Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Community Conversation

July 17, 2023

Watch the video here at https://www.youtube.com/live/dKSDErC6RAY?feature=share

Mayor Eric Adams: You do not stand for me. I stand for you. I'm here to serve you.

Commissioner Fred Kreizman, Community Affairs Unit: Thank you. My name is Fred Kreizman. I'm the commissioner of the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. The Adams administration has decided to be here today at Curtis High School in St. George on Staten Island. I want to thank the principal, Gregory Jaenicke, for opening the doors for us today. Thank you. The Talk With Eric, the Community Conversation Series provides an opportunity for the mayor and his commissioners to hear directly from New Yorkers. This event started today at 6:00 to 7:00. At each table, there are round table community conversations with the members of the mayor's office, taking diligent notes.

There are intake cards for people who question is not asked to ensure we get back to every single person, each agency that you have an issue that you need addressed, we'll get a return phone call that's monitored by the mayor's office, members of the NYPD Community Affairs, as well as DOE were at each table. The second part, which starts now, are the questions directly to the mayor and the city agencies is going to start off with the mayor, then followed by Borough President Fossella, and then Council Member Kamillah Hanks.

Mayor Adams: We're going to do it just the opposite. We're going to turn it over to our BP then our councilwoman.

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella: Well, thank you very much. Good evening everybody, and Mr. Mayor, welcome to the best borough in New York City. I too would like to thank the principal, Greg Jaenicke, like so much on Staten Island, Curtis High School has a very rich history, a very proud alumni network and a great student body. So Greg, thank you for what you do every day. And to all of you, I can tell you firsthand that we are very lucky to have Mayor Adams in office. We are grateful for his service. Any quality of life issue that we put with his administration, his commissioners, his borough commissioners are always responsive and want to do the right thing, not just for New York City, but for Staten Island and to all the people who wear our uniform, whether it be the NYPD, the firefighters, corrections, parks, whatever it may be, and of course, our great teachers and principals and our superintendents here.

We thank you for keeping this community safe. We thank you for keeping this community vibrant, and we thank you for keeping Staten Island the best small town in the United States. God bless you. Thank you.

City Council Member Kamillah Hanks: Good evening. How's everybody doing today? All right. I would like to echo the sentiments of Borough President Vito Fossella. I'm Kamillah Hanks. I'm the Council member of the 49th District, and what you don't know is this is a family reunion. I know everybody in here. Thank you for coming out. I did a little sneak peek and asked each and every one of you at each table to figure out what it is. So I'm so interested tonight to find out what your concerns are and how we can best address them, but Mayor Eric Adams, I want to say to you, you did not forget Staten Island and support is demonstrable. It's actionable, and you will see that in the conversations we have today and so many great new announcements that I can't wait for all of you to know. Thank you so much for coming. Have a great day.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Also, before the mayor speaks, just want to acknowledge who's here today on this wonderful day as we have besides the mayor, the first deputy mayor of the City of New York, Sheena Wright. Of course, to my right, we have borough president, Vito Fossella, and Council Member Kamillah Hanks. We have the DOE first deputy chancellor, Dan Weisberg, the DYCD commissioner, Keith Howard, Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro, DSS Commissioner Molly Park, the Department Consumer Worker Protection commissioner, Vilda Vera Mayuga. On this side we have NYPD Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart.

We have Chief Galadna as well here and XO of the 120 Precinct, Captain Perez. We have DOB Commissioner Jimmy Oddo. We have DOT Borough Commissioner, Roseann Caruana. DOP, Department of Probation Commissioner Juanita Holmes, City Planning Chair Dan Garodnick, New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Iscol. We have as well as Andrew Kimball, the EDC CEO and president. We have H + H CO of New York Sea View, Matt Levy, Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health, Senior Advisor Kala Ganesh, DOHMH Executive Deepa Avula. We have ACS Deputy Commissioner Stephanie Gendell, and Gender Based Violence Deputy Commissioner Anne Patterson. Department of Aging Chief Officer Ryan Murray. We have CCHR, Commissioner Annabel Palma.

We have small business services, Deputy Commissioner Kitty Chan. NYCHA, Chief Executive CEO, Lisa Bova-Hiatt. Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice Director, Deanna Logan. HPD First Deputy Commissioner Ahmed Tigani. Mayor's Office of Climate Environmental Justice, Executive Director of Vicky Cerullo. New York City Parks, Staten Island Commissioner, Lydia Ardon. Department of Finance, Director of Outreach, Kieran Mahoney. Mayor's Office of People's Disability Commissioner Christina Curry. Fire Borough Chief Brian Gorman and Sanitation Staten Island Borough Chief Christopher Hancock. Excellent. Thank you very much, and as well, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Normally sitting up there and I wanted to just come down here for a moment and just really immerse myself in the community, and this is an amazing team. Not only do I have a high level of respect for them, but I truly love each one of them. For the last 18 months, think about it, think about 18 months ago. 18 months ago, Covid, we were unclear if our children were going to go to school or not. We were dealing with the fear that came with it, and these men and women decided to take upon this job, not a run away from the problem, they stated that we are going to meet it face on. I see Zach Iscol out 2, 3:00 am in the morning dealing with whenever a storm is coming here and dealing with the storm of 87,000 people coming into our city without the financial support we deserve and we manage it.

I watched Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright figuring out how do we navigate these complex issues in our city that the bureaucracy, this city was so dysfunctional then that when we took power in this city. I will never forget the story of this woman stopping Mayor Koch in the book New York, New York, New York. She says, "Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, make the city work again." Mayor Koch looked down at her and said, "Ma'am, this city never worked." We need to be clear. Cities are failing us all over America and people keep kicking the can down the road. I get so angry when people stop me and say, give me your one achievement. One achievement! If that is the success, that's the bar. If I do one thing, I can walk away and say, I was a successful mayor when everything else is broken. We don't want one achievement. We want to fix a broken government.

The best people, we got the best people working for government and bad systems. So where are we now? Crime was trending up. Do you know people often talk about the picture of the best mayor on public safety was Rudy Giuliani? This is what people say. In his last year in office, the crime in this city right now is 20 percent below when his last year was in office in violent crimes, that's how much we brought down crime in this city. We brought down shootings, we brought down homicides, we brought down the seven majors, and you know what? Many of you slept during May, June, and July. You know what? Why? Because fireworks weren't going off all over the city like they were going off in 20 and 21. We said, it's not happening under this administration. The three wheel motorcycles that took over the beaches, no longer there. You no longer see the dysfunctionality and any and everything goes in the city.

Our police departments are no longer walking with their backs down where people are pouring water over their heads and they don't feel they getting a decent salary. We gave them a salary with 97 percent ratification on their union contract. We gave DC 37 a contract they deserve. We gave teachers a contract they deserve. We are going to settle CSA and all the other contracts. People should be paid a wage that they can live in the city that they're fighting for and they believe in, but let me tell you something else that I observe. You go in schools now to students are disrespectful to the teachers. You go into the service, the transit system, you see people disrespectful to the police officers. You see people not respectful to people and their elders. They're doing things that's disrespectful to their elders. We have reached a point in this city and country where respect no longer means anything to anyone. That can't continue.

We can't continue to speak down and treat people in a disrespectful manner, over and over again. We've lowered the standards. I always hear commissioner, Chancellor Banks says something that resonated with me. He said, "My side tribe asked a question. They don't say hello, they say, how are the children?" How are the children? When you answer that question, you are able to say what not only the future, but what the current state is. So don't answer the question, but I want you to think about it for a moment. How are the children? How are the children? Suicide rates are out of control. Depression is out of control. They start their day going to the local bodega, picking up cannabis and sitting in the classroom and think they can learn. TikTok is teaching them how to steal cars.

They are dealing with standing on trains, subway surfing, 35 million views, losing their lives. How are the children? Bullets of cop and highways of death? Children are killing children. How are the children?

Think about it, and if the children are not doing fine, we can't blame it on the children. We have to ask ourselves, what are we doing as adults? What are we doing? I know what this team is doing. I know what detective or Deputy Commissioner Stewart is doing with his programs that he's going to talk about today. I know what we are doing and I'm committed to turning the city around because you don't wear a bulletproof vest for 22 years and stand on street corners protecting children and families, and then you abandon them simply because you become a mayor. I'm committed to the City of New York. I'm committed, and I don't always get it right. Matter of fact, I say over and over again, I'm perfectly imperfect, but I'm dedicated, and I don't know if another mayor came out to Staten Island as much as I came out here.

