Gary Byrd: Well, as you know, normally it's each and every second Sunday of the month we have the chance to welcome the 110th mayor of New York City. And the second mayor of color and the first hip-hop mayor in the city's history. But it's campaign season and the mayoral race for New York is under way. So our mayor is back with us this morning.
It's time to hear from the mayor. Mayor Eric L. Adams, right here from 107.5 WBLS. Mr. Mayor, good morning and welcome.
Mayor Eric Adams: Hey, thank you, Gary. I was just sharing with the team how many years I have been on the air and the radio with you on different topics throughout decades. So it's good to continue. We really wanna welcome back the listeners to Hear from the Mayor. I'm your mayor, Eric Adams, and if this is your first time tuning in, the purpose of the show is just to have a dialogue on what is on the mind of you as a New Yorker.
Listeners should give me a call and hear directly from me, or you can sign up to hear more from me in my office at nyc.gov/HearFromEric. You can sign up on your website to text from Eric and talk with me on WhatsApp. But, this morning, you can hit me up on 212-545-1075.
Today, I wanna talk some trash with you. You know, not the verbal one, but the trash that's on our streets and what we're doing about it with this trash revolution. You know I hate rats, and that was one of my public enemy number one items that we wanted to go after, and we're doing just that. And there's so much we have done. Everything from changing set out times to getting trash bags off the streets and into rat resistant containers. And we're seeing cleaner streets and sidewalks and just a better quality of life with a massive decline in rodent activity.
Someone stopped me the other day and said, "I don't know what you did but where the heck are all the rats. So, what we're doing, it's working. When you think about it, nine straight months, we have led to a five-year low in rat sightings. At five-year lows for nine straight months, the 311 complaints have dropped. And so while they're crashing out, we are ramping up and we have a great team to do just that.
I'm here with the commissioner of the Department of Sanitation, just a 26-year vet and just a good human being, really dedicated to our city. And I just thank him for taking over the helm and continuing our success and making sure we have cleaner streets. Commissioner Javier Lojan is here with us, and so I'm going to turn it over to him. And I want to start with commissioner, can you talk about the trash revolution and what that means?
Acting Commissioner Javier Lojan, Department of Sanitation: Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So, the trash revolution means everything you just mentioned, but I think what is most important to residents, like you said, is the tangible difference they see on the streets. They don't see the black bags anymore. When I do walkthroughs or any kind of events, people come up to me and they thank me that we've been doing a lot of these things. There was some resistance in the beginning, but once they see the tangible results, I think they really appreciate it. So I think people really, really appreciate that. I think that's why it's working so well.
Mayor Adams: And 26 years, you know, like what motivates you? How did you start? Were you like me? You know, my mom said, listen, go take the civil service test.
Acting Commissioner Lojan: Yeah. So a funny story about that. I actually wanted to be an electrician. So I went to Queens Vocational High School when I wanted to be. I love working with my hands. I still like to do stuff. And my shop teacher at the time, Mr. Turman, an old school guy, said, take every civil service exam. And I really, really wanted to be a cop. I really did. So I know I needed some college credits for that.
But I took sanitation, police, you know, and fire tests and some other ones. And sanitation called me first. And, you know, at the time back then, it wasn't that people didn't aspire to be a sanitation worker. I was in one of these shops like, alright, let me try it out, see what happens. And, you know, it was a decision I made. And now people obviously we've been at the forefront of a lot of things, things like this. So people want to be in this job now. But back then it wasn't one of these things.
So, going back then and seeing how things were in 1999, and I actually started in Harlem and Manhattan 10. But back then, before the revolution, a lot of things happened where things have changed. It was a different world back then. And now, you know, last Sunday being up there and things have changed a lot. And a lot of rats, you don't see sightings anymore. So it's really great to see that, you know.
Mayor Adams: And, you know, what's interesting, you know, I know we're talking about trash, but we also talking about civil service work and how it is a good foundation of work. I think all of the young people back then got that same message from someone, go take the civil service exam, good pensions, good salaries, steady work. And, you know, just to see you rise all the way through the ranks, I assume you started out on the trucks, you know, and you rise now to head the department. So that teacher, you still remember his name?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: Mr. Turman, yeah, man.
