Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on Inside City Hall

June 17, 2019

Errol Louis: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. Mayor Bill de Blasio was just in New Hampshire over the weekend. He’s heading to South Carolina next weekend but in between he’s here in the city with lots of business to attend to. He joins me now for our weekly conversation. Welcome, Mr. Mayor – good to see you.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you, Errol.

Louis: Since the last time I saw you there was a handshake in the well of City Hall. You’ve got a budget deal. Let me ask you about a couple of items that you agreed to with the City Council. Is there – there’s going to be pay parity, it seems, between pre-K workers who work for community organizations and those who work for the DOE. There was also a pay parity question about legal aid attorneys and whether they should have some parity with prosecutors. It sounded from the handshake that it wasn’t 100 percent done. I wanted to, sort of, get an update on that.

Mayor: What we agreed on is a pathway forward. These are all subject to labor negotiations. So what – the Council to their credit, they really focused on these pay parity issues and they said they said they wanted to know that we would have a very specific path, you know, timeline, all that, to get this done. We worked closely with the labor representatives, the folks who do the work, the early childhood educators, and the folks who – the public defenders, etcetera, and we agreed on a framework to get it done but we couldn’t do all the specifics because it’s going to require a detailed negotiation. There’s a lot of specifics that have to be worked through.

The Council said this was a priority. I said back to them, it’s a priority for me too. And when we finally figure out what makes sense to do and what the timing will be, what the dollar figures will be, we will put it into the budget and we’ll find the money either if we’re blessed enough to have some more revenue or if we don’t we’re going to have to find it from savings – but we will find it.

Louis: So, the agreement that is that – I mean, the estimate on the pre-K teachers was $173 million, I believe and –

Mayor: Well, this is why we don’t – we’re not naming specific figures because it depends on how it’s configured and how it’s phased in and one thing or another. You’re right, there’s a potential for something that’s a real challenge but we have to figure out what’s fair, what makes sense. Look, these folks who are doing really, really important work – our early childhood educators, I mean I’ve said this was my number-one priority – it was to get Pre-K for All. Now, we’re well on the way to 3-K for All. We’re going to 20,000 kids in 3-K in September. I’m very, very proud of that and we’re going to make it universal over the coming years. The educators who do the work are absolutely crucial to so many families, to the future of this city – we want them to be treated fairly. In fact, when I first came into office, we made a major adjustment in the pay to give them a break and try and help them move forward. We’re going to do more now. And the same with the public defenders – they do really important work to ensure that we have a functioning justice system. So, we all agree we want to get this work done.

Louis: Well, let’s just – I guess, is the bottom line is that the money is there subject to negotiation and you feel confident that you’ll be able to offer parity to those two groups?

Mayor: Again, I want to be very careful to say when you’re doing a labor negotiation there are lots of ways to configure things, there are lots of ways to time things. I’m not going to prejudge the specific outcome. But whatever we all agree to we will make it a budget priority, we’ll find the money. As I said if we have to we would find savings, we would cut something else if it really came down to that because we made a commitment.

Louis: Okay. The General Reserve, I saw on your website, is at $1 billion and every year of the financial plan the Capital Stabilization Reserve is at $250 million. The Retiree Health Benefits Trust – $4.47 billion. All totaled it’s around $6 billion or so in reserves –

Mayor: Yeah, they actually [inaudible] the Health Benefits Trust and the General Reserve have both gone up. Combined impact of about a quarter-million dollars – actually a quarter-billion dollars – and the fact is the City Council deserves a lot of credit for that too. Now we have six years in a row where we have focused on adding to our reserves – I’ve wanted to do it, the City Council has wanted to do it. This is really important for everyday New Yorkers because folks are watching this economy, the tariff wars, the trade wars, all the uncertainty out there, and wondering well, what would happen if we ever did, God forbid, have an economic downturn. We now have, as you said, almost $6 billion in reserves to protect us to make sure we can keep the most important services going –

Louis: Well, the $6 billion is the good news. The other news from – according to the Citizens Budget Commission is that a recession comparable to the last two that we’ve had would end up in the range of $15 billion to $20 billion which is a lot more than we have. And I guess my question is – the Charter Commissioner that was created by City Council is considering the creation of a true rainy day fund. We have lots of different things like the Health Retiree Benefits Fund that are a de facto fund – there’s no restrictions on it, you can use it whenever you need it. But a true rainy day fund would put New York in a position where you can really put aside quite a lot. I was wondering if you have any opinion about that.

