Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Inaugural Episode of "Hear From the Mayor" Radio Show

July 23, 2023

Gary Byrd: It is time for the launch of a brand new broadcast that’ll be happening monthly right here on 107.5 WBLS “Hear From the Mayor,” with Eric Adams, live from City Hall, on 107.5 WBLS. Brother Eric, good morning. 

Mayor Eric Adams: Hey brother Gary. Long time man. You think about it, how many years has it been, man? Many days of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement to now in City Hall. Just really good speaking and being with you and to all the listeners, this is so important that we wanted to do this radio show so that you could hear it directly from me. 

Far too often what we talk about and what we do is filtered and I just think it's important as I move through the city, rock out in the subway station and trains and just walking in the parks, the streets, Bronx, Harlem, no matter where I go, people say, Eric, we want to hear directly from you on what's happening. And that's the purpose of this show. We are really excited about it. So we want folks to call in (212) 545-1075, (212) 545-1075. And there's other ways to hear from me. You can go to my Get Stuff Done Cast and you can visit nyc.gov/herefromeric.

We're going to do everything possible to speak directly to the people of this city, any and every moment from town halls to youth town halls to telephone calls. We want to constantly be in communication with our people.

Byrd: Eric, before we head towards the end of the broadcast towards 11:00, we'll take a bit more time and make sure that people know exactly how to plug into those platforms that you're describing, because it's extremely important for people to understand this is half our broadcast, but the key aspect that you just identified is that we want this broadcast to serve as a vehicle that is part of the connectivity that you are creating and want to create with brothers and sisters who know that they not only just have a voice in City Hall, they have someone in City Hall who can hear their voice as well.

Mayor Adams: Well said, well said. And that is why it's important to do this and engaging conversation. Gary, remember throughout the years you have been a master at Talk Work Radio and bringing people into these difficult conversations. When we look at throughout the years from the Louima issue to housing issues, to closing and shutting down hospitals, this has been a long going legacy. And so, to have you here being part of this conversation means really a lot to me. It's almost full circle.

Byrd: Yeah, it is full circle. And of course, we have our spiritual and health connection from the Reverend Dr. Herbert Daughtry to our particular concern on the nutrition level that we have.

Mayor Adams: So that's right.

Byrd: We got a lot of things going, no doubt about that. Brother Eric, you had a very powerful moment take place this week in which you actually named a new police commissioner. Let's take a listen to his words and then have your comments about it, especially in terms of an area that I know means a lot to you and that is public safety. Let's take a listen.

Police Commissioner Edward Caban: NYPD that began over 32 years ago. A young Puerto Rican kid from Parkchester standing on a foot post in the South Bronx To be the first Hispanic police commissioner is an honor of the highest measure. Together we'll build upon our successes and continue to drive down crime and improve the quality of life in our communities. When a person in need rings the bell, you can always count on NYPD to answer the call. So thank you Mr. Mayor. I am humbled to be on your team, to have your trust and support, and to lead the greatest police department on the globe.

Byrd: My brother, tell us a bit about this new appointment, new police commissioner and certainly obviously we are in a situation where that is a major challenge for not just New York City, but for the country, but especially right now in terms of what we're seeing happening on the streets right now. Talk about that appointment.

Mayor Adams: Well, it was so important because, you know Gary, throughout the years it has always been crucial for me to deal with, what I say intervention and prevention, public safety is not just about locking people up, it's about how do you prevent people from being engaged in criminal behavior and I needed that balance. 

And so, when I did the first African American woman to be police commissioner and the first woman overall with Keechant Sewell, I needed to continue that legacy. Edward Caban was the first deputy commissioner at the time and he watched and together as a team, they were able to bring down crime and also build a better symbiotic relationship with the community and I wanted to make sure we continue that legacy. With Edward, his dad was a former transit police officer during the time that I served and he was the head of the Hispanic Society fighting for diversity in the police department and we also appointed the first woman and African American Guyanan Jamaican to be the first deputy commissioner.

We are just really proud of what we are doing and how we are really diversifying government and it's really falling in line with what I've been doing. The first African American woman to be the first deputy commissioner, first deputy mayor in the city of New York, first Indian American to be a deputy mayor, first Filipino American first Trinidadian to be a deputy mayor, first Hispanic to head to Department of Correction. When you start looking over the first Korean American to head of Small Business Services, the first Jewish woman to head the Intelligence Division. So we are really saying diversity is the key and you'll seeing that reflection in my administration.