Mayor Adams: You know, it says a lot. Just let's go into some of the areas for a moment. The trash bins, the rat-proof bins. Who must have them? And what are we doing to assist low-income New Yorkers or seniors on purchasing them?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: Sure. So anybody that lives in a one-to-nine unit building has to have their trash put out in a secure 55-gallon trash bin. We have made a really good concession with a company, and they have designed a bin, cheapest quality of its kind, under $55, and you can purchase them at bins.nyc.
And then as far as, you know, who we're doing to help, so I know, you know, you, Mr. Mayor, have allocated, you know, over $14 million to help those people, and we are starting to have those checks go out next month. And if you purchase, if you live in a one-to-two unit family home, and you're STAR or E-STAR eligible, and you purchase a bin through that company, you will receive a check. So, we are working with the Department of Finance. Those checks will be going out next month.
And if you haven't purchased one yet, you can go buy one right now, and then they're going to send you a letter in the mail explaining to you how to receive that money back. So that's a great program, and it's going to assist a lot of people in need.
Mayor Adams: Yes, and it's so important. It's all part of our Money in Your Pocket series. $30 billion we put back in the pockets of working-class New Yorkers, no-income or working class New Yorkers, paying off college tuition for foster care children, a free high-speed broadband for NYCHA residents, excusing medical debts in the billions of dollars. These are all the creative ways we come up with how to put money back in the pockets of New Yorkers.
Think about it. If you're a NYCHA resident, you're not paying $159, $169 a month in cable bills. You're getting it for free because of what Matt Frazier, our chief technology officer, has put together. When you think about it also, I want to go into what we're doing around these things called no-man lands. What did we do when we came into office around these areas, and what is a no-man land?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: A no-man's land is an area that has different types of jurisdictions. You think of an underpass that might be an MTA property or DOT or Parks. For many years, we would try to work with the brothers and sister agencies and try to see if we could coordinate the cleanup, but that really was very time-consuming. If somebody calls 311, they don't want to hear that, no, that's DOT jurisdiction, that's Parks, no.
When this administration committed to us the resources to just say, you know what, whoever it is, we'll just clean it. Over 1,700 locations we've identified, and we go out and we do daily, weekly, monthly cleanings in these areas, and we make sure we stay on top of them. It's been a great quality of life improvement to so many residents across the five boroughs.
Mayor Adams: It was interesting. You had these different locations where there wasn't one specific agency that you could point to and say, hey, why isn't this cleaned up? Residents would see it over and over again, and when you called one agency, they said, no, you have to go to the other agency. We identified those locations, you guys zeroed in, and you're seeing the impact of that.
Talk about highways. We used to see so much trash on the highways, and now there's a real science to clean it up. We also want to encourage New Yorkers, stop throwing stuff out the door and car window. It doesn't go into the magical trash bin when you throw it out your window. When I hear New Yorkers say, why are these highways so dirty? Why are you throwing stuff out your window? hat are we doing around the highway cleanings?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: All the main beds, all the on and off ramps, the interchanges, we have a dedicated team, and we go out and we try to hit every highway at least once a month. Some of them, depending on the frequency, we notice that areas that have a lot of high traffic areas are where people, like you said, just like they're stopped in traffic, they'll throw something out the window, which obviously frustrates us.
But those are the areas then we may have to have increased frequency in those areas, but at least once a month we're going out and we're cleaning them, and the results are great. Everybody loves seeing a clean highway. I love seeing a clean highway. It makes my ride home a lot smoother and calmer, so everybody's appreciating that.
Mayor Adams: Dude, have you noticed certain highways that seem to be more dirty than others? Because for whatever reason, the Van Wyck in Queens, it seems like there's always an abundance of trash in that area.
Acting Commissioner Lojan: Yeah, the Van Wyck, the BQE, the Cross Bronx, those are the ones that really get me. The Belt Parkway is another one. Those are the ones where we try to be more strategic, and it might not be the entire stretch. We'll see certain stretches in there, and we'll just try to hop around and try to make sure that those concentrated areas are cleaned.
Obviously, the areas around our airports, we want to make sure that those are clean, because that's the first thing people see when they come into the city, whether they live here already or they're traveling from somewhere else, and we make sure that those are maintained a lot more.
