City of New York, NY
03/27/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 03/28/2024 16:53
Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Community Conversation
March 27, 2024
Commissioner Fred Kreizman, Community Affairs Unit:This is the 25th Community Conversation that we've hosted in New York City, that doesn't include the senior town halls and the youth town halls. Woodhaven is known for its diversity and community spirit, its strong sense of community as we see with the Woodhaven BID and the Woodhaven Residents Block Association. Forest Park is the beautiful jewel of the community. There's a rich history here in Woodhaven. The Neir's Tavern was founded in 1829 and is one of the oldest bars in the United States. The owner of Neir's, Loycent Gordon, is here with us today. Thank you. So, I just wanted to thank everyone for coming out here today for addressing the issues that matter the most to you in the community. With first hour we spend here with Community Conversations, we don't want people coming, wasting your time with a few people getting to ask a question of people feeling neglected. So, we have this roundtable conversations with members of the Mayor's Office and NYPD at each table for one hour, where your issues are jotted down and shared with a policymaker so your time is not wasted by coming out here today. As well as note cards in front of you. If you fill out those note cards and your question is not asked, we'll make sure to get back to you in a timely manner, because it's important that we address your issues. And then right now, we have the mayor of the City of New York and city agency commissioners along the dais to be able to best address the issues. So, I'll be very brief. I just want to go through the dais of the people we have from the administration. Of course, to my left, we have the mayor of the City of New York, Mayor Eric Adams. I'm just going to ask everyone to hold all the applause and we'll go through the whole dais. We have the Deputy Mayor of Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom, we have the Deputy Mayor of Strategic Initiatives Ana Almanzar, we have the First Deputy Mayor's Chief of Staff Yume Kitasei, we have the Deputy Mayor of Operations Chief Public Realm Ya-Ting Liu, we have the NYPD Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, we have the Department of Education First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg, Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro, Human Rights Commissioner Annabel Palma, Department of Social Services Commissioner Molly Park, Health + Hospitals Corporation President CEO, Dr. Mitchell Katz, Department of Health General Counsel Lisa Landau, Mayor's Office of Community Mental Health Executive Director Eva Wong, ACS First Deputy Commissioner Winette Saunders, DYCD Deputy Commissioner Denice Williams and Gender-Based Violence Acting Deputy Commissioner Tesa Arózqueta, Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice First Deputy Commissioner Carolina Chavez, Department of Finance Director of Outreach Kieran Mahoney, Department of City Planning Executive Director Edith Hsu-Chen, we have Mayor's Office of People Disabilities Commissioner Christina Curry. To my right, we have our esteemed Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar and esteemed Councilmember Joann Ariola. We have Small Business Service Commissioner Kevin Kim, we have DOT Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, we have Chief of the Department Jeffrey Maddrey and DEP Commissioner Rit Aggarwala, DOB Commissioner Jimmy Oddo, Parks Commissioner Sue Donoghue, DFTA Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department of Consumer Worker Protection Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga, Department of Probation Commissioner Juanita Holmes, Chief of Staff and Deputy Commissioner of Sanitation Ryan Merola, the Mayor's Office of Asylum Seeker Operations Director Molly Schaeffer, we have HPD First Deputy Commissioner Ahmed Tigani, Mayor's Office of Climate Environmental Justice Executive Director Elijah Hutchinson, EDC Senior Vice President Leonard Greco, NYCHA Vice President of Operations Cesar Gonzalez, New York City Emergency Management Assistant Commissioner Ira Tannenbaum, Fire Department Chief George Healy. And of course from the Police Department, besides being joined at every table by community affairs and commanding officers of Queens Patrol Borough South, we have the commanding officer, Chief Williams, we have from the leadership, besides Chief Maddrey, we have Chief of Patrol John Chell, Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry, Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Tarik Sheppard, and we have the commanding Officer of the 102nd Precinct, the home precinct for Woodhaven, Deputy Inspector Jeremy Kivlin, and we have NYPD Chief of Community Affairs Richard Taylor, as well as Sanitation Borough Chief Ignazio Azzara and Queens 9 Garage Superintendent Tommy in [inaudible] and Borough Commissioner Ira Gluckman from DOB. At this time, the run of show, we will have Jenifer Rajkumar, our assemblymember, Joann Ariola, our councilmember and then the mayor speak. State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar:Good evening, Woodhaven. They call me the Democrat from Woodhaven. I am your state Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar and I am so proud to be the first representative in an entire generation that lives in Woodhaven and that is from Woodhaven. But I have to tell you, when I first ran for this office, people told me, Jenifer, you're a nice girl, but you have no shot. But we won by the largest margin of any challenger in this entire state, and we got more people from Woodhaven to the polls than ever before, energizing our neighborhood. And tonight, we're making history once again, because we have the first ever mayoral town hall here, right here in Woodhaven. So, this is definitely history. So, Woodhaven Historical Society, take note. So, anything is possible from here in Woodhaven. When my parents first settled into this country, my mom, having been born in a mud hut in India, my parents coming here with $300 in a suitcase, settling in South Queens, they raised me with the belief that anything is possible. And that is why you see me at PS 060, the Woodhaven School, PS 097, Rosa Parks School, speaking at every fifth grade graduation, because I want all of the kids of Woodhaven to know that anything is possible from here in Woodhaven if they put their mind to it. And that is my a hundred percent commitment. To live here in Woodhaven is to know the beauty of Woodhaven. And since the whole world was watching tonight, I want people to know, Woodhaven is one of the top five neighborhoods in this entire city. Everyone in this room knows the beauty of a winter day on Jamaica Avenue. Everyone here knows