Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Older Adult Town Hall

April 18, 2024

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: Mayor Adams is here. Just a little bit about this man. I've known this man over 40 years. Nobody loves the city more than this man here. I'm going to tell you a little insight. When we were young, yes, a little younger, he expressed that he wanted to be the mayor of New York City. This was over 30 years ago. When you see this man, he's very passionate about what he does. He's very passionate about New York City. When I took over the Community Affairs Bureau, now listen, I've known him over 40 years.

He told me to write out a plan, what my plan is to match his vision. You figure over 40 years, slide in the door, there's no sliding in the door. You have to be ready, and you have to be ready at all times at night and in the morning, because he works all night into the morning. When he calls you at 2:00 in the morning, you better get up, because he's in the streets and he's looking around. We put a plan together, and he was close with my dad. His mother recently passed, too. Very heartening to us, and we do take our older adults very seriously.

That's why this unit that it was set up, because we wanted to make sure that you have a voice and will always have a voice in our communities. The mayor is here, I'll let him speak.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thanks so much. The commissioner was a detective in the police department. His dad was a detective. We were in the same police academy class when we came out. Come on up, Captain. Come on, and grab a seat. Good to see you. People ask why, why do you wear on your sleeve how important this city is and why are you always so emotional about it? Mommy was betrayed by the city. Mommy had to work three jobs to take care of us.

She had six children, and I tell people all the time and I tell my siblings she loved them all, but she adored me.

I used to sit out the window when she would go for a night job, cleaning office spaces, no matter what the weather was, particularly during the wintertime. I would see her footprints in the snow, and I would not be able to go to sleep until that snow drop would cover her footprint. It was my signal to know that she was safe. With all her arthritic state, she would have a cane and hobble and take that train 11:00 PM to go during those office hours and do the job, and then get up early to go to Amistad Daycare Center to feed the families.

We knew what the students in the school had. She was a food service worker, and she would bring Tupperware and recycle aluminum foil and wrap up the food to bring it home to us so that we would have something to eat. She instilled in me to work hard. I saw the perfect moment as Commissioner Stewart stated, 30-something years ago, I said, "January 1st, 2022, I'm going to be the mayor of the City of New York." I used to tell everybody over and over again. They used to look at me and say, "Something's wrong with this guy.

I'm perfectly imperfect. When you look at the description of who should be the mayor, I don't fit the motto of what other people state. In fact, the elite of this city did not vote for me. When you do an analysis of where my votes came from, you look at all of the elite areas of this city. I was not their candidate, and never before has a mayor won in this city without having that belt of communities to win. I lost all of them, but I won communities like this. Everyday working-class people came out and said, "We want one of our own." Someone that was a former union member, someone that made mistakes, someone that was dedicated and committed and will be willing to work hard. That's what the people of the city stated. Look what we had January 1st, 2022. We were fighting Covid, crime was increasing by 40 percent. No tourists wanted to come to the city. No one wanted to be on the subway system.

We were dealing with those independent organizations that they were doing analysis to determine how well you're doing as a city. They did not want to increase our bond rating. Our children were not learning at the capacity that they ought to learn that. Two years later, what are we facing? Because of the men and women who are wearing this blue uniform in front of us like Officer Jonathan Diller, who we lost him through violence.

We have a double digit decrease in homicide shootings. Five of the seven major crime categories are down. On our subway system, 4.1 million riders are back on the subway system. You know what those 4.1 million riders, people want to make you think our subway system is extremely unsafe. Do you know out of those 4.1 million people, we only have 6 felonies a day on our subway system. We want to get rid of the six. We said we want to get rid of the six, but don't overshadow what the men and women in public safety have been doing. They have been fighting quality-- We going to do some questions. Let me get to this and we're going to turn it over to you. You're going to be my first question. Okay?

Okay. What our men and women have been doing, they have been increasing in quality-of-life issues. They have been on the frontline. They have removed 1,000, close to 15,000 guns off our street.

15,000 illegal guns off our street. They removed over 53,000 illegal mopeds, dirt bikes, paper plates, three-wheelers off our street.

They're doing their job. They're doing their job. Public safety is not just police. We have judges make decisions, prosecutors make decision. Lawmakers make decision. Everyone wants to say, "Okay, what is the police doing?" When you look at the numbers, the police, they're doing their part. We have three problems in this city, folks, that these three problems have overshadowed our success that I just mentioned. Here are the three. One, recidivism. A small number of people are committing a large number of crimes.

When you look at just what happened with Officer Diller, the person who shot him was arrested 20 times.

Audience Member: Why isn't he in jail?

Mayor Adams: 20 times. We arrest him, but we're not in charge of the judges, the lawmakers, and who's going to be prosecuted. We're not in charge of that. The person who was in the car with him was out on a gun charge and he's now in the car with him. This recidivism, 38 people that assaulted transit workers were arrested over 1,100 times. 542 people who were arrested for shoplifting were arrested over 7,600 times. We are doing our job, but the other parts of the criminal justice system, they must do their job.

Second problem we have in the city, severe mental health illness where you have people that are dealing with severe mental health illness don't know they need help and care. We have a system that is not giving us what we know we want to do by using involuntary removals. If you are at the state that you can't take care of yourself, you don't know you can't take care of yourself, it makes no sense to allow you to just live on the streets in draconian conditions. We're saying, "No, let's put people in care." Here's what happened, because advocates wanted to close down all of our psychiatric facilities, we close them down, but when you let people out of them, they went to the streets. When you see them on the street, you take them into the hospital, we give them medicine for one day and then you put them back on the street, it becomes a revolving door until they commit a crime. Do you know on Rikers Island right now, 70 percent of the people on Rikers Island have mental health issues. We closed down the psychiatric facilities, pushed people to the street and now Rikers Island has become what? The psychiatric facility.