I said, when I ran for office, you would not be the forgotten borough, and as the mayor, you're not going to be the forgotten borough. And then I went to Staten Island to get some of my best talent. Diane Savino, Staten Island. The amazing ever hardworking Jimmy Oddo in charge of Department of Buildings, building our team together. That's why we're here, doing these town halls. I don't want people speaking for me. I want to come speak to you. I'm on the trains. I'm walking the streets. I've been on Rikers Island more than any man in the history of this city talking to the inmates and the correction officers, and we're fixing Rikers in spite of people, where people are saying we're not doing. We are turning it around, Rikers Island. We're going to get it right, but we're going to make sure we protect those correction officers and those inmates who are attempted to do there time. We're not leaving anyone behind.

And so we want to hear from you. Want to hear your thoughts. We want to hear what we can do better. We want to hear what our agencies can do. We want to see how do we clean our streets because nobody in this city by now should not understand the fact that I hate rats and we need a clean street. We want to know how we keep our schools open. We want to know what's going on with DGLAs out here on Staten Island, a number of grand larceny. That's what's driving the crime in the city right now. So share your thoughts and ideas with us, but do it respectfully. Respect each one of us and don't think you are better than the next person who's sitting in this room. Everyone has something to say. Let's do it in an orderly way. So let's start the first table. Which way? The left or right? So I want to hand my mic.

Question: Good evening. I'm Eileen Harrington, the president of the St. George Civic Association, and I want to thank you for selecting our wonderfully diverse neighborhood for a town hall. On behalf of the community, I would like to ask you to help with a problem that we have right down the street on the North Shore Esplanade, which runs less than a half mile from the empty parking garage along Richmond Terrace to the Jersey Street houses. This dilapidated strip of asphalt is now a city park in name only and it needs some serious attention. For over 20 years, a huge sinkhole has been growing in the street and the park opposite the Harborview School. Because this is a multi-agency capital project, nobody in prior administrations has even tried to deal with it. I am asking you to have DEP work with Parks and DOT, so that this sinkhole can finally be repaired and our park can finally be rebuilt and activated so that it can be enjoyed by everybody in the neighborhood. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you, thank you. So DEP, who's here for DEP? I'm sorry. We have the amazing Rit Aggarwala here. What's holding that up? What's going on?

Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala, Department of Environmental Protection : So first of all, thanks for the question. Thanks for the concern. As you know, sometimes when you have multiple agencies working together, we don't always work together as well as we should. Among the issues here is actually just figuring out how to sequence the work, and this is something that I've just become aware of. I'm going to pay personal attention to this and work, I have a meeting later on this week with the Parks commissioner. She and I will work on it together and we'll make that personal commitment.

Mayor Adams: So listen, this is what we're going to do, today is Monday, this week, I'm going to come out to that location. I'm going to meet you over there. I'm going to bring the Parks commissioner. I'm bringing Rit, I'm going to bring DOT, whoever else needs to be there. We're going to get that damn hole fixed. We're going to get it fixed. So we're going to come out there. So DJ, make sure, get her name, we're going to come out there, we're going to take a look at it because under this administration, people will work together. I don't want people pointing fingers over, this is someone else's problem. A problem in your community is my problem. So we're going to come take a look. You meet me over there and we're going to walk it together and we're going to get that hole fixed. 

Question: My brother. Listen, I'm going to be direct about this because there's always the elephant in the room. What is the mayor's plan to address systemic and institutional racism on Staten Island and the disparities and inequities between the north and the south shore?

Mayor Adams: You said something powerful. You said institutional. So that means it has been around a long time and it's not going to be resolved in 18 months. I'm elected to be mayor. I'm not going to walk on water or pot water. What I'm going to do is bring us together to sit in the room to be honest about what we see and what we're facing. And so we've been doing something that I'm really proud about doing, called 'Breaking Bread, Building Bonds.' A thousand dinners across the city, 10 people at each dinner minimum, all coming from a different cultural, ethnic, religious background, different places, and doing something revolutionary, sitting down and talking to each other because we don't talk to each other. We don't know who we are. We get intimidated if someone's wearing a yamaka kufi, or a turban. If someone speaks a different languages, it's time for us to be honest, that we're still living in silos in the most diverse city on the globe.

And so what I would like for us to do is to sit down and identify, number one, how do we break down those walls of communication? But then we have to be honest when it comes down to investing in our parks, investing in our streets, investing in our schools. You can't have one borough and two different ways of making sure it's economically equity. That's what we're fighting for. That's what the chancellor's fighting for. That's what everyone else up here is fighting for. So we want to do an analysis. Where are we spending our money? You can't have beautiful parks on the South shore and terrible parks on the North Shore. You can't have beautiful schools on the South Shore and terrible schools on the North Shore. So we want to sit down and do a real analysis and have folks like you and those of us in this room because you came out tonight, it's obvious you want to engage in a conversation.

So the next time we get in this room, it should start with a 'Breaking Bread, Building Bonds' where we are talking to each other and not at each other, and we can start dealing with the institutional problems that we are facing. So I thank you for that question and we want to move away from those institutional problems, but it starts with communication. We got to talk to each other. We have not been talking to each other folks. And if we don't start doing that, we're never going to dismantle the problems that we're seeing in the city. So I want to partner with you in doing that.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next table down there to the left. Okay.

Question: Thank you Mr. Mayor for coming out to Staten Island. My name is Latricia McCleary. I am the president of Alpha Beta Pia Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. I know you love that. The pressing question from table number three was how can we ensure that the five poverty pockets known as Park Hill, Stapleton, Mariners Harbor, West Brighton and New Brighton have continuous trash removal as well as graffiti removal. We could not give you all the streets because it's the entire neighborhoods. We wanted you to know that cleaner neighborhoods improve community and New York residents' morale.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Department of Sanitation. You want to touch that? Yes.

Christopher Hancock, Staten Island Borough Chief, Department of Sanitation: We have been talking about the area you're talking about has different frequencies of the day or week pickup, but also we need the community's help in cleaning up their own properties, store owners, cleaning their own properties. That will ensure a cleaner neighborhood to start off with. Besides what we pick up, we need help from the residents themselves.

Mayor Adams: And we're doing something under the Commissioner Tisch. This is the first time in the history of this city. Many people tried, no one was able to accomplish it. We're going to containerize our garbage. These plastic bags have to get off our streets, particularly in our business corridors. We're going to put our garbage in containers. It's cleaner and more reliable, but we also want to analyze exactly where you're seeing the graffiti problem because we have a graffiti removal team. And when they get our young people involved and engaged to come and be part of painting over graffiti, removing graffiti because if you remove graffiti off a wall, you're not going to paint on that wall. So some of the things we want to do is really community engage, but cleaner streets is crucial for us.

And the first phase of our container agenda under Commissioner Tisch was just recently announced. We're going to move to a second phase also where the greatest percentage of our garbage is going to be in containers. Plastic bags came during the sixties, during the sanitation strike. We never weaned ourselves off of them. They used to be cans. We need to put our garbage back in cans. It is a loser scenario of having got plastic bags, and I don't know who bought those mint bags to scare rats off. That's candy to them. We need to containerize our garbage and that's what we're going to be moving to do.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Hold on sister. Hold on, sister. Hold on. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. When we finish the tables, I hang around and we'll answer those additional questions, but we're going to finish the tables where they were and we'll hang around and we'll answer those additional questions. Okay? Yes.

Question: Sorry. It's my turn now.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. My name is Lucia Curatolo-Boylan. I am president of the Community Education Council for District 31. I want to say thank you for ensuring the budget provides mental telehealth options for our high school students in crisis, but with the uptick in youth violence across Staten Island, we need more. At the last town hall here, you offered your support directly to me and another council member, for an NYPD Community Youth Center here on Staten Island. When can we expect to see it open, as our children need more complete resources to establish meaningful relationships of trust with the NYPD and our community-based organizations, of which there are many? It's necessary in order for them to survive and succeed here.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Open? I say this over and over again because that's the question that we ask often. What is a community center? A community center is a place where you have an auditorium, where you have a gymnasium, you may have a swimming pool, you have classrooms. Don't we have that already in schools? We already have it. This is a community center. The problem is what we have been doing at 7:00 am, we tell our children, "You're welcome in." At 2:00 pm, we say, "Get out and don't come back here until tomorrow."

