and running so quickly. Now they have attorneys who are representing them, fighting them back.

This is too organized for someone just opened the shop. Chief, can you talk about what we have done thus far? I'm surprised it took him that long. He been sitting there all that time lurking. I wanted to ask him, "Man, when are you getting up?" I was like, "When are you getting up? You sitting there." I thought if I come near him, he would get up sooner. I was like, "When are you getting up, man? You are waiting for the girl to do it? Are you in get up?" Hiding behind his mask. [Laughter.] He was lurking all time, sat at y'all table. Acting like he was with the parks issue. Oh, man. Good Lord. Now you know why I say stay focused? Go ahead, chief.

Chief John Chell, Chief of Patrol, Police Department: All right. First of all, I had that guy clocked for about a half hour. Gave him a call up a half hour ago, man. Can't twitch his foot more than that for the last hour. Anyway, in three weeks, our team, when I say our team, the police department, and the sheriff, we have shut down, in three weeks, 233 illegal smoke shops in our city out of 2,800 hundred and 65 have been permanently closed for at least a year. We have seized over $6 million, estimated value, in illegal gummy bears, vapes, marijuana, mushrooms, you name it. Not to mention some illegal firearms.

That's in three weeks, and we really haven't got started yet because we're still working through the law. We're working through Oath Court. We're trying to find the nuances there. We're going to start rolling out. This is by far the number one quality life complaint we get from Staten Island to Harlem to Queens Manhattan, all over this city. We're on it, and we're going to take care of this.

Mayor Adams: Talk about the bust over the weekend, the Navy Yard. What happened in the Navy Yard. Started out as a burglary. We went inside. There was millions of dollars of cannabis and other stuff inside that Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Chief Chell: Some of the people who used to work at these stores, they know what's going on. They know the lay out of the stores. Some of the ex-employees came back and tried to break in to take product and our cops very quickly made the arrest and shut that down. We do have owners trying to reopen, at least 15 of them. We check them every day to make sure they're not reopening, and if they reopen them, we deal with it accordingly.

Mayor Adams: The problem is, is that they have become a magnet for crime, robberies, shootings, all illegal behavior. They have become a magnet for criminal behavior more than what is done physically.

Chief Chell: Last week in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, we had an unfortunate gang shooting that was coming out of a smoke shop with the owner involved. Under the new laws that we have now, within a day, we shut that store down and help that community.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next.

Mayor Adams: He's right behind you. Right behind you.

Question: Thank you, mayor, for the opportunity to talk.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. How are you?

Question: The Penn Station Access project by the MTA will increase the train traffic along the Hell Gate Line from 40 to 160 trains per day. This will greatly increase the train noise and affect the health and quality of life for those who live close to the Hell Gate Line. We don't oppose the project. We think it's good for people who live in Connecticut, Westchester, and from the East Bronx, but we're concerned that it may have the same effect on Queens, especially Northwest Queens, as what the Cross Bronx Expressway did to [the] South Bronx.

There are solutions. One would be to have absorptive sound barriers and plexiglass sound barriers, which have bird guards on them. Will the mayor's office work with Senator Michael Gianaris to work with the MTA to provide some sort of sound mitigation measures for people who live in Queens? Sam Schachter, who's currently working with us, and we're not really a formal group. We're just a group of citizens that we call ourselves the PSA Solutions Group.

If someone from your office could work with them to find a sound mitigation solution, that would be helpful for us in Queens. Because right now we're just being a U-turn to get from Manhattan. There's not even a benefit. There won't even be a train stop in Queens.

Mayor Adams: Who can help me with this?

Commissioner Kreizman: EP about sound?

Question: I'm sorry, what?

Mayor Adams: Are we familiar with this project? First, let me start with that. Does anyone know about this project? Because I'm not familiar with it.

Deputy Commissioner Beth DeFalco, Public Affairs and Communications, Department of Environmental Protection: No, Mayor. Actually, that's not something that's been on our radar screen, but we're happy to work with MTA and to come out and take some sound measurements. We've got very specific equipment that will be able to measure it and figure out if that is violating the noise code here and work directly with MTA to see if anything can be done.

Mayor Adams: Let's get your ad hoc group that you're talking about, all right, Fred, and let's connect with DEP, let's connect with the MTA. One of the hardest things for people to realize is that everything that happens in the city, the mayor is not in charge of. You won't believe what people stop me on the street talking about and just saying, the mayor, but what we can do is bring the parties together. All right, Fred.

Commissioner Kreizman: Definitely.

Mayor Adams: Because he said he has an ad hoc group. Let's find out what agencies that we can bring and let's sit down with our partners at the MTA and let's get up to date on this project.

Commissioner Kreizman: I'll just make sure to get that information.

Mayor Adams: Okay. All right, Malcolm? All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for bringing it to our-

Commissioner Kreizman: Commissioner Ydanis.

Mayor Adams: Yes. Oh, look, turn your mic on?

Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, Department of Transportation: Most likely, that's another MTA. Most likely, that's the Amtrak project.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Is that part of the stations, the five stations from the Amtrak? Okay. It's the Amtrak project. Can we have you join us, assemblywoman, and find out, get the state on board? That Amtrak project of building those five new stations is going to bring a lot of commerce, but we need to be concerned about those preexisting communities, particularly things like noise and sound barrier. Those are low fixes, and you should not have to deal with that. People don't realize that noise pollution is a real health issue. It's a real health issue, and it plays on your health because of noise pollution. Let's look at that. Let's partner together and go after it.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next table.

Question: Yes, sir.

Mayor Adams: My man. You see that? I got a clap from my man. [Laughter.] I thought you were going to jump up. I'm sorry, ma'am.

Question: No, that's okay. I was actually going to talk about the Penn Station Access Project, but my husband already did that.

Mayor Adams: Oh, that's your boo?

Question: Yes. Thanks, Fred. There has been a lot of street crime that I noticed it picking up in the past year or two. We've had stabbings and just people attacking other people for no reason. A lot of stores being robbed where people just walk in and take it. I don't know what could be done about that, but I thought I would ask you.

Mayor Adams: Yes. No, thank you. I am a big believer, although crime is down, five of our seven major crime categories have decreased, double-digit decrease in homicide, double-digit decrease in shooters. If you don't feel safe, none of that means anything. We are a firm believer that people must feel safe, and one of the things that overshadows our success, random acts of violence, someone punching a woman in the face, doing something despicable, pushing someone on the subway station on the tracks, recidivism. We have a recidivism problem. The person who shot and killed Detective Dillon, he was arrested 20 times, and his partner inside the car was out on a gun charge and there was a gun found in the car.

Lastly, people with severe mental health illness, it just plays into those who are on the street not getting and going into the care, it plays on our psyche. Our goal is to continue to drive down crime. How are we doing in this precinct, Chief? How are we doing in this precinct? Do we know overall?

Commissioner Kreizman: Mic's coming over to you.

Mayor Adams: Yes, you can take my…

Assistant Chief Christine Bastedenbeck, Queens North: Am I on? Overall crime in this precinct is slightly up. It's up 5 percent for the year, but it is trending down. What we're actually doing is we're bringing in for the summer deployment zone extra cops into the 114 Precinct. While we have seen an increase for the year, we're bringing extra cops in, we're strategically deploying them in our areas along Steinway, in our housing developments, to really make an impact.

Mayor Adams: The increase, is it in housing, is it on the streets? Do you know where the increase is?

Assistant Chief Bastedenbeck: It's street robberies, and to this woman's point, we're also seeing some commercial robberies. We have some patterns with mopeds, and I know that was brought up earlier. We do have a really strong focus on illegal mopeds, folks driving mopeds. We've summoned nearly 5,700 summonses throughout the borough, seized 1,700 mopeds in and around the area. There's a really strong focus and we'll make sure that everyone feels safe.

Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, Operations, Police Department: Mayor, If I could just chime in with help.

Mayor Adams: Introduce yourself. You think everybody knows you, you know?

Assistant Commissioner Daughtry: I'm a social media sensation. My name is Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry, Deputy Commissioner for Operations. We just had a meeting earlier today. Chief Chell, the chief of patrol in my office with the operations folks. Just so that the Queens know, the New Yorkers know, we are taking the 600 administrative cops, so that 600 uniformed cops that are assigned to administrative duties and every day they're going out on a patrol. 600 officers, every day is a different officer. With that being said, and Christine, your borough did come up and we did notice in Queens in this area that you're seeing a small uptick. We're going to be surging some additional officers down here, starting tomorrow. Okay.

Mayor Adams: We hear you loud and clear, ma'am. You have to be safe, and you have to feel safe. We want you to enjoy this city, and we are serious about public safety, so those folks who tell us, "Take school safety agents out of schools," we ignore them. Those people who say, "We don't want cops on our trains," we ignore them. Those people say that, "We don't want cops patrolling our streets. There should be no cops in the city," we ignore them.

You know what happens when they have a problem? They remember 911. We ignore all that noise. I want to walk down my block and I want to see that man or woman in the blue uniform standing there protecting my community, and as long as I'm the mayor, we're going to make sure we have our police officers in our city.

Mayor Adams: Who am I– Yes, sir.

Question: Yes. Hello. I'm Richard Khuzami. I'm with the Old Astoria Neighborhood Association. I'm also have been privileged to serve on Community Board 1 on the Land Use Committee in particular for over 20 years. A couple of questions I have here in terms of housing. Community districts one and two have had some of the highest construction rates in the whole city. What can we do so that other districts can do their fair share? We don't mind doing everything we can, but we shouldn't have the whole burden. The second question is–

Mayor: Yes, you're right.

Question: The second question is, for 14 years, there's an area which we call Ravenswood area, which has never been rezoned since 1961. It's almost totally non-conforming. It's all residential, but the actual construction is all warehouses and manufacturing and that really inhibits new growth. This is the area between then the Dutch Kills redistricting and the North Astoria rezoning in 2010. We have been asking for 14 years to get this done. We need action. It's taking too long.

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry. What is it? To have it rezoned? What is it? What were you asking to be done? Have it rezoned?

