Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears on RTN

July 11, 2023

Gregory Davidzon: Okay. Good afternoon everybody, and welcome to my show. I'm honored to have a very special guest joining us today. Someone I have known for more than a decade and who is the good friend of our Russian community. He's one of the most important person in the world. He's the mayor of the New York City, the honorable Eric Adams. Thank you, mayor, very much for being with us today.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. It is great to be here with you. And this is such an important station, where you have been informing the Russian-speaking community for many years and you're seeing just the power, the growth, the political strength of your community. So I really appreciate your friendship and just your guidance throughout the years.

Davidzon: First of all, I would like to thank you, Mayor, for doing what no other mayor of the New York City before you has done. You created the Office of Ethnic and Community Media, employed José Bayona as the director of this unit. Mr. Mayor, thank you very, very much for this important efforts for all ethnic community, including Russian communities.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. And the Ethnic Media office is important because I've learned throughout the years that our ethnic markets don't only listen to the three top newspapers or the four or five top television shows. You communicate on the ground with your particular community residents and we are going to expand that and make sure I bring information directly to you.

Davidzon: Thank you. I know how valuable your time is and that's why I will limit this interview to the questions that I think most important to all listeners today. And again, thank you for being with us.
The first question is, I'm sure everybody concerned about public safety. It's a big concern for our listeners of course as well. Please share with us what you have done and plan to do to make them safer on our streets, the subway, and buses, and certainly our homes.

Mayor Adams: I like to say that there's going to come a time before we go from the way we felt to how we are feeling right now. Because we have been inundated with front page headlines on some of the terrible things that happened in the city of 8.5 million New Yorkers. But when you look at the actual numbers, you clearly see that shootings in this city are down double digits. We're seeing a decrease in murders in this city. We're watching other crimes, robberies are down, burglaries are down, grand larcenies are down. Our subways are safer. We have peaked at 4 million riders, people are back on the system. You're seeing people back in the streets.

We have made substantial progress and we've done it in a proactive way. We've gone after those illegal cars and dirt bikes and motorcycles and three wheelers. We looked at those who were riding around with paper plates, unregistered vehicles, committing crimes. We found them with guns and other items in their cars.
We have become a more energized police department. We paid our police officers a wage that is deserving of the fact that they're placing their lives on the line. Our contract for the police got a 97% ratification. Overwhelmingly, it's a historical number.

So when you combine the proactive effort, re-energizing the police force, going specifically and targeting bad guys, we're moving in the right direction. We know some of these cases, that are high profile, shakes the confidence of New Yorkers, but those are small number of incidents. Overwhelmingly, this city is back and we are really humming at a good pace.

Davidzon: In your background, what you did in past, helped you to fight the crime?

Mayor Adams: Oh yes it did. Remember, think about this for a moment. Not only did it help me with crime, it helped me in running the city. Remember, there has not been a mayor, at least in my memory, that has ever come from a law enforcement and a civil servant background.

Davidzon: This is why I ask. I know you came from enforcement and you have enforcement background. This is why I'm asking because I'm sure it helped you, it should help you to keep city more and more safe.

Mayor Adams: Yes. Because previous mayors had to depend on police commissioners. I know the police department as a retired captain. I can work in conjunction with the police department and the commissioner on seeing it from a professional view. And I don't have to depend on anyone, I understand law enforcement.

Davidzon: Again, thank you for your efforts and I'm sure, and I see it's become better and better. Just keep doing the same thing. This certainly will help city to be more safe. But it's probably one of the most important, this is why I started with this question. Nothing can be more important than safe for the people.

Mayor Adams: So true. And we saw it over the weekend. The 4th of July weekend was the safest 4th of July over 20 years.

Davidzon: Really?

Mayor Adams: Yes. The safest…

Davidzon: Very important.

Mayor Adams: …in over 20 years. Wednesday morning of this week, immediately following 4th of July, shootings for July were down 49 percent compared to last year. This is an unbelievable achievement, as we move in the right direction.

Davidzon: People should know this. It's very, very important because people dream about something, but what's what's going on in their eyes, they don't see some crimes.

Mayor Adams: Right.

Davidzon: We have to certainly, I promise you, we will repeat it. I will cut this part of our conversation and repeat on our station very often. It's absolutely important. Thank you very much, Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Davidzon: Let me go to the second question. City recently passed new budget. What are some of the highlights, especially senior citizens are especially concerned about being able to afford to continue to live in our communities. Does the budget address this issue?