the experience of being at Neir's Tavern, the oldest bar in New York City. We know what it's like to buy Valentine's gift at Schmidt's Candy, the historic store. These are our experiences being in Woodhaven. I am blessed to live on Park Lane South, overlooking the beautiful Forest Park. Every morning I wake up to the sound of birds, and I thank God that you gave me this opportunity to serve you every day as your elected leader. Now, as residents of Woodhaven, we face common challenges together. When I knocked on all of your doors, the number one concern that came up and the number one concern that came up tonight was public safety. We want to feel safe, and that is why I was proud to host the largest ever public safety talent hall in Woodhaven history right here in the Woodhaven Manor. I want to thank all the top NYPD brass who came and made sure that we could talk directly to them. In the name of public safety, I'm working to shut down all the illegal smoke shops proliferating across our neighborhood. And that is why I was proud to introduce and author the SMOKEOUT Act, which will allow New York City to shutter all these illegal smoke shops very quickly. We had an illegal smoke shop pop up right near the Elizabeth Blackwell School. These shops are hotbeds of crime, and we will not allow them to continue. And I'm very hopeful that in Albany, we're going to see the SMOKEOUT passed very, very soon. Next, e-bikes. I'm working on the problem of e-bike safety, because last year we had a record number of deaths due to e-bikes injuries, and lithium ion battery fires that caused deaths. That is why I've introduced two bills in Albany that will regulate e-bikes by requiring them to have license plates, insurance and inspection, so we can finally take care of these public safety issues. I want to thank Mayor Eric Adams, because we share a similar vision for New York City, one where everybody is safe, one where everybody can reach their full potential, a vision where Woodhaven matters and where every corner of this city matters. And we share a common method, which is working 24/7 for the people of this city. So, Mayor Adams, thank you for bringing all of your top deputies here to my hometown of Woodhaven. Thank you for bringing your A team here to the people; and most of all, thank you, people of Woodhaven, for everything you do for my heart every single day. Thank you. City Councilmember Joann Ariola:Thank you, everyone. Thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight. It really is wonderful to see such a large crowd, and it's really great that you now get to see each and every person that we deal with when we come to your meetings and you come to us to address your issues. Now, as a Republican, when I won this seat, I only represented a portion of Woodhaven. And then after the lines were redrawn, I was proud to take on all of Woodhaven, because Woodhaven deserved one representative in the City Council. Yes. And as a Republican running for this seat, there weren't very many people who believed in me, but this lovely lady in red right here, she believed in me. The people in this room believed in me and voted for me, and I won with 68 percent of the vote. As the assemblymember said, public safety was one of the platforms that we ran on, with public safety, quality of life and education. They remain the top three today. That's why I'm so happy to see people like Iggy Azzara from Sanitation and Ryan Merola from Sanitation, and we have people from DEP here, and where's [Jackie], Sue? You have wonderful representation here in Queens. These are the people we work with every day. Each and every one of the borough commissioners, each and every one of their directors, they're so responsive. You should be very proud. I had a conversation with Rit earlier, with Jimmy. We are people who know how to work across the aisle. We are people who understand that it's not about your party, it's about the issues that are affecting the community. That's what matters. But leadership comes from the top. And that's why I thank Mayor Adams, because no matter what, he sits with us from the Common Sense Caucus. We're nine in the Common Sense Caucus, and yet with all that's going on in the city, you make time. You make to listen to us, to see what's necessary, what we are hearing. We are the ears on the ground. Also, I love working with Fred Kreizman from Community Affairs Unit. Now, I don't want to date myself, but I had the great pleasure of working with Fred when I was at Community Assistance Unit, which what it was used to be called, and it is a wonderful arm of the mayor's office, because once we pick up the phone to CAU, we know that it's going to reach the ears of the administration. There has never been a more available administration than the Adams administration. We're able to get in touch with each commissioner and have a relationship. Every borough commissioner, every single member of the department, the NYPD, DSNY, it doesn't matter. Everyone wants to do their job. And we didn't have that for the prior eight years, but that's what was brought through this administration. Yes, I know the tagline is Getting Stuff Done, right? But in order to get stuff done, we have to have people who want to do the job. And each and every person from NYPD and any other city agency that's sitting here wants to do their job and does it well. Thank you very, very much. We've had a lot go on, and I want to give my condolences to the NYPD, because they've been through a lot over the last number of days. And yet here they are, still showing up, still being strong. And we want you to know that we still support the NYPD wholeheartedly. And we know that we have your support. So, again, I want to say thank you. I want to say thank you to my incredible staff, Phyllis Inserillo, my chief of staff, for partnering to put all this together. It doesn't happen with just one person. And we're only as good as the people that work for us, and anyone at this table will tell you that. So, to the CEOs from my commands in the 104, the 102, the 106 and the 100th, I say thank you to everything that you are doing to make sure that we stay safe. God bless everyone, and I'm looking forward to a wonderful interaction. Again, thank you, Mayor Adam. Mayor Eric Adams:Thank you. So, if we could just take a moment, a moment of silence for Jonathan. To lose that young man is really horrific. And just looking at the video, and his entire team, impacted us all as well as his family, his wife and his baby. You know, we lost one of our heroes, so we could just take a moment of silence. [Moment of Silence.] Thank you very much. Just want to give two fun facts before we open up. One, I was on the last J train that stopped before they tore down the L going to 167th Street. I remember riding it, and they said, this is the last stop, we're tearing it down. All the