What we're saying, let's open a state-of-the-art psychiatric facility, not like we saw before, but one in which we can treat people with dignity and respect. If you have a loved one in your home who's going through a severe crisis that you don't have to just have them go to the street, that we can have a place to give them community, care, the right services. We need to be honest about there's some people that can't live on their own because of the psychiatric conditions that they are in in a very severe way. They're not taking their medicine, they're not taking care of themselves, they become in danger to the public themselves and to the family at the same time.

Here's what they're planning on doing. They're planning on closing Rikers, costing us $13 billion, build four more jails and those four jails are 2,000 less than the population that they can hold. They're saying, "Those other 2,000 people, just let them free." That's what I'm fighting against. That's why we're here because I need your voice to raise your voice to what we ought to be.

Because when people see government, they see the mayor. It's my responsibility not to define the problem, to solve the problem, and that's what we're doing every day, from foster care children, to housing, to all of these issues, to my older adult care. We're doing that, but the other forms of government, with your voice, it would be helpful. With all that we've gone through, our city is not surviving, we're thriving.

More private sector jobs in the history of the city, 62 million tourists are back here, decrease in crime, bond raiders. That's the independent financial observers raised our bonds because we're managing it. Looking at all these conditions, 180,000 migrants and asylum seekers. I don't have the authority to stop the buses, it's against the law. I don't have the authority to say, "I'm not giving you three meals a day and a place to sleep." It's against the law for me to do that. It's against the law for me if someone commits repeatedly a crime and I said they need to serve their time and be deported, I can't do that. That's against the law. I can't turn them over to ICE. It's against… Wait. Hold on, that's what we're going to do, but I love these two here.

No, let me tell you what's the biggest crisis of all. It's against the law to allow me to let them work. Now, do you know that we also have thousands of Ukrainians who came here after the war? You don't even hear about them. You know why?

They're allowed to work. If you could work from Ukraine, why can't you work from Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico if you parole them into the city? When I go to the HURKs, the shelters, and I speak to 3,000 that are on Randalls Island, you know what they say to me? We don't want your food. We don't want the cots we're sleeping on, the restrooms that are outside. We don't want anything from you.

We want to work. We want to work like the early Italians, the early Irish, the early Portuguese. The early, early, early. Everyone that's come to this country come with the precursor to being able to work because that's how you pursue the American dream. It is inhumane to tell someone that you can't provide for your family and all you can do is sit around all day.

They say, "Well, Eric, can we volunteer and just give us a stipend? We reached out to the federal government." They said, no, you can't even have them volunteer to sweep your streets, remove graffiti, clean up our lots.

Audience Member: That's ridiculous.

Mayor Adams: Say that one more time.

Audience Member: I said it's ridiculous.

Mayor Adams: That's right.

That is what I've been going back and forth to Washington saying what you said. That is what I've been doing back and forth to Washington is say, why is this happening to New York?

I don't want to open a shelter at Floyd Bennett Field. I don't want to open a shelter at Randalls Island. I don't want to open this into our communities, but I have a legal obligation and responsibility and the federal government will sue me. We spent $4 billion. They gave us $138 million out of $4 billion and they wanted to give us $13 reimbursement for hotels. Say, you can't get a damn doorknob for a hotel in this city.

This is the fight, but in spite of this, we moved our city forward. In spite of this, we didn't sit back and say, woe is me. We say, why not me? We should be proud of what we have done in this city because other people are watching our city and they're showing how we're stepping up. The volunteers, 30,000 children put into our school system, teachers and principals helping them get clothing, helping them speak the language like others have done. We have stepped up as a city. We should continue to demand that the government is doing what they're doing.

All that you read in here, don't let our success be overshadowed by those that just want to beat up on this city. This is a resilient city. I was a lieutenant during 2001 when our center of trade was attacked and those buildings collapsed. You know what? On September 12th, we got up. Teachers taught, builders built, stores opened. People thought we were going to crumble and run and fall as a city. When New York got up, America got up.

That is who we are. That is what we represent. That's the symbol that I represent as the mayor of this city. This is the most important city on the globe. On the globe. We're going to make sure it stays that way. When I meet with my colleagues, my mayors from across the country, they all sit in the room and they all talk about number two and three, and then they look over at me and smile and say, "We're not even going to argue with it. We know who's number one." We're number one.

If this city is number one, then I'm the number one mayor on the globe, and you're the number one older adults on the globe.

We're going to start with you to give you the first question. My amazing commissioner reminds me of this. This is something that I remember as a police officer, you come to someone's house, they're going through a medical emergency, and you can't find the basic information. We handed them out. It's a magnet. It fits on your fridge, and it's just your basic information.

If the police, EMS, a neighbor, if they have to get this information, your name, your contact person, if you're allergic to any medicine, chronic condition, allergies, and it's just so helpful because then you can just peel it off, give it to the EMT, EMS, let the doctor know this basic information because if you're allergic to something like penicillin, it could have a negative effect on you, and any chronic disease you may have. You can feel one. You can take one for yourself, take it for your spouse, or you can take it for your boo if you know.

Whoever is your loved one in your life. It's very useful information, so please grab one. We want to open up. I said we're going to start with her.

Question: Me? Okay.

Mayor Adams: Yes. Tell me your name.

Question: Hi, my name's [Catherine Vezzuto.]

