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

October 18, 2019

Brian Lehrer: It’s the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. And we’ll begin as we usually do on Fridays with our weekly Ask the Mayor segment – my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio at 212-433-WNYC – 212-433-9692. Or, you can tweet a question, just use the hashtag #AsktheMayor. 

Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Welcome back to WNYC. 

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, Brian. 

Lehrer: And let me start with a brief follow-up to what happened here last week when the actor Chazz Palminteri called in and you had an exchange about his contention that it was racism not to include Mother Cabrini in the first round of statues of important women the City plans to put up. You told him you’d be looking very seriously at Mother Cabrini in the next round, and, of course, that blew up and made all, you know, the papers [inaudible] with Chazz Palminteri and you, and he was accusing you and your wife of stuff. But then, a few days later, Governor Cuomo got into the action declared that the State will fund a Mother Cabrini statue. So, I’m curious what your reaction is to the Governor getting involved and sort of snapping his fingers to declare this when you have a whole process?

Mayor: I just think we need to move past this, Brian. This whole idea to begin with, the reason we even got into the topic of statues a few years ago was that women all over this city raised a very powerful point and said, here’s this city, that if you look at the statues, pretty much only honors men, and it does not reflect our history, and it’s time to start to do something different. And so, a group of people got together to start changing that and to start reflecting the history of women in this city, and it was a beginning. And again, I want us all to start thinking about how people talk about things in this city and how much time is wasted on the wrong things. The whole idea was to begin a process to honor women and it began with a set of prominent women. It was never meant to be the end-all, be-all. And there was never a vote, there was never a public process where we said we’re going to have a vote and whoever gets the most votes wins – it was never anything like that. And a lot of the folks who raised the concern, as I said on the radio last week, if they thought something was missed or something different should be done, all they had to do was pick up the phone and say it, and I would have said what I believe – Mother Cabrini should be honored and I’m sure she will be honored. But it was – it’s almost like, if you think about for a moment, why are we – and it’s not just New York City – why is out whole civic discourse in this kind of endless loop of, you know, this person was affronted, or that person was affronted, and we’re not talking about the underlying issue. The underlying issue is women were fundamentally not represented and we were doing something about it, and it’s a lot better than not doing something about it. 

Lehrer: So, that’s sort of back to Chazz Palminteri, what about the Governor? 

Mayor: Again, I’m just not going to get lost in this. It’s just not pertinent. What’s pertinent is, we’re trying to honor the majority of New Yorkers who are women and actually bring their history to life in this city, and we’re going to keep doing that. There’s going to be more ahead and I think Mother Cabrini is someone who should be honored, and we’ll make sure it happens.  

Lehrer: Did you know, by the way, just as an aside, I learned this week because of this story that there is a Mother Cabrini shrine – I think the right word is shrine – in Washington Heights. Her remains are on the site of the old Mother Cabrini High School near the 190th Street A train stop. And according to what I’ve read, people go to the chapel there to pray all the time, especially immigrants since she’s the patron saint of immigrants – and I didn’t know that until this week, did you?

Mayor: I knew she is honored around this city and rightfully so – absolutely. 

Lehrer: Her remains are actually there, maybe that’s news to the Governor. Alright, enough on that, let’s go to Jason in the West Village. You’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Jason. 

Question: Hey, thanks for having me on. I had a question this week on the 14th Street Busway on Manhattan. This week there was data released from both the MTA and the Department of Transportation contractor that showed a big success with the recently started pilot of the 14th Street being shut down to private car traffic and prioritized for buses. The data was that bus travel times have decreased by 30 percent, ridership on the M14 bus has increased 17 percent on weekdays and higher on weekends, and traffic on surrounding streets has only seen a 0.3 mile-per-hour slowdown. So, overall, it seems like the data is showing that this has been a great success. And as a resident of the area, I’ve seen it as a huge improvement for my own travel across town. I wanted to ask the Mayor, when can we expect to see this type of bus priority on other major bus routes expanded elsewhere in the city?