Mayor: You know Speaker Johnson spoke to this. It would require separate State action as well and I would argue to you we’ve been investing now over these last six years. We’ve been investing in more cops on the street, we’ve been in investing in more early childhood education teachers, more Sanitation workers. Now, there’s going to be more Parks workers in this budget because of the Council. The whole idea was to keep improving the quality of life in this city and to keep building up our economy. So we have 4.5 million jobs in New York City now – the highest we’ve ever had. Over half-a-million of those jobs have become a part of this city during the time of my administration.

Look, these investments are working. We’re the safest big city in America. I wouldn’t change them. So, the problem with continuing to take more money out of the budget for additional reserves is you’re not going to be able to pay for all those things. We’re not going to be able to pay for things like the pay parity we just discussed if we keep siphoning money out. $6 billion in reserves is an extraordinary number – the highest the City has ever had. Now, God forbid there’s an economic downturn, we’ll make a bunch of tough decision at that point and we know how as a city, we always balance our budget.

But I don’t think you say in the name of a potential danger you’re going to undermine the progress that we’ve made. I think if you ask most New Yorkers, ‘Hey do you want those 2,000 cops to stay on the street or take them back?’ They would say, ‘No, no, no, we’re doing really well, keep them there,’ right? You talk to people who have pre-K, have 3-K for their kids – they don’t want us to take that away. So, I think we’re at a real balance point, Errol, where the level of reserves we have now really protects us certainly in the short term in any crisis and it gives us the ability to keep building.

This city, in my view, we’re on an upward swing economically and a lot of other measures – social fabric, you know, educational attainment. We want to keep that going.

Louis: Okay, let me switch to some things that happened out of Albany, the rent deal in particular – was it to your liking, was it everything that you wanted, did you have any lingering concerns that have been raised that landlords will have an incentive to kind of sit on their heels or frankly they may not have the funds available to them to keep their buildings in a state of good repair?

Mayor: Well, to your first question, most importantly, this rent bill is extraordinary. Look, renters in New York City have suffered for so long – ever escalating rent, struggling to make ends meet, they did not get relief from Albany in a real way. We, you know, tried – we created the biggest affordable housing program this city has ever had, we gave free lawyers to stop evictions, we’ve done a lot of things here that are working – rent freezes for two years, obviously. But the missing link was to get action in Albany. Now we have the strongest rent laws we’ve ever had and that’s extraordinary. And I think this has been – this is one of the watershed moments in terms of protecting New York City as we love it, you know, keeping New York New York, making sure it’s a city for everyone. So, I’m overwhelmingly pleased with the legislation. There was a concern about the impact on the 421-a program. That seems to be being addressed now in sort of the legislative cleanup.

To the landlord question – I’ve talked to a number of landlords and I think some people [inaudible] people, they’re concerned about their ability to invest. But the previous law was way too lax – the MCIs, the major capital improvements that allowed landlords to just keep charging tenants ad nauseam even when the repair or investment was paid off. So we needed change. If it turns out, you know, that there’s a problem, that there aren’t those investments in buildings, and people are complaining, well, we’ll deal [inaudible] at the time. But I think this bill overwhelmingly addressed the issues that have been outstanding not just for years, for decades. It’s extraordinary.

And I give a lot of credit to the Assembly and the Senate.

Louis: Okay, we’ve got more to talk about in particular out of Albany. We’re going to do that in just a minute. We’ll be right back with Mayor de Blasio.

[...]