Question: What we're looking for is just do a holistic rezoning of the area and taking the context not to spot rezonings, which is what we have right now, but look at everything holistically, and give us a plan, make sure that our growth makes sense, which right now, it doesn't.

Mayor Adams: Got it. Two things. Councilwoman, did you grab that councilwoman? You're back there chatting. Your rezoning, is that in your council? I'm not sure it's in your council district. Rezoning is a combination of the council members and our team. Dan, do we have a plan here?

Councilmember Won: The Ravenswood rezoning– Hi, Richard. It's good to see you. As you know, Community Board One, the Community Board One chair is here, Evvy. For a very long time, there has been a request for our community study of Ravenswood and there is a lot to work on there. There isn't a current plan for the rezoning, but we do know that there's a land trust proposal that the Ravenswood community has proposed, and the Ravenswood power plants, known as Big Allis, now Rise Light & Power, they kicked off a study funded by the state with Donovan Richards to start a study there as well with Hester Street. There's that going on.

Question: Dan, is it on your radar?

Garodnick: Yes. Thank you very much, Mayor, and I appreciate the question. We should talk a little further about what the needs are and what the city can do to best serve them. I will note that the point about feeling like there are some neighborhoods of the city that are enabling the production of housing and other neighborhoods that are not, that is not just perception. That's reality. In 2023, we have 59 community boards. You decided one and two here in Queens. We have 59 of them.

In 2023, 10 of them produced as much housing as the other 49 combined. Now, we look at that and we say, okay, well, we're in the middle of a housing crisis. The mayor has charged us to find a way to deal with it. 

We have introduced a proposal called City of Yes for Housing Opportunity, which is designed specifically to open the door to allow a little bit more housing in every neighborhood of the city to enable modest incremental growth in ways that do not do dramatic changes neighborhood by neighborhood but also allow us to take a dent out of this crisis that we are in.

I would encourage you as somebody who is concerned about production in some areas, not in others, to take a close look at this proposal, housingopportunity.nyc. It's a smart proposal. It is right now, as you know, because of involvement in community boards, it's right now live at the community boards and borough presidents. It will be voted on by the City Council of New York City by the end of this calendar year. We think this is an important moment. Inaction here is not really an option. I encourage you to take a look at that.

Mayor Adams: It just goes to show you how you had your fingers on the pulse when you were talking about the disproportionate amount of houses being built in certain community boards. 59-10 had more than 49. There's been this level of, "I have my park, I have my transportation, I have my good school, I have my medical facilities. I just want it for myself." No. We need to look at those other 49s and we're saying we need to share the wealth of the city during a little more in each area of the city. It is unfair for 10 community boards to take the burden of the housing that we're developing.

You've been dead on, exactly what you thought, is the reality that we need to go after. You and I could do a commercial together about passing some of this housing stuff. Hold on, before you do, you know why, I just realized we didn't answer this table's question on rats, and I have my rat czar. I don't want to waste having her here. She asked you a question– We asked a question about rats, what we need to do. I want to come back because you may not know it, but I hate rats.

Kathleen Corradi, Citywide Director of Rodent Mitigation: Thank you, Mayor Adams. Good evening, everyone. My name's Kathleen Corradi. I'm the citywide director of rodent mitigation. I am tasked with reducing and keeping a sustained reduction of the rat population in New York City. We do it through a number of different ways. First and foremost, we're taking an integrated pest management approach, which means we're looking at the underlying conditions that make rats thrive in New York City.

The chief change coming out of the Mayor Adams administration is the change in how New York City is handling its waste. The trash revolution led by Department of Sanitation is systematically cutting off rats' access to food, which makes it much harder for them to breed and populate our city.

Additionally, with the Department of Health, we're doing more and more inspections to understand the areas of burden and then work with our property owners to address those conditions. If you have specific sites that there are issues that we want to address, I'm more than happy to come out, bring the team with me, and we can see what the issues of rat burden are and how we can make sure we're addressing them both acutely in this neighborhood, but also system-wide.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. This is a big issue for us on rats and rat mitigation. The numbers have gone down in the rat mitigation areas. They have gone down citywide, and in particular in NYCHA. One of my pet peeves is that why there's always mounds of garbage on NYCHA property. We got to do a better job of containerizing that. NYCHA residents deserve a clean environment, and it should not be just mountains and mountains of garbage.

When I'm out walking late at night and I walk into my NYCHA facilities, I just see there's a common denominator of mountains of garbage, and we need to move away from that. That leads to rat, the rodent problem. That all-you-can-eat buffet of garbage out there is part of the problem we're dealing with. Do we have another table, the last table?

Question: Mr. Mayor, that was our last table.

Mayor Adams: Okay.

Question: We just want to thank Megan Yuan from the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit to really put this together. Especially the cops, community affairs at every single table and the mayor's staff that took the time to dialogue with all of you. We'll have your questions, and we'll make sure to follow up with all of you. Thank everyone on the dais who came from the agency representation, not being asked a question. This means a true testament to what a wonderful job they're all doing. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, Councilwoman Won, and thank you, Assemblywoman Rajkumar. Thank you all for coming out tonight.