Mayor: Well, Jason, I appreciate the question. I mean, look, we did this to test this approach and to decide at the end of the test what it meant not just for 14th Street, but what it might mean beyond. But I said at the beginning, you know, this is not something you do for a few weeks. We’re taking that test into next year, and when it’s concluded we’re going to start to think about what it means for every place else. A lot of folks – and you know – in the community were really concerned about some of the consequences of it, intended and unintended, and whether there’d be more traffic on the side streets and all that. We need to study that over a period of time and be responsive to those concerns as well. But the central reason we did it – and I’m the one who authorized it – is because we’ve got to get people back on the buses, we’ve got to get people to feel more comfortable with mass transit, we’ve got to get cars off the street, and the only way you’re going to get cars off the street is if mass transit works a lot better and is more reliable and faster. So, it’s very encouraging, but to everyone who’s either an advocate or already believes in the approach, we owe it to the whole city and to the community to really give this a thorough test, and then we will have a much stronger case if we make any other changes, going forward, because it’ll be based on a serious body of fact. 

Lehrer: There’s an argument that certainly the advocates make, but seems to be backed up by the early results of this experiment, that there has not been an increase in traffic on the side streets. One might have expected that, and then you take a considerable amount of time to figure out how much of a problem that is and whether you should continue the ban – mostly it’s a ban on cars on 14th Street. But from what I’m been reading, it hasn’t even materialized as a problem on the streets around 14th Street. And so, the next layer of the argument is, given all the bicycle deaths in the city this year, why not go faster based on the instant results on 14th Street to do this on 23rd Street, 34th Street, and then others?

Mayor: Because they’re instant results. We have to fundamentally change our approach to mass transit, which is why I approved this approach, which is why we have done things like greatly expand Select Bus Service, and created the ferry system, and a whole host of things. We’ve got to get the city more and more to mass transit, and obviously a crucial moment back in April when we achieved funding for the MTA through the congestion pricing plan. So, this is all connected, but the very reason you said, Brian, we’re not going to make a huge policy decision based on just a few weeks of experience. I said to the community, we’re going to study this based on a substantial amount of time – I’m going to keep my word to folks – and if we find that it opens the door to this approach in other places, again, we’re going to have a lot more to back it up than we just did the first few weeks and assume that’s how it would work long-term or how it would work everywhere else. This is a really, really important test. It’s never been done before in New York City, and we’ve got to get it right, and we’ve got to play the long game. And I care deeply about Vision Zero, I’m the person who brought us Vision Zero for God’s sake. But if we’re going to do something, we better make sure it is sustainable for the long run and we’ve got to do this test the right way. 

Lehrer: Marco in Queens, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Marco. 

Question: Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I have a problem since two years ago. First, I have to thank you for changing the policy for the sidewalks damaged by the tree – now they changed it to a City responsibility. I have a lot of friends who are homeowners and they said this is good policy right now. But I have another problem, because my sidewalk is damaged by the [inaudible]. They come to reinstall the fire hydrant and the problem is they had to remove the fire hydrant in front of the tree to move it to – about eight-to-10 feet [inaudible].

So they dug up the sidewalk, they installed the fire hydrant, and then they left. They never came back to repair the sidewalk. And I called 3-1-1 many times and some people [inaudible] city responsibility? I have a lot of friends [inaudible] homeowner, it’s a good policy right now. But I have another problem because my sidewalk is damaged by the DEP Department. They come to reinstall the fire hydrant, and the problem is they had to remove the fire hydrant in front of the tree, side of the tree, to move to about like eight to ten feet from the original fire hydrant. So they pick it off the sidewalk and they install the fire hydrant and then they left. They never come back to repair the sidewalk. And I called 3-1-1 many times and some people leave the message complaining to the DEP and some operator even tell me this is because the sidewalk is responsible by the homeowner to repair but I said this is damaged by the DEP Department, it’s not by the nature.

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, can you help Marco, or clear up who is responsible?

Mayor: Yeah, no, so first of all Marco, please give your information to WNYC. I’m going to have our Environmental Protection Department follow up with you today. Look, if they did something that created the problem, obviously we want to deal with that. So let me make sure they follow up with you personally. But I want to pick up, Brian, on what Marco said at the beginning too, which, and all of your listeners who are homeowners, and I’m speaking as a homeowner myself in Brooklyn, should understand – we made a major policy change a few weeks ago and that any sidewalk which is damaged because of a city tree, and that’s where the problem comes from, and that’s where the violation is caused, from now on the city is going to take responsibility for that. The homeowners will not be responsible for fixing the sidewalk if a city tree caused damage. There won’t be any more liens on people’s homes. You know, we really wanted to stop a policy which went back a long time – it was really a broken policy that put the onus on homeowners unfairly. So if it’s other kinds of things that really are the homeowner’s responsibility okay, that’s different. But if it’s something caused by a city tree, I just want all homeowners to know they are no longer responsible, and the city in fact is funding an effort to start to repair those sidewalks in the most serious cases. And that’s a big change from where we were over previous years.

