Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Announces Comprehensive Plan to Renovate NYCHA Apartments and Preserve Public Housing

December 12, 2018

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much, Gloria. Let’s give Gloria a big round of applause, everyone.

[Applause]

And Gloria you are right, big changes are coming here to Hope Gardens, and the people who live here in Hope Gardens deserve those big changes, deserve a better life, and that’s what we are here to announce today. And I want to thank you for the leadership that you’ve provided for the residents here. And I want to thank the residents. There’s residents here from Hope Gardens. There’s residents here from Campos in Manhattan, from Ocean Bay in Queens.

Those residents can tell you what has already happened for them, the changes that they have already experienced. And these are the same changes that are going to be here soon at Hope Gardens. So this is a day that there’s really some hope coming for the people of Hope Gardens. Let’s thank Gloria. Thank you.

[Applause]

I want to thank my colleagues who are with me here. You’re going to hear from some of them and certainly others will be joining in for the Q-and-A, of course. Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, who has been working tirelessly on the announcements today – I want to thank her and her team for the extraordinary work that they’ve put in. I want to thank our Director for the Mayor’s Office of Operations, Jeff Thamkittikasem, for the great work he and his team at Operations have done. I also want to thank everyone at the Office of Management and Budget who have been a big part of putting this together as well.

Great thanks to Eric Enderlin, the President of the New York City Housing Development Corporation, which is going to play a central role in all of this work up ahead. So a lot of people have been working very hard over the last months to get us to this day and it’s an exciting day because this is the roadmap for change.

We’re going to go into detail today about a plan that will fundamentally change the Housing Authority going forward but also provide a lot of immediate help for the people who live in public housing. 400,000 New Yorkers – I want to start at the beginning. People who live in NYCHA are the backbone of New York City. Let’s be clear. They are the backbone of New York City. They are the people who make New York City work. They are folks who, every day, go out and take on tough jobs all over this city that everyone else depends on, and they come home to their apartment and they deserve to live a good quality of life.

And as you heard from Gloria, long ago – long ago a lot of people did. And then all those years and decades of neglect began, and disinvestment – and we refuse to let it continue. In other generations people turned away from NYCHA, ignored it, let it decline. We continue to turn more and more energy and resources towards public housing to help people who deserve help and who do so much for this city.

So, that’s what we’re here to talk about today. And I want to say in the case of Hope Gardens – so that you understand the urgency – the work of renovating Hope Gardens will begin in six months and it will be completed 18 months later. And again, this is not a theory. This has happened here in this city.

Anybody in this room who wants to understand it, just go down to Campos on the Lower East Side, go over to the Rockaways to see Ocean Bay for itself – it is an eye-opening experience what can be done and how quickly it can be done. That help is coming here to Hope Gardens and the work will begin in just six months. So, it’s a very, very exciting day.

Now, let’s be clear this literally means rebuilding buildings. It means going floor by floor, apartment by apartment, and fixing them from scratch, and making them high quality. We need to fix NYCHA and we’re going to fix NYCHA brick by brick.

This is the way we make change. It will take time. It will take energy. It will take resources. But it can be done. And that’s what we’re here to affirm today. I want to give you a sense of just how much happens in the case of one of these renovations. At Ocean Bay – this is not a small development, Ocean Bay – 1,395 apartments were renovated and the residents were not displaced. The same residents kept their same apartments.

We’ll talk about it, I’m sure, but there have been other models out there over the years that have led to displacement of residents. We reject that. We reject any model that leads to the destruction of the buildings that residents rely on. We reject privatization. We believe that we can fix the problem with the tools we have and with the support we need from the federal government.

So, at Ocean Bay, 1,395 apartments; At Twin Parks, Franklin, and Highbridge Houses in the Bronx – 648 apartments slated for full renovation and that will be done by 2021.

At Betances in the Bronx, where we were a few weeks ago, work has already begun on 1,088 apartments. That will be completed in 2021. Now, again, this work keeps rolling. So an apartment gets fixed, the resident gets to go back in, and the work continues in other parts of the building. So, people will start to benefit very quickly.

