Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on WNYC

September 9, 2016

Brian Lehrer: We begin today with Mayor Bill de Blasio for our weekly Ask The Mayor segment. Good morning, Mr. Mayor, welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, Brian. I’m a little surprised – on an equal-time level, you haven’t invited the candidate of the Party of Putin, Donald Trump.

Lehrer: We have invited Donald Trump, and to this point he has declined, just for the –

Mayor: We won’t hear the Russian perspective –

Lehrer: Just for the record. But for that matter, so has Secretary Clinton.

[Laughter]

And this week, listeners, on Ask The Mayor, it’s the people’s policy press conference – your calls for Mayor de Blasio on any of his policies. 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 4-3-3-9-6-9-2.

You know sometimes we take a lot of calls with people’s individual issues with the City or with a bad landlord or whatever, that you want the City to something about, as well as policy questions. Today, we’ll invite your policy questions, specifically. 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC. It can be on education on this first week of school, it can be on public safety or criminal justice as William Bratton is leaving next week. It can be on housing – New York’s perennial concern – or whatever aspect of New York City policy or de Blasio administration policy you want to ask the Mayor about. 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 4-3-3-9-6-9-2 – and it can be from any neighborhood of any borough – our people’s policy press conference on our Ask The Mayor segment with Mayor de Blasio, right now.  2-1-2-4-3-3-9-6-9-2.

And, Mr. Mayor, thanks for agreeing to our proposal on this. We’ll see how this experience compares to taking questions from the professionals in the City Hall press corps.

Mayor: The people are very wise, Brian, that’s what I learned a long time ago. I welcome their questions.

Lehrer: I want to begin by acknowledging the 15th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. You know we always do special programming on the show on the anniversary but we’re not on this year because it’s on a Sunday. So, my thoughts, obviously, are with the people who personally lost anyone that awful day. Mr. Mayor, how will you be observing?

Mayor: Well, that’s exactly what I feel. I know a lot of families who lost loved ones on 9/11 including families of firefighters we lost. I’ll be a part of a number of observances including the, obviously, the main memorial at Ground Zero and the memorial – there’s a special memorial being held for the firefighters we lost at St. Patrick’s over the weekend. And I’ll be out on Staten Island for their event as well.

Look, we always have to take stock of what this meant for all these families and what it meant for our whole community. And I think what it reminds me all the time is how much work we have to do prevent anything like that from ever happening again. And there’s a lot the federal government should be doing but the City has a job to do as well. And we’ve put a lot of resources into fighting terrorism, preventing terrorism. I think that’s one of the ways we honor those we lost.

Lehrer: And I’m always aware that while the specter of terrorism unifies the city and we need, obviously, to do things to prevent another 9/11 or something like it, there are also, kind of, two New Yorks with respect to September 11th – the people who were personally affected and everyone else. In fact, I’ve read stats that more than a third of New Yorkers in the city today were either not born yet or didn’t live here yet on 9/11. So, there are a lot of people in our midst who were not here then. But is there anything left that you’re working on at a policy level now that we have the Zadroga Act, Governor Cuomo signed another thing with respect to firefighters yesterday – anything left with respect to survivors and survivor families at the policy level to be done?

Mayor: There’s a lot of work to be done to help the survivors and help those who, because of the rescue and recovery, are still suffering the health impacts. So, some of the big policy things have been done, that’s true but there’s still endless work to do to help them and support them. I think a lot of the focus now has to be, again, about preventing anything like this from ever happening again. And when I go around the city, I’ll tell you, people have seen that we have a much more muscular response now to fighting terror with the creation of our Critical Response Command. We have 500-plus officers whose full-time job is to be well-trained, well-armed to prevent terror attacks, and be very visible. And all over the city, when I talk to these officers, they say people come up and thank them because they recognize – even though we wish we weren’t living in this circumstance – they recognize that this is what sets New York City apart, that we have a very defined ability to fight terror, prevent terror.