Lehrer; Alright, Marco, hang on, we’ll get your contact off the phone – off the air and it sounds like the city will follow up with you.

Well, Mr. Mayor, historic vote yesterday in City Council, as you obviously know, to close Rikers Island by 2026, and fund smaller jails in each borough, except Staten Island. You’ve made the case for the plan here several times leading up to the vote, but I see there were some last minute sweeteners and if the plan was so sound, why did you offer another I think it was $391 million in funding for criminal justice reforms, reentry programs, and other things at the 11th hour?

Mayor: Brian, those are not sweeteners, those are reforms. This is absolutely consistent with six years of criminal justice reform where I’ve been very much in coalition with the City Council. We all together instituted neighborhood policing, got rid of stop-and-frisk. You know, moved to summons instead of arrest for any number of offenses. We put in place a lot of alternatives to incarceration, I mean you name it. This city, and I’m very proud of this, New Yorkers should be proud of it, we are leading the way on criminal justice reform in this entire country. And we’ve proven that as we make these reforms we actually get safer. So this is simply consistent with that.

We are funding the Cure Violence movement, the crisis management system that does such important work at the grassroots level to stop violence. We’re funding youth programs, we’re funding alternatives to incarceration, all consistent with what we’ve been doing in previous budgets. But a lot of the members wanted to make sure there would be a lot of the Council members, wanted to make sure there would be a steady, consistent investment and getting at these root cause issues. I agree with them.

But the more important thing to me, in terms of assessing this vote - and this is a historic moment - and honestly, most analysts of political circumstance would say something like this was impossible to get the City Council to vote, not only for such profound change, getting away from Rikers, which was a broken place that should not have been kept open, but creating community-based jails and the four members whose districts those jails would be in, agreeing that this was the right thing to do for the greater good of New York City, and for a redemption oriented system. That deserves a lot more credit than I think it’s getting because those members did something extraordinarily brave.

Lehrer: But the headcount was very close. I heard 28-26.

Mayor: No, no, no, Brian.

Lehrer: Before, no, no, no, but – no, no, listen. Before the vote was taken on the day leading up to the vote—

Mayor: No, that’s just not right. There was not a day in this process, and I think a lot of foolish people gave commentary and didn’t know what the hell they were taking about – there was not a day in this process where we weren’t winning this vote. And I give a lot of credit to Speaker Corey Johnson, I give a lot of credit to previous speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito set this in motion. We – I’m very cautious about vote counting, which is why I’ve won votes on a consistent basis and we wanted to make sure everyone was onboard for a very tough vote. That’s what I think is kind of – Brian, I really wish there’d be a little more perspective here.

How on earth does anyone think it is an easy vote for folks to vote to build jails that would be part of redeeming people, and changing people’s lives but still require the bravery of saying we need these facilities. We’re going to get off the place that was way too convenient – we had a penal colony, right? We had a place that everyone said, oh we don’t have to look at what’s going on, we don’t have to deal with, as opposed to having community-based facilities that actually work a lot better. And four Council members had to say “I’ll take that in my district.”

Lehrer: Clearly.

Mayor: And there was tons of opposition from right and left—

Lehrer: Clearly.

Mayor: —and yet we had an overwhelming vote – 35 to 14 for it. This is not even close.

Lehrer: So since the city plans to cut the number of people in city jails from 7,000 currently to about 3,300 eventually is your projection, and crime is continuing to fall, which you’re very proud of, does the city still need to have 36,000 uniformed police officers? Do the No New Jails activists have a point when they say it’s time to invest at least some of that money that’s currently going toward policing back into the communities that need it the most?