I have to be clear that all of this is being done through the leadership of our team both at City Hall and, of course, at NYCHA, and I want to thank the leaders of NYCHA who have put an extraordinary amount of energy into coming up with new strategies and solutions, and making them take hold quickly.

I also want to commend the leadership of NYCHA and the team at City Hall including our Labor Relations team for the historic new labor deal that was struck in the last 24 hours. There will be a separate press conference later in the day to talk about the details. But we can say this, it is literally a historic labor deal. It is the first work rule changes of this nature, schedule changes in 50 years – in a half-century – to ensure that the people of NYCHA, folks who live in public housing, get the repairs that they need when they need them including nights and weekends.

This will now allow us to provide seven-day-a-week service for people who live in public housing. Look, we know that the decades of neglect meant that in many developments everything has to be addressed from the basement up through the apartments to the roof. There are other developments that are doing better. There are other developments that are either newer or got renovations over the years but for some it’s going to have to be the whole thing and we’re ready to do that.

So, I want to talk to you today about the steps that it will take to get that done. I believe I’m getting musical accompaniment as I do it.

[Laughter]

And I want to go through – and all of this has been handed out or is being handed out. And it’s two separate plans but all together it’s six key steps. It begins with what we talked about a few weeks ago that we are now formalizing – the use of Section 8 at over 100 NYCHA developments to change the developments entirely, to provide the renovations, to bring in management that can keep those developments strong, upgrades from top to bottom, not just in the apartments but in the public spaces as well.

Section 8, working with the RAD initiative will reach, again, over 100 developments, over 62,000 apartments in the course of ten years. And now I want to put it in the terms that matter most – how many New Yorkers will benefit – approximately 140,000 New Yorkers will have their apartments renovated under the first step in this plan.

Now, people have said over and over – as many of you know, I’ve done 58 town hall meetings around New York City, many times NYCHA residents were there and had tough questions, and they are constantly concerned about the threat of displacement, the threat of privatization. I’m going to say every chance I get – and I’m going to go out to NYCHA developments to explain this to people directly – we have established a Residents Bill of Rights because we want to be very clear about the guarantees and the protections that will be there for our residents as we are making these improvements.

It is very, very clear we have to fix what’s broken but not at the expense of our residents. So, the Residents Bill of Rights makes very clear the rent levels remain the same. You pay no more than 30 percent of your income in rent. The succession rights within a family remain the same. The Resident Associations representing the residents continue. Public ownership continues – public control.

It’s crucial to understand that those are the ways that we protect the needs of our residents going forward. We will not allow privatization. This is not privatization. This is reform so residents can live better. That’s step one – the Section 8 initiative and the RAD initiative.

The second step is putting publicly owned land to work to help the residents of NYCHA who live in the immediate area. This initiative will provide approximately $2 billion in new revenue for NYCHA and that money will be used exclusively to upgrade fully the immediately surrounding buildings. So anywhere where there is private development on public land, the money will be used to support the immediately surrounding NYCHA buildings and to bring them up to the level they deserve.

Now, the work that will be done – the private development will be done under our mandatory inclusionary housing law. And that law requires the creation of affordable housing. And you’ll hear from Councilmember Reynoso in a moment. But I want to take this occasion to thank him and everyone at the City Council who passed the toughest law in the United States of America to guarantee that affordable housing had to be built as part of new development that required public approval. So not only are we going to be getting $2 billion that will support the surrounding NYCHA buildings. We will be creating a new stream of affordable housing at the same time. This initiative will start quickly, it will provide the kind of affordability we need both in terms of protecting NYCHA units, the number one source of affordable housing in New York City, but also creating those new affordable apartments. The money that will be provided, the revenue that we will achieve through this development initiative will allow us to fully renovate 10,000 apartments in public housing which will reach approximately 25,000 more NYCHA residents. That’s step two.