So what we're doing in this administration, we allocated funding to do something called the Extended Use, which I did as the borough president. We will pay the insurance, we will pay the cleaning, we will pay the school safety agents. If you're the nonprofits, we want to identify schools where we'll pick up the cost and say you just have to utilize the building. While we are looking to build a new community center, our children are dying right now. So why not use what we already have available to utilize that? And that is exactly what DYCD is doing. That's what the chancellor is doing.

There's no reason we don't have these beautiful spaces here. Well, you have a nice gymnasium, but we going to close it down because it's not 2:00 pm or because it's on the weekend. We have the summer midnight basketball program where we keep the schools open. These schools are safe spaces for our children. They know them, they're comfortable inside them. Parents know them. We need to better utilize the assets that we have. We're not using the assets we have. We can't have our schools closed at 2:00 pm when our children need to be using them as long as they need to. And we could use them on weekend for job training for parents.

We could use them for financial literacy instructions. We can use them for health instructions. We can use these buildings better than what we are doing while we are building the new places by partnering with your borough president and your council person. But we already have the assets. Let's better utilize the assets. Talk about some of the youth stuff you're doing, Detective Stewart and DYCD and Keith Howard, some of the things you're doing. And we should talk about the mental health. Who's here for Department of Health and Mental Hygiene? Okay. And talk about what we're doing around the mental health because the mental health issue is a real crisis that we're facing in this city.

Detective Stewart, I mean Deputy Commissioner Stewart?

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: Calls me Detective Stewart all the time, but I'm good with it. So listen, today I brought a booklet for you because there's so much that we do in our communities, and I want you to take a look at the booklets that's been passed around on your tables. So one booklet is for Staten Island and what they do with our youth and our communities. There's mentorships that we do. And I want to get this perfectly clear what's going on. When you turn on your TV and the first thing you see is gun violence. And we don't pull out what our kids are doing as far as going to school, community work, and like the mayor just said, our kids are going to do a graffiti cleanup in each borough and that's going to happen on July the 29th.

We are doing so much with these kids, but what happened, we can't measure it because the programs that we have, these kids come back and say, "Listen, if it wasn't for the officers and what they do in our communities, I could have made a left-hand turn." Now the bad apples who are out there doing bad things, they get the TV air and you hear about them. But what we're going to do in our administration, we have an explorers program, we have a program, we have options. And we do so much with these kids that we have to publicize it and let you know that these kids are not out here just guns slinging. They're doing great things in our community. They're going to college. We have a college tour that we are doing in five or six schools already where we take kids from high school and we take them to different colleges and we show them you could go to Westbury. SUNY and CUNY is on board with this too, along with the DOE. So far we took almost 300 kids to different colleges.

And what's missing? Transportation and opportunity. So when these kids tell us, well I can't only have the transportation to go to school, guess what? We get an NYPD bus and we take them there. And you should see the difference when they walk into these schools and we show them around these campuses. We have the ESL program that's coming here next Tuesday. You can clap.

Listen, I am not the commissioner that's going to take your kids just to play basketball. I think we could do a lot better than that. When you played basketball for two or three hours and then we send you back home, we don't know where the home you're going back to, we don't know the complications that you're dealing with inside your house.

And that's not all we do. I started a golf program that which we started out with four kids. We have 40 kids now. I'm community affairs officer for the whole city. If I go to a precinct and a young lady, she's about 12, came up to me and said, "Well, I play volleyball." Guess what? I called that precinct up, started a volleyball team. When I came to community affairs, we just played basketball. And I'm a girl dad, I got two girls, and I tried to figure out where do my girls fit in in community affairs? They didn't. So we're touching every angle of community affairs to try to make sure everybody is inclusive.

And we have to understand too that this is about conversation and relation. We are doing a great... Now you can clap again. We are doing a great job with our engagement in community affairs and all these officers here with the blue light suits on, they all work with me not for me. With me. And what my vision was when I came here is that we include everybody. And we have to have a plan for our youth and we have to have a plan for our youth who might have went left to keep showing up. Maybe they might come back right, but we never give up on them either.

And I know you have a good community affairs lieutenant here. Lieutenant Awad, this man–

Mayor Adams: Give him a round of applause.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: And I know his dedication to this borough and I know everyone in this room probably knows him. I called him the other night and I asked him a question and this was a Sunday. He was going to leave his house and his family, go to the precinct and email me or fax me information that I wanted. And I begged him, I said, "Please do not do that. We'll do it tomorrow." Guess what? He still did it. So Staten Island Borough, listen, your community affairs officers and our youth, we are doing a lot of progress out. And when we set up some type of certification that we could give our kids and we highlight the goodness that our kids are doing, we should do that. And that's my plan for the future. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: DYCD? DYCD, just introduce yourself.

Commissioner Keith Howard Department of Youth and Community Development: My name is Keith Howard. I'm the commissioner for the Department of Youth and Community Development. How you doing today?

So with Deputy Commissioner Stewart also wanted to mention, is the fact that this year 100,000 young people in Summer Youth Employment this year, not only 100,000 young people but 1,000 of those SYP slots went to NYPD, where young people are working side by side with detectives and some of our community affair police officers. So that's an investment. And I'm not even talking... Yeah, clap that up. Right.

So on Staten Island and alone, we have about 5,600 jobs for summer youth employment in a variety of different fields. Mr. Mayor, you mentioned about community centers. This very school has two of our programs in which we have SYP running out of this school and sports programs running out of this very school. So the investment is absolutely there. And I didn't even touch on 110,000 young people in summarizing and partnership with the DOE.

We have close to 7,000 slots in Summer Rising, a 500 slot increase from before. SNL, Saturday Night Lights, we have nine programs in partnership with NYPD to keep young people safe on Saturdays, in the evening. So the program is there, but we also understand the issue of mental health. You and I went to the six town halls on safety, and young people really had a voice, told you that mental health is really one of the biggest issues. The second biggest issue was of course police relations and community relations. I can honestly tell you with our partnership with NYPD and our partnership with the Parks Department and Saturday Night Lights, we are having very much robust programs here in Staten Island. I've been here at least on six occasions, some of them meeting with community based organizations that's in this room. So we are here, we are listening to your thoughts, your conversations, and anything that you can bring back in which we can provide more robust, more fidelity programs, please let me know.

Mayor Adams: Well said. So to speak to your question directly, we have the BP here, we have the councilwoman here, you have the mayor here. There's a process to building a center. We've got to identify a location. We have to put the capital in place, we have to build out the pipeline. We're with that. But while we are building the center, let's utilize the resources and assets we have right now. And part of the problem is that we need to rectify, many people are not aware of all that we're doing. We're teaching young people how to fly. We're teaching young people how to do instructions. We partnered with Google with an amazing partnership, paid internship program. There's a lot we're doing. It must fall on the ears of all of our young people. Because we're doing it, they got to get it. If we deliver it and they don't get it, then we're failing. We need to make sure they become aware of what we're doing.

Question: Hello, how you doing?

Mayor Adams: Good, good. How are you?

Question: I'm well, brother.

Mayor Adams: Good.

Question: What incentives can the city provide in order to encourage top qualified talent and resources to come work in our communities? To improve the economic circumstances for our families on the entire island and to provide access to community spaces for young people in order to reduce crime and the rise in their mental health diagnosis.

Mayor Adams: That was a lot. You got to give me the–

Question: That was the entire...

Mayor Adams: Give me another version. Give it to me from your heart so that I can understand.

Question: Me? Personally?

Mayor Adams: Yes, yes.

Question: Oh, man.

Mayor Adams: What are we saying? We're saying better employment opportunities?

Question: What can we do to help bring better talent to the Island?

Mayor Adams: Talk into the mic, because he's got to get your recording.

Question: What can we do to help bring better talent to the island in order to help bring more qualified individuals to come and want to work here.

Mayor Adams: Work on the island?

Question: Correct.

Mayor Adams: As in city employee or?

Question:: City employees, private employees, et cetera.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Got it.

Question:: And in regards to that, how can we then also continue to improve the economic circumstances for everyone that's living on the island right now?

Mayor Adams: Got it. Got it. Well there's a combination. Who's here from SBS, in the small business, SBS?

So let's talk about the small businesses stuff we're doing. We're have an amazing commissioner in SBS, Commissioner Kim.