Louis: We are back Inside City Hall. I want to get the Mayor’s opinion about something involving our top story. Today, as we told you earlier, the State Senate is voting on a bill to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain driver’s licenses. They are voting right now and that’s John Liu, Senator John Liu from Queens. It’s expected to pass, it’s expected to head to the desk of Governor Andrew Cuomo. Now, the Governor has asked the State Attorney General for legal guidance on whether the bill might leave immigrants susceptible to the Trump administration. And State Attorney General Letitia James just issued a statement moments ago saying the following, “I support the Green Light bill, and the Office of Attorney General has concluded that it is constitutional. We will not opine on any actions the federal government may or may not take. The legislation is well crafted and contains ample protections for those who apply for driver’s licenses. If this bill is enacted and challenged in court, we will vigorously defend it.” Mayor de Blasio is here to comment on that. This is in some ways analogous to what happened with IDNYC, right? Where you allowed undocumented people to sort of get IDs and then the federal government said, ‘Hey, give us the supporting documentation, because we’re looking for undocumented New Yorkers.’

Mayor: Yeah, it was other people actually at the State level trying to suggest that the federal government should take that information and we quickly were able to end the practice of taking that information, and get rid of all the stored information we had so that none of the folks who applied for IDNYC were vulnerable to federal interference. I am hoping and praying that’s the case here too because I think we need this driver’s license bill, we need to make sure that folks who happen to be undocumented but there’s many hundreds of thousands of them in our state, I want everyone to be safe. I’d much rather have someone have to go get a driver’s license and become part of that system, than just go and drive a car without it, and have none of the authorities know who they are or any effort to make sure they’re driving safely. So, for safety, for fairness, people have to earn a living. I think it’s the right the thing to do. And I commend the Senate, I commend the Assembly. I hope it becomes a law.

Louis: Okay, let me move on to a new subject. The City – news organization, is reporting that you have selected a new Chairman for the New York City Housing Authority, Gregory Russ, who currently leads the much smaller Minneapolis system. Is that true?

Mayor: Again, whenever we have a personnel announcement, we make it. And we don’t say anything until we have such an announcement. There is a process going on working with our federal partners. This current process takes us up to July 1st. And I feel very good about meeting that timeline, but I’m not going to say more until things are clear.

Louis: So the story is accurate or no?

Mayor: As I say, when I have something to say, I’ll say it. But I don’t have something to say right now.

Louis: A related question about NYCHA – the deal to build a new tower on the side of a playground at the Holmes Towers on the East Side, not far from Gracie Mansion actually – is being scratched. My understanding is under the original deal, half of the units were going to be market, half were going to be affordable. The new formula apparently calls for 70 percent market rate. Is that progress? What’s going on?

Mayor: Yeah, because it’s part of a – look, we came up with a new plan that we announced several months ago, and it was around the time we did the settlement with the federal government on NYCHA and it’s about raising the maximum revenue, not just for NYCHA which has such intense needs but specifically for the buildings in the surrounding community right there on site, and nearby that need millions and millions of dollars in [inaudible]. These are – you know, folks who live in public housing are hardworking New Yorkers in so many cases still with problems with elevators, with front doors, stairwells, and of course in their own apartments. This is going to provide the money to fix all that for folks at homes and potentially even other surrounding developments. That’s what we decided to do. We’re not getting enough support from the federal government, we know that. We’re still waiting on support from the State of New York that was authorized years ago. Here’s a way to get real money in the hands of the housing authority to fix that building and those buildings around it, we’re going to do it.

Louis: Is that tough call to say look, we’re going to have even more market rate housing than we were planning, because we need the revenue in order to shore up the situation?

Mayor: It’s unfortunate, because let’s face it, the federal government chartered public housing decades ago, and then suddenly pulled the rug out, and stopped funding at the levels needed. So now we’re left holding the bag, trying to do the best we can. But look, if there’s a way to get to use the fact that there is private investment that will come in, take that money while maintaining all the things that we believe in – keeping the rent levels affordable, keeping public control, not privatization. I do not believe in privatization, but taking private sector money in to fix a public sector need and improve the lives of those residents, yeah, that’s something I’ll do.