Mayor Adams: That's important. The JFK Expressway, the Van Wyck, that is your welcome mat, and if people come into your city and all they see is trash lined on the highways, they begin to believe, okay, this city is not well taken care of.
We did something that I thought was amazing in the beginning of the administration with the encampments, and DSNY played a major role with the Police Department, with HRA, and all the other agencies, because we wanted a compassionate approach to stopping the encampments in our city.
It's not like other cities. If you just Google other cities, you'll see people living on the streets, cooking on the streets, relieving themselves on the streets, and we really zeroed in on it. What was DSNY's role in the successful encampment removal initiative?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: So I think what you mentioned before was the coordination with NYPD, DHS, and all the other agencies involved. I think the Quality of Life Task Force has done a tremendous job at going out and making sure that we're all on the same page, and we go, rather than before we used to have to meet different teams, and it would be very time-consuming.
Now they identify locations, we work with them, we're all a team, and we go out, and obviously PD has a role, DHS, and then we make sure that anything, any mess that's left off, we clean it up and make sure that it's in good shape for anybody that's living in the area.
Mayor Adams: Some of the questions that people often wonder and ask, you know, the hidden secrets of the profession. Where the heck does all the trash go? And how much do we produce?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: So, 12,000 tons a day we produce, which is, it's a lot. Obviously, one of the things I do want to highlight is, you know, this administration, you, Mr. Mayor, your commitment to the curbside composting program.
In FY25, we diverted a record-high amount of waste, diverted away from landfills, so over 166,000 tons have been diverted away from landfills, and that's because of the universal curbside composting program. So now you don't have to sign up, you just put your, you know, your brown bin or secure bin at the curb, it will come out weekly. We have over 400 smart bins that, if, you know, you have the app, you can put your composting there. So I think that's been very successful.
So, you know, we're going to continue that effort. And we've been doing some outreach, too. So people, we've been going out, over 41,000 households have been going out, just making sure they're aware of the program and how to set out their waste.
Mayor Adams: The composting program, the bins are–- how does one get a bin, I should say?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: So when we rolled out each borough, we did give out free bins to every resident that wanted a free bin. Right now, if you want a bin, you're going to have to purchase one, you can go to bins.nyc and you can get one.
But, the great thing about this program is that you don't need a specific bin for that, it has to be in a secure bin, 55 gallons or less, and I think that makes it a lot easier. So yes, the bin we have and we give away and we sell is lockproof and secure, but you don't have to have that bin, so it'll make it easier for everybody.
Mayor Adams: And when we turn in our composting items, what do we use them for? Do we sell it?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: Yeah, so we take a lot, a big portion of that goes to our Staten Island Compost Facility and we make composting, we have giveaways where we give away millions of pounds of fresh made compost and we had sites in Queens and Brooklyn and Staten Island where we gave away free compost to residents, and we also do sell them to landscapers, we sell them at a really competitive price, so it's going to beneficial use, which is great, right? You put something out, you get something back, and I think people appreciate that.
Mayor Adams: And we're never stuck with a bunch of compost, there's always those who want it?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: There's always those that want it, like I said, landscapers always purchase it, I mean it's a real competitive price, and we do these giveaways, so I think that people use it for their gardens, I mean the season's starting to wrap down, but at the height of season people were coming out, we were giving them free bags, you know, just to show, look, this is what you put it in, this is what you're getting back, and I think people really appreciate that.
Mayor Adams: Love it, love it, it's a win-win. And the rest of our garbage, do we ship it out of the city? Where is it?
Acting Commissioner Lojan: So, some of it does end up, goes to landfills outside of New York, some of it goes to waste to energy plants in New Jersey, so depending on which waste shed we go to, it goes to different parts outside of New York City.
Mayor Adams: It's a whole science, managing garbage, people believe when you throw it away, you put it in your garbage, it goes to the garbage heaven somewhere, but in reality, it's a process.
Acting Commissioner Lojan: It's a process, quite a process. So, we're going to take a break, I hear that music, we're going to take a break, we're going to do the piano twice again, or what? We'll be back.
[Commercial Break.]
Byrd: Well, the program is Hear from the Mayor and the mayor wants to hear from you. 212-545-1075. Give your name and where you're calling from and whatever question or comment you have for our mayor, Eric L. Adams, and his special guest here at 107.5 WBLS. Mr. Mayor, you're in the air.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Let's go to the first caller. Let's go to the phone's caller. You're in the air.