Byrd: Absolutely. For those of you who are hearing Mayor Adams' voice and you're saying, "Wait a minute, what's going on?" This is Hear from Mayor Eric Adams, live from City Hall on 107.5 WBLS brand new monthly broadcast. Eric, I'm going to give you the honor right now of opening up the telephones for people to hear from Mayor Adams.

Mayor Adams: Yes, please do so and you can call 212-545-1075. And I wanted to bring some youthfulness in this, because my son Jordan is also going to join us to really engage in a real authentic conversation to really hear what's happening with young people, what their thoughts are, because I'm the setting sun. There's the rising sun is now coming across the sky and we need to be there to make sure they shine as well as we were able to.

Byrd: That's real talk 212-545-1075 is the number to call. Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx Queens Long Island, Staten Island, wherever you are. 212-545-1075. Yes, the program is here from Mayor Adams, but Mayor Adams wants to hear from you, so join us this morning, 212-545-1075. We'll take a very quick break and when we come back we'll be ready for your calls with Mayor Adams on 107.5 WBLS.

[Commercial]

Miles “Deuce” McBride: Hey Mr. Mayor, Miles Deuce McBride here from the Knicks. Just wanted to say thank you for everything you do for our city. Good luck with your new show and we hope to see you in MSG this year.

Byrd: And thank you brother. The new show is here from Mayor Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City live from City Hall on one 107.5 WBLS with us this morning. We're lining up your telephone calls for you to talk to Mayor Adams to express yourself and doing it this morning with an emphasis on the issue of public safety, which we'll delve into a further as we move through the program this morning. We're going to start taking our telephone calls for Mayor Adams right now. We'll start up in the Bronx with Robert who joins us this morning on 107.5 WBLS. Robert, good morning. Good to have you with us.

Question: Good morning. Good morning guys. Good morning Mr. Mayor. Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Good morning.

Question: Good morning, sir. I live up in the Bronx and I'm retired in the UFO Way. And I've been looking at all the contracts that we're getting really good contracts. I was looking at something in the paper that State Council was saying that, a couple years down the road, we're going to be in a serious deficit with the New York City budget that has to get passed by Albany, because of all the people that are working in the city. How do you propose a deal with all these future fiscal deficits I'm talking about for the State Council Office?

Mayor Adams: No, and that that's so important. Thanks for that question. It's about being fiscally responsible and that is what far too often we are not seeing in government. That's why I introduced when I got elected and I ran on that we would have something called PEGs– Programs to Eliminate the Gaps. We were able to find over $4 billion in those PEGs, because if I'm saying to you as a homeowner, you must make sure you manage your money. The city should manage its money in the same way, and that is why this last budget cycle, we were able to find savings without hurting services. If we don't as electeds manage the taxpayers dollars appropriately, we're going to have to deal with these real crises in the past. 

Right now, you look at our saving, we have the largest rainy day farm in the city history waiting for those inclement days that's in front of us. And so, the comptroller is right. We need to be focusing on this on the state level and on the city, city level. And to be honest, even on the federal level.

Byrd: If you just tuned in, you're listening to Hear from the Mayor Eric Adams, live from City Hall on 107.5 WBLS. Robert from the Bronx. Robert, thank you. I'm going to go to Iesha Sekou who joins us, a voice familiar and to Mayor Adams as well. Aisha, good morning and welcome to the broadcast this morning.

Question: Great morning mayor, I just want to say good morning to you and I want to definitely say for WBLS, thank you for staying on the issues particularly around public safety over the years. I just really want to just weigh in as a person who directs a program for public safety. It's pure violence and it's up to the Mayor's Office to Prevent Gun Violence. And I just want to say that we are excited about the expansion that we see on the services that we can deliver. And one in particular that I've been loud about the need for mental health. I'm grateful that we have an expansion on the mental health money so that we can get more counselors. We've already hired two counselors at Street Corner Resources and we're looking to hire some part-time per diem counselors. That will give us the opportunity to have counselors almost everywhere that we go.

So I just wanted the community to know and to say thank you to you mayor for the other money to allow us to do things in schools as well. But I want the community to know when they say nothing is happening, there's a lot going on. I had that feeling some years ago, but I've seen the growth in the pure violence work that we do and I'm grateful for it. It gives us an opportunity even to hire those who made a problem in the past to come back home and correct it and help to prevent violence. So thank you so much. I just wanted to weigh in.