Deputy Commissioner Kitty Chan, Department of Small Business Services: Hi. Thank you very much for the question. I'm really proud to tell you that instead of trying to attract talent to this wonderful borough, what SBS is trying to do, is working on, is actually building the talent we have here. So I'm really proud to say that we have our two wonderful Workforce1 centers where we work with Staten Islanders to... And we've, in this past year, we actually delivered close to 5,000 services, whether it's resume writing or career counseling. And out of those 5,000 we connected over 1,500 to good jobs. So we can attract talent to Staten Island, but we really want to help build up this borough and that's what this administration has committed to.

Mayor Adams: Good point. Good point. And if you have some ideas, whoever's at that table, if there's some things that we need to be doing better, SBS Commissioner Kim is always open to hearing that. Second, we've got 12,000 jobs in city government that we're trying to fill. 12,000 jobs. If you know folks, we held the hiring hall here, I think at Staten Island College. We had about 800 people that showed up for it. Every field you think about. Good paying, good union jobs, good health benefits, we have 12,000 jobs. 

And so those who are looking for employment, we're doing these hiring halls where we're not standing inside, we're going out to the community, bringing folks in. We were hiring people on the spot at Staten Island College. We did it in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens. Let's get in city government because we know the services we want and the best way to get the services we want is to be part of the services, to deliver of services. So part of that brother, the 12,000 jobs we need to fill right here, and many of them are employees that are needed on Staten Island for everything from Parks to DCAS. All of these different jobs are available. We have a website that show all the jobs that are available and we're looking to hire people on the spot.

Mayor Adams: How are you? Good to see you.

Question: Oh. Hi, good to see you again. My name is Heather Butts, I'm the co-founder of a nonprofit called H.E.A.L.T.H for Youths. And my day job is I'm an assistant professor at Columbia at the School of Public Health. Our question from the mighty, mighty table six... And I want to thank your fabulous community affairs unit for facilitating this and to Ed Jackson for all his work. So our question is about the children as well. And our specific concern has to do with... So for example, I do a lot of work in a park called Skyline. Thank you commissioner [inaudible] for all your help.

And unfortunately a couple of young people bashed in our cute little free library that was there. And when I had a chat with them about it later, they said that they were bored and they just did it because it was a thing to do. Obviously there's some real issues going on with those young people, but one of the suggestions our table had was possible expansion of the Work, Learn, Grow program through SYEP. So we just heard about SYEP and all the fabulous things that that's doing, but when it comes to the fall and the spring a lot of jobs go away, and then there's some jobs left for students but not as many during the summer.

So we're wondering if that is a possibility and if there's other thoughts that you might have regarding how we can deal with some of these systemic issues around the youth and their time.

Mayor Adams: You familiar with that program, commissioner? 

Commissioner Howard: So it happened already. We got an expansion of full year youth employment this year in the adopted budget. So you're going to see a lot more slots available for young people to be working in school-based programs. So it happened already. Good, good, good.

Mayor Adams: And we are big on these paid internships, the program we're doing with Google and others. It was unbelievable when you saw those children being immersed in a real work environment and really taking them out of the comfort zone of their areas. And so we're big on paid internships. We want our young people to be really exposed to these jobs.

Question: Yes. Thank you Mayor Adams, for coming.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Question: My name is Josephine Marino, I am the Community Council resident for the 120 Council. The 120 Precinct doesn't have enough manpower within our command right now due to maybe a hiring shortage or we need to recruit more people to become NYPD officers. Given the crime rate within the 120 Precinct, which is the highest unfortunately of all State Island, can you commit to us on maybe giving us some more officers this year?

Mayor Adams: I believe we started that process. Who I have from PD? I got a new commissioner, he's not here? Oh okay. Come on up top. Come on up top. Take my seat. Give it up for our first deputy commissioner.

First deputy commissioner, used to be the former commanding officer of the 120 Precinct. And she's going to answer that question. But I was out in the Bronx, it was one of those hot nights and everything was going on and I just saw this chief moving around. I was like, "Wow, who was that?" She was just so on top of things. Deescalating situation, talking to people, making sure the cop's heads was in the right place. That perfect balance. And I remember writing down in my little book, I said, "You know what, she's going to be my deputy commissioner one day." And so now that day has come. And amazing. So talk about the hiring and 120 staffing.

First Deputy Commissioner Tania Kinsella, Police Department: So coming from PSB, Patrol Services Bureau, we were aware of the shortage in Staten Island. And thankful to Chief Galati that we are reallocating more personnel. We have a class that is graduating at the end of this month in Staten Island. Plan on getting a significant amount of officers to the borough.

Mayor Adams: That's what happened when the former CO is now in big time, you know that.

Question: Hi. I'm a private citizen. Hold on, I'm getting one too. That's how we roll.

Mayor Adams: You've got my girl here.

Question: Thank you. Debbie Rose.

Mayor Adams: This whole crew.

Question: Okay. All right. So my question at table eight is not directly so much a city issue, but we want you to hear our concern. It does have to do with that "fix the broken government" you spoke of. I'm an alumni of Curtis High School class of 19–[inaudible]. And this is not my first rodeo speaking up about tolls, Diane Savino. 

Okay, so tolls is our biggest concern in Staten Island. I did hear this once... I've been to many town hall meetings to speak up about this and I heard someone say this in a very eloquent way. They said to go into Broadway to see a show, go into a concert at Madison Square Garden, you can go for free, barring congestion pricing. But what's in Staten Island that makes it so glorious that we are being hit with these insulting and outrageous tolls. Staten Island residents should have and can have a forever fixed, I'm being generous, $2 toll. Every elected official should have this as their number one priority. Tolls are way overdue.

And I like your cufflinks by the way.

Mayor Adams: One of the biggest secrets is that the bridges, the subway system, those are all state issues. And everyone thinks that it is the mayor that controls it, but it's the state that controls it. And I know, Jimmy, you raised this, this is something that you fought for a while, you and Diane, when you were in the council, when you were up in Albany. You have to really get your state electeds engaged and see how we can fix the toll issue. Because it's a valid point. You know that if you have a car, you can't get off the island unless you're paying a price. You have a great ferry. We need to make sure we settle the ferry contracts. 

That's very important. And it's unfortunate that... has it been 14 years? 13 years? There's been 13 years and it is in my lap and I got to resolve a 13 year mess. And our police department... I think it was six, seven years. I forgot how long. We were able to resolve it. So I am like the guy in Pulp Fiction. I'm the fixer. So we going to resolve these issues. But it is a state issue. Your state lawmakers should all come together and figure out how they're going to resolve this toll issue. I would love to be part of the advocacy, but it's going to lie on the state.

Got it. Got it. Next.

Question: Yeah, this is table nine. My name is Joe Walstrom. I'm the chairman of Community Board 1's Waterfront Committee. Mr. Mayor, we have a lot of projects here on the waterfront that got started, especially on the North Shore, and they don't get finished. One of our biggest problems you just addressed right now, is a contract with the deck officers on the Staten Island Ferry. We've been following this for two or three years on Community Board 1. We've been complaining, we've been writing letters because we're getting an interruption in service. Ferries are not showing up, people are waiting in terminals. We need to resolve this contract Mr. Mayor. Of all the city contracts, I think this is the only one that's still outstanding. And sir, if you could solve this, this would be great.

Again, the other thing is the NYC Ferries, they stop at St. George, right across from Empire Outlets. They go to Manhattan, it's great. They don't go to Brooklyn. And we have other areas on Staten Island where they could go, which they are not going to. And the other boroughs in the city, they do have other stops and we don't have that. Mr. Mayor, there's only one thing I can ask of you right now. Can you please, when you go to the sinkhole on the North Shore of Staten Island, can you stop by the Lighthouse Plaza and visit us because we have issues. We have Pier 1, the fishing pier, that's still closed for I don't know how long because of structural failures. But okay, why can't we fix it? We have buildings there that were started that are still empty. We have a wheel that's sitting there doing nothing. We have Madison Realty that cleaned out an area and it's empty.

Sir, there's several issues I would like for you to see personally. Maybe you already have, but maybe you could come to Staten Island and visit with us, as your CAU person recommended, and we would love to meet with you. The waterfront committee has 20 issues that we would like to see addressed.

