Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on the Brian Lehrer Show

May 25, 2018

Brian Lehrer: It’s the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning everyone. We’ll begin today as we usually do on Fridays with our weekly “Ask the Mayor” segment. My questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio at 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 4-3-3-9-6-9-2, or you can tweet question, just use the hashtag “#AskTheMayor”. Mr. Mayor, good morning, welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning Brian.

Lehrer: First on the breaking news this morning, any reaction to the rape and criminal sexual assault charges filed against Harvey Weinstein this morning or that the Manhattan DA didn’t do this before with the evidence he had?

Mayor: Look, here’s one of the most powerful people in all of Hollywood being held accountable. I think that’s a very positive reality in the midst of a very, very sad history here and this is a triumph for the #MeToo movement and everyone whose wanted justice for women that he is being held accountable and for everyone to see.

It’s – you know – it’s based on something very, very sad but it indicates something strong and healthy in our democracy that this movement finally brought people like Harvey Weinstein to justice. So look, he gets due process like everyone else, but I think it’s a powerful moment. I think there is a reason people are focused on it because it suggests there really is some justice in the world. 

Lehrer: Between this taking this long until after the Times articles on Harvey Weinstein were published and the whole #MeToo movement broke out and those tapes of his interactions, Weinstein’s with at least one woman at a hotel room door, and the Trump-SoHo case and some other things in the news regarding arrests in poorer communities of color, do you have confidence in DA Vance to do the right thing on his own?

Mayor: Look, I want to separate that into a couple pieces. The fact that it took so long is not a good thing. I don’t know the details and the specifics, but it’s not a good thing. I don’t think things like this are going to take so long in the future.

Again, this is because of a grassroots movement. Let’s be really clear, you know, democracy has to be something where the grassroots hold people in power accountable. Change comes from the grassroots, it comes from social movements, so I think what the bottom line is here, you’re going to see – and you should see – a lot more speed in following up on things like this in the future. I don’t know the specifics of what the DA did. I know the NYPD takes this, and I don’t run the DA’s office, but I’m in charge of the NYPD as one of my agencies. I know they take this very, very seriously, and anyone who comes forward, their charges will be followed up on very quickly.

I also think the other piece of this is, while we see justice being served here, we don’t see it being served in the case of the President. We have so many people who have come forward accusing him of sexual harassment and there is still no investigation going on. I think this is one the strangest things in the American dialogue right now. Everyone is understandably focused on the Russia probe, but you know, we have Harvey Weinstein live T.V. in the courtroom, everyone is focused on that, how is there no investigation of the President if so many women have come forward and accused him of sexual harassment.

Lehrer: But it sounds like you are saying that it took a grassroots movement to get the DA to do his job?

Mayor: I’m saying it took a grassroots movement to wake everyone up to the problem here and demand results. I don’t know the specifics of what the DA did or didn’t, I just don’t. But we’ve got to do better going forward, I can say that much.

Lehrer: Next topic. The Furman Center on Housing Policy at NYU, led by one of your former appointees, Vicki Been, now back in academia, released a major report this week on housing in the City since the year 2000, and it found among other things, a huge 24 percent drop in apartments priced for low income New Yorkers and that developers are disproportionately building studios and one bedrooms that in effect make housing for families scarcer and more expensive. Are you aware of the new apartment size as a problem and is there a policy response to that?

Mayor: Absolutely. This report is helpful but a lot of what it’s showing are things that we’ve been quite aware of. It’s – let’s put this in perspective – we have a city that is growing in population rapidly, we are at 8.6 million, the highest population we’ve ever had, we’re on our way to nine million as early as 2030. We have a city that more and more people from all over the country, all over the world, want to live in. We have the most jobs we’ve ever had, we’re getting close to 4.5 million jobs in this city.

These, by most normal measures, would be positives, they’re creating tremendous pressure in terms of the housing market. And the bottom line here is it’s not shocking that in the free enterprise system the development would follow where the money is. If the money is in the smaller apartments, that’s what the developer is going to do, I don’t like that, but I understand the free enterprise system.

Our job is to counter that and balance that in every way we can. So we have an affordable housing plan to build and preserve in place 300,000 apartments, that’s enough for almost three quarters of a million people, so they can live affordably in New York City. But beyond that we’re also greatly reducing the number of affordable apartments that we’ve lost from regulation.