way up to, I think, Sutphin Boulevard, they tore it down. Number two, I hung out in this place so much… Back in the day when it was called Cordon Blue. This was my spot. You know, we had so many dinner dances, so many events. You know, I can tell you the recipe of that chicken like it was yesterday. You know, spent a lot of time here. And this has been a mainstay for so many years, so many meetings, so many gatherings, so many weddings. But what's interesting and I think Councilwoman Ariola and Assemblywoman Rajkumar stated, not too many mayors can say that. Not too many mayors can talk about the days of riding the J train, of being in Woodhaven. Not too many mayors can talk about going to PS 140, IS8, Bayside High School. Not too many mayors can talk about what we went through, those of us who lived in these bedrock communities. And we came with the hope and energy and aspiration that the next generation would do just a little better. That's what I bring to City Hall. Think about it for a moment. January 1st, 2022, what were we doing? Covid took and engulfed this entire city. Tourism, no one wanted to come to our city. No jobs were coming. Crime was trending, 40 percent increase in crime. No one wanted to be on our subway system. Our children were not being educated at the qualitative level that we expected. We abandoned NYCHA for the most part. Our police officers were having water poured on their heads as they walked down the block. That was the city we were in. Motorcycles, up and down the block. Scooters everywhere. Two years and three months later, let's look at the numbers. More jobs we reached at one point private sector and public sector in the city's history. Crime is down, shootings are down, homicides are down in double digits. Five of our seven major categories are down. Our children are outpacing the state and reading and writing. Dyslexia screening in our schools so we can prevent criminal behavior and not wait for it to happen, 30 to 40 percent of those who are at Rikers Island are dyslexic. Bond raters, international finance industries that analyze cities in how well they are running raised our bond rating because of what we're doing. 62 million tourists back in the city. Over 4.1 million people ride our subway system every day. You are seeing a recovery beyond anyone's belief. They said it was going to take us four to five years. We did it in two years and three months. Not only cycling us out of Covid, but how about 180,000 migrant and asylum seekers that was dropped in our city, 1.5 the size of Albany in our city, without any help from the federal government. They wanted to reimburse us $13 a night for hotel rooms. You can't get a knob on a hotel door for $13 a night. And we did it. Not one child or family sleeps on the streets in this city. Go Google other cities, folks. See what's happening in other cities and what is happening here. Even with all the challenges that we are facing, this city has recovered and will continue to recover. There's more to do, but we're doing it. We have three major problems that I have to keep saying over and over again. We have a recidivist problem. The two individuals who were in that car were arrested repeatedly. One of them was just arrested in April from a gun charge and he was back in the street. We're seeing this over and over and over again. Number two, we have a mental health problem, an extreme mental health, those who cannot take care of themselves and we have been pushing over and over again to get them the care that deserve, particularly involuntary removal that will allow us to get them the help and the wraparound services they deserve. We're asking Albany to assist us to make sure that we can get it done. Number three, we have random acts of violence that is playing on your psyche. And people are given the impression that the City of New York is out of control. We are not. We're resilient. We are families. And you could be beat down over and over again with a lie and you will believe it. And people say, Eric, well, that's how people feel. Don't keep saying that the city's not out of control because people are going to say, you are not in touch. I'm not going to deny the reality just because people want me to be popular on what the right thing to say. This city is functioning better than any city in America. This is the safest big city in America based on all analysis of cities. The numbers are clear, and we have the finest police department on the globe, finest police department on the globe. All of my colleagues across the globe reach out and ask me, how are you guys doing it? When you leave here tonight, I want you to go and Google other big cities and see what's happening here. We made a commitment. All encampments would be off the streets of the city of New York. We carried it out. We made a commitment to go after the mopeds and the motorcycles that were illegally moving around city, we've taken thousand off the streets. We made a commitment to go after the paper plates that were being used in robberies. We made a commitment to close the illegal smoke shops. And that's why we're asking Albany, give us the power to do the job. If I had the power to do the job, I would close down every smoke shop illegal in the city within 30 days. I need the power. Let us run our city. We know how, and we've proven that. That J train, I know it well because I was a transit cop and I rode it from eight at night to four a.m. in the morning. It was called APs at the time. We had two hours mandatory overtime. So, we went from eight at night to six a.m. in the morning, during the eighties, '84, '85. I was joined by now commissioner, Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, who retired as a detective, Assistant Commissioner Lamona [inaudible]. All of these blue collar people are part of this administration, folks. And this is a blue collar community, and you got a blue collar mayor that's ready to answer your blue collar question. [Yelling.] Mayor Adams:And we get that all the time. So, we want turn it. They got it, they got it. We don't need everybody. Hold on, officer. They got it. They got it. Listen, tell me something. Can you all read my hat? [Laughter.] That's right. Stay focused, no distractions and grind. Stay focused, no distractions and grind. All that is to pull us off focus. We have to stay focused. My goal is to move this city forward. So, all of that yelling and screaming, I tell people all the time, when you've been yelled and screamed as a child and being bullied as a child so much because you're dyslexic, when people yell at me now, I say, that's all you got? Say you better come better than that. So, let's open up the floor to some questions and get some feedback from this great community in Woodhaven. Commissioner Kreizman:Table Number 1. Question:Good evening. Mayor Adams:Good