Mayor Adams: How are you doing, Catherine?

Question: I'm fine. I really am so upset about the migrant situation. I don't understand why they can't come in legally, and we're permitting them to come in that way. What do you say?

Mayor Adams: That's a great question. Many people hear about this term called sanctuary city, they conflate that with the migrant and asylum seekers. The migrants and asylum seekers are legally paroled into the country legally. Sanctuary city is, if you are an undocumented person and you're in the city, we're not allowed to turn you over to the police or turn you over to ICE. Sanctuary city started under Mayor Koch, then it got out of control under the previous administration that states, basically, under no circumstances can you turn someone over.

I don't agree with that. If you commit a serious violent act, I believe that after you serve your time, you should be turned over. You should not be in our country if you are violent to the people of this country. Now, migrant and asylum seekers, what I feel we should be doing, we have a lot of states in this country that are losing population.

It's very low in population, it is really hurting the states. What we should be doing at the border, when we parole you in, we should be saying, we're going to use this to help our states. You have to go to this state that is down in population, that needs employees, and you have to spend three years there. After three years there, you can go anywhere in the country.

We need to make sure that while you're coming to this country, we need to see how we help the states in this country. There are a lot of states that are saying, "Eric, we'll take your migrants and asylum seekers. We need it population, but we can't take them and have them sit around and not engage in our economy. That is the problem we are having. We are paroling people in and not controlling the flow who are coming in.

Question: Right, exactly. How do you get them not to come, not to be a sanctuary city? How do you get rid of that?

Mayor Adams: This is not the migrant, but we're clear these are not the migrants and the asylum seekers. They're legally here. They have nothing to do with sanctuary city. They're legally here. The government made the decision, we're going to parole you into the country, allow you here legally, so all those folks…

Question: Without vetting them?

Mayor Adams: Right, right, right.

Question: That's your problem right there.

Mayor Adams: Yes. It's often extremely challenging for people to fully understand that I'm the mayor and not the president. I have no authority. I have no authority to put in place immigration policies, the federal government does that. We need to talk to our elected officials. Yes.

Question: Now we're trickling down, we're getting the brunt of this. Our taxes, our real estate taxes are going up, and if you're a landlord, you have no rights in the city of New York. I just had to evict my tenant because she wouldn't pay rent. I won't even rent my apartment anymore.

Mayor Adams: Listen, I'm a small property land owner. I have three apartments. Thank God for it. I use the money to pay my son's college tuition. I know what a small property land-- All of our assets, all of our wealth is in our apartments. Trust me, you're preaching to the choir. Matter of fact, I'm not the choir. I wrote the song. I'm with you. We are the same New Yorkers, the same New Yorkers.

Question: I don't see any resolution.

Mayor Adams: Some of the stuff that you raise, when you talk about real estate taxes, we know every year our real estate taxes go up, but there has not been a substantial increase in the city. We're fighting to get fair taxes. I was going to be part of the original lawsuit because we get a disproportionate amount of taxes and small property owners based on communities, which is wrong. I was not able to do it because I was a state senator at the time. We are on the same page, that we need to look after working-class New Yorkers, and we have not been doing a good job in doing that.

Question: I understand that other sections of Brooklyn are paying a lot less than we are.

Mayor Adams: Yes. Martha Stark, who was the ex finance chair that discovered this, she was the one that instituted the lawsuit. I was going to do an amicus court brief saying that… My property in Bed-Stuy falls under that. I'm paying higher taxes in affluent areas, but they wouldn't allow me to do it because I was a state senator. I was part of the original aspect of doing that lawsuit that we're finally coming to a resolution for.

Question: I have a lot more.

Mayor Adams: Now, if you have a vacant apartment, you can rent to my son because he would pay his rent. It's time for him to get on the own, it's time for him to get married and have some children.

Question: I have a question.

Mayor Adams: Hold on. We got to move around. I'm going to come back.

Question: I have a quick question on an electric stove.

Mayor Adams: I'm a gas stove guy.

Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Sookranie Dhanpat, Senior Community Liaison, South Asian Community, Community Affairs Unit: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sookranie Dhanpat, I'm the South Asian community liaison for Mayor Eric Adams, and I'm the facilitator for table number two. Unfortunately, some of my guests had to leave, but their concern is about the e-bike for delivery service clogging up the sidewalk on 3rd Avenue between 72nd Street and 73rd Street. Thank you.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Oh, let me touch on the e-bikes. We all have to take a little accountability here too, because when Covid came and nobody was going to get food, Uber and these companies, everybody was ordering food. Who delivered it? These e-bikes.

Audience Member: So what?

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: No so what. As of today, Brooklyn and Brooklyn South, we took over 1,640 ATV e-bikes. Commissioner Kaz, Chief of Patrol John Chell are out every day trying to find these bikes. All the boroughs, year to date, we took 9,785. We have teams going out to the stores and location looking for these bikes. We understand. You know what the problem is? Even with the migrants, a lot of them do not understand the rules and the regulations of New York City.

Audience Member: They don't want to know.

Mark Stewart: No, no, some do. What happened in other countries, they get on these bikes, and they just drive. We're trying to catch them and either do a tutorial about the laws, and some of them, the bikes are stolen and we're just taking them. Believe me, we are not sleeping on this. As of today, 9,785 bikes were taken off the street.

