Mayor Eric Adams: Good to see you out here. Many of you may know I went to Bayside High School, you know, Bayside High School. I know this community so well. I grew up in Jamaica, took the Q31 all the way out to Bayside, Q5, Q31, we had to get up bright and early. Coach Nelson was my coach. There you go, there you go, boy, you got a lot of history. We may have graduated together, you know? Okay. That must be wifey, because she's shutting you up a lot. You know, but really, I want to thank the team for coming out today, and this is number what? 26. 26 older adult town halls.
I think we've done about 30-something regular town halls, youth town halls, how many? 41 town halls throughout the city, because it's just so important for us to hear directly from New Yorkers, and just off the top, this is a cooling center, where's my director here? Thank you so much, you know, this is a cooling center, so this weekend we are going to make sure that it's going to be hot this weekend, so please come out and enjoy the space of the cooling center.
We should have a contest of the best director in the city, you know that? Give an award. And so, we're going to open the floor and speak with you, but I first want to show you this emergency contact information magnetic strip. You can put it on your refrigerator, wherever you want. It was something that my mom told me about when she was with us, and it's just whenever you have to respond to an emergency, this is just basic information, name, emergency contact number, primary care doctor, chronic condition, allergies, medication, because oftentimes first responders have to come to your house, you know, gathering this information is important and it's timely, and it can prevent any type of error from happening.
Also, Commissioner Stewart is here, and he has a couple of scam alerts he's going to go, you can put it on the table, and he's going to go over it in a few, to go over some of the things that people do primarily to older adults, and want to be really on top of that. Commissioner Stewart often shares the conversation where his mom was either scammed or attempted scammed, so people really prey on those who are home and don't have a lot of the information that is needed.
So three years and seven months later, you know, January 1st, 2021, 2022, when I became the mayor of the city of New York, it was unbelievable what we inherited. There was something called COVID that was everywhere. Crime was through the roof. The city was over proliferation of guns. We were not investing in our foster care children, jobs were hurting the city, major companies were fleeing the city, tourism was at a significant crisis level. We were not helping children with learning disabilities. There was every area you could look at, and the indicators were real. We had 237,000 migrants and asylum seekers, and people were stopping me on the streets saying, you know, Eric, what are you doing?
They didn't realize that we couldn't stop the buses from coming in, it was against federal law. We couldn't allow people to work, that was against federal law. We had to go by city law that required me to feed, house, and close. We educated 50,000 children. These were the laws that we had to follow, and we lived up to it.
It cost us $7 billion, $7.7 billion, and we had to find ways to manage our budget. Those of you who are homeowners, you know how challenging it is when something happens and takes out a significant amount of your budget, and you have to find ways to fill it. But we did, we did. We balanced each budget, and even this budget here, the greatest budget we'd like to say ever, 51 of the councilmembers, also signed on and saw that the budget was the right thing to do. But what did we do in three years and seven months?
When you do an analysis, there's been a lot of noise three years and seven months, but when you do an analysis of what we have accomplished as a city, the numbers are clear. When you judge cities, you judge cities based on what do you do for everyday working class people and families. We built more housing in individual years in the history of the city.
We built more affordable housing and made more affordable housing available for our residents than the 12 years of Bloomberg, the eight years of de Blasio combined. In 20 years, they have not matched the numbers that we have put in place in three years and seven months.
We brought down crime in the city, we moved 22,000 illegal guns off our streets. These last six months, we have seen the lowest numbers of shooting and homicides in the recorded history of the city. I don't know if many people remember in July 4th, 2020, July 4th, 2021, it felt like you were in Beirut. There were so [many] fireworks going off in the city, and residents were complaining about all the noise throughout the night. You didn't hear that this year. You didn't hear it in 2022, 2023, 2024, where we sent out a real message. We were not going to tolerate disorder.
We had shelters or tents and cardboard boxes all over the city, people living on the side of highways, in our subway station. Many of them were dealing with severe mental health illness, and we went into the system. We took 8,500 people off our system to give them the care. We built more housing in our individual years for those who were leaving shelter into permanent housing in the history of the city, paying the college tuition for foster care children, and giving them a stipend and life coaches until they're 21 years old so they won't slip through the cracks and fall into a state of disrepair.
Free high-speed broadband for public housing, and we just extended to other affordable housing today. Universal after-school programs, so our children could have after-school programs and be in a safe environment. Pre-K and 3K, 150,000 new seats for Pre-K and 3K. We dropped the cost of childcare from $220 a month to less than $20 a month. Less than $20 a month, and no income tax for low-income New Yorkers. We removed all the income tax for low-income New Yorkers in this city.