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, first of all thank you for that. And one, we will settle the contract. It's going to be done. Listen, I'm a blue collar mayor, plain and simple. I know what it is to be a union member. And I think I'm probably the only mayor in modern times that was a union member. And you know it's very interesting, as I see with people all the time, my other half is not driven around this city in a chauffeur limousine, she swipes her metrocard. She's on the train. She's probably next to you as she commutes back and forth.

Go back in history and tell me the last time the mayor was blue collar and their other half was blue collar. This is a historical moment. Everyday people are now running the City of New York. Nothing fancy about us. We shop at Target. We're everyday folks. You bump into us all the time. We will settle that contract, because blue collar members of this city should be able to pay for their families, and we're going to get it done.

And I will come out and do a walk. I was out with my City Councilperson, she walked me and down the waterfront, where I believe there's some great opportunities here on Staten Island. I think the mall, the stadium Catsimatidis' purchasing, the stadium putting baseball games there. I think Staten Island best days are clearly in front of it. I think this is one of the rare boroughs where there's some good opportunities.

So I would look forward to coming out, looking at those locations that you're talking about, and figuring out how I partner with the bar president and the councilperson and come up with some real plans to do so. You have my commitment that I'm going to do that. All right, DJ? DJ?

Question: Thank you, mayor, for coming out. My name is Kia Hopeshine. And I'm representing Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated. Alpha Beta Pi Omega chapter.

So, we know that the city of New York has youth development programs, and things for the youth that are focusing on jobs and careers. But what I want to know is how do we get these programs to actually hit the youth? I'm from Park Hill. 180 Park Hill to be exact. And also as well as Stapleton and other areas. So I know kids that want to fly and do different things like that. How do we get them to know about these programs?

And it's not necessarily just posting up a flier, putting it on the building and thinking that the youth are going to see these things. I'm even willing to volunteer my time. But the youth do need help. And you talk about like respect and things like that. Some of these youth development programs help raise these children when they're parents are not around, and it's very, very imperative, especially in Park Hill and Stapleton.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Good point. So, there's a term that has been introduced into our lives that was never used before, it's called credible messenger, and influencers. And so the best way to get this information to the youth who needs it is to partner with the deputy commissioner and say, "Come into my community." Not coming in to dictate, but coming in to actually collaborate. You tell us where you need us. Let us work with you. You point out, "Hey, here's some young folks that we need to reach out and touch."
You know it better than we are. You're a credible messenger, you're an influencer. Partner with us, we'll bring the committee affairs team, and you point out to here are the hours that they're out here. Here's where they hang. Here's who you need to talk to. Hey, that's Bae-Bae over there. His brother's doing this. That's how we can reach that youth in the crevices of it.

The larger picture, we'll reach those young people who are doing the right thing but no problem. But to get on the ground and in the crevices and meet those that really need help we're going to need you. And the deputy commissioner is willing to do that.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Yeah, so this is the plan, if you look at the packages I passed out on all the tables you're going to see our Instagram and our Community Affairs, our Twitter page. Moving forward, within the next week or two we're going to set up a QR code. And that means you can go to the twitter or Instagram, put your information, and what happens, that give us the ability now to send you the information on where these events are and where the kids are going to be and what are the events that we're having.

In about a week or two we're going to have a QR code. And the problem is, that we do get a lot, is that nobody's getting the information.

So, here it is. Here it is. Community affairs is at every table. There's a community affairs at every precinct. You could call community affairs offices and ask them when is the next event, what's going on. They're in every precinct. You could call any precinct at community affairs and ask them about events. And if you look at those packages, I put on a list of all events coming up for the rest of the year.

Well, I'll be there on Harmony Day, so I'll meet you over there. But that's what we're working on now. So far we have a QR code coming out to get the information out to you.

Mayor Adams: You want to ask something?

Question: Yes, hey. Keith Howard, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated, spring '05. Rho Psi Lambda Chapter.

Mayor Adams: [Laughter.] Oh man.

Question: So, we do have a great organization, as you know, in Stapleton. Park Hill has always been a challenge, because we don't have a community center there, but we have a public school that the YMCA is running very robust and good programming there as well. I can remit, and I'm sure that we need to have a better plan for Park Hill, and we're working on that plan as well.

We have a Cure Violence group, True To Life, that's really doing... Come on. That's really doing amazing work with young people. And the mayor's prevention through the Crisis Management System and Prevention and Intervention programs. So, I would like to take your information, I can introduce you to True To Life, and see exactly how we can connect so they can better engage with those young people. And I appreciate you for saying, "Listen, I'm willing to come out and do it."

A lot of people say what others ought to do, but the mere fact you said, "Listen, I'm willing to come out." So we want to bring our troops to help you point out where we need to go. But I appreciate your willingness to come out.

Question: Hi, good evening.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Hi. I'm [inaudible], I'm from United Activities Unlimited. And the table has a question in regards to how can your office remove the barriers of lack of resources for Staten Islanders? Many times Staten Islanders have to go out of the borough to get basic resources, affordable housing. Just on Richmond Terrace alone they have built three storage units to put people's belongings. There is no place for the homeless people. If you walk down to the ferry at 6:00 in the morning, when I go down there to work out and meditate, I will see a shantytown of homeless people. Where are the resources for the people? Also, what else... I think that's it.

Mayor Adams: Okay, sounds like a plan. I want to see what's happening with the shantytown that you're talking about. Because unlike other cities you don't see that in New York City. It was out in New Orleans, people are living on the side of the roads. We see what's happening in LA as they try to correct this, San Francisco, Chicago. Look at New York. I came in in January, I said by April we're going to remove the encampments off our streets, out of our subway system. And we have a system in place to make sure we go and give people the services that they need.

So if you identify the place we need to get service providers over there and get people the services that they need. We need more affordable housing... I'm sorry, you want to ask something else, sister? Yeah, go ahead.

Question: Thank you for answering that, but another big issue is that a lot of those people that are down there are undocumented, right? So, there's only so many services that they have access to. So, we can have resources, but if they're undocumented how can we help these people?

Mayor Adams: Yeah…

Question: And why is there so many storage units being put up on Staten Island's waterfront and there's no affordable housing?

Mayor Adams: Yeah, and if a person, in New York City, if you're documented or not, no one is going to turn you away from healthcare, for food, for shelter, for educating your children. We don't ask for documentation to give you the basic services that you need.

And you're right, all of these storage facilities, I want housing. We got in Albany, a lot of people... That's why it's so important for us to connect the dots, Albany has a lot to do with the housing that we're able to build.

Everyone talked about that housing is a crisis, yet Albany passed no legislation to allow us to build the 500,000 units that we want to build. Nothing at all. We wanted to extend the 421-a, which is a tax incentive to encourage more building. They didn't do that. We wanted to build higher in areas that traditionally they do not have affordable units by lifting what's called FAR, to build higher housing. They didn't do that.

All the incentives. We've got millions of square feet of commercial space that we want to turn into housing. They didn't allow us to do that. They're holding us hostage. So it's crucial for you to speak to your state lawmakers and say, "We've got to build housing. We can't just talk about more affordable housing but we're not building more affordable housing." We need help from Albany.

Dan, who's in charge of planning is finding creative ways to build more housing. He just did a presentation earlier. But the reality is, I don't want storage facilities. The best storage facility is somebody's closet where they can have an apartment that they live in and they can put their items in the closet.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. My name is [inaudible].

Mayor Adams: Man, I don't want to meet you in the alley.

Question: My name is Kamor Alayakun. I'm one of the proud principals here in District 31.

Mayor Adams: All right, give it up, give it up for our principal.

Question: Thank you Council Member Hanks for all your support. Our question, specifically, is addressing the disparities here on Staten Island. In particular we have homeless shelters that are designated in certain communities. We have the new Brighton community, we have the Stapleton community where a shelter's going up next year. We have the asylum seekers there, we have schools in that area, we have children that play in the parks. Why is it that it's these communities that are slated for homeless shelters?

Mayor Adams: Well, you know, every community is absorbing the brunt of the homeless crisis. And I really need people to really grasp what we're up against. When I became mayor January 1st, 2022 we had 45,000 people living in homeless shelters in our city. In a little over a year we receive 87,000 people in our city. And you tell me, what is more anti-American than someone telling you you can't work?

We have 87,000 people in our city who are saying, "We just want a job. We just want to work." And they're told, "You cannot work." Not for some people said, "Well, it's just six months before you're processed." That is just not true. We have to pick up the tab for almost probably a year and a half to two years. This is just wrong. And New York City should not be picking up this course. This is a federal government program. They should face it.

