Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls in for Live Interview on 107.5 WBLS-FM 'Caribbean Fever Radio'

June 4, 2023

Dahved Levy: Yeah, yeah. Caribbean Fever, 107.5, WBLS. Dahved Levy rocking you. You've got a very special guest on, Mayor Adams. Mayor Adams, are you there?

Mayor Eric Adams: Yes, my brother rocking you. Rock all the time, brother. There's nothing special about me. I am of the folks in the community and every time I get on this show, people stop me and tell me how informative your questions are and how we're able to just let people know what's going on in this very complicated city during these times.

Levy: Okay, well let's start off. So we'll start off on a light note. So is this for real, sir? A spectacular floating pool now has a home in the East River. How can you go to this pool and do you have to pay to go into the pool? Is the pool for a certain age group? Tell me about this pool that will be in the East River, this floating pool.

Mayor Adams: Yes, it is. It is true. We're actually looking at a multitude of concepts to use and floating pools. How do we use our rivers to also be utilized as pools? We are a victim of our success. Our rivers are cleaner and we are able to utilize them more. Remember, during one period of time, people were swimming in our rivers. But this pool that's in the Bronx in the East River is not going to be in the river. It is an actual pool that the parks run. It's free. We never discriminate in any of our park facilities based on age, culture, or gender. It's open to all to participate. But down the line, there's something called the plus pool that we're looking at. This is going to utilize the river water and with barriers around it to allow us to swim in the river again. We are looking at that, but right now we do have a floating pool that's in the Bronx. It's the floating pool lady, we like to call it.

Levy: Second, I can only imagine. On the cruise ships, you have surfing and you have all the water support. I can see now all the water supports are going down in the river.

Mayor Adams: Oh, so true. So true. But these are exciting times. We're thinking differently about the resources of the city. This was a city that far too often every idea was met with a no. That's not how I am. This is a city of yes. People who have different ideas, we're entertaining them. We're looking into them. We're seeing how do we get to, yes. I would love for all of our waterways to be used for rowing, for jet skiing, how we enjoy every aspect of this city. We're no longer in a place of everything as a no. We're looking to get yes to everything.

Levy: Sir, in recent months, a number of states have been sending migrants that arrived in the U.S. through different parts of the country. They're sent by bus and plane, in many cases, with no help or idea of what comes next. Many of those people are struggling to find their footing. In New York City alone, there are projections that the city could spend up to about $1 billion this year to support these migrants and give them adequate resources for things like housing, food, education, and employment. Are you getting the help that you need? And if you're not getting it, make your Carribean plea right now, sir, to get the help because this seems to be a growing situation that it's not looking good.

Mayor Adams: No, we're not getting the help that we need. I really want to thank Senator Schumer and the majority leader in Congress, Congressman Jeffries, for really fighting on our behalf. They were able to get over $850 million in what's called the Omnibus Bill through FEMA. They divided it into two sections. $350 million was the first round of distribution. Although we are getting an overwhelming number of migrants in asylum seekers, we only got $30 million dollars of that. And Dahved, the real horrific part of this is that some bordering municipalities that receive more money than we did, they're using the money to ship buses to New York with the migrant and asylum seekers.

We need help from Washington to get the resources we deserve and to have the Republican conference finally do real immigration reform. But this is unfair what's happening to the city and it's unfair what's happening to the migrants and asylum seekers.

Think about it for a moment. People come to America to do what? They want to participate in an American dream. How do you tell people to come to this country and you're not allowed to work, you have to have the city, like New York, pay for your food, your shelter, your clothing. When I stayed with the migrants inside of one of our humanitarian relief centers, they said, "We don't want anything free. We want to work. All of us want to work." This is just really undermining our city at this time and we need help. This is unsustainable and I'm not going to remain silent on what's happening to New York City residents.

Levy: But sir, how do you respond then to persons who say, "We don't want these migrants living in our backyards, taking over hotels and our schools." More than anything, how are you going to protect the migrants? How are you going to protect them?

Mayor Adams: Well first, I want whomever is embracing that belief, I want them just to take a moment and close their eyes and say that to themselves. I bet you that if they think about their family members at one time, someone said that about them. Someone said that about African-Americans. Someone said that about people coming from Trinidad, from Jamaica, from South Central America, from Russia. Someone said that about Jewish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Irish-Americans. There is not one ethnic group that has arrived at these shores that there were not people who were there before them that stated, "We don't want them here." That is not the city that I believe in. I believe in the city that states whoever want to come here, willing to work hard, willing to be law abided and contribute to this society, we need them. During Covid, it was the immigrant community that kept this city operating.