Building senior housing, adult housing, veteran housing, bond raters who do an analysis of how well cities are running, they had a low bond rating when I came into office. They raised our bond rating, and they stated that the way you're managing the crisis, no matter what happens, you're showing the skills of managing the city.
They increased our bond, and our bond stayed high, and that benefits our city. Broadway had the best 12 years in recorded history, 12 months in recorded history in the city. 65 million tourists, tourism is back, they're spending money. We dropped unemployment all across the entire city. We put more and more people into jobs. You can clap for that. More and more people into jobs. There's been some ups and downs, folks. Ups and downs.
Listen, I am 64 years old, and if anyone understands how people could disappoint you in 64 years, I know you do. When I sit in a kindergarten class, they don't know what it's about, but I'm pretty sure many of you in your life have trusted people you should not have trusted. People have broken your heart. People have done things that really disappointed you, and that's how I feel when I look at this journey. I'm perfectly imperfect, but I'm dedicated to this city. I wore that police uniform for 22 years, and I stood on these street corners and protected the children and families of this city.
I would never do anything to tarnish the name of my family and tarnish the name of this city. I serve you well. I thank God I had the opportunity to be the mayor of the greatest city on the globe. There's no place like New York. New York is a tough crowd. I like to tell people New Yorkers have five fingers. They love the middle one the most. They don't have a problem telling you how they feel and how they think, and they will say it in any language they want, but [they're] great people. We're not good because of the Empire State Building and because of Broadway and because of all of our waterways.
No, we're good because we are the people of this city of different diverse groups and backgrounds that come together and create this unique product that's called a New Yorker. No matter where you go, you can go anywhere in the globe, and people will be talking about they're from Oklahoma, they're from Seattle, they're from here and here, but when you say New York, everybody turns around and look, because there's something special about being a New Yorker. There's something special about being a mayor of the city of New York.
It's only been 110 of us. That's it, and I'm blessed. You think about this. My story is the New York story. Growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, mother raising six of us, struggling with dyslexia, called the dumb student, living on the verge of homelessness. Only our neighbors held us down, and now, this is the only city where you can be a dishwasher and then own a chain of restaurants, where you can not understand English but open English speaking schools, where you can work in the mail room and be the mayor. Greatest city on the globe. I want to open it up to some questions. I'm on the left side.
Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. My name is Kim Russo. I'm from Bayside. I've been here for about 60 years myself, a long-term person. My biggest question is, why are the disabled, lower-income persons who make more than $1,800 but make less than $30,000 or under $40,000 forced into Medicare Advantage, especially the 65 and over, should be granted immediate Medicare, Medicaid?
We're talking persons without unions. And I know unions have been representing that they don't want Medicaid Advantage, but why do the seniors who are disabled have to do that? We can't afford Medicare premiums and Medigap that are over $400 plus Part D a month, and our taxes, our property taxes are over $12,000 a year for a small two-bedroom house. We have to keep our seniors here. We don't want them to leave. They're leaving in droves, we cannot have them going to other states. We need to protect our seniors, the most vulnerable of us all. So thank you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much. Now, our city employees were fighting on the Medicaid Advantage, and they went to court, they sued, and the city won in court. The city won the case in court. But I told the city, although we won, I heard from my seniors, it's not the right thing to do.
We're going to keep the plan in place so that we don't have to reverse it. So I just wanted to get that clear, just in case there's some union members here that came into the room with some tomatoes to throw at me, you can keep it in your bag. We said that we won, but we're not going to implement the plan, although the judge gave us the authority to do so. Now, I'm not quite sure who is responsible for doing it for non-union. So can you please, can we find out, doctor, can we find out about that? Okay.
Dr. Bindu Babu, Scientific Advisor, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Yes. I'm going to come to you in a bit, and I'm going to get all your information, okay?
Mayor Adams: Okay. So let's see if we can fill that hole. I don't know if it's the state or the city. So let's see if we can fill that hole, okay? Did you go to Bayside High School?
Question: I went to a community commercial in Jamaica, so you came here and you went to-
Mayor Adams: Okay. Jamaica High School on the Hill? Okay. Love it. How are you, ma'am?
Question: You mentioned Bayside High School. Four of my children graduated. One of them was there two years after you. She is a judge. So I think Bayside High School did pretty good for us.
Mayor Adams: Yes, I agree.
Question: Okay. Now, my question is, why are motorized vehicles, e-bikes and so forth, who are unlicensed, don't have insurance and don't have registration, they're allowed in bike lanes and in public parks in the greenways of the city?