evening. Question:Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Thank you. My question is about the sanitation regulation. I've lived in Woodhaven since 1968 and I have never seen a rat. Why are single-family homeowners being put through so many hoops to put out their trash after eight p.m. and only in covered bins, not plastic bags. Working families on our block can't retrieve their trash pails because they're out advertising that no one is home, an invitation to burglars. Can regulations be revised for specific neighborhoods or structures such as religious holidays, winter hours and senior citizen considerations? Thank you. Mayor Adams:Thank you. And I know she's biting at the bit to get up and talk about it. Where's my... Commissioner Kreizman:Ryan Merola. Mayor Adams:You know, so first let me say this. I hate rats. And the number one thing that rats love is plastic bags. We will never get rid of rats in this city if we continue to have black plastic bags on the street. That's the all-you-can- eat buffet for rats. And those of us who remember, we were never a city of plastic bags. It was during the sanitation strikes of the sixties that we all of a sudden started to permit ourselves to use them. So, what we are saying, like every other modern city on the globe, we're saying, let's containerize our garbage. Let's put our garbage in containers. It's cleaner, it's neater, it doesn't allow rats to get inside that. We changed the hours because we found that when we had earlier hours, the garbage remained on the street in plastic bags for a long period of time and that led to the rodent problem. We have... Where's my rat czar? Is my rat czar here? Commissioner Kreizman:We have Ryan Merola. Mayor Adams:Okay. My rat czar did a complete analysis, and we were able to see we had a reduction in rat mitigation zone, a reduction in rat complaints throughout citywide. We knew we had to take the garbage off our streets. And right now, as anything change, any change is challenging and difficult. But trust me, when you start to see your streets lined with bins and not bags, you're going to all of a sudden say, you know what? Maybe I don't dislike Eric. Maybe he had the right call to do so. We've got to get our garbage off the streets. This was a smart thing that Commissioner Tisch has done; and in the long run, we are going to have a cleaner, better city because we're going to have a clean city, and I'm pushing to make sure the city's the cleanest city in America. Commissioner Kreizman:Question number two. Table Number 2. Right over here. Mayor Adams:How are you? Question:Very good. How are you doing? Mayor Adams:Good to see you. Grab the mic. Question:Oh, okay. My name's Ed, and I'm a lifelong resident of Woodhaven and I love it here. I love this community. It's got beautiful homes, beautiful history. We've got great representation and great residents. I look around this room and I know a lot of people here and I really like everybody here. So... Not everybody, but... But it breaks my heart when I see so many for sale signs and I talk to so many people that, just say they've had enough. I know you say people are less frightened, but that's not what I hear when I talk to the people in this room. I hear them nervous when they see what's going on around the city. When you say we have a recidivist problem, that's very frightening because we see it happen time and time again. And I guess what I want to know is, why should we stay? What is our plan going forward to really resolve those problems that you mentioned right there: recidivism and you said we have a mental issue with people in the streets. What is our plan to do that to make our city safer? Mayor Adams:No, no, no. Without a doubt, listen, safety is a prerequisite to prosperity. I came in and stated that that's what I was going to run on and we saw the results of that. Number one, why should you stay is because everyone in Miami wishes they didn't ever left New York City. This is the greatest city on the globe, but bar none. And everyone says it over and over again. And you're seeing that we're constantly making it safer and safer every day. We're not where we want to be, and we want to be clear on that. But when you look at the numbers, we have 500, I think 570, correct me if I'm wrong, Chief Chell. We have 500 and I think 75 people who committed 7,500 crimes in the city. Think about that, 575 people who committed shoplifting, committed over 7,000 crimes in the city. We had 38 people who assaulted transit workers committed over 1,100 crimes in our city. So, we are doing our job, but there are other layers to the criminal justice system, our courts, our prosecutor, the lawmakers, everyone must be part of the public safety apparatus. So, we have moved back in place of doing even theft of service arrest. The other day we caught a guy hopping over the turnstile, had a nine millimeter gun in his pocket. The person who did that shooting the other day on the A train, he hopped a turnstile to come into the system. And so I came from the policing era where you don't allow any crime to take place in the city. There's no such thing as, well, let's just turn our back and allow those crimes to take place. We have to go back to the basics of making sure we get those quality of life issues. Everything from the illegal mopeds that Assemblywoman Rajkumar talked about to those who are committing these theft of service or committing the shoplifting over and over again. What our voices must do, it's not run from our city, it's just ask every layer of the criminal justice system, do your job, do your job. The police are doing their job. Everyone must do their job to make sure the city continues to be the safest big city in America. Question:Good evening, mayor... Mayor Adams:How are you? Question:...and Woodhaven. One thing is known is we always call this the haven in the city. You kind of elaborated little bit on this already, but how can we go about giving the power back to our officers and reduce crime and change bail reform? Mayor Adams:Yes. When people talk about the recidivist issue, that's an important question you raised, there was other parts of the criminal justice reform that's very impactful. One of the huge problems is the problem around discovery. The amount of information district attorneys must turn over to the defense attorney, the insignificant part of it, it is inundating DAs with their ability to prosecute these cases, and they got this additional responsibility without the resources and funding that they deserve. And so and this is something I really want communities like this to understand. We have a long-term public safety crisis on the horizon. We're losing correction officers who are aging out. They had those large classes many years ago. Now we're losing a substantial number of them and we find almost 80 percent of our correction officers retire after 20 