Step three is to transfer air rights. And I will not get into the intricacies and I don’t pretend to be an expert on the topic of air rights but I can say it this simply. This is an untapped resource, it’s an unseen source. It’s been talked about for decades. It’s time to do something about it. Transferring air rights from NYCHA developments to immediately surrounding parcels of land that are privately owned will provide approximately $1 billion in new revenue for NYCHA. That also will allow us to renovate fully thousands more – excuse me, apartments for thousands more residents.

So again, the vision here is full renovation. I want to be very, very clear. Just like we’re talking about with Section 8 and RAD you come into a building and address all the outstanding issues in that building that is the vision that we have for the resources that will be created through development on the sites and through the air rights. When you add it all up, this will focus resources on the developments that need help the most. And I want to emphasize that. The plan here is to focus on the development’s that are the oldest, that have the biggest problems, that have the greatest needs. When you add all of this together this will reach 175,000 New Yorkers who will get a quality of living they deserve.

Now, those are the pieces that all relate to investment and brining in new revenue for NYCHA. There’s three more steps that I want to talk about very quickly that are about how we address problems at NYCHA right now. And I want to say that Stan Brezenoff and Vito Mustaciuolo have done I think an extraordinary job identifying immediately the kinds of changes in how NYCHA is managed that are needed. And they also deserve great credit for recognizing that we could achieve the labor deal we will announce later today which will revolutionize the service that’s provided to residents.

So the fourth step in this plan is all about accountability and insuring that there’s proper oversight within NYCHA of all the work that’s being done. A new initiative that the name will not surprise any of you it’s called NYCHA Stat. It is based on the NYPD’s Comp Stat initiative and we will be receiving assistance from the NYPD as it’s implemented. Has begun in the last weeks, it is being rapidly expanded. First, starting at the upper levels of management, and then moving down toward the grass roots. But this will be a regular review process where management will go over what is happening across the NYCHA system and ultimately downed individual developments to ensure that our goals are being met. This information once the system is fully up and running will be made public as well on a regular basis just as Comp Stat information is at the NYPD.

Also, very important in terms of creating accountability is to provide the work force with a much deeper level of training. Stan and Vito have recognized as they have done their full review of NYCHA that a lot of our work force needed to be given the kind of training that will allow them to be more effective for the conditions we faced today. So there’s going to be a full scale training initiative for the work force of NYCHA. That’s step four.

Step five, I’ll give you a flavor of but has many, many elements. But it’s all about fixing real problems now. The big investments are coming and they’re going to solve a lot of the problems for the long term. But a lot of developments obviously need help right now and it’s our goal to get help to where it’s needed as quickly as possible.

Let’s talk about heat. Already we’ve seen – if you compare this year to just a year ago. The number of outages is going down, thank God, the amount of time that buildings have heat out is going down. At this moment after two months of the heat season, the average heat outage has gone down consistently, and our goal by the end next year is to ensure that any outage that occurs in NYCHA, that the average will only be 12 hours for repairing it. So basically it will be same day service. We’ve got a lot of work to do, and it’s going to take more work. And we obviously want to get at the underlying problem through new investment to get to brand new boilers and the things that will stop the heat outages to begin with. But while we’re addressing the problems we still face, our goal is to get to an average of 12 hours. If the heat ever goes out, it’s back on the same day. We have roofs that we have been fixing and its proven to us that we can do a lot, and we can do it quickly. By the end of this year 104 roofs will be repaired. Starting next year we will work at a pace of 100 roofs a year. And when you repair the roof, you address the mold problem, you address the leak problem. I want to give again a lot of credit to Stan, and Vito and the team under them that they have looked hard at the issue and found ways that they can speed up this process and we look forward to going even faster in the future. Everyone knows – and you said it earlier that one of the things that bothers people the most in all of New York City and certainly residents of NYCHA have raised this to many times is the rat problem. This has to be addressed head on, and again as we’ve talked about over the last year we’ve come up with new and better strategies, including dry ice and a number of other things that are working better. So this plan has a goal of reducing the rat population in NYCHA by 50 percent over the next two years. And then going farther so that people will see fewer and fewer rats. We look forward to the day there are none. But we’re going to start with a big set of changes to knock down this problem as much as possible in the next two years. That’s step five