Mayor Adams: We have not attended one town hall that we don't get a question on those darn e-bikes. We've dropped the speed limit to 15 miles an hour. We put in an entire enforcement plan to go after those who are using illegal bikes or those who are not following the rules. They have to follow the same rules that vehicles have to follow and even bikers have to follow those same rules. We're going to put more pressure on the delivery companies because they have to take a responsibility and there's some important bills that are moving through our lawmakers' legislative chambers that are focusing on registration even before you leave the store. It should be registered, it should have insurance, because if you're hit by one of these vehicles, you're left with the burden of paying the cost. So we're doing a whole series of enforcement around e-bikes. Do we have anybody from DOT? You want to talk about it?
Nicole Garcia, Queens Borough Commissioner, Department of Transportation: Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Mayor, and good afternoon, everyone. We recently announced, thanks to the Mayor's efforts, a Department of Sustainable Delivery. It's a brand new division at the New York City Department of Transportation.
We like to say that we focus on the three E's, so that's engineering, which DOT does, we have an education division, and we've worked very closely with our partners at NYPD on enforcement. So with this new Department of Sustainable Delivery, we're going to have 45 peacekeeping officers, so they will be deployed based on hotspots throughout the city.
So obviously we'll work with the business improvement districts, community boards, civics, and facilities such as this, and then these peacekeeping officers will be able to issue some moving violations. So it's a very important E in the three E's of DOT, so thank you for your support.
Mayor Adams: We hear it all the time, all the time, and we really, First Deputy Mayor Mastro, Commissioner Ydanis Rodriguez, the police commissioner, we really have started a real enforcement action. We moved 100,000 illegal vehicles and two-wheelers, four-wheelers off the streets and crushed them. They've been used in crimes. Many of them were doing snatching jewelry, they were doing robberies, so we really zeroed in on them. As a matter of fact, the person who shot the custom border patrol officer over the weekend, he was on the same type of device. So we're with you. How are you, sir?
Question: Hello, thank you for coming. I also went to Bayside High. Okay. And started with [inaudible].
[Crosstalk.]
Question: I actually graduated the same year. What year was it? 1971.
Mayor Adams: Love it, love it, love it.
Question: Thank you. My question is really more specific than the other questions here. It's about PS169 down here on 212th Street. It's been under construction for a very long time. It just seems like the construction never ends. It was been since- I mean, it's completed.
They're just like rebuilding it, but like piece at a time, I think since before the pandemic. I know kids who never went to a school that's not under construction. They go in in first grade, and they're graduating fifth grade now, and it's been under construction that entire time. Different pieces. They put a new wing, that's great. They redid the front school yard, but really does it need to be for that long? The front of the 212th Street, that area is always broken up.
Mayor Adams: Was that PS what?
Question: 169Q.
Mayor Adams: See if we can find DJ. Okay, while we're here, let me have them call and find out what's the status on it, okay? Thank you very much. Okay. DJ, look at the PS169Q. 169? 169Q. Just find out. They've been under construction. Just reach out to the chancellor and just find out what's going on, when they're going to finish. All right. Let's find out. Okay. How many years you guys been married?
Question: [Inaudible.]
Mayor Adams: Don't let me start any trouble. Welcome to my second. How are you, ma'am?
Question: Hi. Thank you, Mayor Adams. Nice to meet you. Just want to say a real quick thing. Thank you, Erin, and to all her staff. She does an amazing job over here.
Mayor Adams: Love it. Love it. Thank you.
Question: That being said, I have a concern about traffic safety and noise. Everyone that lives here knows that the cross island between the Bell Boulevard exit and probably Northern Boulevard exit, that's probably like a four to six mile run. It's a speedway. All times of the night.
You hear all the motorcycles. You hear all the cars with the no mufflers. It's so noisy. And then on Bell Boulevard, that's a great speedway for everybody, too. It's just so much noise. And it's just, I love this neighborhood. I moved from Whitestone to this neighborhood. And it's just too noisy. What can be done about it? And safety. It's a safety issue, too.
Mayor Adams: The beauty is you gave us specific locations which are very helpful. So there are a number of things that we're doing to bring down the speeding, the reckless driving, the traffic calming. We're the lowest number of fatalities going back eons of years. So we've been really zeroing in. DOT has been doing an amazing job. But give us those specific locations and we'll make sure that we do enforcement actions there and there are a number of things that we can do to identify those who are speeding and send the right message out.
Question: Yeah. I also heard there's a group of motorcyclists that always come in on the Bell Boulevard entrance over there, or exit. That's probably why we're hearing all that noise. At night. All times of the night.
Mayor Adams: Well, we have been doing an amazing job of monitoring a lot of the speeding, a lot of the motorcycle over proliferation in communities. It was really crazy in 2022. You don't see those 300, 400 bikers just riding through communities.