years. So, we don't have no one taking a new test. We have a shortage of school safety agents. We have a shortage of police officers coming into the department. We have a shortage of probation officers coming in. We have a shortage of district attorneys because they're inundated with so much paperwork. All the DAs are saying, we can't recruit anymore. The foundation of public safety are all of these entities, and if you don't have people taking the job because they believe they're no longer being respected by having the job, you are going to have a real void in our public safety apparatus. And we have to really recognize what long-term. Deputy Mayor Banks sat down with me the other day and did an analysis and he says, Eric, we're having a real pipeline problem of law enforcement that can erode the public safety apparatus in the city. That's why we are doing these hiring halls to hire more people to come in. But what we must do is send a serious message that the laws we pass cannot get in the way of preventing the public safety that we want in this city. And that's what the city wants. You talk to the average person. I come to a meeting like this and I think this is our 25th, 26th hiring halls or something like 17 senior adult halls. I have not went to one meeting throughout my entire political life where people said to me, we don't want more cops. But the loudest in the city, they give the impression that they want to disband, defund and do everything to take away the powers of our police officers. That is not what we are saying in this city. The numerical minority have hijacked the narrative of this city and they're doing things that I believe is eroding the public safety in our city. We have to now raise our voices and say, this is what we want in our city and how we want our city to run and we want to be safe. And so when you look at some of these laws that are passed, when you look at some of the actions that are being taken, it is clearly in conflict what everyday New Yorkers want in the city. But when you have such a small number of people coming out to vote, then the numerical minority are able to push through their agenda. We have to have a... If we want to change this initiative, we have to have a massive voter registration campaign and deployment of people to come out and speak with their ballot and not allow people to speak on their behalf. This stuff that's been passed and pushed through is nowhere in alignment with what you want in these communities and communities like this. That's how we stop many of these things from happening in real time. Question:[Inaudible] Mayor? Mayor Adams:How are you? Question:Good evening, Mayor Adams. Thank you for hosting this event. Mayor Adams:Thank you. Question:As you can tell, we are concerned about our safety, the safety of our neighborhoods. In this table, we are particularly worried about the safety of our children. So, we would like to know what is your plan to increase more safety agents in our schools...in our local schools? Mayor Adams:School safety agents, school safety agents. Question:School safety agents. Mayor Adams:Yes, yes. You know, when I ran for office, just about every candidate that was running committed to, if they were elected, they were going to take school safety agents out of the school. And I said, that's not going to happen under my watch. Our children are going to be safe. When we had our youth town halls, one of the number one things though, young people stated outside of getting support around mental health issues, they wanted to have a better relationship with their police officers and they wanted their school safety ages. But adults who don't attend schools, they're talking about taking the school safety ages out of schools. That's not what the children want. We have a shortage of school safety agents. The chancellor, many people don't know, was a school safety agent. And we need to recruit more to come into the system. We want to put more in the school. Some of our schools only have, particularly the elementary, only have one school safety agent. We need more agents and we would love for a room like this to tell folks in the community to be part of our hiring halls to get people to be hired, to come in. We want more school safety agents. I know we... Did we put a school in, Dan, a class in? First Deputy Chancellor Dan Weisberg, Department of Education :Yes. I think we've had two classes in the last few months start. So, we're getting momentum. The numbers are up compared to when the mayor came into office, but still not recovered to where they were at their height. So, we got ways to go. Mayor Adams:So, we need more. We need more. So, you know, we should look to have a hiring hall in this area to encourage people to come into these careers. I settled 94 percent of our union contracts because we wanted to pay our union employees, our 300,000 plus employees, a better salary to make it more attractive. But I'm with you. I'm happy every time I see a school safety agent. And they're more than security. Those school safety agents know every child. They nurture them, they care about them. They know when they have problems at home. They come and talk to them if there's an issue. We get so much information from someone that goes to school safety agent about an issue that happens around the school. So, I'm with you. We need more. Question:Thank you. Commissioner Kreizman:Table Number 5. Question:Good evening. Welcome... Mayor Adams:How are you? Question:Good, thank you. Welcome, Mayor Adams and your administration. Thank you for coming out tonight. And the general consensus on this table is also public safety and our concern is with retail store robberies. What initiatives are we going to take in regards to that? Mayor Adams:We have been placed... First of all, I should have said it from the beginning, you know, give this team, you know, they are an amazing team of people. We could just give them a round of applause coming out tonight. They work hard. And let me tell you something, it is hard working for me. You know, I tell them all the time, if I were you, I would not be working for me, you know. You know, so the young lady, where you goin', Sister? You asked the question, you're bouncing? You know, we put in place the shoplifting task force under Deputy Mayor Banks because we found, we started to do an analysis and we found there were so many repeated offenders. There were people who were arrested 40, 50 times for shoplifting, just going in, doing what they want, coming out and just able to do it again. Now, we also found the correlation between those who were shoplifting and those who were using drugs and those who had severe mental health illnesses. So, when you start to look at those three things I talked about at the beginning- again, severe mental health illnesses to the point you can't take care of