So, when I hear people say, "Well, we don't need it in certain communities." We hear it all over, no matter where we go we hear it. My question is, is then where? Where? I can't say I'm not going to put it here and then put it somewhere else. We have to spread this out throughout the entire city.

And DHS, HRA, all of these entities have been staying up at night. We're still getting almost 2,500 people a week, every border state, for the most part say, "Send them to New York City." And we're not getting any help from the federal government. Every elected official should be on top of this issue, because it's spilling over into our entire community.

We've done our job, they need to do theirs. We don't cherry-pick and say, "This community's not going to get a shelter." We don't even have that luxury anymore. You want to finish up with something?

Question: Yes, but as one island, which we are, it's Stapleton, it's New Brighton, it's not the entire island that is supporting that initiative. And we're just asking how come we can't spread that out to the entire island, and it's always these communities, and we want to empower these communities, but it seems as though these the communities are the ones that we need a homeless shelter on Staten Island? It's going to this community. We need another one? It's going to that same community. We're building a men's shelter? It's going to the same community. Why is it that it's still these same communities and not the entire island?

Mayor Adams: And here's what goes into the determination of where you're going to put a shelter and a different types of shelter. Because that's a legitimate question you're asking. Number one, we're looking at, we have to look at hotels, we have to look at available spaces, we have to look at what it's going to cost. Because we're not going to spend taxpayers dollars.

If someone is saying it's going to cost $175 per room to do it here or it's going to cost $500 per room to do it somewhere else, that's wasting taxpayers dollars. So there's a complete analysis of where we can place the shelter.

But what we're not doing, and I need to be clear on this, we're not saying you can't have a shelter because your economics is different in the community. You do an analysis of where you see these shelters are going, the Roosevelt Hotel, that's in one of the most affluent communities in the city, and we have 1000 people that's there.

If we have a space where we can have it anywhere in this city that we can put a shelter, a migrant shelter, or a HERRC. We no longer have the luxury to try to cherry-pick. That is not what this administration is doing, at all. If there are locations in anywhere in the city that we can put a HERRC or a migrant, and we're going to have to do it, because it keeps coming and it keeps flowing. It has not stopped. Our administration is not saying certain communities can't have shelters. We are not governing that way. That's my commitment to you. Yes, sir?

Question: I feel hopeful. And I feel hopeful because you're one of us. Yeah. You're not... Yeah.

Right. And it's difficult for me to feel hopeful after 47 years of working with people with drug and alcohol problems and watching that problem escalate. Continue to escalate. More deaths, more overdose deaths. I have to bring up something to you that may make you feel uncomfortable, and I'm uncomfortable bringing it up.

Mayor Adams: Feel free, trust me, I'm never uncomfortable. I'm a New Yorker. You can tell by my attitude I'm from New York.

Question: Settlement dollars from the pharmaceutical industry and from the drug stores. The first round of settlement dollars New York City received $150 million dollars. Now, in that process.

Mayor Adams: I can hear you, go ahead.

Question: Okay. In that process we were not consulted. When I say we, there's a network of providers on Staten Island that have been doing this work with people for half a century. We were not even consulted as to what is it that we do? How do we do it? Is it successful? Do we have suggestions on how the city should spend the money? Weren't even consulted. And there's no financial commitment of that money. And this is the first round of settlement dollars that Staten Island was not eligible for.

Now, it's the number one public health problem in our community. There isn't anybody in this room who doesn't know somebody who's succumbed to addiction, who's succumbed to an overdose death. And it needs to be addressed.

Mayor Adams: No, without a doubt. And you're dead on, you're dead on. And the AG did an amazing job of suing the pharmaceutical companies. What they did with painkillers, opioids and others really decimated this city. And Staten Island was impacted greatly. So you're dead on. What we must do, and I want to partner with our borough president, our councilwomen, they did the funding through H + H.

And so, it's to me, it's almost a setup if you're saying it's only going through H + H. You know Staten Island don't have an H + H, you know? So, what the AG, we're having some great conversation that we need to find a way to get those settlement dollars onto Staten Island, as well we're engaging conversation to do so in the next round.

I think there's some creative ways that we can do it. But the way it was done now, it was done strictly through H + H. You don't have an H + H, so it's almost tilted unfairly, but the AG's a reasonable person. We have been in conversation to see how do you get your share of the settlement dollars. That's important to us.

Question: If I could make a suggestion.

Mayor Adams: Yes, please do.

Question: That you use me. That you use some of the folks around here who have been dealing with this issue, on a consultant basis. To say, "What are you doing? How are you doing it? Is it successful? What do you recommend? what do you need?"

Mayor Adams: Love it, love it. DJ, connect. Listen, when people want to volunteer I don't turn them down. So I will love that. But we do want to get settlement dollars out here. Currently, the way it's set up is preventing that. We want to see if we can navigate that. Because you're 100 percent right. I agree with you 100 percent.

Executive Deputy Commissioner Deepa Avula, Mental Hygiene, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: So, Luke, thank you so much for raising this. I just want to make sure that everyone here knows, Luke and other providers on Staten Island did raise this to us. I'm born and raised on Staten Island, I'm very committed to making sure, I'm Deepa Avula the Executive Deputy Commissioner for Mental Hygiene. I personally will be here on Staten Island on Thursday to talk specifically to the providers on Staten Island to ensure that we're going to do exactly what you just said, use the expertise that exists, that has existed for many, many years and decades here, so that for the next round of settlement dollars you have our express commitment that we will do that with consultation from providers specifically on Staten Island.

Mayor Adams: Okay. You heard what the deputy commissioner said, I know you're talking to DJ. Blame it on DJ. You know? Yeah, so the deputy commissioner stated she's going to be out here. The next round is a whole different approach. So we're going to make sure, DJ's going to get your information, we're going to make sure we loop in folks. And if there's some folks out here that you know that are doing the work, please have them engage with the deputy commissioner. Okay? But thank you for that. You're dead on, dead on. How are you?

Question: Hello. Good evening, Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: Good evening.

Question: My name is Claudette Duff. I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to be 
with us this evening. My question has to do with the segment of the homeless population or mentally ill and struggling with substance abuse. These individual have no choice but to use the street as their home. To find food, and to take care of other unpleasant bodily needs, which is unpleasant for them and for our communities.

The most vulnerable of these are seniors, who are homeless in the street with their walkers and wheelchairs. Many are being placed in regular senior residence with no services, no mental health services, no case management services, no medical services. We need more supportive housing for those homeless on Staten Island.

Now, Mayor Adams, you says that a lot of people complain about things but they do nothing about it. Well, I'm here to say that you would love me, because I do stuff. 20 years ago when we started notice the seniors were getting older and becoming more and more home-bound with mental illness, I created a program called Integrity Senior Services.

Today we service over 3,000 seniors throughout the State of New York. After Superstorm Sandy, when many seniors became homeless and I had no place to put them I created a program called Out Of The Storm Senior Housing. Where we take three and four bedroom houses and convert them into senior residence.

Recently I've become legally blind, I'm now in the process of creating a center for the blind in Staten Island, which there is nothing in Staten Island for the blind and visually impaired. I would like your support with that project. So, we do things, we get no support. For 10 years I've applied for City Council discretionary funds for my seniors. I got nothing. Some of us are willing to do stuff, I'm sure I'm not the only one. But we need support in doing that. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Deputy commissioner, you want to talk about some of the senior mental health stuff we're doing? Okay, okay. Yeah, the mic down there is that... Commissioner Curry from the Mayor's Office of Disabilities.

Commissioner Christina Curry, Mayor’s Office for People with Disabilities: Good evening everyone. Thank you. So you mentioned that you need services for people with the vision loss, correct? There's nothing on Staten Island as of now. Is that what you're saying? I apologize.

Commissioner Curry: I missed that.

Question: Yeah. Yes. We have people from Manhattan and Brooklyn who could come over and provide services, but it's limited. For most of the services they would like people to take a Access-A-Ride or some other transportation and go to Manhattan or Brooklyn. And if you know Staten Islanders, especially our older folks, many of them will not go over that bridge. Even if you pay them to.