Deputy Mayor Daughtry, for public safety, Daughtry, he has used drones and planes to identify these large volume of motorcycles. But you gave me two locations. Let us zero in on it. We're going to bring down that noise. And noise is a real health issue. I didn't even know that until we were out in Rockaway and there's some major studies that show the impact of noise on a community and the health that it is. So we're going to bring down the noise.
Question: Can I say one small thing? There's a sign, stop for pedestrians on Bell Boulevard and 33rd Avenue. I guess not everyone knows what this stop for pedestrians sign means. Right. It means that you're supposed to stop if there are pedestrians present. So if there are no pedestrians present, I will drive through. But not everyone knows that. So whoever does stop there when there are no pedestrians there, there'll be noise saying go, go, go, go, go. So can people be more educated about this stop sign?
Mayor Adams: First of all, I think that's a dumb sign. Why don't they just have a stop sign? It's either a stop or not. Yeah, right. Why don't they have just a stop sign? I don't understand.
Garcia: So one of the reasons why we created these stop for pedestrians–
Mayor Adams: Oh, you did it.
Garcia: Yeah. The agency did, which is like the walking person and a little mini stop sign is because it doesn't meet the volumes for the octagonal red stop sign. But we did see that there are pedestrians at peak time. So it's not all the time. So this was kind of a creative solution that we deployed to try to get that safety benefit. But I'm happy to take this back to the agency and see if we can upgrade to the stop sign. 33rd and Bell Boulevard, I think?
Mayor Adams: Yeah.
Question: There are a lot of students who exit that bus to go to Bayside High and in the mornings, they definitely need to stop for these kids to cross the street to go to Bayside. I walk the dog towards the park and I'm afraid to put my foot out on the sidewalk in case these cars don't realize I want to go to the park and I need to cross. It's a busy street. So thank you for the sign, but people need to be educated as to when to use it and when they can bypass it.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. We need to look at that. New York drivers? Please. What? Let us look at that. Look at that area. She took the exact location. I would rather have a stop sign. How are you, sir?
Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. My question is why, in this city, they have the cars parked away from the curb, can't they have bicycles and e-bikes and then the sidewalk? They showed it even on TV, that the school bus stops there, lets children, maybe ten years old, run to get to the sidewalk. You know how they hate school. They want to hurry up and get home. And bikes are coming very fast, and it's a dangerous situation for these kids. Who could, in their mind, put those cars away from the curb?
Mayor Adams: She did. I'm only kidding. No, she didn't. What happened is, they consider those sort of protected bike lanes. And we have reshaped, like on Bedford Avenue, we were having the same problem, Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, where children were running between the cars, and we saw a dangerous, it was a dangerous environment, so we reshaped them. That design was designed to sort of prevent people from speeding, and to create a protected bike lane in the area. Not all of them are like that, but that was the design that was put in place by the DOT. Okay. Are you a teacher?
Question: No, I'm not a teacher.
Mayor Adams: Okay. Did you wear a tie for me?
Question: Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Excuse me. Just out of respect for you, you're the mayor.
Mayor Adams: You're a good man. You're a good man. You know that?
Question: I give you your props. I graduated in 1965 from Thomas Edison School, right across the street from Jamaica High School.
Mayor Adams: It was all boys at that time.
Question: That's right. And so all we could do was look at the girls dancing across the street, and there was plenty of that. It's just on 33rd Avenue over here in Queens, the bicycling ... The bike lanes are in the middle of the street, and the cars are going this way and coming that way. I don't know who designed these things. Now we know.
Mayor Adams: So do we have ... Are we dealing with any accidents there? Do we know any numbers over there?
Inspector Kevin J. Coleman, Commanding Officer, 109 Precinct, Police Department: That location is actually in the 111. I'm the command officer of the 109 precinct, but I'll bring your concerns to Captain Ramlochan, who's the CO there. I can speak for my precinct, which I'm sure Captain Ramlochan is doing as well. We have dedicated traffic units that are out there issuing summonses, conducting enforcement on these bike lane roads to ensure that everyone is in compliance, and we'll continue to do that.
Question: Colonel. Colonel.
Mayor Adams: Inspector.
Question: I'm saying colonel because I was in the middle of something. Alright? You are a colonel, right? That's a full bird.
Mayor Adams: Inspector.
Question: Why is there so many cars? They're all living here in Queens, but they got licenses for Louisiana, California, and they're trying to beat the high cost of insurance there. It's not fair to the other people that live here.
Mayor Adams: And that's illegal. It's illegal to do. It's illegal to do. But first, I want to go with your first issue. Can we just find out, either to the inspector, let's just find out if it's a safety issue there. We got to find out if it's a safety. Let's see what the numbers are. Have them look. Alright, commissioner?