Again, I think that’s how we honor those we’ve lost to make sure that no other family suffers that pain.

Lehrer: Oh, by the way, we already have pushback from one of the members of the press corps on Twitter who is quoting you from a minute ago when you said, “The people are very wise. I welcome their questions.” I think this person wants to know if you’re making a distinction with the press corps.

Mayor: I’m praising the people.

Lehrer: Okay. Let me raise a couple of policy issues while we’re getting our callers ready. Last week on this show, you called on the State to change the law that forces police officer discipline records – like in the Eric Garner case – to remain private. But the City only decided that was the law recently after releasing such records for decades. Here’s how Governor Cuomo responded to you when he spoke to reporters yesterday.

Governor Andrew Cuomo: I don’t think this is primarily a State law issue. The Police Department, for many years, released the records. They have now decided not to release the records.

Lehrer: What’s your reaction to the Governor’s response there?

Mayor: I understand the logic but I don’t think it’s accurate. When you look at the history, including the court case that has brought up a lot of this question which was active a year ago, the City clearly – our Law Department took the position that until that law is changed or until there is a higher court opinion allowing us to release the records, we couldn’t do it.

There’s a separate – and I must say – very confusing subset of this which is that the Police Department Public Information Office released them in a particular way separately, and in a pretty obscure way. That turns out not to be legal. It shouldn’t have been happening. The main body of the City legal apparatus, both at the Law Department and the Police Department, were very clear all along it shouldn’t have happened and something that, bluntly, was just a bureaucratic error.

But here’s how we fix it – and I look forward to being a part of it. We need the Legislature, we need the Governor – we fix that law to say it is perfectly appropriate to release those records. That’s something that could be done in a matter of months. And I’m ready to work with anyone who wants to change the law. That would allow us immediately to release those records. I think it’s the right time in history to make that change given that everything that’s happening in this state and around the country.

And the other thing, Brian, if the Appellate Division rules that it’s allowable, well then we’ll do it right away. And that’s something we might know about in just the next few months.

Lehrer: But – one follow up – you say want the law changed so you can release the records but hasn’t the City also gone to court to argue against a lawsuit to release the Officer Pantaleo-Garner case records? If you oppose the law, why defend it in court?

Mayor: The reality of the City’s overall legal position – meaning the need of the City to defend our legal prerogatives in all sorts of cases in very narrow, obscure legal ways – makes people think it’s a policy matter. It’s not. When the CCRB was sued – the Civilian Complaint Review Board was sued on this matter, City lawyers have an obligation to defend the CCRB and to argue that we have to follow the law as it is clearly indicated right now. We can’t make it up as we go along.

Lehrer: But wasn’t it your decision in your campaign and then when you became Mayor to not defend the City’s position in the stop-and-frisk lawsuit because you opposed the policy?

Mayor: The difference here is when the City was sued under an existing State law – there’s a huge difference there. Stop-and-frisk policy was a City policy. It was an administrative policy. It was not a State law. This is a State law. Now, look, Brian, anyone who is confused by this matter – I fully understand because there are a lot of obscure legal realities here that make it tough to understand. So let’s cut through it. Let’s just go to the brass tacks.

The State law needs to change. It should change for the entire State. It can be changed. We can do it in a matter of months. And I think there’s going to be a lot of voices in the Legislature, and I hope the Governor will join us in saying let’s just change the law. Let’s make it clear for everyone in the State that this is appropriate to release these kind of records and then be done with it.

But, again, the other option is – if the appellate division decides in the next few months that we can do it, then we will.

Lehrer: And one other thing that’s new as of yesterday afternoon, on our local newscast today, it turns out the top two stories have both been about your administration being in court to keep things from the public – the one on police records that we just talked about and the newer one, as you know, is that NY-1 and the New York Post are suing to get your emails with Jonathan Rosen from the consulting firm Berlin Rosen who was informally advising you while also representing paying clients who had business with the City. We, in the press, want to know if there were conflicts of interest there but you’ve said in the past that these emails are private. Are you going to defend that secrecy in court or maybe settle and let the public see those emails?