And the last one I want to talk about is about getting fast immediate help to residents for the kind of repairs that could be done quickly. And I’ve talked to a lot of residents who tell me this is – there are so many that frustrate them, but this is one of the things that frustrates them the most. The things that could be fixed quickly, that wait, and they wait, and they wait for the answers. Just this last weekend we did a weekend repair blitz. It was very, very successful. We are going to make that a normal feature. We’re going to be doing that twice a month all over the city, picking out different developments that need immediate help and sending in a repair blitz team on the weekend, when residents are around. It will be easier to schedule a time in the apartments, but also focusing the attention on an individual development at time to try and catch up on a bunch of repairs that apartments need. And we will be creating a group of rapid response teams under the title ‘NYHCA Cares’ to go out and be able to bring specialized talent to address specific problems in apartments on a rapid basis. All of these pieces will be starting immediately. And in the end, this is what people who live in public housing deserve. They deserve better, and it’s our job to give them something better. I’ve said many times our goal is to be the fairest big city in America, that means for everyone, that means for folks in public housing, that means for folks who are the backbone of this city, who don’t get paid enough, but who work very, very hard and deserve a good quality of life, and that’s what this plan will achieve. I want to say a few words in Spanish to summarize.

[Mayor de Blasio speaks in Spanish]

I want to just hit that last point in English again too. The money that we receive through development, through air rights, through Section 8 and RAD. That money stays in the community where people need the help and support. The money stays in the immediate community. With that I want to turn to the Chair and CEO of NYCHA, Stan Brezenoff. I want to note that as has been true at so many other press conferences, our General Manager Vito Mustaciuolo would be here, except he is dealing with a family health emergency. Otherwise he would be here, but he will certainly be with us in the coming days to address the details in much – to much greater extent. With that I want to turn to Chair and CEO of NYCHA, Stan Brezenoff.

Interim Chair and CEO Stanley Brezenoff, NYCHA: And thank you Mr. Mayor. I feel a little naked without Vito on my right –

Mayor: That’s right.

Interim Chair Brezenoff: So, thank you as I said Mr. Mayor and thank you to Hope residents, especially our very warm host Gloria Estrada, madam president. Just a month ago, you and I were together, Mr. Mayor, for an exciting announcement, our plan to transform 62,000 apartments, home to more than a third of NYCHA residents through the expansion of the federal Section 8 conversion programs here at NYCHA and the $13 billion it will generate for building an apartment renovations. That’s just phase one of what we – the plan we are unveiling further today. With NYCHA 2.0, we have a new comprehensive plan for the next ten years that builds on the work of NextGen NYCHA and focuses on the best way to bring major and much needed improvement for residents.

We all know the background, the decline in funding over the last couple of decades that has taken about $3 billion away from NYCHA and we know that our buildings are old. They are getting older every day and that we have $32 billion in major repair needs. Those are the realities but we need to focus even while recognizing those realities and finding ways to make the capital investments for the major improvements that the Mayor has alluded to. We have to keep in mind the imperative to do immediate things. To provide fixes in the homes of our tenants now and in the shorter term as well, and today we are talking about things can make – to make that happen.

The Mayor has talked about the use of a new construction derived funds and the transfer of air rights, these new programs will deliver about $3 billion in repairs and improvements for more than 10,000 NYCHA families. That’s new kitchens and bathrooms and elevators and boilers. All along with the anticipated government funding, all together, our NYCHA 2.0 strategies will enable the Authority to address nearly $24 billion in major repair needs over the next decade.

We’re also announcing today new strategies to make NYCHA better and – better and more accountable landlord. How can we be a better landlord in tangible ways that improve the lives of our tenants? That means tackling at least five key areas that impact resident quality of life, elevators, heat, pests, lead, mold, some of these measure like making sure for the first time, ever, we have heating staff working 24/7 and that’s already under way. For the first time ever heating repair staff is available on a 24/7 basis and that started Sunday, December 9th. Other strategies such as replacing NYCHA’s 400 worst elevators, that’s under way but it will take more time. The bottom line is this, we have an aggressive new plan to improve resident quality of life and protect the future of public housing in New York. That’s a commitment we’re not going to walk away from.