In fact, in 2016 is the last year we have numbers for about a 4,700 apartments went out of regulation, that’s the lowest number since 2001, and when you compare that to the beginning of the third Bloomberg term, they lost almost 10,000 more apartments in the year 2009 than we lost last year. That’s because there is a lot more toughness here in addressing the loss of affordable apartments, for example we now provide – and thanks to the good work of the counsel – we provide free legal support to stop illegal evictions. That’s reduced evictions already 27 percent. We’re providing a lot more in the way of direct subsidy to keep people in their apartments and keep them affordable for the long term.

A lot of these policies are reducing the loss of affordable housing. We’ve got a lot more to do. And we obviously did rent freezes and that was another crucial piece, if you have rent freezes are very low, rent increases – the apartment doesn’t go out of regulation through vacancy decontrol. But the big – the biggest thing here Brian – is in Albany, next year, there’s a chance, particularly if there is a Democratic State Senate, to get rid vacancy decontrol once and for all. This is really the driver of the loss of affordable housing. There is a law that allows affordable housing to no longer be affordable.

Lehrer: Yeah.

Mayor: We’ve got to get rid of that law and protect our rent regulated housing which is the core of affordable housing going forward in the future – for the future of the City.

Lehrer: The report also found that the median rent for newly built units in 2016 was $400 more than for existing units. In the year 2000 the difference in rent was just $50 more a month for new units. Does this make you think twice at all about your approach that the solution to affordability is to build, build, build with more density?

Mayor: Again, I want to clarify that because a lot of what – why we support more building and more density is because it also gets us those affordable apartments and those come with very strict rules about affordability levels and they are typically affordable for, at minimum, 30 years, and in many cases permanently.

So that’s part of why I think you do need to keep building, but I think it’s also there is a supply demand reality and the report points to this. Even though some of the normal supply and demand realities are not happening the way we’re used to in this city because of other factors like the City has gotten a lot safer, there’s more jobs, there’s a lot of reason why people want to be here that are pushing up housing costs beyond the question of supply.

That said, undoubtedly if you create more supply, it does put downward pressure on rents and you got so many people who want to be here, need to be here, we’ve got to keep building. So it just makes sense to have a strong government intervention in the market that guarantees affordability.

Remember we also have a law that says when a developer needs a special permit to build, we guarantee affordable housing in the bargain or they are not allowed to build. That’s another very important change in the reality, just the last few years, again passed by the City Council, something I believed in and pushed for, this makes a huge difference in the equation. So yeah, we do have to keep building, but with strict rules to guarantee affordability. 

Lehrer: Here’s a housing question I think from Timmy in Chelsea. Timmy you are on WNYC with the Mayor, hello.

Question: Thank you very much. Good morning Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Good morning.

Question: My question re housing is will there in fact be an Office of the Tenant Advocate at the Department of Buildings? This was a bill passed by the Council, as you had just mentioned, that they were passing stricter laws for housing and you signed last August, but on or about April 13th in a preliminary budget hearing in front of Council Member Helen Rosenthal, Commissioner Chandler said no, the DOB would not fund the Office of the Tenants Advocate. So I’m just starting to follow up here and find out if DOB in fact has to comply with the laws of the City of New York or if they can do what they want?

Mayor: No, they can’t just do what they want. Look, I want to say, first of all, anything passed by the Council that I sign is going to be implemented, period. Second, I have to tell you, the Department of Buildings – when I was running for Mayor – is probably the single most criticized department in the City for a wide variety of reasons. I want to give Commissioner Chandler credit, I think he’s made a lot of big changes there, but we got to do more.

Department of Buildings, originally in my view, was not tenant friendly, was not focused on preserving affordable housing, didn’t see it as part of their mission, didn’t have enough resources either. We’ve added hundreds of more inspectors and made very clear to the Department of Buildings that they are also a very important part of the effort to preserve affordable housing and to stop landlord harassment and I think Department of Buildings more and more is doing that. The Council also passed some new additional anti-harassment laws that help a lot that I very much supported –

Lehrer: What’s the – what’s the tenant –

Mayor: So anything we’ve committed to will be built.

Lehrer: What’s the Tenant Advocate? What’s the Office of, I’m asking –

Mayor: The notion of anything like that is to make sure that the interest of tenants are also focused on by an agency and again in context also of new anti-harassment laws that were passed last year and Department of Buildings plays a crucial role in addressing land lord harassment of tenants. So we will make sure that the apparatus we need is in place that we need to protect tenants.