Mayor: The community - the folks who say, and I think they are motivated by a lot of the right feelings, they say “we need much deeper commitment to our schools, to affordable housing, to mass transit” all of those that would change people’s lives, that’s exactly what we’re doing right now. And the amount of investment we’ve shifted into communities that need it and education has been huge, many, many billions of dollars, especially for things like Pre-K and 3-K, which have disproportionately helped communities that often are underinvested in, and what we’ve done with affordable housing obviously has been targeted to communities that deserved a lot more affordable housing. And the same with what just happened with all of the things I’ve talked about, mass transit – all of these investments are moving at a very high level.

Now, folks say we need a lot more – of course they are right, but it’s all moving at a high level. Let me explain—

Lehrer: Right, but the question is do we need as many police officers as—

Mayor: Yeah.

Lehrer: —we had when Mayor Dinkins built up the force in the early ‘90s because there were 2,000 murders a year?

Mayor: And as you know that number that we – Mayor Dinkins did lead the way, and you’re absolutely right about that, and thank you for noting that history. It is part of what turned around the situation and made New York City the safest big city in America. But the number of officers then went down quite a bit. With the City Council, we added 2,000 more officers on patrol a few years ago. We’re at 36,000 now. That is the right number, and I’ll tell you why – because now our officers are focusing more and more on things like Vision Zero, and they’re focusing more and more on the quality of life in communities, and a whole host of things and I hear it from my constituents all the time. That they want our officers to be dealing with - and neighborhood policing requires a lot more time and energy for officers to develop relationships with community members and be responsive to them.

So I am absolutely certain that we’ve got the right number for all the things we’re asking officers to do now which is much more about day-to-day quality of life and addressing a whole host of new challenges, then dealing with the tragedy of what we used to have in the early ‘90s. I think we’re at the right place, and I think folks who – again, I understand the impulse of some folks that say “oh you know, let’s move money into all these other things”, but there is an argument in life that, you know, if you’ve made a lot of progress, don’t let that progress slip away. We’re the safest big city in America, we’re going to continue to drive down crime and build a different relationship between police and community. We’ve got to address Vision Zero needs, and protect pedestrians and cyclists and motorists on a whole, much higher level. We’re not going to be able to do that if we don’t have a police force that can cover all that they have to cover.

Lehrer: Since we’re talking about the Rikers news, I remember and I’m sure you remember that we’ve taken a phone call for you a couple of times from a caller named Winston, who was calling from Rikers Island, where he was incarcerated. Well he’s calling again, and now apparently he’s out, and I’m going to let him talk to you one more time. Winston, formerly of Rikers, now in Harlem I see, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor, hi.

Question: Good morning, Brian, good morning Mr. Mayor, I’m glad I have a little more time to talk this morning.

Lehrer: And real brief because I want to get to some other folks too.

Question: That’s right. Well, I wanted to congratulate you on the plan to close Rikers. I was up in the balcony for the vote yesterday and as someone who spent my time there I think this is a real big victory for, you know, human decency and compassion. I know a large part about why this plan became possible is because of changes to State laws eliminating cash bail. And those changes will start January 1st.

So my question is do you know what it’s going to look like when those men and women who are being held with bail, right now, are returned back to our communities? Do you know how many are projected to come out close to January? And I guess my bigger question is do you know what the city is doing to prepare for what I’m imagining is a larger than usual out-flux of detainees, and particularly those who are Brad-H class members.

The reason I’m asking is because I received mental health services when I was at Rikers and when I was released in May, I was released from court in my prison uniform, with no medication, and it took me nearly four months to get in to see a psychiatrist afterward. So I’m just wondering if there is an increasing in, you know, staff, or case management, or mental health services, or what the city is doing to prepare for that?

Mayor: Yeah, no. It’s an important question, Winston. And that’s a lot of what was so important in putting together a fuller plan. Both to continue to deepen investments in things like mental health services and alternatives to incarceration more broadly but also as you said, to prepare for the new dynamics. Now again, there are people who still will be held on bail. I don’t want the listeners to get a missed impression. Even with the law changes in Albany, there still are going to be people with the most serious offenses and extenuating circumstances who will be held on substantial bail. But the change is really focused on, first and foremost, lower level offenses and folks who had a relatively low bail set but just couldn’t afford hardly anything and ended up staying in. And that’s what we have to change. And we’re initiating a series of actions, including supervised release approaches, that are going to be part of addressing the new reality.