Mayor Adams: As I stated, a total of 50-something thousand paper plates, 3-wheelers, dirt bikes, mopeds, the thousand, we didn't ignore this. Previously, people went by, they ignored it. These bikes are used for crimes. When you strike someone, there's no registration, so your locked with the medical bill. We knew it was a problem, as Commissioner Stewart stated, Commissioner Daughtry, Chief of Patrol, John Chell, we zeroed in on it, and it was a real focus. I don't think we've been at one senior or adult town hall or any town hall that this doesn't come up and we have been focusing on it.

Audience Member: They're on the sidewalk.

Mayor Adams: That's why we're taking proactive action. Where's the next table? This table here is something else.

Question: This table has lots to say. They're very well informed. The first thing is a shout out to the 68 Precinct because they're very courteous and helpful and to Sanitation and Community Board 10 for having assisted with the cleanup of Wakeman Place. They were spot on.

Mayor Adams: Give them a hand. Love that.

Question: The other two questions are more DOT related. One is very, very serious. It's about a person whose husband is disabled, and they are struggling with trying to get handicapped parking throughout the area. There's no respect for handicapped parking and there's no place for it, plus the lack of parking because as new things have built out in the area, as well as all the way out to Gowanus, they have not made or created anymore parking, so it's become very difficult for people.

As you know, as we age, distance is an issue, and people do need to drive. People need to drive for doctor's appointments, or for work, what have you, so not everybody can be a MTA commuter. This is a big concern that was raised. Another one was about the illegal mopeds and scooters. Then there was one other person, Linda.

[Crosstalk]

Mayor Adams: You had a question. You had a question?

Question: Linda: I just want to say, I'm piggybacking on the parking issue because as I said, public transportation isn't always working for me, but I sometimes am forced not to leave my house, because I am not sure that I will be able to get a spot wherever I have to head, no less, when I come back home, we have a real uptick in illegal driveways where I am.

Mayor Adams: Driveways?

Question: Yes, illegal, that had been put in by the owners of the house, but not really following the regulations so that there's no parking, because there's not enough spacing between them. We have an uptick of city bike parking, in neighborhoods where parking is really difficult. Then there was an amazing uptick of construction, which is bringing in, in the neighborhood where they're primarily two to three-family houses, now you're bringing in 40, 50, 100. It has made it difficult.

I've seen so many seniors say, "Well, I'll just stay in." I think that we talk about social interaction is so important, because they're not able to get on Zoom and talk to people, they don't have that capacity. I've seen it happening to too many, so I'm very concerned about it.

I feel that we are getting to be an anti-driving city. My concern on top of all of this is with congestion pricing. I have to do some driving and I'm driving like-- I want it to be more clear to me, what's it going to mean when I get out of the tunnel? Am I going to be hit with an extra fee, if I'm really not going into the mainstay of where the congestion pricing supposedly is? Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. For DOT, you want to talk about parking?

Assistant Commissioner Kim Wiley-Schwartz, Education and Outreach, Department of Transportation: I'd be happy to. Hi, I'm Kim Wiley-Schwartz, I'm the Assistant Commissioner for Education and Outreach. I represent my colleagues who do regulate the curb. I'm hearing this piece about the driveways. This is a Department of Buildings issue, but I am not washing my hands of it. I think what that means is that we need to do some work here with you.

When it comes to parking, and worrying about that, we are trying to put in places that have a little bit more fluidity. This is also one of the reasons why we've changed some of the regulations around how much people pay for parking during business hours to make sure that in the evening times they've cleared from those places so that you can use them, but we have a lot of work to do, and we are working very closely with the commissioner to understand how we can be a little bit more fluid with those signs. As you know, we don't have handicap, only parking spots in New York City, but we do try to make a lot of changes to the curb and regulation. This is something that we need to take seriously.

Mayor Adams: You were doing something with, was it DOT, walking around the community with older adult?

Assistant Commissioner Wiley-Schwartz: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Why don't you go into that also?

Assistant Commissioner Wiley-Schwartz: Sure. We have a program where we can come to a space like this, and we explain the tools in our toolbox that include parking regulations and then walk around the area to get a chance to see what could you ask for safety? What could you ask for your mobility? Then we come back in and get out a big map of the neighborhood so that you can geolocate the places where you need things to change. Then it's my job with my team to bring that back to the engineers, to the borough planners, and to everyone who understand your neighborhoods. This is something that we can do for you.

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department for the Aging: The purpose of that is to make this neighborhood safe for you, but based from your perspective, not an engineer's perspective. If you think that light needs to be one more second, that's what you will get back. We'll take your information. If you could give us where those illegal driveways are, we'll make sure that DOT and Department of Buildings follow up. All right. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Great, great, great. Yes.

Question: I apologize. In reference to DOT, I look for common sense things and in reference to, I like to be proactive rather than reactive. That's what I want from my government. Having said that, I just passed 86th Street, 4th Avenue, Century 21 was a Stapleton for what is 86th Street and still vacant. For parking, the parking regulations that were put in place for Century 21 are still in place today. This is just a common sense issue, when you are looking for what I call parking spots, it's my government.

Mayor Adams: Well, government is only as smart as the people who they represent. If we got ideas, we should share them. Let's come from a place of, hey, it's one thing if you bring it to our attention, and we don't respond, but the residents have an eye, that's why we do these walkthroughs. If there's some ideas we have, people have become so disenchanted that government is not responsive because many years they haven't, but we are on the ground. We have these town halls, we don't dismiss them. We come out the next day and actually look at what was raised.

Don't have your spirits broken because of what government was. Have it inspired because of who we are. We work. This administration, we have an acronym, GSD, Get Stuff Done. We believe in working. We're going to look at that place. If those signs need to change because Century 21 is gone, we're going to go look at them and we're going to see how we can change that, all right? Okay?