Lehrer: Toshi in Queens, you are on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello Toshi.

Question: Hello.

Lehrer: Hi there.

Question: Hi, good morning.

Lehrer: What’s your question for the Mayor?

Question: Good morning everyone, good morning Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Good morning.

Question: How are you? My question is actually very specific. It’s also related to [inaudible]. So my dad, we are originally from Tibet, so when I just come here he started selling pictures and photos on the street to support our family and then he eventually got his smoothie cart. He’s still working for a [inaudible] right now. He was never able to get his permit. I think the Mayor is familiar with the issue because having been watching the town hall before – actually my dad went to the one in [inaudible] I guess.

Lehrer: So your dad, if I can cut in to help you for time. Your dad has been on a waiting list for a permit to sell smoothies for 15 years and he paid $20,000 to rent a permit from a current owner? You want to tell that story just a little bit Toshi?

Question: Yes, that’s pretty much the story. I’m sorry.

Lehrer: Go ahead.

Question: Yes because I feel very bad for my dad because we are starting to talk about for him to get retired because there is no way for him to secure a permit. Last year we thought we might be able to get one.

Lehrer: This would be for a street vendor’s permit Toshi?

Question: Yes for a, I think a food vendor yes. I’m not very, I’m not exactly clear about the system, but I’m sure that for my dad to sell. To have his own business, he needs to have permit.

Lehrer: Do you think Toshi, that your father’s experience is that the system is at least honest and there’s just a 15 year waiting list or is it worse than that?

Question: He is on a waiting list, I remember but nothing happened.

Lehrer: For 15 years?

Question: Yes. Since 2000, around 2000.

Lehrer: So that would be almost 20 years. Mr. Mayor does it take that long to get a food vendor permit?

Mayor: First of all Brian I can’t answer the question factually because I am just not an expert on the wait list for food vendor permits but I know there are limits on the numbers of legal vendors in the city. This is a big issue. It’s come up at a lot of my town hall meetings – people have strong views on all sides of this issue. We got close to some new rules and regulations at the end of last year – didn’t work out with the City Council. We will be looking to act on that again.
But on the specific question Toshi, I’m sorry that your dad has gone through this because obviously if he’s trying to make a living we want to support in every way we can. There is a limit, there’s a real limit on the number of vendors so I just don’t know where he is on that list and what the specifics are. Toshi if you will provide your information to WNYC I’ll have my folks follow up with you and see if there is anything that we can do to help your dad out.

Lehrer: Toshi hang on, we will get your contact information. I want to ask you Mr. Mayor about the 4,200 pages of emails you released yesterday between you and the political consulting firm BerlinRosen, with which you were very close, especially their principle Jonathan Rosen. By way of background for our listeners, NY1 and the New York Post went to court and won release of these emails after you had claimed that the emails should be kept confidential as if between you and city officials because the consultants were in effect agents of the city.

Now much of the coverage of the emails so far has been about attitudes toward the news media that you express. We know that you’ve publically called the New York Post a right wing rag and at least once refused to answer questions from a Post reporter because you didn’t like a previous story. But I want to ask about the mainstream, not right wing media. After you didn’t like a profile in the Atlantic, you wrote “I strongly advise we avoid profiles from now on especially from national publications. I have no use for these people, let’s just do the work and go right around the so called referees.” And on the New York Times, after criticizing a specific Times story as biased you wrote in a general way “what did I say about how disappointing the Times has become and we need to figure out a new paradigm with the Times, this level of bias can’t be ignored, either starve them or reason with them or something else.”

So my first question is do you think, not just the New York Post and Daily News, but the New York Times is biased against you in a general way?

Mayor: I think there’s a problem with mainstream media. I mean, I’ll get to the specifics but I think the broad point is there’s a problem with mainstream media. I have felt this my whole life. This is not new to my role as mayor. We have a corporate media. It is based on a free-enterprise model.

It’s based on selling things. I don’t think that’s healthy. I think that leads to a lot of distortions. I am a big fan of public radio and public T.V. I’m a big fan of alternative media and subscription-based media like the Guardian that are trying to take some of the bias out of the equation that is based – that comes from needing clicks and having a mentality that connects to a corporate structure.