Now echoing the Mayor, we’ve talked a lot today about what NYCHA 2.0 is, but as he has noted, I want to take a moment to say what NYCHA 2.0 is not. NYCHA is not selling any of its land. This is not privatization. We know that across the country other cities have abandoned public housing, that’s not happening in New York City. We remain 100 percent committed to public housing out of the belief that it is a vital resource for New Yorkers and I want to thank the Mayor for his unprecedented support. No Mayor in this city’s history, and I’ve been around to see a lot of that Mayoral history, has committed more resources to NYCHA than Mayor Bill de Blasio, and we’re trying – we’re going to put those resources to use to do a better job in taking care of tenants and families in NYCHA.

Mayor: Amen, thank you very much Stan. I want to turn now to Councilmember Antonio Reynoso and I believe your district is literally across the street – its right here, okay, we’re in it now, okay. I want to say you’ve been a real champion for residents of public housing. It’s been obviously passionate for you, and one of the things that you have been particularly passionate about is getting the resources needed so we can actually turn things around. So I want to thank you for that advocacy, which you and I have talked about it, I know it’s a priority for you and it’s one of the reasons that we’re doing all this is that leaders like you have stepped up at the local level to say that this can be done and needs to be done. Councilmember Antonio Reynoso.

[…]

Mayor: Okay so we have laid out a lot today, we are going to be taking questions from the media, on the plan that is being put forward today and then after we have talked about all the questions about this plan, we will take a brief break, let folks move on who need to move on and then we will go to other issues. I will have a statement upfront as we go into the other issues. But let me now turn to the media for questions on this plan. Yes.

Question: So one specific question, one not specific question – on air rights as well as the [inaudible] program? Do we know the number of developments, where, what developments etcetera and then on the –

Mayor: Let’s do that first one, we are going to get all of them done. Go ahead Alicia, want to speak to that?

Deputy Mayor Alicia Glen, Housing and Economic Development: On the air rights, we are conducting a more thorough analysis as to where there are available air rights and sites that can receive them. It’s a fairly limited number of sites where you can actually do the transfers under the current zoning resolutions so we are going to take a look at that and then begin to, instead of waiting for developers to come and approach us, we will be putting out some offerings based on that analysis so that we can have a more transparent process about how we put those air rights out to the market. So that’s ongoing, with respect to the bill to preserve – a lot of the work that we did, looking at all of the available underutilized sites when we announced NextGen NYCHA, continues and we will be identifying and putting plans out over the next year to engage with those campuses and developments where we think that this is an appropriate building model and engage with the residents around the building and the campus improvements. And then be putting those out to bid as well. We don’t have a prebaked list, there are several higher value locations that are under consideration.

Mayor: Hold on, she’s still on her question set, go ahead.

Question: On the nonspecific – this is obviously a [inaudible] plans coming out, a few days before the Friday court deadline [inaudible] and block those receiverships [inaudible] passing hour, so are you concerned still about receivership, do you think that’s on the table? How much of this is a response to Judge Pauley?

Mayor: This plan has been months in the making, this plan was moving forward regardless of any other elements of the equation, and clearly when you look at the details of what’s been put together here, this is something that has taken a long, long time to perfect. To the question of what’s going on with the federal government. There have been a very intensive series of discussions – I’m going to say upfront they are private discussions between parties through a legal action, so we are all going to be discreet. But I can say I’ve had numerous conversations with HUD Secretary Ben Carson, I’ve had numerous conversations with US Attorney Jeff Berman. We’ve had productive, I think respectful conversations. We are at this moment working on a common statement to Judge Pauley, and that’s all I can say on the details at this moment.

Question: Would you say that the receivership is still on the table?