Commissioner Curry: Yes, ma'am, I do know that. So, you're right. The services here are extremely limited. It's limited for people with vision loss, it's limited for people with a hearing loss. For whatever reason, Staten Island does not have all the same services as you would get at Manhattan. So, what I would like to say as the commissioner for... Here I am. The Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities. May I have your contact information so we can work together on that? Because as a...

Question: So we can work together on that because as a former advocate, as a former executive director for a nonprofit where that's all we worked on, we can link you up with the right agencies. We can move forward on that. Because if you cannot see and you don't have your services, you can't do anything, now you're stuck at home. And we don't want to be stuck at home. We want to be out, we want to be independent. We want to be just as productive as someone who can see without a vision loss. So I'm asking you, please may I have your contact information? I promise you I will follow up by tomorrow.

Mayor Adams: And we need to do an analysis of what the needs are out here because this is the first time I'm learning about not having visual assistance out here. So let's do an analysis to find out what the needs are. But Department of Aging, just introduce yourself because you raise the issue around seniors.

Ryan Murray, Chief Program Officer, Department for the Aging: Good evening, everybody. My name is Ryan Murray. I'm chief program officer over at NYC Aging, the Department for the Aging. We had a moment just now where if you notice, several people looked around because your question was about making sure that we were responding to seniors, whether they're homeless, affordable housing, people in their homes. Thank you Commissioner Curry for your introduction. We have nine senior centers in the North Shore, so that is one good step for the Department of Aging. But the point that I'm trying to make here is simply this. One of the things that the mayor's asked us to do isn't just to make sure that our services are available through the Department for the Aging. We have launched what's called a Cabinet for Older New Yorkers. That's really important for us because all of the agencies that you see here, we have 20 that are taking on direct projects right now.

Whether it's the Mayor's Office for People with Disabilities or it's our colleagues at the Department of Homeless Services or our colleagues over at HPD, which touches on many of the issues, or we're looking at intergenerational programs with schools as well as the Department of Youth and Community Development. 

What we're talking about when we're thinking about seniors, we're diverse in terms of the senior community. We have younger seniors, older seniors that are in programs. We need to make sure we're bringing a whole government approach here. So one of the things I will add to this is I'm going to make sure you have my card because what you've been raising are the crosscutting issues that seniors deal with, whether it's homes, affordability, vision, mental health services, or other things that are impacting seniors. And we want to make sure we have a whole government approach. At Aging, we also, obviously, have programs for folks who need counseling, mental health support and services, but it's an integrated approach that we're pushing on right now thanks to the Cabinet for Older New Yorkers and all the agencies that you see here.

Mayor Adams: Yeah. And Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez has done an excellent job with that cabinet, but let's make sure you exchange information. I'm sorry, ma'am, what was your name again?

Question: My name is Claudette Duff.

Mayor Adams: Claudette. Okay.

Question: I'll do that.

Mayor Adams: So, Claudette, what are you going to do because I can tell just by how you're rapping, you could rap all night. We got you. What I want you…

Question: Yeah, but there's one thing that was not addressed yet, and these are homeless people with mental illness.

Mayor Adams: That's what I'm about to say. So first of all, Claudette has some major programs that she did and was successful. Let's find out about them because maybe it's something that we could duplicate. So I need for you to connect with our representative from the Department of Aging. Sit down with Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez. Let's hear about some of those programs you've put in place because it seems like you've done some great stuff. No use reinventing the wheel. Let's learn from that, okay?

Question: Okay, and thank you.

Council Member Hanks: Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Yes?

Council Member Hanks: How are you, Miss Claudette?

Question: Hello.

Council Member Hanks: So Claudette Duff has a very valid point. When I became the Council member, we realized with our team that there's 138 initiatives that's totaling billions of dollars or at least $1 billion. And Staten Island, when we go do the math, there's 15 organizations, give or take, and less than 1.90 percent is coming to Staten Island. So this is important for the mayor to know, for everyone sitting here to know that because we have not been able to get some of those resources, and it says citywide, these are not citywide because they're not coming over to Staten Island. We don't have Staten Island programs. So what my office and I are doing is investing in capacity building so other organizations can actually have the capacity like yours to understand how to ask for government money and be able to satisfy a lot of the things that we're talking about here today. I just wanted to address that because Claudette is my girl.

Mayor Adams: Well said. Thank you. Go to the next table. Yes, ma'am.

Question: Hi, my name is Dina. I currently live in NYCHA and it's South Beach. So my question is why is not all of NYCHA under the same umbrella? We were rezoned into South Shore. Even though we're NYCHA, we don't get the same services as other areas of Staten Island and we are NYCHA. For example, some NYCHAs were accepted for SYEP. They were automatically given the slots because they were in different areas where South Beach, even though we're right next to these other areas, are zoned out as South Shore. We also don't get services for children from ages five to 12 in that area, where other areas get those services. I've been in touch, I've been discussing these issues, but South Beach deserves to get the same services as other NYCHA just because we're in an area where there's houses maybe. They feel we don't need those services. So how is it that we can get these services and be under the same umbrella as NYCHA?

Mayor Adams: First of all, there's only one NYCHA. And what we were able to do last year with the NYCHA Land Trust, I think is a game changer. I was just looking at the number the other day, NYCHA's capital expense is upwards of almost $70-something billion. It's just unbelievable when you think about it. We need to go in a different direction with NYCHA. But can you talk about that, why would they not get the same allocations? I don't know what the answer is. So beat up on this commissioner.

Commissioner Howard: So we were supposed to meet, you and I, because you raised the issue up. She was one of our community mom and dads at Gracie Mansion. So we have a meeting or we're scheduling a meeting on the book to address and to find out why there wasn't any investment in SYEP over as South Beach. It's a special initiative. All of the NYCHAs, to my understanding, got the level of investment, but I need to find out why NYCHA and South Beach was excluded. I will find out. Okay, so let us get an answer for you. Okay, Tony, you make connection? 

Mayor Adams: Okay, let us get an answer because there's only one NYCHA and no facilities should be treated differently. So let us look into it and find out. You want to ask something else?

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: So let us find out. You should. There isn't a different NYCHA. Everyone should be getting the same. So let us look into it and we're going to make sure we get the answers from you. Do we have anybody here from NYCHA? Oh, look at you. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

Lisa Bova-Hiatt, Chief Executive Officer, New York City Housing Authority: Hello.

Mayor Adams: Got the new head in charge.

Bova-Hiatt: Exactly. And I'm also a Staten Islander.

Mayor Adams: Are you? It is.

Bova-Hiatt: I am.

Mayor Adams: Another not for me Staten Islander.

Bova-Hiatt: Exactly. So I can come talk to you.

Mayor Adams: Well, your boo loves you. That's a big diamond.

Bova-Hiatt: And he loves me so much, he moved to Staten Island. So there you go.

Mayor Adams: That's what I love.

Bova-Hiatt: Yes. But I'm happy to talk to you after this and we can work with our inter gov and also work with DYCD and figure out what's going on in South Beach.

Mayor Adams: Okay. So when we break, just come up so we can find out because there shouldn't be a different treatment in NYCHA. Thank you.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: All right. Thank you again for coming to Staten Island. Definitely, your presence is unprecedented and I think we all on Staten Island appreciate it. My name's Mario Bon Viajo, I run a civic group in Port Richmond. And one of the many things that we do is we answer to our community complaints, whether it be quality of life, buildings, or cleanups. We work with all of the local city, state, and federal agencies. We're in contact with some of them daily, some of them at least once a week. What comes up is that a lot of the issues, particularly in the Department of Buildings, a lot of illegal and dangerous construction happens late evenings and on the weekends.

And although we are humbled to have the luxury of having immediate contacts representatives of these city agencies, a lot of the individuals are off as so many other city agencies. Would it be a possibility for some or many of your city agencies to start some type of initiative to have scattered days off, whether agencies would have Friday, Saturday off or Sunday, Monday off as the NYPD does because particularly in the buildings department, there is an enforcement extension to it where there would be need for a weekend or an evening enforcement inspector to come out at some of these dangerous situations. Thank you again for coming to Stand Island, appreciate it.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. That's interesting. Give me your thoughts, Jimmy.