Mayor: I think you’re talking about two very different realities, so let me lay it out. On the police records, I have a clear position that I want to see the State law changed and I want us to be able to release those records. And I believe either because of an Appellate decision or a change in the State law that we’ll be able to do that in the relative near term. So, I support those records being released. I don’t write the State laws but I support the change we need.

On the question of the mayoral advisors – guidance was given to me very early on by my Counsel’s office that when some individuals are very, very close advisors that it is appropriate to have a private relationship with them. Now, in the case of anyone who also happens to have clients, any specific request around the work they did for their clients and if, in any way, that interacted with City Hall that we would release right now. We have no problem with that but not ongoing discussions where I’m seeking advice from a private advisor. That’s something we believe was appropriate by the legal guidance that we received. And of course, we’ll defend that in court.

Lehrer: To the people’s policy press conference for Mayor Bill de Blasio – Desiree in Brooklyn, you’re on WNYC. Thank you so much for calling.

Question: Good morning, my question is regarding J’Ouvert. The two fatal shootings that happened there – I’m very familiar with the area where it happened. And it happened – both of them were a block away from each other – fairly short City block too. And my question is – that I haven’t heard addressed – is how is it possible, given, you know, all the extra police that were there, plus, on top of that, when a shooting like that happens the police come out and cordon off the areas so that they can investigate and figure out what happened. With that presumably going on, how is it possible that another shooting happened less than a block – which is basically an arms-length away from where the police would have been doing their investigation? Now, the reason I ask this is because it’s been publicized that a lot of the police do not like the J’Ouvert parade, have been advocating for it to be stopped, have made, you know, racist bets and stuff like that about who’s going to be shot, who’s going to be stabbed, things like that. So, it just begs the question, you know, was this allowed to happen in any fashion by anyone, you know, because I know that they’re looking at what to do with the J’Ouvert festival, moving forward.

Lehrer: You’re actually proposing a conspiracy theory that the police allowed more violence to go on so they have a better chance of shutting it down altogether in the future? 

Question: To a certain extent, yes.

Mayor: Well, obviously, I don’t believe that’s true and that’s not what I heard in the question honestly either. I think you’re asking a question about how could something happen nearby. Putting aside some of the very inappropriate comments some – apparently some officers made anonymously. They could have been retired officers too. Whoever they are, it’s inappropriate. Let’s go to the – what we’re trying to do here to keep people safe. The fact is – and I want to parallel this to the situation we had with the parade itself – the main parade – on Labor Day – the Caribbean Parade. That parade itself during daytime hours used to be plagued by violence, including fatalities at times. This year, there was very little in the way of incidents during the parade itself, which has over a million people at it. You don’t have to go back too many years to have recognized that as a parade that needed a lot more order, that needed a lot more effective policing. NYPD did that, to their credit.

Now, when it comes to J’Ouvert, the important thing to understand here is, this wasn’t a publicly created event, meaning it’s not like the City of New York said let’s organize this event. It happened over years and years organically. People got together in the traditions of their homelands and had overnight parties and barbecues, and block parties, or one thing or another. It became bigger and bigger, and then this parade became a part of it, etcetera – at night – that’s the overnight piece. You cannot make all that go away – that’s just not how the real world works, and the NYPD will be the first to tell you that. If hundreds of thousands of people are doing something in their neighborhood, that’s not going to disappear overnight, and we don’t ever surrender to criminals. We don’t ever give up in the face of violence. We address it and we stamp it out, and that’s the history of the NYPD over 25 years. I can’t tell you how many situations were considered unbelievably difficult to fix. Remember, Fort Apache, the Bronx they used to call it, and all the other things where you couldn’t go into Central Park, you couldn’t go into Union Square Park. There were so many things in this City that were considered taboo because violence had overtaken them, and, one by one, the NYPD eliminated the threat, and we’ll do it here as well.