So, I don't know. I can't fix the problem about the license plates, you know? We're going to look and see if there's a safety issue on the bike lane, okay? Thank you very much.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: Hi, I want to welcome you to the center and giving us this time. My name is [Theo.] Talk about Bayside High School, my daughter went there and now she's teaching over there.
Mayor Adams: Wow, wow, love it, love it.
Question: My concern was with the senior citizens since they changed the bus stops, they have skipped a lot of stops, so to make the stops longer. So seniors have to walk a little further down for the bus and sometimes they have to wait. I don't see it getting more faster service.
Some seniors I know take two buses just to get here, right? How many of you take two buses to get here? A lot of them. And it's really a very burden for them waiting in the hot heat and the snow day and the rain. So what is the purpose of cutting down the bus stops?
Mayor Adams: These are the city buses?
Question: Yeah, the city buses.
Mayor Adams: Do you know anything about that?
Question: They eliminated many stops.
Garcia: So the MTA during COVID had embarked on a bus network redesign. So the MTA is run by the state, but they had engaged communities, elected officials, etc. And when they put together the plan, I know several elected officials along with the borough president petitioned the MTA to go back to the drawing board.
So for the past year and a half, they have been working across Queens to figure out ways to improve bus service. Some of that, from what I know, is related to consolidation. So if there are nearby stops, they have eliminated some stops, but also they have added additional routes.
So I'm happy to pass along my card and get the routes and connect you with the MTA to discuss the bus service. But I know that they recently launched it, and presently they're in the process of removing some signs that are still around the borough.
Mayor Adams: So it's a state-run entity. A lot of people think that we control the subways and the bus system, but it's MTA, the state. So what we're going to do, we're going to weigh in, particularly if they skip stops. You should not be walking longer.
So let us weigh in, speak with our state officials who's here. I'm not sure who has the assembly, who's the senator in the assembly. You want to connect with them and the borough president. But we'll all do it together to weigh in on why these stops.
Because I think that's a valid question, that you have to skip stops, you have to walk longer. Sometimes people design the city based on a one-dimensional approach. They don't design it based on those who are mobility-impaired for some reason. Those who have to move longer. And so we need to make sure they do just that. Now we're doing something where we go out and do the street. Why don't you explain some of the stuff that we're doing around here?
Executive Deputy Commissioner Ryan Murray, Chief Program Officer, Department for the Aging: Sure. With my colleague here at DOT, by the way, the most popular person today again, we've spent a number of years as a part of the cabinet fold in New York, as I talked about earlier, which is the folks here and 20-something other agencies making sure that we are thinking about all the issues that affect you.
So DOT, Ydanis Rodriguez and our commissioner, Lorraine Cortez-Vasquez, and our team spent a number of years working with DOT to speed up what we call walkability studies. And what that means is, many of the things that you've been talking about, whether it's the street curbs or it's needing to put in a new dyad in the area to slow down traffic, we come out, we work with you, you tell us where these locations are, and it's a process to help speed up some of the improvements that might otherwise take years.
So, happy to look at things with DOT. If there are additional areas, happy to come out with you, I'll be there too. And then the third thing I would offer is that we have transportation contracts or sometimes transportation services built into our older adult center contracts.
So I ask the question to the team to just triple check if there are things we can do for those of you who are taking two buses to make it easier to get here on a daily basis. We usually have our citywide contracts for things like medication, pharmacy, shopping, and so on. But if it's really a burden, we'll work with your senate director to think about what we could do while we're also looking at the MTA.
Mayor Adams: Sounds like a plan. Good stuff. Where am I?
Question: I have another one for the Department of Transportation. They did away with the Francis Lewis Q16, that bus route. They cut it, which is making it difficult for people like me. I have to walk a long distance now, either to the Q15 or to the one that goes on Utopia, which is a long distance also. And I want to know, is it really feasible to do that? Because a lot of us are hampered with getting into Flushing, even.
Mayor Adams: That was where it was stated that the MTA did a bus route project redesign. They need to think about fixing that design. And that's going to take our state electors, our borough president, and the Mayor's Office all coming together and saying, listen, we need to really look at this redesign. Yes. Yes. How are you?
Question: My name is Eileen, and it's nice to meet you. Thanks for coming today. Thank you. And we just love coming here to self-help. We come all the time, and there's so many things for us to do. I don't want to say I did not go to Bayside High School, but I went to Brown High School with these grades.
So I want to talk about something different that we're worried about defunding the police. And we're worried about quality of life, and we're worried about Bragg and Letitia James and how they get away with all they get away with, and how these judges are letting all these people get free, these criminals, over and over again, and beside with the immigrants that are criminals. I mean, I don't want to get on the immigrants, but I'm just saying that what's going on.
