[...]
Mayor Eric Adams: I was about to drop the mic.
[Laughter]
Mayor Adams: So really this is a powerful and significant moment for change. Because if you look at the bodies that are here in government from Assemblyman Cymbrowitz to our Council person Narcisse. When you look at our Senator Salazar, Persaud, we don't have to come from the same political ideology, but we have common interests. And no matter which side of a political spectrum you were from, you understood NYCHA could not continue to exist the way it existed. And so it was just so powerful to have the wisdom in the Assembly of Assemblyman Cymbrowitz, who understood this issue to combine with the youthfulness of the Senate. Well, having Senator Salazar coming in with her energy and passion. We were on calls together and she brought people together to explain what this meant and how important it was.
Barbara McFadden, NYCHA Tenant: Yes, we did.
Mayor Adams: You did it.
McFadden: Yes we did.
Mayor Adams: And then to have our Council person-to-be here on the ground in this community and telling them how important this is to get rid of the noise because there were people who are attempting to taint this opportunity as Senator Persaud stated. So this is a moment of showing how we can get stuff done. We can come together and say, "We differ on this, but we are on the same page on that." And so let's put our energies on that so we can win. And then the bottom line is of tenants, you did it. Because none of us would have supported this, if you didn't advocate for it. Let's be clear, if you didn't come to Albany, if you didn't come to City Hall, if you didn't come to the polling ground, this bill would have been DOA.
Mayor Adams: But when they saw your energy, your passion, they saw your willingness to come up to Albany and fight on their behalf, to move the legislation and to resuscitate the legislation based on your conversation, that's your victory. And it's empowering to know that government will work for you. And that's an impressive moment. Now, what does this mean? It means that you now have a choice. You have a menu of items that you could decide on. No one is dictating it to you. Now you are going to decide, do you want it here? You're going to have your protections that you're looking for that all of you are concerned about in the redrafting and rewriting of the legislation to make sure what are your concerns? So that we can draft it correctly. So you're going to have the tenant protection that you deserve. And yes, I walked in many of the apartments, the cabinet issue, the floor issues, the leaking of the pipes issue, the infrastructure issue.
Mayor Adams: And Senator Salazar, you said it the best, those bugles we were hearing that was not the cavalry coming from the federal government, it was [inaudible]. NYCHA was dying. And they kept saying year after year after year, "Well, eventually the federal government is going to bail us out." No, they were not. We had to come up with our own way. And thank you assemblyman for planting that initial seed with Senator Kavanagh and others. We came up with our own way and pushed it over the finish line and it could change the living standard of what NYCHA was. The quality housing that it was.
Mayor Adams: Now, this is only the beginning because we are not going to put money in the bottomless dark hole of NYCHA. We know how money comes in and quality doesn't come with it. So we have an obligation to say in real time, monitoring the success, the improvements to making sure how many cabinets have we redone? How many refridge have we changed? How many stoves have we fixed? How much of the infrastructure? We got to monitor this stuff in real time because if you don't inspect what you expect, it's all suspect.
McFadden: Amen. Come on! Come on, mayor. Come on!
Mayor Adams: So we have to – the game just begun. The game is not over because we were able to get the trust. The game just begun. Now it's time to monitor every dollar that it accomplishes the task that we set out for it to do. Nothing would be more tragic than to bring in all of these dollars and we don't see the results we're looking for. We can't allow that to happen. Don't allow that victory to be lost.
Mayor Adams: And so I just want to thank all of you for your input. And, Jessica, I don't know how many days you spent up in Albany, walking the halls. She believed in it. She has so much commitment and to get it done. This was the partnership that shows we could come together as a city and deal with the inequalities that we have witnessed for so long. A new day, a new way for us to move our city in the right direction. So again, thank you so much. I thank all of these leaders so much.
[...]
Question: Good. I was wondering if you could reflect on what happened in Albany? What do you consider your biggest victory and what is your biggest disappointment that you didn't get done?
Mayor Adams: I am lost when I hear everyone talk about that we didn't have a good year. We had an amazing year. We went to Albany. People said it was impossible to do the stuff we wanted to do around public safety. We moved the needle on those topics. They said we couldn't get childcare. We got childcare. They stated that we couldn't increase the Earned Income Tax Credit. We increased Earned Income Tax Credit. For the homeless issue, we have the bill on hotel conversions. We won the bill on hotel conversion.
Mayor Adams: When you look at speed cameras 24/7, we won the bill on speed cameras 24/7. If that's a losing record, that's a record I would lose at all the time. The only area I'm concerned about is class size. That's the only area. And I'm going to continue to speak with the advocates. I'm going to continue to speak with the leaders there, to make sure we understand how to properly do the class size, that we don't take away from those things we fought for, like pre-K, mental health professionals in school, dyslexia screening.
Mayor Adams: We have a lot of things that the [CFV], when I was there, we fought to get the money for, we need to make sure we don't roll that back by hurting the dollars that are needed. $20 billion in capital, $500 million in staffing allocations. We need to be very careful not to make a mistake. You take class size off the table, I had a darn year and I want to thank those colleagues in Albany who were up there and fought on behalf of these issues that everyday New Yorkers needed.
[Crosstalk]
Question: [Inaudible].
Mayor Adams: No, I want us to continue to have a conversation so we can get it right. And we had many conversations with the UFT, many conversations with our lawmakers. We just want them to really understand we are in a real financial crisis in the city and we have to make sure we get the best bang for our buck. So the governor's going to do her assessment. And we're going to continue to speak with our leaders up there and our electors up there.
Mayor Adams: But this has been a banner season for me. When you start looking up the Ws and you start looking at the one L, it's a banner season. Now some people say, "Well, you didn't get four years of mayor control, mayor accountability." So what? I got two years. I could show my game. I could show my stuff. By the time we do our thing, we are going to get the years we want. If it's two years, four years, we still have it. But I really wish we would've got that also.
[Crosstalk]
Question: A man was charged this week with the murder of a Chinese deliveryman. Cops were eyeing him for about a month. So what's your response to the police handling of the case and also how long it took to charge him?
Mayor Adams: Well, I'm not sure what you said, they were eyeing him, they were watching him-
Question: They were eyeing him for about a month.
Mayor Adams: After?
Question: After the murder.
Mayor Adams: After the murder. So the worst thing you can do is to prematurely arrest someone, get it in the grand jury and have the grand jury state, "You did not have enough evidence." I take my hat off to the thoroughness of those police officers to make sure we had a solid case when we did our apprehension.
Mayor Adams: Many people don't realize, and I want to make sure that people do understand, policing is not the Hill Street Blues, that it goes off in a half an hour. There's a thoroughness to properly investigate a case, make an apprehension so it sticks, so the bad guy doesn't come back out and hurt someone. That was a bad guy. What he did to that deliveryman, he should never get out of jail again. He was a bad guy. He was a mean guy. And I'm so happy the officers made the proper apprehension.
[Crosstalk]
Question: [Inaudible].
Mayor Adams: No, they're not keeping it ... What's that song, "What are all these rumors?" Ignore those rumors, sister, ignore those rumors. That you hear the one about Charlie, you know, what was that? Ignore those rumors. Listen, it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. All groups are going to live together in NYCHA.
Mayor Adams: Thank you, thank you. Give yourselves a hand.
[Applause]
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