Lehrer: So –

Mayor: What I’ve said – just to finish, Brian – we’re going to have all options on the table. People have suggested, for example – community members have said, could we move the J’Ouvert event to daytime hours – that’s a possibility. Could we change how people actually get into the parade and they have to go through some kind of checkpoint – that’s a possibility. We’re going to work with community leaders, we’re going to work with NYPD to figure out what will keep us safe. But we will not accept violence at this event, that’s the bottom line. And as to the original question, I think the reality is, it was far enough apart, and there were so many people there that it is actually – they were two different locations where this occurred. And part of what we have to recognize is, with so many people present, it makes it difficult to address the situation. So, we have to crack the code on that. NYPD will be at work immediately, figuring out how to change this environment once and for all.

Lehrer: As a follow-up, there is kind of a policy dispute among people within the affected area that says, on one side you can defend the streets on that early-morning parade route in a different way than you do most of the year – some of the things you were just listing – check points, different hours – or that you really can’t because J’Ouvert isn’t like Times Square on New Year’s Eve – say, a discreet area where people come from outside to get as close to where the ball drops as they can. It’s people on many, many streets, side streets, on their own blocks, in addition to the route that springs up. So, it’s about improving conditions to reduce crime in the neighborhood overall. Where are you on that spectrum?

Mayor: Well, I want to put this in the hands of the experts. The folks who know the most about keeping New Yorkers safe are the NYPD, and the NYPD believes that fundamentally, they put a huge amount of energy into it – that doubling the number of officers and putting up the light towers would lead to a different result. We’re disappointed, all of us are. And we’re angry this happened and we’re going to go back and do additional changes – it’s as simple as that. But I want the security experts to make that decision, of course, with the community. Yes, because there’s all sorts of activity happening overnight in that neighborhood, we have to come up with a security plan that will address not only an organized event, the J’Ouvert parade, but the whole dynamic in the neighborhood. But, again, I understand why people are so angry. I’m angry too. We do not accept any loss of life. But we’ve got to be really clear, the NYPD has case by case figured out how to secure event after event, situation after situation, and they’ll do it here as well. If we make major changes, it will be with the leadership of the NYPD and with the involvement of the community. And I expect there will be very significant changes for next year. 

Lehrer: Alright, the people’s policy press conference with Mayor de Blasio continues with Ben in Brooklyn. Ben, you’re on WNYC. Hello.

Question: Hi, Brian. Hi, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for taking my call. My question – I’ll ask it first and then explain – is why doesn’t the City and the tenant landlord courts differentiate between large multi-dwelling, you know, building – residential building owners – and small homeowners that may have a two or three family home that they may live in as well. And, to explain, you know, a large residential building owner probably has, you know, unlimited – almost – resources to fight tenants in court, and I realize the tenants need help. Secondly, they bill that into their cost of running the building. You know, their expenses include a certain amount of the legal fees, etcetera. And, you know, they calculate that in when they –

Lehrer: So, Ben, just let me get you to a point for time. Is there a specific policy in landlord-tenant disputes that you think is too onerous on the small landlords in particular, very specifically? 

Question: Well, okay, one specific example is a tenant could just, you know, give an order to show cause almost without limit – it can stretch on for months and every time they come back to court, the lawyer asks for an order to show cause. It doesn’t have to be, you know, for [inaudible].

Lehrer: So, Mr. Mayor, you get his point, I think – small landlords potentially being overwhelmed by the legal process where landlords – big landlords can defend, defend, defend. 