So, you know, we’re building that up all the time, again, this is what I said yesterday when we talked about this victory. This has been six years. This thing is not in isolation. Six years of changing the approach to criminal justice and it’s all been consistent with reducing crime at the same time and I’m very convinced that this is the right approach. But you’re right, it will take some important adjustments and investments and getting people more access to mental health services, which is the whole concept behind the Thrive Initiative, is absolutely necessary going forward, and providing better and more consistent mental health for those who do happen to be incarcerated, which is also in this plan.

Lehrer: Kate in Brooklyn, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor, hi Kate.

Question: Oh, hi. And, hi, Mayor de Blasio. I’m a Success Academy parent, we have spoken before. Three weeks ago, 4,000 parents rallied in Roy Wilkins Park because we need one, just one, middle school in Queens for Success Academy kids. The Chancellor says we’re getting this school, but not when, so why after two years can’t you find us a school? If he’s so sure we’re going to have a school, why can’t he tell us where it is?

Mayor: Kate, we have spoken before, and I will reiterate the basic reality because I think a lot of listeners may not know this. So any charter school organization comes forward and makes a request around a specific building or a specific type of space, the Department of Education attempts to accommodate that, sometimes that works fine, other times the space that the Charter wants is not available or doesn’t work according to the rules we’ve set. And then in that instance under state law, the charter organization is funded to rent space.

So I don’t know the specifics, most recently. I haven’t talked to the Chancellor on this one recently. If he says he’s finding space, I take him at his word, but I don’t know the nuances of the timeline or location, but the important thing running through all of this is either space is provided or funding is provided, and that’s the way state law works and we continue to honor that.

Lehrer: Is it unusual once a commitment is made to find a space that it would take more than two years?

Mayor: Well, with all due respect to Kate, and she’s an activist with a particular worldview, I want to hear from the Chancellor what his understanding is what commitments were made when and how before I comment on that. I just don’t have those facts in front of me.

Lehrer: Lou on Staten Island, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor, hi Lou.

Question: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. First of all I want to thank you for the work you are doing in this city. I am particularly impressed with the Pre-K school program because it’s doing a lot of good in my community here on Staten Island. So I want to thank you on that.

But my reason for calling actually concerns policing. Lately there has been a lot of shootings by police officers. Well – is it that they are not trained to disarm people with guns? Is it that they get excited when they see guns? And my next thing is that this business of police officers being – not having their criminal records, if any, exposed to the public. They are public servants. They are in the business of avoiding crime while preventing one, so if they themselves are of the same nature, shouldn’t we know who should be the cops on the beat?

Mayor: Lou, thank you for the question. Look, what we have seen now in the time I’ve been Mayor looking at the NYPD’s work – first of all, all officers are now trained in deescalating conflicts, in exercising a lot of restraint, restraint in what they do and the use of their firearm, and that’s been proven factually – firearm discharges are about half the number they were before I took office. The – there’s a lot more tendency now, because of the training, for officers to try every other possible approach before having to use a firearm. And body worn cameras are really important in this equation because we get a much more objective view of what’s going on. So these are all changes that are moving in the right direction. But still each case is individual and anytime a firearm is used, there is a full investigation to determine if it was done appropriately. So the – overall things I think have been moving in the right direction but every case must be examined carefully and we have to learn from each and act on each.  

As to the other part of your question, look we’re going to continue to work on this, and there’s actions in Albany that are still needed, but I do think what we see in a number of situations, and you read them in the paper from time to time, is you know, if something has been done inappropriately it’s out there publicly pretty quickly. So I think there’s more transparency than people may acknowledge.

Lehrer: On that topic, the New York Post reports that you barred NYPD and Civilian Complaint Review Board officials from testifying publically about this proposal to make police disciplinary records public. Barred them both so they wouldn’t fight about in public, true?

Mayor: No, and again, Brian, you can keep quoting the New York Post if you want to, I really don’t understand and I think  a lot of your listeners agree with me, it’s not a fact-based publication. It just isn’t. It’s an ideological publication that will say anything they want all the time and you’ll notice one of the reasons I’m right is they don’t ask for the opposing view and represent the opposing view as most journalists do. They don’t actually give equal time. It’s not what they’re there to do. They’re there to move a right-wing agenda, so no –

Lehrer: There’s a difference though – there’s a difference between saying that a publication has an ideological slant, which of course many publications do, and saying that their publishing false facts in the news articles.