yourself; recidivism. You're seeing that repeated theme over and over again. We came together with some of the top stores and some of those small stores and we sat down and put in place several initiatives of, who am I going to talk to? Chell, or Kaz, how are we doing shoplifting numbers after we did the initiative? Do we have the shoplifting numbers in the city? You got it, Maddrey, or one of them? Chief John Chell, Chief of Patrol, Police Department:All right, so shoplifting in the city, we're down in 2023, we have a slight increase in 2024. But to the mayor's point, we're going after those 575 people who've been locked up 7,000 times. Think about a city of eight and a half million people, we're talking about 575 people. If we could deal with those people properly through a process of the stakeholders to do their jobs and take them off the street, you'll have a drastic decline in shoplifting. We do a lot of outreach for our crime prevention units to go to these stores. We sat down with the supermarket association to go over how the cameras are placed, how they should deal with shoplifters. We have a program in the 46 Precinct, as simple as this sounds, the store owners are texting the detectives and calling the cops' phones real time. To avoid 911 sometimes, we get really busy and we got better response times. That's a pilot program we're pushing out throughout the city to go after the retail theft and bring that number down. So, we have a lot of things working, and we got that number down this year, we got it down last year, and more programs are coming. Mayor Adams:And one of the most, one of the one things that people overlook when people say, well, why are you bothering people who are shoplifting? You know, you have Miss Jones who is an older adult who uses the local Duane Reade in her neighborhood, that Duane Reed closed down. This elder was telling me in Harlem, you know, the Duane Reade closed down. She couldn't get her medication. She had to get on a bus to travel outside her community. And so when you allow the profits to be impacted by shoplifting, when you're losing jobs when they closed down, several chains have closed down in our city and other cities, we see, we are witnessing this taking place across the entire country. But right here we're zeroing in on it. It's a real issue. We have too many repeated offenders. And as the chief stated, we want to focus on those repeated offenders and have a real partnership with the district attorney and the judges and say, this person keeps coming out over and over committing the crime. Now, we want to find out, what is your issue, man? What's your issue? If it's a drug issue, we want to go to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and give them the support. If you're dealing with severe mental health, we want to do that. If it's employment, you need to get to one of these hiring halls and get a job. You know, so we don't want to just lock you up, and we can put you on the right course to stop you from committing the crime in the first place. Commissioner Kreizman:Table Number 6. Question:Hi, good evening. Mayor Adams:How are you? Good to see you. Question:Fine, thanks. Good to see you. Thanks for coming. Mayor Adams:Thank you. Question:[Inaudible] so important here in our neighborhood. If the changes come, we'll feel even more important, but okay. Got a little two-part question for you. Mayor Adams:Yes. Question:First, great question from our table is, what is our plan for decreasing low-level crime that improves the quality of life? And we're still waiting to see, and we're looking forward to getting to know all our policemen, police women through that walking the beat program. We haven't seen too many of them yet, but we're willing to welcome you all to our neighborhoods. We want to see you guys. So, those are our two questions. Mayor Adams:Yes. Yes, yes. Well, I think that the... Yes, you have that, Chief Maddrey? Chief Jeffrey Maddrey, Chief of Department, Police Department:Good evening. Mayor Adams:Chief Maddrey just took the bar exam, you know. Let's hope you become a lawyer, man. So, we can have a lawyer we finally like. Chief Maddrey:Let me make sure I get both parts of your question again. And first and foremost, I want to just say thank you to everybody in this room, first and foremost, for the support of this department. As you all know, we lost a bright young officer two days ago, and it was right here in this patrol borough, Queens South, under the direction and the leadership of our Chief Kevin Williams. Very hurtful. This department is going through a lot of pain right now. But we're still mission conscious, and we knew we had to be here to address the good people of Woodhaven and this community. But just thank you for all your support. So, in terms of low-level crime, that's something we've for years have been addressing, quality of life concerns, shoplifting, low-level, any kind of low-level. It starts with our field deployment, all right? Chief Mike Lipetri, our Chief of Crime Control Strategies. You will always hear him say it: our number one crime-fighting tool is field deployment. Putting out our young officers, putting out our neighborhood coordination officers, doing administrative all-outs to put cops along the business corridors in any places we're having problems, that is our number one crime-fighting tool. And we instruct our officers, you address everything. I'm not saying you have to lock everybody up, but you should address the situation. Let people know that, hey, we are aware. We're taking names. This better not happen again. If there's enough reason to say, all right, this is something we can use discretion with; if not, they go in for an arrest. They get a summons. They get a desk appearance ticket. If they have to go through the system, we'll do that. But that is our number one crime-fighting strategy, field deployment. Our commanders come down every week. We talk about what's going on in the neighborhood, whether it's a heavy crime, a pattern, or quality of life, 311 offenses. We hold them accountable. We expect them to address it. And coming to meetings like this, hearing specific things, like I'm answering a general question, but we like to hear specific things, like, hey, we have a problem on this corner, we have this, we have that. That's what your monthly community council meetings, community council meetings are for. You go to the commander and you speak about low level things you see in the neighborhood, no one knows the neighborhood better than you. You tell the commander what's going on, community affairs, the neighborhood coordination officer and we'll address it. And if the problem is that bad, don't wait for the community council meeting. You reach out to the command right away and say, hey, listen, we've got a problem here. We can't wait two weeks for the community council meeting. We