Mayor Adams: Yes. No, listen, we want to make sure that all New Yorkers could afford, excuse me, to live here, particularly our seniors. We had a $107 billion budget for the fiscal year and we made some important investments. But we also put money aside for the rainy days. We know how important it is. We have $8 billion in reserve to prepare for the city's future, such as something like a Covid happens to us. We made sure we had our city agencies find efficiencies of over $4.7 billion in savings we were able to find between fiscal year '23 and '24.

But we also wanted to make sure that we look at those entities that are important to seniors. We put $36 million in our library, something that seniors thinks are important. $15 million in funding to confer nearly 1,900 early childhood space is something we heard from our seniors. We invest in our senior care centers. And our seniors tell us all the time they want clean streets. We wanted to make sure we did a proper balance of the long-term needs of the city and the everyday needs of our people, and that is where our investments went to.

Davidzon: Okay. Thanks a lot for this answer. And then let's go to the next question. And this is almost personal question and you will realize why. New York City, but especially Brighton Beach, because it's very important street for Russian communities. Experience number of quality of life issues, including but not limited, dirty street, a lot of rats, store blocking sidewalks with their goods, reckless drivers, unsafe sidewalk conditions and so on. Does your administration have any plans to address those issues? We really need to do something with those.

Mayor Adams: Yes. Quality of life is everything. And you just listed many of those problems. And people know I hate rats and rats is a reflection of disorder. And so, we have done a number of things to zero in on rats. Rats complaints have decreased by 15 percent in this city.

I hired a rat czar, her name is Kathy Corradi. And we have done everything from changing the time garbage is being put out, to making sure that we are going to move, that garbage bags are going to be removed off our streets. We're going to do it in waves. But clearly we're going to put garbage in bins, sealed bins that rats can't get to. We're first going to do it in chain stores and restaurants and others, and we're going to continue to evolve after we deal with those perishable food-like items. We also have the largest curbside composting program in the nation. Because we wanted to get food straps off of our streets, into bins, out of those plastic bags.

And just last week, we launched two major initiatives that I'm really proud of. New rules that will require food related businesses and chain businesses, and they cover one quarter of all businesses in the five boroughs, producing 4 million pounds of waste every day. They're going to place this in a secure container. This is a huge win. Many administrations tried to do this, they were unable to do so. But we're zeroing in also on illegal cars, illegal three wheelers, illegal mopeds and dirt bikes. Many of them were illegal devices, unregistered, and they were being used to commit crimes. We're being very proactive in stopping this from continuing to occur.

Davidzon: So you're feeling people will start to see the changes in this question, in this problem very soon?

Mayor Adams: Yes. And they're starting to see it now. Like I stated, we, again, 15 percent less complaints of rodents. We removed thousands of illegal unregistered dirt bikes. We've gone after thousands of paper plate vehicles, illegal vehicles with stolen plates that were used for crime. So there's a real impact right now that we are taking care of.

Davidzon: Thank you very much. And I really believe people appreciate this because, like I mentioned, it's a terrible situation with this issue on the Brighton Beach. Okay, let's go to the second question. And again, question that's touch a lot, a lot of people from our community, especially elderly people. We are talking about proposed, I'm sure you are aware about proposed major changes on the bus routes.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Davidzon: And some of them certainly negatively affect residents in the Brighton Beach and surrounding communities. I know that you are committed to improving the lives of all New Yorkers. What do you suggest our listeners to do to prevent changes that really negatively affect them?

Mayor Adams: Well, it's so important that your listeners weigh in on the changes. These changes are controlled by the MTA's Brooklyn Bus Network. The MTA controls this and many people don't realize it, but the city does not control the MTA. The state controls the MTA.

So what we are saying, that it's time for communities to weigh in during the public comment periods. So there's a public comment period when they have the right to come in and let their voices be heard. In general, I'm supportive of the overall goals of the plans, which is to improve bus services and bus speeds for Brooklyn. But I also want everyday New Yorkers who are impacted to weigh in and allow their voices to be heard.

Davidzon: So can I say people that mayor of New York City on our side?

Mayor Adams: I'm sorry?