Mayor: Correct. Ben makes a good point. I think, first of all, we have with the larger landlords not only they have the legal resources, but, I think, where we’ve seen abuses – it’s not the majority of landlords – when we’ve seen bad actors, they tend to be the large landlords, not the little guy. I would say one thing Ben knows, and we need to remember is, there are many fewer legal protections for tenants if they’re in the small – you know, the two-family, three-family home than if they’re in a building, for example, covered by our rent regulations. But that being said, it’s a real point, if one side has a lawyer and another one doesn’t, it create a potential for things dragging on. We’re trying to solve the tenant piece of the equation, which is to make sure that tenants facing illegal eviction of harassment, or having their heat and hot water cut off, etcetera, get legal representation. And, in fact, the research has shown that when ideally both sides have legal representation – or at least one – it maximizes the chance of resolution. The worst of all worlds is no one having a lawyer, particularly the tenant not having a lawyer. That often causes things also to drag on and obviously very unfair outcomes for the tenants. So, the City of New York is now providing more lawyers for tenants than ever before. We’re now at about 27 percent of housing court cases have a lawyer compared to one percent just a few years ago. That’s because we invested a lot in legal services for tenants. By the way, anyone listening who feels they may be illegally being evicted or harassed can call 3-1-1. And if we can bring a case to protect you, we will provide you a lawyer for free. But Ben’s point is well taken – we have to, I think, do a lot more to improve housing court to make sure that there’s fairness to everyone involved. And I am sympathetic, a lot of the small landlords are doing the right thing and sometimes tenants are doing the wrong thing and I don’t want to see the small landlords suffer either when a tenant is the one who’s creating the problem. So, a bigger thing we have to come up with a solution for, but, I would say, the crux of the problem today is not what Ben’s raising. The crux of the problem today is big landlords, buildings that are regulated, tenants that are being harassed, and they need representation, and that’s where we put our focus. 

Lehrer: Ibrahim in Manhattan, you’re on WNYC with Mayor de Blasio. Hi Ibrahim.

Question: Hi. Good morning, Brian, thanks for taking the call. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor: Good morning.

Question: I have a question for you, Mr. Mayor. One of your signature policies is Vision Zero. I think you learned it from Sweden [inaudible] one of the conversations you had with [inaudible].

Mayor: Ibrahim you know your history. That is correct.

Question: But the biggest missing part in your Vision Zero policy is the pedestrian education. You have pedestrians crossing and pedestrian lights for a reason. And most times I see people walk from between cars, they have headphones on, music banging, you come so close to them, you honk, and then you scare them and they go ‘oh, I’m sorry.’ They cross against the lights, and I have children – I’m a driver – I teach my kids to cross when the light is green and move as fast as they can because you can never win against a car. Now, you see people being held for personal responsibility in all standards of life. When people lost their mortgages because of, you know, all this bad investment companies who went after them. I see this in the Black Lives Matter movement –

Mayor: I understand.

Question: You see between – and say ‘oh but the blacks are killing blacks!’ Why don’t you stop killing blacks?

Lehrer: So, you’re saying that pedestrians need to take more responsibility for their actions when crossing the street and do you want the Mayor to enforce that? You want more jay walking tickets? What do you want?

Question: Yes, jay walking tickets or more education to let people know that there are consequences for their actions. People have to take personal responsibility. I take responsibility when I cross the street with my children.

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor?

Mayor: I think there is a fair, underlying point that the digital age has come with a huge unintended consequence of folks with the headphones on who walk into the crosswalk. I’ve had the same experience as Ibrahim. I’ve been driving my car – going back a few years now – and going with the light appropriately toward an intersection and people have walked right in front of the car absolutely in a daze because they’re focused on their podcast or whatever it is. It’s a real problem. Another problem – on the driving side – is people texting while driving which has become an epidemic.