Mayor Adams: Yes. Great question. Great question. And we have been a real loud voice about the broken criminal justice system, from bail reform to Raise the Age, to not willing, the judges not doing their job. The criminal justice system is made up of police, the prosecutors, lawmakers, and judges. And the police job is to incarcerate people when they commit a crime. That's what we've been doing.
The judges and the other aspects of the system, they need to do their jobs, but no one see those pieces. They only see the police. And so I join you in this, and I've been stating, even when we talk about the migrants and asylum seekers, the undocumented, these gangs are preying on undocumented people as well.
We took down a dangerous gang, 27 gang members. Those gang members were forcing women to go into prostitution. They were selling drugs. They were selling guns. Some just real dangerous people, and people should not mix that up with hard working people who come to the country trying to pursue the American dream. We need to go after those dangerous gangs, and we need to stop turning these systems into a revolving door criminal justice system. The person who shot the custom border patrol officer a few days ago, they were arrested over and over again for violent crimes, over and over again.
And that is why I am unrelenting, and I will not surrender to those who come here and violate the right to be here. They need to be held accountable, and they should not be here if they do so. That's what I feel, strongly believe in that. Yes, sir?
Question: [Inaudible.]
Mayor Adams: Now, he said, what are we doing about the prostitution problem on Roosevelt Avenue in Corona? There were lawmakers ... When we said we were doing an initiative there to clean up prostitution because sex trafficking is real, it's playing out in our city, there were lawmakers who got angry with us to state that, why are we stopping the prostitutes from being on the streets? We ignored them.
Now, you see real stores opening there. All those brothels that they used to have, all that illegal behavior, crime has dropped in that area. You're seeing good stores opening in that area, and the families are jumping for joy. The numerical minority, they're the loudest, but they're not the majority. They're more of us than it is of them. We just got to ignore their noise and do what's best for the city and for the broken people of this city. I'm a master at ignoring the noise of all those people who are yelling at us. I did it as a cop. People used to call me all sorts of names. You know what I said? You're getting the summons anyway. Ignore the noise. Where are we going?
Question: I have a question about the New York City Council passed the law of having illegal vendors to do business on the street. Yes. It's going to be a lot of problem if it's going to be passed. For example, Main Street used to be really a mess over there, and it's going to happen again.
And also, Junction Boulevard, and it's going to be happening in Baylor Boulevard also if it happens. And we're going to have a lot of problems. And also, 74th Street, Jackson Heights, and 37th Avenue, and Roosevelt Avenue, we got a lot of issues about the illegal vendors going on right now, too. So what are you going to do with those issues?
Mayor Adams: Sandra, that's another area we hear a lot of complaints. Sandra Ung, the council person who was from that area, called us back in 2022. The first year we were in office, Main Street was a mess. Illegal vendors, and you're seeing a lot of illegal vendors. They were on the Brooklyn Bridge. They were in Coney Island. You don't want to prevent people from being entrepreneurs.
Illegal vendors can hurt brick and mortar businesses who employ a lot of people, pay taxes, have to pay the rental fees, the lease fees. And so we have been really focused on going after those illegal vendors. And it's almost a whack-a-mole sort of that when you close them down, confiscate information, or tell them to move on, they keep coming back. So we have to remain steadfast and clean it.
Now, we're getting a lot of fight from the City Council. They believe we should have unlimited vendor license. They believe that whoever wants a vendor license should be able to open, and they should be able to sell stuff anywhere. So can you imagine if you're a supermarket and someone's out front selling vegetables and fruits that's 50 percent your cost and not paying any taxes? It hurts the business.
Or if you are a cell phone store and someone is standing outside your cell phone selling the same devices you're selling at a quarter of the price. It just hurts your business. It's bootleg items. And so we have to make sure that we have a good balance of legal, licensed vendors in the right places where they're supposed to be. It's fine. But we can't have just a rampant illegal vendor taking on our streets, especially when it comes to food product. Because those vendors that are unlicensed are not inspected by the Department of Health. And the worst thing you can do is eat a food product that can cause some type of disease. So we're on top of it. We've been really focused on dealing with illegal vendors. Yes. Can you give him a mic?
Question: It's about to sign your, you know, to pass a law. Is it your, you're the one who decides not to pass?
Mayor Adams: Great question. Yeah. What happens is City Council will present a bill. I sign it into law. Or if I don't sign for a certain period of time, it automatically becomes law. If I veto the bill, then they have to go back and get a three-fourth majority to override my veto. And if the bill is currently, that you're speaking about, if it hasn't gone through yet, it's probably on my desk, I would have to look at it, make a determination of the next step.
Question: Right. So I hope there's a veto. The bill.
Mayor Adams: Sounds like a plan.
