Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears on Inside City Hall

November 7, 2016

Errol Louis: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. As we’ve been reporting, Mayor de Blasio has been busy traveling around the city to help get out the vote in these final days before the election. He has also been in close touch with the NYPD over heightened security measures for Election Day. And he joins us now from the Blue Room at City Hall. Hello, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: How are you doing, Errol?

Louis: Fine, thanks. Thanks for joining us. Earlier today, Mr. Mayor, you joined with NYPD officials to talk about security procedures for Election Day. We were told that the Police Department will have over 5,000 offices covering the polling sites tomorrow. We’ve also got this major event tomorrow where you have Hillary Clinton at the Javits Center on the West Side, Donald Trump at the Hilton. Are you monitoring any specific threats and should New Yorkers be concerned? Are we ready for tomorrow?

Mayor: Yes, we are absolutely ready, Errol. And I want to give a lot of credit to Commissioner O’Neill, and Chief Gomez, and the whole team. They have really done extraordinary work getting us prepared. This has been going on for many weeks, obviously. And we have to remember the NYPD just came off a very successful Sunday with the marathon – went flawlessly – a big five-borough event. And as Commissioner O’Neill pointed out today, a year ago we had the Pope; we had 170 world leaders and the President of the United States all at the same time during UN week. The NYPD handled that beautifully. So, we’re ready. This is the first time in almost 70 years that we’ve had the two major party candidates celebrating in the same city and that city being New York. So, it is a big deal for this city, but we’re absolutely ready. As to the threats – no, we do not have the level of credibility and specificity that would cause us to make any adjustments to our plans. We’re obviously constantly in contact with the FBI and other agencies, checking our information, but right now we believe the plan we have in place is the right one based on the very limited evidence we have related to any plot.

Louis: Okay, so other than the regular sort of traffic issues I imagine people will come through this fine tomorrow. We’ll hope for the best. Let me ask you about your campaigning. Typically right before Election Day high-level surrogates for presidential candidates are out and about in the swing states campaigning hard to get votes in places like Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina. And you certainly have done some of that, but you’ve been sticking close to the five boroughs in the final days of the race. And I assume that is your choice rather than a request from the campaign?

Mayor: Well look, first of all, in the previous five weekends I was in Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. And the campaign asked me in each case to go different places for different reasons. In the final weekend, there really is a focus on New York State because it is Hillary Clinton’s home state and the campaign certainly wants a strong showing here. And so, it was clear that they thought it was very important to focus on turnout efforts here in the last few days. So that is why I was all over Brooklyn yesterday, all over the five boroughs today, at CUNY colleges – I’ll be all over town doing five boroughs again tomorrow. So, you know, that is the focus right now – on top of all the great work being done in the swing states and great surrogates that are out – Hillary Clinton has only one home state and we have to make sure it’s strong for her.

Louis: What – will you be at the Javits Convention Center for the big victory party tomorrow?

Mayor: Absolutely. I am looking forward to it. I am looking forward to it being a victory party.

Louis: Aha, okay. And as you know, as far as the political insiders are concerned, the race for re-election – the 2017 municipal election campaign begins the very next day – Wednesday morning. Is it fair to –

Mayor: You know – you’re just junkies. You can’t even take a day off.

[Laughter]

Louis: Well – we’re jumping the gun, but it looks from your travels that maybe you’re jumping the gun a little bit too, right?

Mayor: No, look we’ve been at – let’s be clear, I agree that Wednesday unofficially begins the next campaign cycle. That is true, although, I don’t think the public will focus on the mayoral race until a couple of months later – probably in the beginning of 2017. But you know, Errol, I’ve been putting my apparatus together for re-election for many months now. We obviously have done a lot of fundraising, a lot of early organizing to be ready for a strong re-election campaign. But today was about Hillary Clinton; today was about turning people out, and also just more broadly reminding people – particularly young people – how important it is to vote in general.

You know, with the CUNY students, it was a very encouraging experience because you could see how seriously they are taking this. My message to them was, not only is it important for them to vote, but to really talk to their family members, to their friends to get everyone out to vote to feel ownership in this process. So, this right now – this is about this exceedingly consequential election. There will be plenty of time for us to get deep into the 2017 election in the weeks ahead.

Louis: Fair enough. How confident are you, Mr. Mayor, that the Board of Elections can handle what we are going to go through tomorrow? Voters in Brooklyn – we’ve heard – were told this morning that there is at least a 45 minute wait to vote absentee. Does the Board need some changes? Does it need to be better run? How would you go about making it more efficient?

Mayor: Yes, the Board absolutely needs changes, Errol. So, first of all, I would separate your first question. I would separate sort of the sanctity and the integrity of the voting process from the efficiency pf the voting process. I have, like so many Americans, rejected the games that Donald Trump has been playing about a rigged election. Our Board of Elections, even with its problems, will run a clean election with integrity. 

