Hazel Sanchez: Mayor Eric Adams laid out an ambitious agenda in his State of the City speech.
Dan Mannarino: He called it the Working People's Agenda, said it's going to take a lot of work to what he calls GSD, Get Stuff Done, but that's his motto. Mayor Adams joining us this morning to give us some insight on how he's going to make it all actually happen. Good morning to you, Mr. Mayor. Thanks for being here.
Mayor Eric Adams: Good morning and good to speak with both of you. You're right, Get Stuff Done for the working people of this city. We want housing, care, safety and make sure that jobs comes with that.
Mannarino: Let's talk about that. (...) A big vision though, for a big city, Mr. Mayor. Let's break it down starting with public safety. You're going after New York's most wanted. What exactly does that mean? Is there going to be a task force dedicated to tracking down what you're calling the most wanted, and who are they?
Mayor Adams: Well, 1,700 people are committing a disproportionate amount of crimes in the city. And our goal is to partner with our colleagues in Albany so we can, number one, see the patterns of those who are repeated offenders of serious crimes. We're talking about burglaries, robberies, rapes, homicides. These are bad people and we must ensure that our criminal justice system identify them and ensure that they are off our streets.
Sanchez: Let's talk about your partners in Albany, because bail reform, it's a touchy subject up in Albany. State lawmakers, they're not really crazy about making things stricter, especially Democrats. How are you going to get lawmakers, and more importantly, Governor Hochul, who you are basically calling your partner in crime, so to speak. How are you going to get her to agree with you on this issue?
Mayor Adams: I haven't heard from anyone use that term, partner in crime in a long time. Well first, the first thing I must do is wean us off of bail reform only. That is not the only thing we're looking to do to fix the problem. We have a bottleneck criminal justice system where people are taking too long to get the justice they deserve. And then we must zero in on those repeated offenders. Now, everyone knows I believe in the concept that's known as giving discretion to judges, but if we can't do that, there's so much more we can do, even with the discovery that I talked about. That's a huge burden that defense attorneys and prosecutors state they need funding to do, and I'm going to lean into those things that we agree on.
Mannarino: Part of what you're talking about when it comes to this is safety within the youth. You talked about that last time you were here as you were ringing on that. School safety, a major concern, Mr. Mayor, given the number of guns found in schools and the recent violence at or near schools across the city. We had the chancellor here yesterday talking about how he was going out to Coney Island to talk to a principal there. Now, the South Huntington School District on Long Island, I know it's not New York City, but they voted to hire armed private security guards to patrol outside the schools. I'm just curious what you think of that kind of move and then whether or not something like that should be implemented at certain schools here in New York City.
Mayor Adams: No. What's fascinating is that there are a lot of people who advocate for removing our school safety agents out of schools and also argue that no police officers should be anywhere near a school. There must be a sweet spot in the middle. I don't believe we need armed securities. We have an amazing school safety officers and agents, and we have a Police Department that knows how to balance too. Our schools are safe. We had some unfortunate incidents there and people have been identified, and many of the cases, they have been apprehended. But we have to zero in on this youth on youth violence, particularly gun violence. That's what we talked about, how we see a substantial increase in young people who are shooting and being shot in our city and state.
Sanchez: Safety, one of your four pillars. Also jobs, housing, and healthcare. Healthcare was one of your four pillars. You discussed that you wanted to make New York the first city in the country to provide healthcare for the homeless. How's the city going to pay for that?
Mayor Adams: Well, actually, this is an amazing analysis that my team put in place. Believe it or not, there are ways to do it using federal dollars. For far too long, when it came down to people who were homeless, we were using the emergency room as the primary care. That is too expensive. That is the wrong way to deal with this issue. That's a downstream model. We are an upstream administration and we found a way to use federal dollars to deal with those who are homeless and in need of care, if they're in the shelter for seven or more days. This is, I have to say kudos to the commissioner of Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Dr. Vasan and his team for discovering this.
Mannarino: I want to ask you about housing, but since you're talking about some federal dollars and where it's going, I do want to bring in this conversation of the migrant crisis. You've been on the front lines of the crisis since the buses began arriving last year. You traveled to Texas, Washington D.C., looking for answers, but we didn't hear that much about the asylum seekers in your speech yesterday in terms of where we are moving forward. How will the city address the crisis moving forward and where are we at with getting some of that federal money?
Mayor Adams: We talked about the asylum seekers. And let's be clear, this city, we have many roads that are leading to what must be prepared and the issues that New Yorkers are facing. They told me those issues when I was moving throughout the city. We are receiving a substantial amount of money that's coming from the advocacy of Senator Schumer and Congressman Jeffries and the New York delegation. We received $8 million from FEMA, but that is not enough. We must have a decompression strategy, and I stated it over and over again, a pathway to employment and we need one person that specifically is assigned to coordinate the entire asylum seeker issue that we are facing. New York shouldn't go through this. El Paso, Chicago, Houston, Washington, this is just wrong to put a national problem on the backs of local cities.
Mannarino: So have you spoken to the president about it and getting some of that aid and more direct help?
Mayor Adams: I had a conversation with his administration, representative from his administration. But our congressional delegation and Senator Schumer, they have been really leading this charge. They know that this is an issue for our city and it will impact every service that we put in place in this city if this is not addressed.
Sanchez: We have a lot to cover today, but we wanted to ask you quickly about what you think about — this off topic here on what the State of the City was — but with MSG and the facial recognition, where do you stand on that?
Mayor Adams: Well, everyone knows, I've stated over and over again, I'm a technology person. I believe in technology and using any technology to keep our city safe. We were able to apprehend so many dangerous people because of the camera system that we have throughout our city, but you can't abuse technology. I don't know if he abused it or not, a court of law would make that determination, but I believe whatever way we could use technology to identify bad people within the constitutional guardrails, we should do so.
Mannarino: You don't know if it's being used correctly or not at Madison Square Garden?
Mayor Adams: No, I don't. I think that from my understanding, some attorneys are going to be moving forward with some type of action. The courts will make that determination. We use it in the city. Any form of technology, not facial recognition specifically, but any form of technology we use, we use it within the guardrails of the Constitution.
Mannarino: Okay, Mr. Mayor. I know you have other places to go, but lastly, we have been reporting on an announcement that you are making today regarding subway safety. You know we're going to ask you to make the announcement first here, so what is at least a preview? I know you're not going to give us the whole thing. Give me a little sneak peek.
Mayor Adams: Well, I said it from the beginning that it was going to take some time before New Yorkers go from what they were feeling to what they are feeling now. What people felt, they felt that the system was disorderly, too many homeless people who couldn't take care of themselves, violent people in our system, dirty system. I think we're moving in the right direction, and I'm excited about the announcement the governor and the MTA is going to make today and I'm happy to join them.
Sanchez: All right, there, Adams, thanks again for your time this morning.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.