need this addressed right now. And the command should do that. So, as the neighborhood coordination officers, the beat officers, it's still part of our philosophy. It is our philosophy, going into communities and getting to know people. Now, I'll admit, we kind of lost our way a little bit. We kind of lost our way a little bit. But I assure you that we're putting a lot of energy to bring the program back to what it was meant to be. Going into the communities, talking to the people, addressing to the people. Addressing to the people. I see Chief of Patrol John Chell's already, because I've been jumping on him about this the last two or three weeks, like John, Neighborhood Coordination Officers Program, because I've been to a couple of meetings and people jumped on me and I'm like, John, we got… [Laughter.] Chief Chell:In the Police Department all goes down... Chief Maddrey:I'm not pushing it off on him. I'm not pushing it off on him, but he is the chief of patrol, and he's in charge of the 77 precincts that we have. So... And if anybody knows John Chell, he likes the camera, he likes to talk, so I'm going to let him have a little talk time. But the Neighbor Coordination Officers Program, the Neighbor Coordination Philosophy is the department's philosophy, and our job is to get to know people, to work closely with the people. If you're not seeing them, if you don't have a relationship with your NCO, then we have to fix that and change that. So, we'll make sure we do that. I'll let the chief of patrol, he can't help himself. I call him one-take Drake. Chief Chell:I don't... Chief Maddrey:...because he wants to... Chief Chell:I don't know what happened right there but I feel like I'm in trouble. All right, I'm just going to give you two quick quality of life stats, 30 seconds. And the two biggest complaints we get, I think we can agree, throughout the city with quality of life is those ghost cars, those mopeds and smoke shops, right? Those are two complaints, no matter where you live in the city, we keep hearing over and over all the time. Just two quick stats. In the last two years, our commitment and our mandate from our mayor and our police commissioner, our chief of department is take care of these bikes and these ghost cars. Very dangerous business, it's hard work, but in the last two-plus years, we're approaching a combination of mopeds, those ATVs, those ghost cars, those plate covers driving all over [inaudible] boulevard like it's like a circus out there, we're approaching 56,000 removed from the city from the streets. And what's so good about this is under the mayor here, his demand that the agencies work together get this done. So, that's not just us, that's DOT, that's the sheriff as other Agencies in the city getting that 56,000 number right now, and we're going to press really hard for the summer. Number two, smoke shops. In 2022, we had about 1,200 and change, now there are about 2,500. In 2022, we didn't have any nuisance abatements, civil court litigation to close these stores. Right now we have about 665 pending to shut these stores down. So, just a marked improvement of what we're doing. And again, the sheriff, sheriff [inaudible] has got the lead on that and we assist the sheriff. But collectively, we're working together, and I believe the sheriff has issued about $52 million worth of civil court fines. So, the effort is there and we're not going to stop. Assistant Commissioner Kaz Daughtry Police Department:Mayor, let me just add into that real quick, and I'm going to pass it to my partner, Mark. But there's a lot of programs that Commissioner Stewart's going to talk about that involve our youth that the police department does. I joined the Explorer Program and met this crazy cop... Crazy! But he stood at my behind to make sure I did well and stay out of trouble. And you want to know where that cop is at right now? Right there. He was my youth officer over 30 years ago. So, there's a lot of programs, especially, I love the Explorer Program because I'm a product of the Explorer Program and what you're supposed to do when you join the Explorers. For Explorers, to Cadets, to police officer. But under Mark Stewart, Commissioner Stewart, he has a ton of programs that I think that the community doesn't know that they deal with kids. And I'm just, and Mark, I spoke to your earlier, a couple days ago. We're going to implement the drone programs so that kids learn how to fly drones for free. And we're going to pay for their FAA 107 license that they can get through the FAA. So, there's a lot of things that this department is doing for our youngsters. And you have to log on and follow us on our Twitter, log on to the Community Affairs page. Reach out to the NCOs, because they have all of this stuff in their smartphones. Thank you. Mayor Adams:And as he stated, Commissioner Stewart, who is the commissioner of Community Affairs, he could speak for himself, but he has transformed Community Affairs from the aviation training, teaching our children how to be pilots. There's just so much he's doing, because we want to be proactive, because you said something that resonated. I hope we all heard what you said. Our cops need to walk that beat again. They need to park. They need to say hello. They need to interact. You know, that whole interaction, we want to get back to that. And our NCO officers, if you don't know your NCO officer, that's a big problem. You know, I don't want an NCO officer that is not engaging. They need to be proactive, engaging, and we need to really have a conversation about that, because people should know their NCO officer, and you should go into your seniors program that you're doing. But Commissioner Stewart has rarely transformed the Community Affairs. Why don't you go into some of the stuff you're doing? Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department:Good evening. Detective Cruz, where are you? Stand up. Does anybody know him? [Laughter.] Does anybody know a Detective Cruz? Well, we gotta speak later, then. He's the Community Affairs officer in the 102. You should know him. Before this night is over, please get his cell phone number. No, I'm serious. Because when I call over there, I want to make sure that he knows you. And we're talking about reaching out and beat cops, right? When you sit here, if there's a problem in your community, you could walk into the precinct. You don't have to wait for a City Council meeting. If there's a problem, we have to know about it so we could address it. Our Community Affairs officers, you could walk right in there and just speak to them. We have with Commissioner Vázquez, we started an older aging for older aging adults. In every precinct, in the housing precinct, there's a Community Affairs officer assigned to assist you. And that's resources that's going to your apartment or going to your homes. If