Efficiency is an entirely different matter. This Board of Elections – because it is built on a partisan basis and a very arcane basis – simply is not what we deserve in the year 2016. It needs fundamental reform. What I have said is, first of all, I have offered the Board of Elections $20 million of City money if they guarantee me they’ll make fundamental reforms and modernization and if they will make it accountable to me in those set terms of how they use that $20 million. They have so far not accepted that offer. I’m going to go to Albany in the next legislative session and fight for real change. This is under State law. I wish the City of New York controlled the Board of Elections. I wish I had the ability to make these changes myself, but we’re going to need a change in State law. And the one I want, Errol, would empower the Executive Director. Let the Executive Director be a professional manager like any other public agency and run it according to modern managerial approaches, so that this agency can finally be brought into the 21st century. I think this year, especially what happened around the presidential primary, has really angered people in this city and they are going to demand change in Albany on the Board of Elections and on all of our voting laws because our voting laws in this State are backwards – no same-day registration, no early vote. I think for a lot of reasons including the power that Bernie Sanders – you know – reform message around elections. This is going to be the chance to get it right in Albany.

Louis: Okay, we’ll be looking forward to that as well.  News of the day, Mr. Mayor – Dr. Ram Raju, the head of the City’s public hospitals system is stepping down. We know that you gave more than half-a-billion dollars to the system in 2016. We know that Dr. Raju had a turnaround plan – or sort of improvement plan that was in place. I guess I’m wondering was his plan not acceptable or will the next president inherit it? What broadly speaking is the plan to stop those big deficits?

Mayor: Look, I think Ram Raju, over the last almost three years, really did great work to start fixing Health + Hospitals Corporation. It is going to need a lot of work because, as we’ve talked about publicly, it’s suffered because of big changes in federal law, big changes in State law, changes in the healthcare sector in general. The fact that a lot of people used to go to Health + Hospitals, public hospitals, are now going to private hospitals and taking their insurance dollars with them. So, there are a lot of big structural things that caused this crisis. But I am entirely devoted to our public hospitals. We have a very clear, strong, reform plan in place. We are working with labor unions as partners in the effort. Ram Raju did great work moving that along. He made a personal decision that after three years it was time for a change. Stan Brezenoff is going to come in – one of the greatest public servants this city has seen in decades. He was obviously First Deputy Mayor under Mayor Koch – a great leader, including having led our public hospitals decades ago. Stan is going to be interim leader. He is going to keep that reform process moving 100 percent on schedule. And I have total faith in him. I have great admiration for him, and I know he’ll be able to do that.

Louis: Okay.  On an unrelated, but seemingly hospital-sounding issue, Long Island College Hospital is really a development issue at this point. The developer of the campus at Long Island College where you got arrested – College Hospital – where you got arrested during the 2013 campaign has announced that it now plans to build as-of-right, resulting in 100 percent market rate – essentially luxury housing. How did we get to that point? We had hoped for something quite a bit more substantial as far as affordable housing.

Mayor: Well, you’re right Errol. First of all, I mean, beginning at the beginning, that fight over Long Island College Hospital in 2013 was to save healthcare on the site. And that we did manage to do. There is a healthcare facility there. Anyone with an emergency in that neighborhood has a place to turn. For people in Red Hook, for people in Cobble Hill, and other surrounding neighborhoods, healthcare was preserved. You know, the SUNY plan – the State University of New York – which owned the facility at the time planned to shut down everything. I am still proud of the fact that we saved healthcare on the site and it continues – that emergency capacity is there. But there could have been so much more, Errol. And look, I’ll just say this clearly, the other stakeholders – everyone who was involved at the local level and the developer missed an opportunity here to do more for the community, whether it was affordable housing, or a public school, or both. This could have been a better development. I’m not happy with this outcome, but I am at least – I am at least noting that we saved the number one piece of this, which was healthcare on the site.

Louis: Well, I mean, how did the conversation go awry? Is there a problem with the basic methodology of offering incentives for affordable housing because in the end developers don’t really have to play ball, right?

Mayor: Look, I mean there was an opportunity here to rezone this site – that was a discussion that happened with community members, with the councilman, with the developer. I think everyone missed an opportunity. We certainly pushed hard for a bigger change because we thought since there is going to be development on the site anyway we should go ahead and bring in some of the things that would be of value to the larger community like affordable housing or a public school or both. That to me would have been a smart approach to development. I think all of those stakeholders missed an opportunity to get it right. Again, I am not happy. I think it could have been a better outcome, but you know, we’re going to move forward and at least the thing that we knew was the number one obligation to the community got done, but so much more could have gotten done.