Look at my population of nurses. Look at my population of those who are Uber drivers, those who work for the various civil services that couldn't stay home. We need people in this city, but we should not be burdened with having to pay everything for them. I am not going to ever subscribe to the theory that people who come here and want to contribute to our city, that we should not allow them to come here and allow them to contribute. That is who we are, we're made of. When I was Brooklyn Borough president, close to 50 percent of the people spoke a language other than English at home and we were productive. We're just being treated unfairly now and we should not turn our anger against the migrants. We should turn our anger to those who have put us in this position.

Levy: Sir, an old jail, I recently heard that an old jail was turned into housing for migrants. Is this going to be the trend? And what would you like to see happen with these places that these migrants are going to stay?

Mayor Adams: It breaks my heart that we have to use any available facility that we have. We are overwhelmed. Every bordering state, for the most part, has made up their minds that they're going to send the migrant asylum seekers that come into their municipalities, they're going to send them to New York. We have run out of space. This is no longer sustainable. The mere fact that we had to look at 20 detached gyms to hold as respite centers. Every day, the numbers are high. One week, we got 5,000 people coming to the city. This is not sustainable, Dahved, and we are trying to have the state acknowledge that this is a state and a national issue. In our state, other cities are attempting to fight us against doing their role, so we have been carrying this burden on our own as a city.

It's just not right. It's not fair. I'm not going to put New Yorkers in this predicament. We have to open up wherever we can find space. So the Lincoln Correctional Facility, the state offered this to us. We're going to use that space. We don't want to use this space. Let's be clear. We are using whatever we can to make sure that no one is sleeping on our streets like you're seeing in other cities. In other cities, people are sleeping in the streets, sleeping in airports, sleeping in other locations. We don't want that here in New York City.

Levy: Wow. Okay, sir, let's go to Carnival. Let's start Carnival, sir.

Mayor Adams: Everybody's looking forward to mashing up the parkway.

Levy: Mashing up the parkway. Where does Carnival stand in New York City? You've got the Puerto Rican Day parade on television. You've got the St. Patty's Day parade on TV. The Labor Day Carnival on Eastern Parkway attracts something from 2 to 3 million people. It's the biggest street event in New York City. How come, but you don't see the coverage on major television channels?

Mayor Adams: People really don't understand how beneficial Carnival is to the City of New York. It's more than what happens on Labor Day, the number of hotels, the number of people buying items as they get to their costume and their different items that they purchase, food, when you do the different cookouts and barbecue. There's just an economic stimulus that comes from Carnival. What I want to do, I want to find one of our major networks and stations to sit down and start televising that. I have been in conversations with some. We believe that we can get a station to allow it to be broadcast live. It's extremely colorful, attractive.

I think there's an audience for it. We would like to see the West Indian Day Carnival being broadcast live as it's taking place. It has taken some negative criticism in the past because of a few number of people that did things that were inappropriate. But we clearly show that people come out to enjoy themselves and it really embraces the rich culture and heritage of the Caribbean diaspora throughout our entire city. We have the largest population in many of the islands, the largest Trinidadian, Jamaican, the folks from Haiti, from Grenada, all St. Vincent, St. Croix, all of the islands you find in our city. We would like to see this broadcast live. I'm going to do everything that's possible to make this my legacy that we can get it live for broadcast.

Levy: Perfect, sir. Sir, I give you the last question.

Mayor Adams: Well listen, the last question is who's more legendary than you brother? You've been on air for so many years and what you're doing right now is that you're doing a combination of the entertainment and music, but you're being informational. That's the power of luring people in. And I want to say to your listeners, we have 12,000 jobs, 12,000 jobs. That is not making sense. With all of these city jobs I have available, we should not be having a high level of unemployment in the Black and brown community in this city. I'm asking people to come sign up for these jobs, Department of Sanitation, Department of Parks, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Department of Education, correction officers, school safety officers, police officers.

We all know the city we want. If we know the city we want, then we must become the city employees that we need. Come out. Be hired by the city. Good pensions. Good salaries. You can give back to your communities in a real way. So my question is, why aren't we getting more people who listen to this great show to come in and be city employees? My career started as a city employee. I was a clerk in the district attorney's office. I became a police officer. Went on to become the mayor of the City of New York. It all started from civil servant. Let's get people hired in the city.

Levy: Sir, thank you very much. Have a good evening, sir.

Mayor Adams: Thank you

Levy: We do appreciate it. Caribbean Fever 107.5, WBLS, Mayor Adams on the phone as we ask the questions that people want to know and want to hear about.

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