So, I felt this my whole like. The bottom line is I think we need and deserve much better. And when I wrote those things – I mean, look, the whole underlying reality hear is the legal guidance I had received from the City Hall staff was that those interactions with trusted advisors were something we could do frankly and would not be publicly disclosable and did not have to be publicly disclosable.

Obviously, that was a mistake and if we had known that we wouldn’t have put those things into email – the kind of conversations that, bluntly, everyone has all the time in public life. But I don’t – look, I don’t think the coverage has reflected the work we’re doing or the impact it’s having on the people of this city. And Brian, you and I have talked about this on air.

I think there’s a disconnect. I think with 8.6 million people who really, really care about what affects their lives – their schools, jobs, quality of life in their community – but a lot of the coverage is always personalities and sensationalization and, I think, distortion of a lot of what’s really happening. And I’m comfortable saying I don’t think that’s the best we can be. And I’m not going to simply accept that –

Lehrer: But you lumped the Times and The Atlantic in with the tabloids in those characteristics?

Mayor: No, they’re – each one is different. I think the tabloid culture, and I’ve said it very publicly – I think has been harmful to New York City. It sensationalizes and often divides us and it has for a long, long time. And the Post is the leading edge of that.

So, no, I have a critique of the Times too. I don’t think, I’ve said this publicly also – I don’t think they focus enough on the city they’re based. I’d like to see more coverage that talks about the grassroots. I think there’s obviously an elite orientation at the Times, it’s not a news flash, it’s not my cup of tea.

That’s a problem but, you know, I think in general the worldview is not from the grassroots up and that’s part of my critique. Just the way we started this broadcast, or this interview, change comes from the grassroots. I’d like to see a whole lot more coverage focused on the grassroots. I’d like to see a lot more coverage of the things we’re doing and what it means for everyday people. And I’m always – I shouldn’t say always – often disappointed that we don’t see that.

Lehrer: The Daily News today compares you to Trump in your general disdain for the press such as when you wrote in one of the emails, “The news media is pitiful and it’s sad for our city and nation.” So, do you think that you and Donald Trump are being subjected to similar forces of sensationalism in the media?

Mayor: I think that’s a very ridiculous simplification and I think it kind of is the case and point. Donald Trump and I are the most polar opposite people in the world. He’s a billionaire who is trying to increase the power of the wealthy and is in so many ways a negative, divisive figure. He has been for decades.

And his approach is a systematic effort to undermine our institutions. He’s trying to undermine the free press, he’s trying to undermine our law enforcement institutions, he’s trying to undermine democracy. It’s quite plain.

I have a critique of the corporate media and I have a critique of the tabloid culture. They’re entirely different realities. Donald Trump was created by the tabloid culture. I mean, let’s be real about this. And there have been great reporting, by the way. I want to give credit where credit is due. A great piece in New York Magazine, for example, by Mark Harris a few months, that got to the essence of how Donald Trump was a creature and a creation of the tabloid culture.

No, there’s no comparison whatsoever here and I just find it amazing that that’s the best that people can come up with.

Lehrer: In one email, you’re speculating about market forces in the newspaper industry and you wonder if the Post might go out of business and you call that wishful thinking. Maybe that was just a joke but would you really like the main opposition paper in the city go under?

Mayor: I’ll tell you what I feel. I believe the Post is not only right-wing, not only distorts the facts on a regular basis, but is divisive and I’m shocked – I’m shocked that more people don’t come out and say it because it used to be a commonplace thing to talk about not so many years ago in New York City.

I mean just look at the headlines every day and look at the dog-whistling that goes on in the New York Post all the time. Come on. No, I will not shed a tear if that newspaper is no longer here because I think we need a better civic discourse. There’s more and more media than ever – this is a really good thing – there’s more alternative media. There’s more outlets than we’ve ever had or have had in a long, long time because of social media.

There is plenty of tough reporting, plenty of insightful reporting, plenty of questioning of authority but come on, the Post is not like everyone else and I think we should just stop the charade.

Their presence in our society, unfortunately, is harmful.

Lehrer: And finally on this – on your relationship with BerlinRosen, you wanted these emails to be kept secret from the public because you said they were acting as Agents of the City but the emails include discussions about a real estate project, for example, and the Coalition for the Homeless, for another example, that were clients of BerlinRosen’s that wanted things from the City. So do you regret claiming that a consulting company with whom you were discussing their client’s interests – do you regret claiming to New Yorkers that that consulting firm was an agent of the people?