Mayor: But Brian, they do it all the time and again, I don’t know if – I think a lot of your listeners would agree with me on this statement. We know they publish falsehoods on a regular basis for their agenda. It’s not – this is like – we need to have a more mature conversation in this city. It’s not that there shouldn’t be recognition that pretty much every media outlet has some kind of ideological orientation – great, that’s democracy, that’s freedom, and that we should always uphold a free press. But it’s when in pursuit of that worldview, facts are compromised, that we have to be a little open about to talking about that and not being scared to talk about it, and not use this ridiculous excuse because of Donald Trump who is not going to be with us much longer, thank God, that we’re not allowed to talk about the honest reality.

So you’re literally quoting and telling your listeners that I did something that I not only didn’t do, I didn’t even know about, and you’re treating it like it’s factual when you know that is a publication that consistently puts un-factual information in their paper. It’s just true. So I would ask you if you’re going to use the New York Post as your example to say, they allege, because when you say they report, you’re acting like they reporting fact. They consistently don’t. And I feel bad for the reporters by the way. They are ordered by their editors to put stuff in – I think a lot of the reporters are smart people, they’re good people who wouldn’t necessarily report it that way, but unfortunately their editors and their leadership have an axe to grind. So no, I didn’t even know about it, Brian, so I couldn’t have ordered it if I didn’t know about it.

Lehrer: Alright, well, maybe some other reporters will follow up and fact-check since they named the name of an NYPD Deputy Commissioner and someone from the Review Board, maybe somebody else will follow up and say, did the Mayor do this or didn’t he do it?

Mayor: Yeah, well I would love to find the person who can prove I knew about something I didn’t know about and prove I took an action I didn’t take. And again, just ask me. Just – if it’s the New York Post, just ask me from scratch, did you do this or not, and I will happily answer, totally transparent. But again, you’re being fed a bill of goods.

Lehrer: On the issue, I’ve been told you support a partial repeal of that policy, 50a, which bars police disciplinary records from being made public but not a complete repeal. Would you clear up what you’re position is?

Mayor: Yeah, I’ve said it publicly. I believe in repeal and replace. I believe that the current law is not working and it’s not transparent, and it doesn’t fit the time we’re living in. I do think they’re very legitimate concerns that law enforcement officers have about insuring that their identities are protected where appropriate, that their home addresses, things like that are protected, that’s absolutely legitimate. So there’s a balance that needs to be struck but the current law doesn’t do that. So the current law doesn’t allow for enough transparency. If you get rid of it, you would be compromising the safety of our officers, that’s why I say repeal and replace. Come up with a new law that actually allows for transparency while being respectful for the need to protect our officers.

Lehrer: And what’s the line? How would you characterize that line as we start to run out of time, because people, you know, note – that they – let’s say allege that the NYPD is less transparent on your watch than it was before 2016 because that’s when the Department decided to reinterpret the law to really crack down on those releases.

Mayor: Yeah, and I think that even – I appreciate you amending it to the word allege – see this is just another broad stroke characterization that just doesn’t hold water and it’s a sad example of a really, really insufficient public discourse, and I’m going to be talking about this plenty over the next two years. If we’re going to be a mature city of 8.6 million people, we better start talking about stuff in an honest, and intelligent, and fact-based way rather these snippets and blaring headlines and everything else that people love to hinge on around here.

No, in fact there’s a lot more transparency. If you look across the board at NYPD, the amount of information they are putting out all the time, if you look something like body-worn cameras which are an exemplar of transparency, there’s much more transparency today. If you look at the thing – for example, we got rid of the surveillance of Muslim communities, and that was all being done in a way that wasn’t transparent and was wrong and we got rid of it. So, there’s much more transparency. And a lot of folks who love to say “oh there’s less transparency” are really being immature about their facts. Where there is something different is that there used to be a certain release of information that was proven to be illegal under state law and it was proven to be illegal because of a FOIL request that dredged up – there had been, bluntly, an informal procedure that went on for a long time, and then once it was legally questioned, it was clear that it wasn’t actually legally appropriate and had to be changed. And that helped dredge up the fact that we need to change the law, the law is not working. I would hope that our colleagues in Albany, again, would repeal and replace the current law, because I think it can be done, and then that would authorize the NYPD to release a lot more information.

Lehrer: Thanks as always Mr. Mayor, talk to you next week.

Mayor: Take care, Brian. Thank you.