Question: Yes.

Mayor Adams: Where are we?

Question: Hi, how are you?

Mayor Adams: Quite well. How are you doing?

Question: Good, thank you. I know one of the big things we talk about, I talk about at home is crime and there's only so much that can be done. I think that the cops are having their hands tied behind their backs. Doesn't always start with the mayor it's starting in Albany and if the State Senate and Assembly doesn't do something different, this is going to continue. We're very fortunate, I looked at CompStat for the 60, the 62, the 68, and the 72. The numbers are down, but I think a lot of that is you downplay what the crimes are. They're not your big ones, it's your little ones.

I look at older people, and I can't believe I'm finally, not finally, that I'm an older person now because I never thought I would be, but you look at things very different as you get older. Walking down the street becomes an issue when you start to look about who's around you. I stop, I look and that's a concern because a 25-year-old can be jumped and that's terrible. They'll be black and blue. A 75-year-old that gets jumped can be dead, and that has a lot to do with their comorbidities as well as the drugs that they're on. We need to, first off, I'm going to say to everybody, when you see a cop on the street, thank them for being there.

Here's the deal, they want to go home at the end of the day too, they want to be safe, they want their families safe, but what can we do as a community to help that become the reality so that we think we are safe? Perception is reality. It doesn't matter what is said, that the numbers are down. If we perceive us being unsafe, we are.

Mayor Adams: No, so true. No one is going to interpret your pain and you're right. I said this from the beginning, when I speak with the team under the previous commissioner and the current commissioner, our numbers are impressive. When you do an analysis of cities, we are the safest big city in America. It's unbelievable. We need to turn a hand in that graph. It's unbelievable when you look at the barcode and you see where New York is, you see we're the safest big city in America, but that means nothing if you don't feel safe.

I'll go, how do you feel safe? There's several ways of feeling safe. Number one, you want that officer. Nothing is a greater feeling of security than seeing that blue uniform, of seeing our police officers on patrol, seeing our police officers interact. That is what we want. For far too long, everyone held them back from doing their job. They were criticized no matter what they carried out. That is not under this administration.

We support what they're doing. We encourage what they're doing. We tell them to be proactive. That is why you're seeing this substantial decrease in crime because of how we're doing it. Having you push back on some of the naysayers, there are people that say we should have no police officers on our subway system at all. There are people that want to defund our police department. There are people that just feel as though police don't have a real role in our city. Boy, I love you. I need to take you everywhere.

We need the voices of the numerical minority, those voices have been hijacked by the fringe groups that want to be anti-police. This is not an anti-police administration. I wore that uniform. I know how challenging it is, and you hit it on the head. Our officers want to go home to their families like everyone else. Jonathan Diller, our police officer, is not going home to his family because of the danger that has taken place. We're going to continue to fight and do what we have to do. The goal is also to encourage our young men and women. Policing is a noble career. Encourage them to take the test. Our numbers of people being recruited are down. We paid our police officers a salary they deserve. They voted for the contract.

They know that we're standing side by side with them, and we're going to continue to do so. Those other arms of the criminal justice system must do their role as well, as you indicated.

Question: Hello.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm doing okay.

Mayor Adams: Good.

Question: Registered Republican, but I voted for you in the election.

Mayor Adams: You're a smart man.

Question: Notice I didn't say for your whole party because I felt at least you'd be tortured by your conscience regarding police enforcement and those issues. I recognize the trouble with the City Council and the legislatures that you can arrest someone and what person's out. Back to this thing as far as what's happening on the ground in Bay Ridge. You can talk about the e-bikes in the city as a whole and what's being done. As a person who's almost been hit several times by e-bikes, and I hear about people who have been hit in Bay Ridge, I'd ask if you raised your hands, have you ever seen any enforcement of the e-bike laws happen in Bay Ridge? Has anybody ever seen that?

Audience: No.

Question: There you are. Whatever you've said so far, we have not seen it in Bay Ridge. Our natural conclusion is, for whatever reason, and you can put, we don't have enough people on it to do this thing, but it's not being enforced in Bay Ridge for whatever reasons. That plus the fact that illegally tinted car windows not being enforced either. It's all over the place.

As senior pedestrians, when we walk down the street, the sidewalks, we have a high chance of getting hit by an e-bike. We have a hard time reading cars and drivers because we can't see them with the tinted windows. It makes a very dangerous place to walk, and we don't see. You say nobody raised hands, it's not being enforced as far as we can see for whatever reasons. To me, that's a fact that your statistics or whatever bikes you pulled off the street, it has not touched us here, and for 68th, we haven't seen it.

Mayor Adams: Let's hear from the captain.

Captain Kristen Schafer, Commanding Officer, 68 Precinct: Hi. Good afternoon. Captain Schafer. Similar to what you said, perception becomes reality. In reality, we are enforcing it. Year to date, we've issued over 300 summonses, made 25 arrests, and seized 80 bikes.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Captain Schafer: Well, you may not have seen it, we do. In order to promote it, we do put it on our social media. We actually just finished the 10-day two-wheel enforcement initiative. What would you like to see more of?

Question: What I would like to see is, well, first of all…

Mayor Adams: Where is the mic?

Question: One thing I'd like to see is license plates of some sort on the back of bikes because people can do hit-and-run, and how can police catch people when there are no plates on the bikes? That's one. Secondly, is that when these people are going down on the sidewalks, it'd be great if you had just a bike rack on the back of a police car, and you just confiscate just like the tow trucks come sometimes, immediate confiscation of bikes that are racing down the sidewalks and they can work it out with the impound yard, but it has to be more effective in this way, but sometimes you go up to people and say it's not my job.