Mayor: I think there’s a couple different pieces here. I regret the whole thing because we duly received from the City Hall staff, from the legal staff, etcetera guidance on how to address this issue. Close advisors, like everyone has – every leader in history has a group of close advisors. They don’t all work in government. So the question became in a world where email was more central to our lives than ever before, more central than 10 or 15 years ago even, how do you handle that? The guidance was, you can have frank discussions and they are protected because they are part of doing the work of government. So, that’s part one of this.

That guidance was wrong. It turned out to be wrong and I regret following guidance that turned out to be wrong. I’m not a lawyer. I did not realize it was wrong or we wouldn’t have done it. We won't do it anymore. I made that clear a long time ago. We do not have those conversations on email. We’ve changed a lot of the things we do.

But on the question of where any firm has lobbying interests or business interests, so point one – I don’t talk to City registered lobbyists who lobby for third party interests. I don’t talk to them anymore about their business dealings and their clients. I just don’t. I’ve made it an across policy that I don’t do that.

Second, anything like that, my understanding of the law, that was disclosable anyway separate, for example, if one these individuals gave advice on an issue, that’s a very different reality than if they said, “Hey, my client if Coalition for the Homeless and I think you should do X about homelessness.”

Anything that was client based was disclosable anyway and I think that’s an important separation to make. But look, this was a mistake. It was not an ill-intentioned mistake but it was a mistake. It won’t happen again to say the least. And we’re just going to move forward.

Lehrer: Sandra in Manhattan, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Sandra.

Question: Hi, good morning, Brian. I’ve listened to you for years. Mr. Mayor, I need your help on an important thing. I am a – I manage and I co-lead four Girl Scout troops in East Harlem. One of my girls lives in a shelter. She goes to school in East Harlem. Her family moved into a shelter in the Bronx. At this shelter, the first one, they just didn’t even answer when I asked if she could stay overnight at a program, a Scout night at the Intrepid.

Okay, now we’re up to having all of our girls go to Camp Kaufmann in Dutchess County, that’s the Girl Scout camp there. The mother was put into another shelter. She said to the social upon arrival, “I’m going to get you all the permission forms and I hope you will approve,” that her daughter can go to Camp Kaufmann. So I prepared everything, sent it in, the mother gave it to the social worker.

She came back, she said she had to take it up through the administration and they came back and they said to her, we don’t approve things like that. And of course the child was heartbroken. She’s the only child who is not going on the trip.

And I just think this is our New York City shelter system. We should be able to do better for children –

Mayor: You’re right about that. Well, first of all, thank you for what you’re doing. I really admire it and appreciate it. We – there’s couple of different quick pieces. First of all, there’s extraordinary work being done with the Girl Scouts in our shelter system. And the fact that we have so many people in shelter is so painful and something that we’re trying to change over time. But in the meantime, the Girl Scouts have been a really positive helpful force in the shelter system and I’d like to see a lot more of that.

Second, you know, we’re trying to rationalize when someone’s in shelter to create a more rational system for where they are geographically that keeps them closer to their home community and closer to their child’s school. That’s a big change we’re making and hopefully that will help in its own right.

On this question, when is the trip in question to the camp?

Question: It’s the second weekend in June so it’s coming up upon us right now.

Mayor: Yes, absolutely, I have a lot of confidence we can fix this. I’m really sorry you had to go through it and I also am really glad you’re calling it in because this will now alert everyone at Homeless Services that we don’t want to see this kind of thing happen to any other child or any other parent. The chance to go to summer camp is obviously a fantastic opportunity and a welcome break from what so many of these kids are having to deal with.

So, we want to make it work. Give your information to WNYC so we can fix the situation with this child and get it resolved so she can go to camp. But I’m also going to ask the folks at the Department of Homeless Services to right away make sure that all personnel in shelters know that these kind of requests need to be expedited and that we want to support to these opportunities for these kids. So, I’m really happy you called this in.

Lehrer: Sandra, hang on, we’ll get that contact from you. Here’s a question via Twitter from listener Madeline in the Rockaways. The question is about Rockaway Beach. And I think, if I saw your schedule correctly, you’re going out to Coney Island this morning to kick off the beach season?

Mayor: Yep.