Davidzon: Can I say people that mayor of New York City on our side? He…

Mayor Adams: Always on the sides of the people. Whatever changes we do should be generated from the community, and that is why it's important for us to know what the community wants by coming in, allowing your voice to be heard at the public comment period.

Davidzon: Thank you. And it's very important to hear this from you. Let's go to the next question. What is the current situation with new arrivals from Ukraine? Is the city still getting large number of them? Or what city try or doing to help those people who came from Ukrainian war to city?

Mayor Adams: It's unbelievable when you think about it. When we talk about those who are fleeing persecution, wars, and other conditions, draconian conditions, I think nothing personifies the benevolence that we've showed in this country more than what we've done with the Ukrainians who fled the war. As of June 14th of this year, 257,000 applicants were filed by the individual sponsor and displaced Ukrainians through the amazing organization Uniting for Ukraine program.

Over 34,000 of these individuals are in New York, more than any other state. 23,000 of those, roughly 67 percent are in New York City, primarily Brooklyn's Greater Coney Island area. We know we have a large working class, real business community here in Brooklyn that are Ukrainian, descendants from Ukraine. So it's important that we play our role, and we're doing that through the Ukrainian response initiative that we launch in my Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs. Commissioner Castro, following the 2022 Russian invasion, we made sure that we helped more than 13,500 community members have been directly engaged through in-person or remote coach.

And so, that's really impressive when you look at what New York City did for those who were displaced due to the war. We played a major role in helping in many ways, English, video tutorials, where we created in Russian and Ukrainian, employment authorization, just reaching people and giving them the help that they need. And we're really proud for the position we took.

Davidzon: Thank you, mayor. And I would like to say we tried to participate as well. Radio station employed one of the person from Ukraine who is the sound engineer. But by the way, very happy with him and on the permanent basis. And one person we use on the temporary-basis, like for designer to create some promotion materials. And I very hope that this war will finish soon because it's save a lot of people's life, by the way, from both side, from Ukraine and from Russia. It's completely unbelievable in this time, in this century, this type of the war that take lives, people's lives without any reason to do it. So I hope and I really support what American government do it in these directions.

And the last question, if you don't mind, I would like to ask, first of all, again it's a lot of thanks for your time, but this is probably question, it's personally from me because it's concern your personal life. You have been mayor for a year and a half. And what is it you especially like about this extremely important position? And what is anything that you dislike? So tell us, from your personal experience, plus and minus in this position.

Mayor Adams: Well, I love serving the people of this city. They say being the mayor of the city of New York is the second most difficult job in politics. And I say, when does the hard part start? Because I don't feel that it's hard when you're doing what you love, as I do. I'm helping everyday New Yorkers overcome, in some cases, trauma, challenges, difficulties. And the ability to have people believe in government again means so much to me.

I saw how government has failed and betrayed New Yorkers every day and I want to turn that around. I want to become a city where we believe in government again. I don't want people to fight city hall, I want people to trust city Hall. And that's what we're in the progress of doing.

I'm a little disappointed that we are allowing the loudest voices to really talk down to our country, disrespect our law enforcement and our other public servants, of people have lost, in some cases, I think a small number of New Yorkers who are the loudest, they have hijacked the narrative of this country. This is a great country. People are not lining the borders to leave America, they're lining the borders to come into America. And where you could have a Russian-speaking person like yourself come here and become a major political powerhouse, only in America. That's what's great about the American Dream, anyone can pursue it. Work hard, be dedicated, be committed, and believe in the country and everything is possible.

Davidzon: You're absolutely right. And it was mayor of city of New York. He hold the second position, I really believe the first position in the country because it's no question New York is the capital of the world. From my point of view, this is most important position. Like I mentioned before, I'm so proud to see Mayor of New York, Eric Adams, on my show.

And a few words in the end. I know that you very busy and I'm sure you work 24 by seven. It's no question about. And that you find time for us, I'm very, very proud about see you on our TV and radio station. And please make sure and I would like that you now always welcome [inaudible] radio and television, RTN. We always open, and one day I would like that we have meet like many, many years before, in some restaurant and have a lunch. And I will be more than happy to be together with you. And again, I wish you the best. And too early to ask, but in one day I would like to see you in the highest position in the United States. Thank you very much.

Mayor Adams: Thank you my friend. I look forward to us sharing a meal together. Take care.

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