Like I was up in Manhattan, there was a woman panhandling, and she had one child in a stroller and another child 15, 20 feet behind her near the street and she wasn't even watching. It happened to be a traffic cop, and he said, "I can't do anything about it. Call 311." I said, "Just show your uniform. It's like you don't even have to ticket her. Just show the uniform." You've got siloed nature in some of these things to the point where you cannot, on the spot, do what's necessary to get the message across. It is a huge problem in Bay Ridge.

Mayor Adams: We silo government a lot, but we had 109 mayors. I'm 110. I've been here two years, four months. You know that? What we have accomplished in those two years and four months is extremely impressive. We got more to do, and we are moving forward and those ideas that you just put out, like the license plate, make sure your council person here and your state assembly and senator hear these ideas because we believe they should have the license plates on the back so you can identify them. Captain you were going…

Captain Schafer: No, just to echo your point. That's exactly what… I don't think any of us want them to be unregistered, because then there's no accountability. They're motorized vehicles. You can't buy a car without a registration insurance, and you can't sell one, so I don't know why you'd be able to sell a moped or something like that.

Mayor Adams: Listen, voices heard, we hear it in every town hall and the number that we have removed… Matter of fact, I think they're doing a crushing of a few in a few weeks. As the captain indicated, there was a two-wheel enforcement because we're hearing this all over the city. We are with you on addressing this issue.

[Crosstalk.]

Mayor Adams: Hold on. You got to hold, you got to sit tight. We're going to come back to you.

Question: Hello.

Mayor Adams: No. Hold on, you got to respect your…

Question: I have a question.

Mayor Adams: Yes, ma'am.

Question: I want to know if the city plans to put more NYPD officers on the subway platform.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: We need more cops on the subway platform. There's a lot of crimes out there in the city. We're all living in a crazy environment, and we want the city to be safe.

Mayor Adams: That's right. Listen, safety and justice is the prerequisite to our prosperity. I say that over and over again.

Audience Member: Mayor, I just want to…

Mayor Adams: Come on, man, you asked a question. Come on, you're back there playing. The subway, Commissioner Caban called me in January and he says, "Eric, listen, we're seeing--" we had the Governor Hochul gave us an initiative that we did back in 2022. When I first got elected to bring crime under control, we were successful in the subway system. In January, the commissioner said, "Eric, I'm seeing an uptick. We need to put reinforcement."

We had an increase in the month of January. February, we put 1,000 new police officers in the system with clear directives on what we needed them to do. We saw I believe it was a 15 percent decrease in February, and we saw a continuing decrease in March, and we're seeing a decrease in the first quarter of this year in subway crime. That visual presence, that visible presence means a lot. When you see that police officer, you feel better.

Question: You feel better, yes.

Mayor Adams: Right. Then we had to reorientate police officers on how to patrol in the system. In 1984, '85, when I was a transit cop, we patrolled differently. We walked through the cars. We were engaging. It was a different time. A lot of these young officers, for many years, they've been really held back from doing the type of policing you need to send the right message. I think they're learning more and more, it's okay to do the job that you were brought on to do, but we want that visual presence. It means a lot when you see that police officer.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Mayor, let me just add to something.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: I too was a transit cop in '84, and we did lose a little bit of what transit cops do. We're trying to teach our new officers. Hello? I'm still here. I've answered your question for you. Let's look at this. I go to a staff meeting every week with the commissioner and 18 executives. Now, just think about this, this is a stat that we cannot add up or we can say this happens.

We strategically put our offices around the subway. Those six crimes that the mayor is talking about, it would be a lot more if those officers that we put in these positions, they weren't there. That's why when the mayor talks about the six crimes, that's it because we strategically put them in place as the platforms. They ride the trains, and their job is to go car to car to make sure everybody feels safe. Three weeks ago, the mayor put us all on the train.

I was on the train column, and we rode with our cops. I saw a cop on the platform, I saw a cop in the mezzanine, and I saw cops walking car to car, like I did in '84. The reason why crime is down in transit, and we adjusted it, we got a thousand more cops, and we have an academy class that's getting ready to come out and 85 percent of them are going to transit. This is a stat that we can't say that it's high or it's low because crime is not happening because these officers are put there. Okay?

Mayor Adams: And they're doing a good job.

Audience Member: You see a lot of them sleeping on the subway too.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Oh. Not the cops? We're not talking about the cops, are we?

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Good afternoon.

Question: The concern on table eight is basically safety issues. They mentioned three elders recently they got assault, they got robbed and they also feel annoying about the shopping areas, shoplifting activities affecting them directly with the fact that everything is lack on the stores and it takes forever for them to have access of any items.

Mayor Adams: Right. You know what, and that… You said you had another one?

Question: She also mentioned that the DA have to maintain people in jail. That they maintain people in jail. They come out and they…

Question: I love New York and I've always went on trains, and I always went to Manhattan and had fun. I don't go on trains anymore because I'm petrified. Because I'm afraid because I've seen somebody thrown down. I was there one day, and I almost had a heart attack. I saw somebody push somebody down the train-- the thing. I was hysterically crying. I don't go on trains anymore, but I love this city.

Mayor Adams: Right. As someone mentioned, loneliness is the social determinants of health and we don't want people to feel isolated and can't move about their city.

Question: Another thing.

Mayor Adams: Mm-hmm.

Question: I'm sorry.

Mayor Adams: That's okay. It's all good.