Lehrer: So, from Rockaway Beach, Madeline asks, “How come such a huge section of Rockaway Beach is closed this summer. The New York Times reports it knew it was eroding but decided not to act because it’s at highest level in many years. What gives?” asks Madeline.

Mayor: Yeah, it’s a very tough situation and not one that I feel happy about to say the least. We obviously – we all knew the beach was eroding and I was at a town hall meeting in the Rockaways I think it was about six months ago and this topic came up. I pledged to folks in the community that I would go to the Army Corps of Engineers. That’s really where the opportunity to fix things is. The only way we can truly fix – long term viable fix for the situation at the beaches was to get the Army Corps of Engineers in. They bring the expertise, they bring the resources. I got an agreement from the head of the Army Corp to give us a firm answer. I went down to Washington and met with him to get a firm answer by this summer for the timeline for doing this work.

But the erosion which was bad six months ago got a lot worse in the last couple of months because of some specific storms and then the question became the Parks Department talked to the life guards who really have to be the final word here and said, can we secure this area properly as this beach has gotten a lot thinner than it was a year ago? And they did not feel we could.

So, the decision was late because the situation changed and because we were trying to find any other alternative we thought could work. The Parks Department felt strongly as a question of safety we just couldn’t secure that stretch of beach the way we need to. Everything else will be open – so, about 4.5 miles of beach are open in the Rockaways. The various concessions will still be open. People are still going to have a lot of ability to enjoy the Rockaways.

But it’s just a situation that it was bad six months ago and it got worse in the last few months and we had to make a safety-based decision.

Lehrer: Here’s one that’s also in its way related to the beaches. City Council is considering a ban on plastic straws and coffee stirrers in restaurants because of the pollution they cause including washing up on the beach. Would you sign such a bill?

Mayor: I believe in that idea. I believe plastic straws are really harmful to the environment. They’re really harmful to our oceans and marine life. They’re kind of a classic American thing that, you know, we didn’t have them for generations. We all were fine and then we got used to them but we don’t really need them.

I have not seen the specific legislation so I have to see if we – my team and I agree with the specifics of the bill but the intent, absolutely, I hope at some point soon to be signing a piece of legislation that bans plastic straws in New York City. And by the way, I grew up with paper straws. They were fine – guarantee people that there’s going to be good alternatives that will still work for them.
Lehrer: And last thing, it was a year ago this week that you announced the crackdown on parking placard corruption. But every day on Twitter our newsroom tells me they’re seeing images of cars with City placards parking playgrounds, on sidewalks forcing pedestrians to walk to in the street. It appears to some people that the crackdown may not have buy-in from the NYPD or Fire Department of Department of Education where a lot of this problem seems to crop up around schools. Any one-year update or are further steps needed?

Mayor: Well, let me say a couple things. There will be an update very soon. This is a really important issue. I want to make sure the people of this city see that real change is happening on placard abuse. I don’t accept it. It really drives me crazy just like every other New Yorker who sees this kind of stuff. It’s not right. We’re not going to stand for it.

We’re going to show people soon what we’ve achieved in the first year but there’s a lot more to come. So, the bottom line is I do believe there’s examples of abuse that we still haven’t gotten to and we need to. You said, “It seems,” and I really want to emphasize that what it seems versus what it is are often two different things. We need to show people the facts. But Brian, I am intolerant of this abuse. We’re going to go after it hard and we’re going to throw a lot of resources it. We have in year-one. We’re going to keep building that enforcement in year-two. And anyone who abuses a placard is going to find out there are real negative consequences for that.

Lehrer: What should the NYPD do if anybody with a placard is parked in a playground?

Mayor: I think the bottom line is if anybody is violating placard rules, there have to be very clear, strict consequences and there are. There’s all sorts of fines and penalties and other efforts that can be put in place to show people that if you do something like that, if you park in front of a hydrant, you park in front of a driveway, you park in front of or on a playground that you’re really going to have some serious consequences and that they will escalate.

And for public employees too that not only are there going to be fines but there’s internal discipline that will be applied if a public employee violates the rules of their placard or has an illegal placard or a made up placard. We’re not going to tolerate this stuff.

Lehrer: I’m going to practice saying, placard parking in a playground, ten times fast before the next time I ask you that question.

[Laughter]

Mr. Mayor, thank you very much for joining us. Talk to you next week.

Mayor: And a very Happy Memorial Day to everyone.