Byrd: Thanks so much, sister. Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: And you know what? It's so important over and over again brother Gary, you hear me say first time ever done record levels. That's what this administration is about. And that's the same here with the cure of violence. We are putting in our budget $86 million. That's a record level brother, and it is a holistic approach. What we are doing with foster care children, giving them money to attend college and pay their tuition and the stipend while they're in school. Dyslexia screening to prevent young people like myself from being on the negative end of the law. People don't know 30 to 40 percent of the people on Rikers Island are dyslexic. 85 don't, 80 percent don't have a high school diploma equivalency diploma. 

What we doing with the summer youth employment, Gary, we had over 100,000 summer youth employed, record level never has been done before. Summer Rising, 110,000, allowing our children to go to school all throughout the summer with structured learning.

When you really dig into the crevices of this administration, you see that you have a mayor that has gone through a lot now he's helping people that are going through a lot and that's what this administration is about.

Byrd: There's a story as I mentioned a few moments ago that's circulating right now concerning six shootings that occurred just last night in New York City. And I understand I think at least two people were killed. We have a caller who's calling this morning from one of the boroughs that was actually hit in that situation. Harlem, the area of Harlem of course was hit, but also in Queens, this particular situation, one of affecting brothers and sisters there as well. I'm going to have a caller come in from Queens a caller, identify your name first and join us in the broadcast. Get a chance for you to join us to hear from Mayor Adams. Go right ahead.

Question: Yes, this is Rodney from Queens. Hold on. Good morning Mr. Byrd. Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Good morning, Rodney.

Question: Yes, I'm a proud member of National Action Network, I've been a proud member for over 10 years. My questions about the MTA. Okay, I understand. Okay, there's a fare hike, right? But I don't understand how it goes from $2.75 to $2.90. Nobody carry around 90 cents. It should have been $3. And then they talk about they need money, but they going to have free bus lines in every borough. So what is it? Do they need money or they going to be free bus lines? And who oversees the spending? Is it the comptroller? That's my question. Y'all have a blessed day. Thank you.

Byrd: Thank you brother. Go right ahead Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you for that. I never heard anyone say add another dime to it. People try to take a dime away. But clear, this is one of the untold stories, because people when I'm on the subways all the time, they talk to me about the service in the MTA. The mayor does not run the MTA. MTA is under the control of the governor and the state. They are in control of the MTA. The mayor has nothing to do with the fare increases, the type of services. Now we have a good partnership. Janno Leiber, who's over there. We have a great partnership with them and we believe is crucial that we have a top rate subway and bus system, that's crucial. And we invested in what's called Fair Fares so that the system could be more affordable for low income New Yorkers. And I committed to something when I came into office, people were afraid to be on the subway system.

I stated, “We’re going to make this city safe.” We put the proper police and mental health professionals there. We went after those who could not take care of themselves, because the mental health illness, we also removed all the encampments and people were sleeping in tents and cardboard boxes, you no longer see that. Ridership went up, 4 million riders we picked at customer satisfactory service in improved and we're seeing record levels of decreasing crime in our subway system. So the promises I made while I was running materialized when I got in office, 18 months in, you are seeing a different MTA than what you saw when we inherited it, January 1st, 2022.

Byrd: Eric, I wonder in terms of what you are seeing related to what we're looking at in terms of the effects of climate change and the way it impacts the city, and especially in certain areas of the city. Queens, ironically, we were just talking about that a moment ago. When you begin to see issues of increased levels of flooding and whatnot, Queens is one of those areas in which there are many different houses that have basement apartments and basement dwellers and so forth. And in any situation that we've actually seen take place where was a matter of hurricane or more recently even in terms of this issue of the wind that is actually happening coming from Canada, that there literally is a more toxic effect, ironically, in the area of Queens. What do we do about this issue of the impending issue of climate change that seems to grow more and more and now we're looking at temperatures next week in the mid-nineties, all week long? Literally what do we do with that?

Mayor Adams: And it's real. Climate change is real and those who disputed it need to wake up and smell the smoke that's coming from Canada. Think about it, thousands of miles away. We are being impacted by a forest fire from Canada. When you wake up and see your clouds, your skies covered with smoke, it's something to think about. And you're right, rising tides, we're seeing these normally 100-year storms are coming more frequently. And so then there must be, again, I use this term all the time in intervention and prevention. Intervention is what do we do right now? How do we build in areas where we can build retaining walls? How do we utilize our sewer system, invest in our sewer system to expand them to the level of water that we are now receiving during these floods? How do we become more responsible by using battery storage and using solar panels, alternative use of energies, going to electric vehicles, building out the system to do so.