Question: Yeah. Because it's going to be, you know, store owners has to pay the, you know, insurance. And then there's something up of it, something happens in the street and the sum unfolds and the street, the owner has to know what that costs.
Mayor Adams: Yep. I agree. Have DJ find out where that bill is located. DJ, see where that bill is located? It's the vendor's bill. Okay. Did they give you information on that school? Okay. Okay. Okay. Let me find out where the bill is. Okay.
Question: So they made me come over here, Mr. Mayor, because they said they shy, but they're not really shy. So I actually have three questions here. One, I feel is very important. A couple of seniors have asked about going back to work and I know that you have something planned so I want you to be able to explain that.
Mayor Adams: Yes. We love it. We love it. Listen, age is nothing but a number. Your wisdom is needed on so many levels and we have a whole program that age discrimination cannot happen in the city. So I love that question.
Murray: Oh, hi. Who wants to give back and work? Who wants to serve and give some hours to community to help young people and communities? Alright. There are a number of people here. So on any given year, we've got about 500 older adults or seniors or seasoned people. Words that I hear, that people tell me. And you could do a number of things. We have a foster grandparent program that is really a community service program where folks over 60 might be working with young people in early childhood education and being there to support them with their social emotional needs and make sure that good outcomes happen.
We've got a program called Silver Stars that is for retirees from the city. And it also includes folks who have worked before who want to come back and give typically to government and nonprofits. So over 700,000 hours of service and we want to make sure that people get employed.
We've got our summer interns here, Mr. Mayor. I mentioned this earlier to everybody. Summer interns, raise your hand. Then we've got 30 others back at our office because we commit to intergenerational. The thing we ask employers, entrepreneurs and others is commit to older adults too. Because you are making sure that that experience does not leave the community and we continue to serve.
So our Silver Stars program, which includes city retirees and folks from the community who want to help out the city and nonprofits, that is in place. And then we got money from the federal government for a program called Silver Corps if you are interested in that program as well. That is to get you to a job. We have training at our office. We have a service that happens in a lot of the nonprofits. Stuart Kaplan over here who runs self-help, which includes this center, a lot of affordable housing. They know that you can come back and serve and I hope you've already hired people too, Stuart.
That's the commitment that happens. A lot of folks get hired by nonprofits, but we need more and we need our employers in the city to step up and we're looking at investing even more in these programs. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: So how could they find out? Where's a good place they could go?
Murray: Sure. So, NYC Aging. There's online, but you could also call 311, because 311 can get you anywhere in the city. 212, Aging NYC, 212, Aging NYC. Your center director has all the information. We will get you flyers at the center if you're interested in serving as a foster grandparent or if you're looking for a job and training, that's the thing that we're going to follow up on.
Mayor Adams: Great. I'm going to come to you, sir. I'm going to come to you.
Question: Okay. This young lady, she joined this conversation late and she wanted to ask this question. She was concerned about housing, but she heard there's some zoning going over by Whitestone Bridge. Do you know anything about the rezoning for housing over in the Whitestone area?
Mayor Adams: We passed something called City of Yes to get more housing. We have an inventory problem. The demand is not meeting the supply. We had to do a little bit more housing throughout the entire city. It is one of the most comprehensive housing plans in the history of the city. It's calling for a small amount of housing throughout the entire city so that when your grandchildren come home from college or what have you, they can afford to live in the city.
The prices are so high because the inventory is so low. The supply and demand concept is alive and well in this city. We have such a small vacancy rate that we have to build more housing. But it's not to overburden communities, it's just to make sure we find the right balance in the community. We have 59 community boards in this city. 10 of them were building more housing than the other 49 combined. We need to balance that out. But it's not to overburden communities, it's to find the right amount of housing. The city councilmembers really were part of the process to make sure we didn't overburden communities.
Question: Thank you. And the last question, Mr. Mayor, is for safety reasons, trees on Francis Louis Blvd. In the Whitestone area neighborhoods and throughout Queens are too tall. Do you know when maintenance can be done because they are not pruning the trees in Queens?
Mayor Adams: Yes. The Department of Parks, we don't have anyone here from the Department of–
Phil Sparacio, Chief of Queens Operations, Department of Parks and Recreation: The Department of Parks is pruning trees. We do it both under contract and we do in-house. So if you have a list of locations, I'll ask my counterpart in environmental planning to prioritize anything that we can, absolutely. Deputy Chief Simmons, why don't you grab the information, we'll share it with E&P.
Mayor Adams: Okay, so why don't we give them the streets and we can take a look at them.
Sparacio: Absolutely, we'll absolutely prioritize it. Okay.