Question: Yes, hey guys, this is [Mary Anne]. I have a great question for the mayor. He recently had a birthday and he is 65 years old and qualifies for Medicare. Many retirees who have worked decades for this city have had the promise of Medicare for their entire work life and were looking forward to that benefit when they retired.
However, due to some decisions that the mayor has made, that decision, that health care benefit is at risk. And many of them, due to co-pays that he forced on us in January, have put us in medical debt. I would like to know right now that there is a bill before the City Council called Intro 1096 that would protect their vested Medicare benefits from being taken away from them in retirement since we are no longer in unions and no longer employees. And it would also prevent us from further getting into medical debt, which many of our people would not qualify for the program that the mayor had recently discussed.
So I'd like to know, he recently did an executive order to protect the horses in Central Park and urged the council, in a letter of necessity, to get this bill to a hearing in Ryder's Law. Would he do the same thing for retirees in support of Intro 1096?
Mayor Adams: Sister, thank you. And let's peel that back a little because you had a little inaccuracy in what you commented on. And no one has done more for civil servants and retirees in this city as a mayor but me because the retirement plan you're talking about is my retirement plan. And the city, prior to me, went to court. We won in court. We won in court.
I told the corp counsel and the labor that we are not going to change the health care plan. That's what I said. So I did not do anything to hurt your health care plan. In fact, I did just the opposite. I said we are not going to hurt the health care plan. Although we won in court, we're not moving forward.
Now you have a City Council speaker and you have City Council persons. Get on them. They don't have a radio station. They hide out. You can come and ask me questions all the time because I'm always outside. Call your speaker, call your council person and tell them, get the bill passed. It is up to them. I do not control the City Council. I control City Hall. And thank you for your call.
Question: I'm calling about affordable housing. I live in Bed-Stuy. When they advertise affordable housing, often it's not affordable to the people that live in the neighborhood. For instance, in my neighborhood, I would say the average income is about $40,000 to $50,000. But when they put up signs saying affordable housing, it's $85,000 to $100,000 which is not affordable to the people living in the neighborhood.
This is accelerating gentrification in our neighborhoods because we can't afford the housing that they're putting up saying it's affordable. I have a niece that works for the city. She's been living at home since she got out of college because she can't move out. The affordable housing that they advertise isn't affordable to us in our community.
Byrd: Let's let the mayor respond.
Mayor Adams: First of all, let's break that down quickly because we're going to run out of time. I don't want to do that. Number one, we have built more affordable housing in year one, two, and three of our administration in the recorded history of the city. We have preserved, financed, and zoned 426,000 units. That is more than 12 years of Bloomberg, eight years of de Blasio combined. I did it in three and a half years.
We need more housing. It's not only low income for those who make $40,000, but we need it for those who make $80,000 also. We're losing middle income New Yorkers because they can't afford housing. It's an inventory problem. That's the problem we're facing. That's why I passed the City of Yes. That's why we're starting to build housing in every community because when you have 500 units of housing that we're developing in one location, for example, but we have 35,000 people putting in an application for it, you've got an inventory problem.
So, brother, I agree. This is not a new argument and it's not a new fight. No one has kept up with building more housing like we have kept up in building more housing. That is why you're seeing more people get housing under this administration. I'm the most pro-housing mayor in the history of this city.
When I was a police officer, I was hearing people complaining about affordable housing. I heard it as a state senator. I heard it as the borough president. I'm hearing that as a mayor. This is not a problem that started with Mayor Adams. This is a problem that Mayor Adams started fixing. Thank you for your call.
Byrd: Before we wrap things up, I want to make sure, Eric, that you give those other numbers as well for people to contact you for that direct connection that you talked about.
Mayor Adams: As always, you can go to NewYorkCity.gov/HearFromEric. You can also go to our website to text with Eric and talk with me on WhatsApp. I look forward to seeing you. If you see me in the street, I'll give you my cell phone so you can call me directly. But, if I do it on radio, I'll get those 3 a.m. calls to try to come visit me. I know you guys are calling something else.
Byrd: Many thanks, my brother, as well. Most appreciated. God bless you. Take care of yourself.
Mayor Adams: Alright brother.