there's a problem, you don't have to go to the precinct. I had a call today, 10 precinct, where are you? I just went to a woman's home, she was assaulted. We send the cops out there to make sure that you're safe, our older aging adults. Commissioner Vásquez and I, we got this program done in six months. So, these town halls are good, because you know what happens? It's information that you gather and we gather. And for our kids, I really have a two-part, it's a combination, it's how do we get the kids and how do we retain the kids. Sports is good. Under Commissioner Holmes, she started up a good program, it's called Blue Chips. In every precinct, they have baseball, basketball, football, and we just started a golf, too, for our kids. That's good, but not every kid plays sports. So, now what do we have? I started up an aviation program. And I don't want to say I, I want to say we, because it's the police department. We started an aviation program. It's for six weeks, two days a week. We have 15 kids who graduated. We have to put in our kids' minds that they can see to be pilots, dream to be pilots, but it has to be in their mind. Drone program, we have a soccer drone, and it's a program that these kids could learn how to work drones and fix drones. We have a baby shower that the mayor loves. And no, it's good. We go to every borough. Prenatal care. We give gifts, packages. We have over 100 vendors who participate in this program in every borough. Last year, we registered over 6,000 people that we were able to help out. ESL program, our Latino in our neighborhoods, we teach them how to speak English. It's very important that we reach out and you are aware of all these programs. But the thing is, we're having a problem with marketing, especially to our younger kids. We recently found out that we weren't that cool. These young kids are not going on and say, Yo, let me check out the NYPD page and see what's going on. So, Commissioner Howard and I, we got together and we got an influencer, a younger kid, and he's going to help us reach other younger kids, because our 19,000 is not doing it to his 80,000. So, we have a lot of programs in store. But you know what happened? We have to realize, too, with these programs, they're good, but [you know] what's missing with our kids? It's conversation, the conversation. I came from NYCHA. Nothing special. Went to Queens, grew up in Queens in Laurelton. But I was born in Brooklyn. And I've got to let these kids know, it's not where you start, it's where you finish. Everybody says it takes a village. We are the village. There's no reason why kids should be out in the street at 2:30 in the morning with a gun. And now let's come back to the same question, where are the parents? Where are the parents? Where's big mama? Mommy's have everybody in the house, lights on in the house. We don't have that. You know, I think we're partying too much like with our kids. So, we're going to do our best on the police department to make sure our kids are safe. And that's our job, and that's why all of us are here today. Thank you. Mayor Adams:Thank you. Thank you. So, we're going to really, you inspired, you inspired. So, Chief, you really inspired that we have to, we've got to get back to that saying hello, walking that beat, not just driving through but just spending some time and really understanding the community. You're dead on, you're 100 percent right. And so, you're going to see a visible change, so let's really lean into that, chiefs, to make sure we do that. How are you, sir? Question:I'm doing well. Good evening, Mayor Adams. Good evening to everyone that's here and made this event possible. We appreciate you. And you know, it's an honor to be at the first town hall in Woodhaven. It's definitely an honor. I'm a leader in my local church right here. It's just two blocks away, Hope Evangelistic Center. So, I'm happy and proud to be here you know and be in the midst of you all. But on behalf of Table 7. We had a question revolving our local park. It's the Forest Park Tennis Court and it's been closed for about 10-plus years. It's located on Park Lane South, and it's been vacant and it's been locked up to the community for like I said, 10-plus years. And this has been 10-plus years that fathers have lost the ability to take their children to that local park and you know, teach them tennis. And it was an active tennis court previously. So, you know, the community at Table 7 passionately believes that this park can be repaired and beautified once again. So, our question is, when can we expect it to be open and available to the community it once served? Mayor Adams:Great. Thank you. Thank you. What's the name of your church again? Question:James. Oh, what was it? Mayor Adams:The name of your church. Question:The name of the church is Hope Evangelistic Center, yes. Mayor Adams:Okay. Question:Thank you. Mayor Adams:First of all, I have the best park commissioner on the globe. She was with us in Brooklyn, and I'm just really happy that she decided to come and join us running our parks. So, talk to me about that, Sue, because that's, 10 years is a long time. Commissioner Sue Donoghue, Department of Parks and Recreation:Yes. Thank you, mayor, and thank you so much for the question. First of all, Forest Park is an amazing park. We love it. It's one that's near and dear to me, and it's a beautiful park with so many amenities. New dog run we're putting there, so many things going on. I must admit, I'm not exactly sure in terms of the tennis, you're speaking specifically about a tennis court within Forest Park. Is that correct? As a tennis court. Question:...part of it is active, part of it is inactive. Commissioner Donoghue:Part of the tennis court is, yes, is that correct? Question:Well, there's a whole, it's not just one court. Commissioner Donoghue:Okay, okay. So, my borough commissioner, Jacqueline Langsam is here. We will absolutely follow up with you right after this meeting and figure out what the situation is with the tennis court. I know we put a lot of resources and a lot of care into Forest Park. It's a really important community amenity. We realize that. It's one that we absolutely love. We'll find out specifically about the tennis court and be back to you for sure. Councilmember Ariola:If I can interject. Mayor Adams:Yes. Yes. Yes, you can. Councilmember Ariola:So, it happens to be our number one ask for the budget this year. Mayor Adams:Okay. Councilmember Ariola:So. Mayor Adams:What is it? What is it? What's the… Councilmember Ariola:Tennis court. Mayor Adams:What's the dollar amount that's needed? Councilmember Ariola: [Keer Grace Donnelly], our budget director, what's the dollar amount? $9 million. Mayor Adams:$9 million. Councilmember Ariola:$9 million. Mayor Adams:So, what is it, the floors are... Councilmember Ariola:Yes, it's the...what do they call it...