Mayor: I think the best way to answer is to say that although we understand in the court process, that’s always a possibility and we understand the federal government always has the opportunity to do that administratively. Everyone is talking and again we look forward to having some kind of common statement for Judge Pauley, we won’t guarantee it until it’s there. But that’s what the discussion is right now. I’ve made my views on receivership very clearly known, that I think it would take us backward, not forward. Okay you had a question?

Question: So you’ve identified potentially $2 billion that you think you can generate from [inaudible] development, you said that there are a series of locations that would be more likely than others. What are those more likely locations?

Deputy Mayor Glen: Well first I just want to clarify one thing. It’s not that we will be raising $2 billion per say, the proceeds that are generated from the lease payments will be applied to about $ 2 billion worth of repairs. So it’s not the dollars, it’s the amount of repairs, the percentage of the PNA that we hope to address through this. The key here is that we want to identify locations where we can raise desperately needed resources for the developments that need the work, so there is a relationship obviously between some of the areas where we have property where we can get higher responses from the market place. And the beauty of that then, and one of the shifts in policy that we have been very, very clear about is that the purpose of going out and building those new buildings is to raise revenue in order to address the repairs at that development. There will now be a complete correlation between those two things and that is a shift in policy.

Question: Sure, where?

Deputy Mayor Glen: Again I’m not going to give you specifics, we are in conversations with the planning department at NYCHA, we’ve been looking at various sites. And again we know – where our property is, is not a mystery but we do not have right now a specific schedule of development sites that we will putting out but we will be moving forward in 2019 with at least one or two of those sites.

Question: [Inaudible] conversation with Manhattan Borough President, is a lot of this about the converting of apartment [inaudible] development, hundred percent affordable to a [inaudible] project. Is that one of the sites that you are slating for a [inaudible] project?

Deputy Mayor Glen: Those conversations are ongoing and no final decision has been made about that.

Mayor: Go ahead.

Question: I have two questions. One is do any of these [inaudible] projects go through a [inaudible] uniform, [inaudible] process? And two in the original NYCHA plan you had more affordable housing [inaudible]. Can you just talk about how and why you did the ratio on that this time?

Mayor: Yes, I want to start and I’ll pass to Alicia after. Look with every passing month we have understood more and more not only how great the need is at NYCHA but what kind of tools we could bring to bear. Remember we went through just in the last months, the process of reassessing the capital need and you saw that it went much higher. That is part of what led me certainly to believe that we had to focus on maximizing revenue and we had to focus on it benefiting the immediate surrounding buildings. I think that in the past there were a number of things missing when it came to talking about development on a NYCHA land site. And things that really caused people real concern and legitimate frustration. What we are saying here is, we’ve clarified our goals. Number one goal is to get resources that will help entirely fix the surrounding buildings. So basically the equivalent of what we are talking about with RAD and Section 8, to do that with the resources that we would get from development. Also that we want to maximize the amount of resources but we are going to use the mandatory inclusionary housing model which therefore guarantees a substantial amount of affordable housing at the same time. This to me is a plan that makes sense for the conditions of NYCHA now. Now there may still be some cases where for a variety of specific local factors, including market factors, we say it still makes sense to do something with affordable housing but wherever we can get the revenue that will be the first motivation because the revenue needs of NYCHA are so intense. Do you want to add? Go ahead on that.

Deputy Mayor Glen: So just to, if you have page 17, on the book – two answers to the question. The going in assumption with respect to Building to Preserve is that we won’t be doing a [inaudible], unless the local council person would like to consider an up zoning so that we could build a larger building and therefore generate even more revenue. Our base case projections are that these will be developments that go through a community engagement process with the resident on the campus but there will not be a zoning action. There are some councilmen and I know that Councilman Reynoso is one of those who we have conversations with about the benefits of potentially building a larger building in order to generate more revenue. With respect to the affordable housing on other NYCHA property – we are continuing to move forward with our original commitment to build 10,000 units of 100 percent affordable housing on NYCHA property and that continues. We’ve already put out 12 sites and continue to do that. So those efforts are not stopping. I want to be very clear that those commitments to continuing to build senior housing, 100 percent affordable have not been impacted by this decision.