So there are short-term things we must do right now and they are long term and no one should feel helpless. Adopt a drain in your block so that it's unclogged and doesn't have trash there to make sure the water can start draining properly. There are things we can do walk more often, ride bikes more often. Let's get vehicles that are burning fossil fuel and carbon emissions off our streets. And so, we must really start focusing on what the future is going to look like. But we need to look right now, because it impacts us all. And particularly in communities of colors where you saw in East New York, you had that bus depot where they were burning diesel fuel. I went out there said, let's get these new buses in this community. We have them in other parts to the city. This is a all hands on deck moment and we are very clear about that.

Byrd: In terms of what we're doing here, this particular platform is actually one of several and you mentioned that towards the top of the broadcast, and I wanted to give you the opportunity of expanding on that, because you have several different things happening that are actually really part of your own outreach to have a connection with the community. Tell me a little bit about that and explain to our listeners exactly how they go about doing that.

Mayor Adams: Well, it's a couple of things we have going on. We have our Get Stuff Done Cast, and it's a real interesting podcast talking about the various people in the city and what we are doing. You can visit nyc.gov/hearfromeric. We also send out our routine roundup, which is extremely informative. Sometimes I look at it and say, "Wow, I didn't realize we did all that this week." We're just moving around the city in a real way. And we sent out everything from robocalls to keep people informed to making sure that people could have our town hall meetings, our youth town hall meetings, our town hall meetings with adults. It's really powerful. Speaking of youth, I want to let my son pop in a minute. He ran a little late. I always tell him, if you're going to hang out with the boys, you got to get up with the men. Give us some nice youthful energy, Jordan.

Jordan Coleman: Definitely, glad to be here. Well, when we talk about the youth, we also have to look at how people are aging specifically and you know, look at people like yourself who are aging gracefully and you see it has a trickle-down effect, so that you don't feel a certain age once you reach 30, you know have more life to give. And so, with us being a community that's emerging in this world, we see that there's a lot of problems from global warming and different circumstances with violence, but we have a lot of energy to fix that. And I think that people my age are looking at the world and seeing how they can fix it. And I think you brought up something about their prevention and intervention and I think that we're looking at the prevention, but our hearts are in an intervention as well.

Mayor Adams: And you know what I find interesting brother Byrd? Is when I see Jordan flow around his friends, how they do not have these barriers of gender, ethnicity, culture, his friends looks like the United Nations and I think a lot of that creativity come from that and lean into that a little, Jordan.

Coleman: Definitely. Well, I went to American University, so I saw a lot of diversity, but just overall in my neighborhoods, it's been a situation where you find people who have a good spirit, you find people who have a good spirit and you just connect with them wherever it's sports, music, whatever you find is your passion. And I think that that's what this world is all about, especially with social media showing you so much awareness to a global thing or a global aspect of our communities. It allows the youth to branch out a lot more.

Byrd: Fantastic points, brother Eric, as we head towards the last few moments in our broadcast, what are your closing remarks for our listeners and for the community?

Mayor Adams: Well, listen, it is the beginning and I want people to hear directly from me. And I thank WBLS for giving us this opportunity, because if we communicate, we can navigate any challenge that's in front of us and that is the role of the mayor of the City of New York. This is the largest city, most important city on the globe. And you just got an ordinary cat as the mayor. I'm one of you. I am part of the community that I came up in.

Byrd: Walking with this swag brother, given thanks. Listen, we look forward to you joining us next month, brother. A lot going on and obviously we look forward to what's happening right now and the kind of communications platforms you're setting up to unify the community. We give thanks for you and your presence. Brother Eric Adams, the mayor of New York City. The program is Hear from the Mayor, live from City Hall. It'll be happening each and every month right here on 107.5 WBLS. 

Our thanks this morning going out of course to the brother who is the Master ENG brother Rick Wright, and of course, also this morning to the brothers and sisters who are listening and certainly tuning in and being a part of our broadcast. We also want to say in terms of Mayor Adams' staff, we give our thanks to them and to their support this morning. Took a lot of effort, just this first program underway and there will be more to come and certainly looking forward to the continued effort that the mayor is making to try to reach out to get people direct contact with City Hall.

Thanks so much for you joining us this morning. Wherever you're listening from, as you know, I always say the key to tomorrow is what we do today, the decision to work or whether to play. Both have their place in the human life stream, but only one will achieve your dream. Life is the ultimate trip once you learn to experience it, because in the end, experience is the best teacher. Harlem Week is coming. Get ready and we'll see you of course, next week right here, same time on 107.5 WBLS. GBE. God bless everybody.

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