Audience Member: Madeline, he wants to take you everywhere, remember that.

Question: These people that kill each other, kill people, they don't go to jail. Why don't they get arrested?

Mayor Adams: No. They get…

Question: They get out.

Mayor Adams: That's why at your voice to those of us who…

Question: Who can we talk…

Audience Member: City Council.

Mayor Adams: Yes, everything from the City Council to making sure you have a great DA here in this borough, DA Eric Gonzalez, but you need to see what happens is - think about it - and this is what's so important about raising your voice. Because if we don't raise our voices, those of us who believe public safety is crucial, then the loudest would raise their voice and people would think that's their opinion. They say, "Mayor, that's your opinion. That's not what other people feel about supporting law enforcement." We have to add our voice, your letter writing, your emails, your town halls. What you're sharing here, you wouldn't think this is what average New Yorkers feel based on the stuff that you read in the paper, and we need to add our voices, but I want to dibble to shoplifting.

As I said, we have 542 people who have been arrested 7,600 times in the city. It really is. The story of this table, when people think about what shoplifting is doing to our city, they don't realize the rippling impact because when we lose a drugstore, you now have to get on the bus to go to another drugstore. When you walk inside the drugstore or another store and everything is locked up, you have to wait until you get the services that you deserve.

That's why we put in place our shoplifting task force that we brought in stores, we brought in technology, we brought in law enforcement, DAs, attorney general because we knew we did not want what was happening in other cities to happen here around shoplifting. We have to drive down those who are continuously shoplifting. There's a small number of people. Some of them are arrested 40, 50 times for shoplifting. We finally got the lawmakers in Albany to make some changes in the shoplifting rules so that we can accumulate the acts together. We're going to make an impact, but shoplifting is a real problem that the entire country is facing, and we don't want it to continue here.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Yes. It happened all the time. Let me get here.

Question: One of the questions we had was that two of our seniors were robbed on the way to the center in the daytime, and one was an attempted robbery. Isn't it possible to have more police on the street visually so that people could feel safer?

Mayor Adams: Captain, you want to… Hold on. Let the captain speak.

Captain Schafer: I'm sorry. Yes, it's absolutely possible to have more people present. When did this happen?

Question: It happened in the past few months. They are members here. They're not here today, though.

Captain Schafer: I'm not sure exactly which incidents you're talking about. The jewelry scam. We are very aware of the jewelry scam. The problem with the jewelry scam is that-- Sonia, you want to get up? Come up. They'll come up and they'll be so nice, and they'll be like, "Oh, my God, you're so beautiful. You look like my mother." They go in for the hug and just like that, it's gone. By the time that you realize it's a half hour, an hour later. We do. We have dedicated officers. I work with the local precinct commanders in the 62nd, 72nd, and the 66. When we get a vehicle description like that we put it out there. It's an organized crime pattern here, but we definitely take it very seriously.

Mayor Adams: Commissioner Stewart, are we going to do… For that jewelry scam, we should go out and speak to our seniors? Okay, great, great, great. We want to speak and inform… Let me finish and I'm going to come back to you. I'm not going to forget you because you're wearing one of my favorite colors.

We're on it?

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Yes, sir.

Mayor Adams: We want to inform because an informed person can prevent crimes as well as the presence of a police, but thank you for that, ma'am. Yes.

Question: [Inaudible] from time to time. You're unaware. They catch you something like that.

Mayor Adams: Go ahead, ma'am.

Question: Hi. Thank you.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: I'm very well. How are you doing today?

Mayor Adams: Quite well, quite well.

Question: I'm sure you are aware you are in a state-of-the-art senior center, which I think is probably the finest in all of New York City. I am speaking for my fellow seniors throughout the five boroughs. We need more facilities like this.

Thank you. Most of us are relegated to church basements, not pretty, not sexy. I don't necessarily need sexy, but I need pretty.

There are so many good people volunteering here in the center. Seniors like myself, we volunteer and do stuff here in the center and there are people throughout the five boroughs. I have friends in the other boroughs and I tell them what's happening here and they are green with envy and jealousy. I just want to encourage all of you to get really nice pretty places for seniors.

Mayor Adams: Love it. Love it. Commissioner Cortéz-Vásquez has really-- from her older adult cabinet, hearing from seniors to the walk arounds that we were just talking about, we have been in some amazing older adult centers and you're right. We want to continue to create safe, clean, innovative spaces. Someone was saying that our seniors don't know how to get on Zoom. We need to show them how to get on Zoom. Before mom's transition, I was showing her how to get on Zoom so she could communicate with me all the time.

We're with you and that's what the commissioner believes a lot in creating these amazing spaces. Let's just give applause to the staff and the volunteers who are here.

Job well done. Job well done.

Question: Mayor Adams, I have one suggestion for you.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: If you go on YouTube, and you see the videos where they're smashing all the bikes and ATMs and all their things in Staten Island, you should make that into a public service commercial. I think people need to know if they break the law, not only are they going to lose an expensive bike, that bike is going to be smashed up.

Mayor Adams: Got it.

Question: Then the second thing is for the person for… Oh, I'm sorry. It's going to be really quick. I'm on the community board and they wanted to reroute some of the buses where the buses wouldn't come here. You see the importance of keeping the two bus lines not only coming here, but also for the New York ferries down the block, but this will be my question for you.

Bay Ridge started out as a rural summer retreat area, and then it became designated with Dyker Heights as premier residential neighborhoods. The streets are a little bit more narrow. My question is, if the City of Yes goes through, the zoning will change, we will literally become a parking lot because of our proximity to the Verrazano Bridge. I just want to know if you know, or what power you have to put safeguards in place because, right now, if that goes through and the zoning changes in Bay Ridge, it's already a nightmare.