There’s a lot we have to do to address these issues and public education of drivers, of pedestrians, of bicyclists that is definitely a part of it. I would still remind Ibrahim the core of our problem is motor vehicles and that has not changed. The core of the problem is not the pedestrian or the bicyclist, it’s the person who’s driving a vehicle and is speeding or going through an intersection without yielding to pedestrians. That’s what Vision Zero is first addressing, but we have given tickets to bicyclists who endanger others. We have given tickets to pedestrians who put themselves in harm’s way and could create an accident that could affect many others. We are going – we’ll do that in some measure, but from a resource perspective and just in general that’s not where our first energies are going to go. They’re going to go on motor vehicles. NYPD has stepped up intensely to the order or two times or three times more speeding tickets and tickets for failure to yield. That will continue. There will be more and more check points, obviously speed cameras, a lot of traffic design changes, so we have a lot more to go on Vision Zero. Vision Zero is still in its infancy. You’re going to see a lot more visible impact. Your points are fair, Ibrahim, but I don’t think it’s the first thing we have to address.

Lehrer: As a follow up, I see that cyclist deaths are up this year – 15 so far compared to 9 this time last year – and there’s a transportation advocates’ protest ride next week. I guess the feeling is there are some improvements to streets like along Queens Boulevard, but not enough and still not enough enforcement of speeding.

Mayor: I would say that this is something we’re going to continue to deepen. Look, any death is one death too many. We don’t accept any of them, and that’s part of the core notion of Vision Zero is recognizing how many deaths and injuries were avoidable from the beginning if we had the right traffic designs, if we had the speed cameras, if we had a lower citywide speed limit – which we’ve done as well with the help of Albany and the City Council. All of these things have changed the reality, but there’s a lot more to do. And NYPD – in fact I spoke to Chief O’Neill, soon to be Commissioner O’Neil – literally yesterday about this. There will be increased NYPD enforcement of speeding and failure to yield. It’s already at much higher levels. We will go farther. I want people to recognize – do not judge inappropriately. Vision Zero in the first two years produced stunning improvements over the past. Two years in a row we had the lower number of pedestrian deaths in 100 years. There is a lot more you will see from Vision Zero and it will continue to drive down deaths and injuries.

Lehrer: Lee in Kensington, you’re on WNYC. Hi, Lee.

Question: Hi, Brian. Good morning, Mayor. I represent a group called Love Our Pool and in light of the recent success in the Olympics with Simone Manuel who is an African-American swimmer, the New York Times in the last couple of weeks has covered the disparities across communities – different communities – in learning how to swim. In New York City in particular, Eric Adams, Borough President, has looked at Swim Strong in an effort to prevent swimming tragedies amongst youngsters all across the borough of Brooklyn. I give you that context because you may or may not know that the pop up pool in Brooklyn Bridge Park – which is dedicated primarily to teaching youngsters to swim at toddler age to early primary age because it’s only two and a half feet at the one end and three and a half feet at the other – is scheduled to be torn up imminently. There was a five year extension that State Senator Daniel Squadron was able to get through with the Brooklyn Bridge Park Court, but many families like my own – and I travel from Kensington - we know families from Bed-Stuy, we know families from Brownsville who come in, and we’re quite discouraged because we’re nervous that come time for next summer there will not be a pool to serve our families and our children.

Lehrer: Are you familiar with this particular pool and this issue, Mr. Mayor?

Mayor: Broadly. I don’t know the details of what’s going on and why that has been decided, but I can look into it for sure. And Brian we can follow up on that. I would say the broad – to Lee’s point – I appreciate what Lee is saying about the value of swim lessons, and we’ve tried in a lot of ways to increase the availability of them for kids, but there’s much more work to do on that front. We also have great partners like the YMCA who have done a lot of that work all over the city. I don’t know the answer on Brooklyn Bridge Park. I love the park. I know it well, but I have to get a good answer on this one because I don’t know what the plan is.

Lehrer: Lee, thank you for your call, and Mr. Mayor, thank you for answering my questions today. And thank you for answering our listener’s questions today and we’ll talk to you next week. Same place, same time.

Mayor: Look forward to it, Brian. Thank you.