Mayor Adams: Where's my guy for the, you asked about the bill, right? You asked about the bill. So it's the vendor's bill to lift the cap. Bill number 431, the council is getting a lot of pushback on it, such as folks like yourself, so you should write your local council person and have your voices be heard. And so right now it has not, it's sort of dormant. So it's not at my desk yet. Okay? Alright. How are you, ma'am?
Question: Hi, my name is Laura. I live in Bayside. Thank you for coming. My concern is that my mother's 92 in a wheelchair. Her blood pressure was going very high one day, she called 911, and they sent an ambulance and they refused to take her to North Shore, which is not that far from Bayside. Last year, they were able to take her wherever she wanted to go. As long as you're not having a stroke or you need to go immediately to a hospital.
But they took her to Flushing, which is the worst hospital in the area. And they told us that the protocol that FDNY now has in place, which I'm sure nobody knows about, because I didn't, they take you to the closest hospital. So if that's Flushing and you want to die, you could go there.
But why are they allowed to say... [crosstalk] no, we went to Flushing. Their computers had been down for five days. Computers not working. She got no help at all. It was horrible. So why is FDNY allowed to say you can't go to a hospital where her doctors were and all her records?
At any age, it doesn't have to be the elderly. I mean, if something happened to any of us, you want to go, if you're able, to a good hospital, right? So why is FDNY able to decide? It was a Flushing ambulance. So I don't know how that works, but you should be able to go to any hospital, right? If she doesn't go, they wouldn't be doing that. And we pay a lot of taxes here, so we should be able to go.
Mayor Adams: Now, my understanding, it should be for an emergency situation. I'm going to speak with FDNY Commissioner Tucker.
Question: FDNY has a protocol that you have to be taken to the closest hospital.
Mayor Adams: Right. I want to find out, is it for emergencies? Because if you're having a heart attack, you need to go to the closest hospital. So with your mom, let me find out.
Question: It wasn't an emergency because it was going up and down. She wasn't dizzy. She was able to speak. And North Shore's not that far. I'm not saying go, you know, to China or something.
Mayor Adams: I got you. So let me find out. I thought it was for emergencies. Let me find out. Okay. Thank you.
Question: Good afternoon, Mayor.
Mayor Adams: Good afternoon. How are you?
Question: I'm over here. My name is Allen Berger. I'm the president of Bay Terrace Garden Jewish Center and I'd like to make a compliment for you and to Inspector Kevin Coleman. Inspector, because we met last year on Rosh Hashanah and we had police presence. The 109th is tremendous, they're always there for us. We have a rise in antisemitism, and they're our partner, and they're always there.
But this past Rosh Hashanah, as the inspector knows, we were praying, and apparently an act of God came from out of the sky. A drone fell on our property while we were praying. Our security, who happens to be a retired captain, almost got hit on the head by the drone. Once this happened, our captain notified the NYPD, the 109th, and the inspector himself, with a whole contingent of police, came, removed the drone, and I'd just like to say thank you very much, because the NYPD is there, they're thin, but mayor, thanks again for giving me the opportunity. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: Good job. Good job. Thank God nobody was hurt. Sir, did you raise your hand? I thought I saw the hand over here somewhere, my mistake. Did we get it? I got to bounce. Once we do one, we're going to open it up. If it's quick, if it's quick, because I got to get to a live interview. Hold on.
Question: Hello, how are you doing? Glad you could be here. My wife arrived late, but she reminded me we have a problem. I don't know that I have a problem, but we have four businesses on a two-block stretch of 32nd Avenue in Bayside, where they have something called foot spas, and they, I would gather that they're probably just another name for a massage parlor.
Okay, so we worry about the sex workers on Roosevelt Avenue, but I feel that people who work at these places might also be people who are trafficked, and I can't understand how a two-block stretch of businesses, four of them, could be massage parlors. So, I mean-
Mayor Adams: Let us check it out. We don't know if in that area there are a lot of people that have foot fetishes, but we'll check it out. Thank you very much. Alright. Can we get the location, please? Yes.
Question: So, regarding bicycles, we have these terrific bike lanes, but there are many cyclists on the street who, as we all know, don't follow rules, pass red lights, go down the wrong way, and I've almost knocked over a few cyclists myself because they're on the wrong side of the street. Is it possible to require them to have a permit, license? It would be income to the city. It doesn't have to be a lot of money, but whoever's using the road would have to learn the rules of the road. Is that possible, or is that not in our domain?
Mayor Adams: Yeah. Well, the people who ride bikes, mopeds, scooters, they must follow the same rules and procedures that vehicles follow, and since we're having a larger number out now, there's a lot of conversation and talk about exactly what you're saying, licensing, registrations, et cetera, so you'll know who they are, but they have to follow the same rules. Folks, thank you. It was good to connect here in Bayside. Thank you so much.
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