I moved to Bay Ridge 40 years ago. The first thing I did was I had to give my car, I gave my car away. Brand new car because I couldn't find parking. I worked nights and I used to work at the Daily News and they knew my plight. I would drive here and circle for an hour, hour and a half. They said, "We'll give you vouchers, you can take a taxi to and from work."

From then, I just said, "I can't deal with the parking here," but more and more I'm seeing trucks park here at my church right now. I bet if I walk there now, there's going to be a big truck parked in the spot that says, "Church parking. No parking." What's happening is more and more are coming in. If the zoning changes, the stores that are suffering, the restaurants that are suffering, people are not going to come here for our stores. We're residential and commercial, and the people who live here, they've worked hard their entire lives to own a car and to own a… And to just to live here like everybody else. To have a house and a car and parking for them is becoming a nightmare. I just want to let you know, if you haven't seen all the proposals in the City of Yes, the rezoning of not only Bay Ridge, the entire city will be a nightmare because we will become a parking lot.

Mayor Adams: Now the question becomes is why? Why are we doing the City of Yes? What is the reason for that? I think the best way to define it is Jordan Coleman, my son. He went away to college, came back home, can't afford to live in the city and he does not. There's not enough space in the city. We have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate, 1.4 percent vacancy. We have 59 community boards in our city. Nine of them have created more housing than the 50 combined. What we did, we took nine community boards and said all the new housing that we are building, we are going to now put it in your community.

We displaced long-term residents. We drove up rents in these areas. We overburdened their infrastructure, so Dan Garodnick said, "Why don't we build a little more housing throughout the entire city instead of saying we're just going to dump it on these nine?" We have to build more housing. There is not enough housing in this city. The inventory is the problem, and we have to do it that we don't disrupt communities, but we do it when your sons and daughter or grandchildren, when they come home from school, they can stay in their community.

They can actually be part of their community. Our zoning laws of this magnitude, they have not been changed in over 60 years. The city has changed. It has expanded. It has grown and you speak to these young people who are coming here, they're professionals. They want to raise their families here. They're saying, "There's no place for me to live. If we lose our tax pace of working-class New Yorkers, we're going to lose really the foundation of our city, so we don't want to disrupt.

This is going to come to the community boards. We want to educate, we want feedback from the community boards, but we have to build more housing in the city, and we can't just build it in nine community boards. That is just unfair. We've oversaturated them already." Imagine that, 50 community boards combine all of their new housing, and it's not more than nine who we have compelled to do the new housing. That's why we're doing the City of Yes. Ma'am, how are you?

Question: Thank you, Mayor. My question is my confusion. If I travel on a bus, we're an Uber. Is that on? Or an Uber. There is signs up, if that person is attacked, that could be a federal offense. My question, what is the penalty for these people that abuse our wonderful men, police officers, that get out on that street, put their lives in their hands. To me, what is the penalty, and is it very enforced?

Mayor Adams: To do what you ask?

Question: To do it. If you throw a can at any one of these wonderful police, you spit in their face. If you throw a brick, if you kick their car. Growing up, if I was on the corner, and we used to in the '60s, sitting on the corner, that police officer was respected. Why? The minute he came around that corner, you know what's the first question he would ask? Do you live here? If any one of us said no, he'd say, "Move on." What is the penalty to protect the people that protect us?

Mayor Adams: I agree 100 percent. If you assault a police officer, it's a felony.

Question: Is it a felony?

Mayor Adams: Yes, to assault a police officer.

Question: Do they take it to that level?

Mayor Adams: That's the next question. That's why we must make sure. You're right. When you assault this uniform, you're not assaulting the individual, you're assaulting our symbol of safety. I remember it, I think it was '21, I was sitting down with my brother who's a former police sergeant, and I saw someone pour water over the head of a police officer in a bucket.

Question: Awful.

Mayor Adams: I remember the two of us looking at each other and we said, "We just lost the city." Because once you disrespect that uniform, you're disrespecting our symbol of public safety. We are now turning around that disrespect.

Question: I hope so.

Mayor Adams: We want to get to the point of what you and I both remember. I remember what it meant to have a police officer tell you to do something. You would respond appropriately. Our goal is to bring back the respect that our law enforcement officers are…

Question: I'll go you on better. I remember, do you know what they say, quality of crime laws that are put in the garbage now? I remember when the J-Walking and I got a ticket for crossing. Now, J-Walking, if you go around this vicinity right now, you see people in the street sitting with buckets and clothes, and nobody asks, "Who are they? Where are they?" I almost got hit with one of those mopeds. As he passed me, where is the license?

Mayor Adams: That's what my gentleman just raised, that's what we're focusing on. I got one more. Okay, we're going to get the ED.

Question: You pride yourself as a good cook. I've read many of your pamphlets and there's so many more important issues. The city council is interested in electric stoves, your opinion?

Mayor Adams: Right. Well, it's really on the state level. The state pushed, many people are attaching the-

Question: The price of electricity.

Mayor Adams: Right, not only the price of electricity they're attaching it to, they're saying the emissions is endangering the environment. Listen, I'm a gas guy, it messes with the temperature of the food, the quality of the food, so we need to find an electric stove that could allow me to cook the way I like to cook.

Listen, I'm not complicated…

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Thank you, mayor. Thank you so much.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. We're going to let the executive director come up.

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Thank you for spending the afternoon with us.

Mayor Adams: Thank you.

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