Louis: I want to ask you about transportation advocates who spoke out about Vision Zero in front of City Hall last Thursday saying that your plan to cut pedestrian deaths is off course. They are noting that traffic fatalities are actually up five percent this year. And they say that your administration turned down $305 million for street funding upgrades. And one advocate said, “We are not so sure the Mayor is listening anymore.” What is going on with Vision Zero?

Mayor: With all due respect to those advocates, Errol, I think sometimes they are trying to justify their own role without looking at the facts. And I find it very strange. You know, this administration came in and created Vision Zero. It didn’t happen in the last administration, which I know a lot of the same advocates were enamored with. This administration came in, created Vision Zero from scratch. We saw stunning improvement in the first full year – pedestrian deaths down to the lowest level they have been in over a century. We put in the lower default speed limit for the city. We put in speed cameras at schools. We put in new traffic designs, and we’re continuing to deepen those all over the city. We intensified NYPD enforcement of failure to yield and speeding. All of this was the right direction to go in. It remains the right direction, and we’re going to deepen all of these efforts. So, I think it just is absolutely lacking in facts for advocates to say we’ve lost any of our zeal or focus. I’m the guy who brought this plan here, and I am the guy who believes in it. My team believes in it deeply – Commissioner O’Neill; and Commissioner Trottenberg at DOT; Commissioner Meera Joshi at TLC. Everyone is devoted to deepening the work we are doing on Vision Zero. And Errol, if you say well, Sometimes the statistics unfortunately and the human results are going to go in the wrong direction. That is a painful part of leadership. We put plans in face – in place, excuse me –

and we know sometimes they are not going to work in a linear fashion. Sometimes despite our best efforts, we still see these tragedies. But that doesn’t stop us from doing the work, it just redoubles our resolve to go deeper. And this plan – I’m in it for the long haul with this plan, and I am convinced it will continue to benefit the people of New York City.

Louis: And does that mean in turn that you expect to see the numbers go back in the direction you want to see – fewer fatalities?

Mayor: Yes, I think there is a strong parallel, and Errol, you know a lot about policing – ever since CompStat began back in 1994 there has obviously been almost a quarter-century of progress, but you also know there are years when shootings go up and down, murders go up and down. That does not negate the fact that CompStat was the right strategy. And that a lot of the other things we’re doing even more now with an even more pinpointed approach to policing are working – or now neighborhood policing. We see continued progress on the statistical side and then sometimes you see variations. They don’t get you off your strategy. They don’t convince you to change course. I believe we saw, in the first two years, really impressive progress in terms of reducing fatalities because of Vision Zero. We’re having not as good a year now. I’m not happy about that, but I’m convinced that when you look at this over the long run, it will be steady progress.

Louis: Okay, finally there was this fatal police shooting of the sergeant who was killed in the Bronx on Friday afternoon. The suspect was killed in that same shootout. He had a long rap sheet. From what you have been able to learn – is there any kind of a takeaway from this tragedy? Is there anything procedurally or anything different that can or should have been done? Was this preventable do you think?

Mayor: Well, there’s a couple of things. First of all, Sergeant Tuozzolo – and I now a lot of the facts of what happened in this case – died a hero. He was tracking down and stopping a man who held his own family at gunpoint, who obviously was a threat to his own family and to everyone. But what a horrible loss, a guy that served our city for almost 20 years – two young children, just horrible. 

What we have learned about the background of his killer is – well, one there clearly were mental health problems. And it’s a reminder once again that we have to get to the root of mental health problems that pervade so much of what is wrong in our society. Obviously, my wife’s initiative, ThriveNYC, is trying to give us the opportunity to do that across the board. And the new initiative that was just announced – NYC Well – gives anybody the opportunity to call and get help either for themselves or for a loved one. Now, this individual was living in Suffolk County at the time, but anyone in this city now has the ability to get help much more readily when there is a mental health problem or a mental health crisis. The other thing, we don’t have all the facts, but it does appear once again – as we saw in the shooting of Detective Randolph Holder and his murder – that bail is going to be an issue again. We saw in that case that a judge did not set a high enough bail and the killer was out on the streets. We don’t know all the facts yet, but it may again be the case here that the judge in Suffolk County once again did not set a high enough bail. This is a reminder that we need bail reform in the State of New York. We need to include the question of how dangerous a criminal is in the bail decision because there are times when someone is not – a criminal is not a flight risk, but they are a threat to the community, or they have a profound mental health challenge that needs to be addressed. These issues have to be taken into account and we need a State law that recognizes that bail – judges should have the opportunity to consider the dangerousness of the individual when making a bail decision.

Louis: Okay. Sergeant Tuozzolo’s family – we certainly wish them the best and they are in our prayers and thoughts.

And Mr. Mayor, thank you for spending some time with us. We’ll see you next week.

Mayor: You’re very welcome, Errol.

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