Commissioner Jimmy Oddo, Department of Buildings: Well, the Department has an emergency response team that goes out 24/7, 7 days a week to different sites. We all get the notifications and they are out there. So in terms of immediate crises, the department goes out. Mario and my friend, Mary, and the good folks of Port Richmond reached out, sent a letter to me on Sunday and it's a good thing they did. On Monday, we sent out an inspector, it's Island Redi-Mix, which is on Richmond Terrace. They piled up 30 feet of earth and dirt and have these big stone cinder blocks holding it. They reached out to us on Sunday the 15th, an inspector went out Monday morning the 16th, handed out a violation, but realized the violation wasn't enough. Brought the retaining wall unit out on Tuesday and we issued this emergency declaration, which mandates they got to take the earth out.

They got to tighten the wall up and they have to put safety barriers around where the pedestrians walk by the bus stop. So we have folks that are out. Our emergency response team falls out of Queens and they are gung ho and they're out there and my phone pings all night long because they're out there. In this instance, for an agency that has a reputation for taking too long, we got a letter to me personally on a Sunday, on Monday morning, there was an inspector, on Tuesday, there was another unit. And we have the borough commissioner and the deputy borough commissioner here who are all over it. That's the level of service I think you would expect. That's what we're trying to give.

Mayor Adams: Love it, love it, love it, love it, love it. And you were saying... Get up for that Staten Islander. A letter on Sunday, service on Monday. That's GSD at the highest level. Who's that guy with the camera? Are you Staten Island Advance?

Commissioner Oddo: Next table.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm good. Hello, Mr. Mayor, and thank you for being here.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

Question: My name's Rose. I am a member of both the St. George Civic Association as well as the New Brighton Civic. I've lived along waterfront communities my entire life. I was glad that at my table, one of the biggest issues we were talking about was access to the waterfront. I was born and raised over in Mariners Harbor, I live in New Brighton now. If you were to walk along the entire stretch from Mariners Harbor down to where I live now, you'd see ugly fencing. You would see nothing but some abandoned, still some active manufacturing sites. And believe me, those sites are important to our economy. I understand that, but the public also needs access to its waterfront and we are not getting that access we need. We are a waterfront community, but it doesn't feel like it, it never has. I know that on the East Side, there are some wonderful developments that are happening or will happen and I'm glad to see, but on the West Side, we are just not getting that same response.

When you look at the sinkhole over on The Esplanade, all you have to do is walk to the edge of The Esplanade and look down, you'll see Bank Street. It was once the only access point to the waterfront that New Brighton had. It is now a wasteland. It was shut down when construction began on the wheel that never happened and it was never brought back to the community. There are so many more sites I can talk to you about, but the point is we need access to our waterfront. And quickly, one other point that we made at our table that I don't think has been brought up today is that Staten Island is the only borough that does not have a public hospital. This was mentioned briefly when you were talking about how settlement money from the pharmaceutical lawsuit was not brought to Staten Island because of that issue. I think the easiest way of solving that issue is to bring a public hospital to Staten Island.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Both those issues, that's probably some of the stuff that we really need to lean into. And I think you are 100 percent correct about the waterfront. How are you an island and you can't get to your waterfront? So that's one of the things that I think some good stuff is going to be coming out in the next few, what, weeks?

Question: Next week.

Mayor Adams: Next week we're going to be announcing a vision for the Staten Island waterfront next week because you're right. I think that this is probably one of the most hidden jewels in our city. When I go along your parks, you have some beautiful parks here. When you go along your waterfront, it has not been developed at the level that it ought to be, but we are getting ready to roll out something in two weeks. And I don't know, Dan, do you have anything? Are we looking at anything with Staten Island waterfronts at all? I'm sorry.

Dan Garodnick, Chair, City Planning Commission: So we just had a hearing at the City Planning Commission about a significant investment on the Tompkinsville Esplanade, which was part of the Bay Street Corridor Rezoning and is an infrastructure improvement that is going to bring more waterfront connections and really resiliency. It's a $230 million investment. It's combined city and federal. It's a 10-block long public waterfront esplanade with bike and pedestrian lanes. There's a public park with seating, tables, and landscaping and a DOT pier for dock builders to maintain the city's ferry system and docks. This is an important commitment that the city made that we are now delivering and the problems that are being described are significant and require a lot of work and a lot of effort that is being put in by EDC, city planning, and other agencies. And we recognize this as an issue. And, mayor, as you pointed out, there's more to come here and we're really excited to get it done.

Mayor Adams: And Councilwoman Hanks, to her credit, I think it was last year sometime, she called me out to walk along the waterfront and there's some beautiful places that really we could develop. We could do some affordable housing. We could open up the waterfront to use it better. So we're zero in. Councilwoman Hanks, this has been a big issue for her on how do we get our waterfront and the accessibility of it. So I'm looking forward to it. All this is not going to be done in a year. It's going to take some build-out, but we got to get started and we're looking to really develop the waterfront. And that goes in line to what you were raising also about access to the waterfront and we're all in. And the councilwoman, the bar president as a partnership, we should reach out to your congressional delegation also to be part of it because some of these projects are going to take federal, state, and city money.

We all need to come together and figure out how do we finally turn the corner on the waterfront in Staten Island. When you drive down... I don't know, what road was that we drove down and we walked down? It's desolate, it's not being used properly. That's a beautiful place. And you know what? It's going to help the Staten Island population because people are going to walk along there, they're going to fall in love, and they're going to get married. So it is a good place to be. Who's next?

Commissioner Kreizman: That was the last table.

Mayor Adams: Okay, so you had something that you wanted to raise before we bounce? Yeah. I said we'll come back to you.

Question: This is regarding the issue with the cleanliness of the communities. It's not just the residents that live in the communities. I remember our former senator, Diane Savino, said to me when I was sitting in her office, and I'm going to make this brief, and we were discussing the issue about the cleanliness of the communities, and she said, "If this was Victory Boulevard, would they still give you the same response that the community should be clean or would the department," and I'm paraphrasing, "or would the Department of Sanitation be responsible for cleaning the community?" That's why I had an issue with the statement that your Commissioner of Sanitation made about the people helping. I do understand that, but the street, the area down to Broad Street in Tompkins and what's the area we were talking about? Cedar. They even have a big police van there that is surrounded by garbage.

The area is the garbage by the bus stops don't get cleaned up, the streets don't get swept, the owners don't clean in front of their buildings. Last year when we were at the Gerard Carter Center, we brought that up to you, that Home Depot does not clean on the side of Park Hill. They totally disregard that community. And we have an area in Park Hill that no one owns the property, Department of Sanitation doesn't come and empty the garbage. What we were saying is, in these highly congested communities, more is required than just the usual one or two or three or every other day plan of action to clean up the communities because I believe, and I think the whole table agreed, that once these communities see that there's an interest in keeping them clean, the people in the community will fall in line. And thank you very much, mayor, for coming back to me.

Mayor Adams: Yeah, no.

Question: And don't forget the Heritage Day Parade, which you said you were going to be in, September 16th.

Mayor Adams: No. So listen, Commissioner Tisch is doing an unbelievable job around cleaning. She's a fanatic. We started cleaning our highways. We have really started putting some real initiatives in place. We brought Kathleen Corradi on board, who's dealing with the real rodent issues. She's the first rat czar we've ever had. So we need to do an analysis of those places that you're talking about and let's come up with a plan to really address exactly what you're talking about. So I want to connect you with the team. CAU is Fred, right? Let's do an analysis of those locations. Let's partner with the borough commissioner and get the team on board so that we can rectify that problem because the name of the game is cleanliness is next to godliness as we were told. So let's rectify. Let's do an analysis. Let's see where those locations are.

I went over to the place with Home Depot and we saw the trash. I thought they got on top of it, but we're going to go back. You got to inspect what you expect or it's all suspect. So we're going to go back and we're going to look again. Listen, I want to thank the team after a full day out here doing their thing. And I want to thank all of you. My men and women of law enforcement, can you stand up? My chief, my inspectors, my captains. Thank all of you. Bishop, thank you. Keeping us safe. Do an amazing job out here. Thank you. Thank you all. We look forward to the follow-up.

Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Before we leave, I just want to just really acknowledge Ms. Carr who's here. She lost her son. And we just want to say in this, I don't know if anniversary is the right turn, but this moment of reflection. We wanted to make sure we came out here and just tell you, our heart is with you. You have turned pain into purpose. You have turned pain into purpose, and we cannot thank you enough. You've become a symbol of our resiliency and strength and just blessing us here today. It reminds us how we have so much more to do, but you give us that inspiration. Love you. Thank you so much, and we lift you up in prayer every day.

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