Louis: Okay, new subject. We’ve seen three suicides of NYPD officers over a ten-day period, which apparently is part of a national trend. So for the last three straight years, there have been more cops who have died from suicide than were killed in the line of duty. I’m wondering what the City’s response is going to be? Your commissioner has called it a mental health crisis, I’m wondering if Project Thrive will be involved in the response?

Mayor: Absolutely. Our officers work really hard. They deal with a lot of stress. And as we know about mental health challenges, a lot of times people are suffering in silence. And we are trying to destigmatize the issue of mental health. That’s what my wife Chirlane has been working on for years now [inaudible] people to feel they can come forward and talk about it and get the help they need. And it is folks who care for all of us – police officers, firefighters, teachers, health care professionals. A lot of times, these are folks who deal with some of the biggest challenges and stresses. So look, for officers, members of the NYPD I want to give the number again, if anyone needs help – and this is for NYPD officers so they can talk to folks within the NYPD, it’s 6-4-6-6-1-0-6-7-3-0. Again 6-4-6-6-1-0-6-7-3-0, any officer that feels like they are overwhelmed, feels like they need help, that’s where they can call.

All New Yorkers, anyone having a mental health challenge, depression, anxiety, anything that they feel is too much for them, call 8-8-8-NYC-WELL, you call on behalf of a loved one or a friend, 8-8-8-NYC-WELL. So yes, we are going to do a lot of reaching out, working very closely with the Commissioner’s team and try and make sure our officers get what they need.

Louis: Okay, I want to talk about the Department of Education. A group of City Council members and the New York Post editorial board, all seem – well they have been calling on you basically to fire your chancellor. What seems to bother them the most is his blunt talk about change and the diversity initiatives and the desegregation efforts. You know, I know you well enough to know that you are probably not going to necessarily be swayed by that but I’m wondering where you think it’s coming from and whether or not it’s intended to scare off officials maybe in the next administration from continuing what you have started?

Mayor: It’s irresponsible and all the folks who signed that letter should be ashamed of themselves. Here is a guy who is a fantastic educator, who is telling a truth that needs to be told about inequity in our school system, and the fact that we have a long way to go and he’s trying to do something about it. And look, I know this guy, anyone who pays attention to him sees he cares for everyone, he loves people of all different backgrounds, he’s trying to serve kids from every neighborhood, every background. But he’s being blunt about the fact that we are in unacceptable level of inequality and we have to do something about it. And that’s not just the question of diversification or desegregation of schools; it’s about investing in schools that for a long time never go their fair share. That’s what the Equity and Excellence agenda is all about. He’s a very honorable, decent guy but he’s spoken very plainly and bluntly about an American problem and a New York problem. And look, you know, it does not surprise me if a particular newspaper goes after him. They don’t like people who try and change the status quo. But the Council members should have known better and that’s not the way to handle it. And Richard Carranza is not going anywhere. He’s doing a great job. I think a lot of people in this city really look up to him and are depending on him.

Louis: Okay, before I let you go, you are in the presidential debates next week.

Mayor: Yes.

Louis: Are you doing debate prep? How do you get ready for something like this?

Mayor: Well I have done a lot of debates over the years. And it’s something I enjoy doing. It’s something that I feel like it’s a great opportunity to get your message out. And here is a really, big national audience. I’m very honored to be on that stage. Of course, you’ve got to prep consistently. But the most important thing I’ve found with debating is you got to know who you are. And you know, I have been saying, it’s a very simple message, you know, working people first. Which – and I’m going to talk about what we have done here, the things in New York where we actually changed the status quo, put money back in the hands of working people, Pre-K For All, Paid Sick Leave, guaranteeing health care, $15 minimum wage, I mean things that make a huge difference in every day people’s lives. What I am finding around the country Errol, is when I tell people that this what we already have one – and I just saw it in New Hampshire on Saturday, they are shocked that these things are already happening in the nation’s biggest city. I think when folks all over the country get to hear about it, they are going to say wait a minute, that’s the kind of thing we need in this country and we want to know who can get it done, I’m going to say I can get it done because have already done it.

Louis: Okay, we will see how all of that works out. We will see you next week, thanks so much for coming by.

Mayor: Thank you.