Mayor: Okay, Greg?

Question: In the past you had a press conference or you were at or attended a press conference with Metro [inaudible] to announce [inaudible]. The idea of that was to – senior housing –

Mayor: Senior housing, right.

Question: How does that fit in with [inaudible] and sort of what’s going on [inaudible].

Mayor: Right, that continues. So to the point the Deputy Mayor just made. We got a lot of pieces moving simultaneous here. That clearly was part of our broader affordable housing vision which has expanded greatly from 200,000 apartments to 300,000 apartments. And yes, that senior housing continues as part of our priority. It does not affect this. It continues as a separate piece. Do you want to speak to what the next steps on that process are?

Deputy Mayor Glen: Yes, we have, we are continuing to put out sites specifically for 100 percent affordable senior housing and with the recent announcement by the Governor to allocate some incremental resources, some of their state tax credits, we will be able to accelerate the number of low income, senior buildings that we put out to bid. So those two processes are moving in tandem together. One is not cannibalizing the other.

Question: Is there a total of [inaudible].

Deputy Mayor Glen: Oh there are – we will have to get back with you, I don’t think there’s that count but there are many, many lots and underutilized open spaces across the NYCHA portfolio, I mean in the thousands.

Mayor: And I want to speak to this point because it’s a common sense one that people deserve to hear. Where there is underutilized land, we are trying to have a positive impact on the surrounding buildings. People would say well wait, you know we want to make sure that, for example, we want to protect our playgrounds, we want to protect the things that are on the adjoining land. I agree. In fact there is land that is entirely unutilized and there’s land that could be utilized better while still protecting all the things that are provided to people now, playgrounds being an obvious example. So we factor that into the equation. Monica?

Question: Mayor, so we are surrounded by people right now who are hurting. [Inaudible] right behind her Ramona says she has heating issues at her development. What you can’t tell [inaudible] handle NYCHA crisis?

Mayor: We have tried Monica every step along the way to get help to the people who live in public housing. And again, I always say trust people according to one, do they claim responsibility and two, do they put their money where their mouth is? You’ve been at a lot of press conferences, I’ve been at. You might want to go back and check how many press conferences my predecessor mayors went to about NYCHA. You might be surprised to see that they did not in my opinion, take the responsibility they needed to while they could of. And they certainly didn’t make the investments they needed to, nor did the federal or State government. This is the first time in a long time the City of New York is saying we want to do everything in our power to help, we are going to put a huge amount resources in, we are engaging the federal government constantly and at the very highest levels. And I mentioned Secretary Carson and I mentioned the US Attorney, I also want to really thank Senator Chuck Schumer who’s been deeply involved in the process, helping as well. Because we look forward to the day where there is going to be a lot more federal resources and I personally look forward, especially to the day when he’s the senate majority leader which I think will be very important for NYCHA. So here’s my answer to you. I know we have been trying from the very first day of this administration to improve the lives of the people who live in public housing. And we are going to keep doing that. To the folks here who have any kind of problem, we want to hear about it right now, after this press conference and we want to get to work. We’ve had other gatherings where residents have come up and raised their concerns and raised their problems. And I know Vito Mustaciuolo couldn’t be with us right now because of his family situation. But a lot of residents will tell you they told him about a problem and there was a team out there the same day or the next day to address it. That’s the kind of leadership we have now and we are going to keep doing that. Yes?

Question: I think it’s on page 19, you claim the plan will fill 75 percent of the budget gap in NYCHA—

Mayor: Right this is a capital budget.

Question: Right. The money is delivered over 10 years, the five year repair bill’s $32 billion, by year 10 it grows to $40 billion. What gives you any faith that they somehow magically reduce NYCHA’s expected repair bill—

Mayor: I’m going to let Alicia and Stan interpret the figures for you but I want to just make sure there’s care in looking at the specific equation. This is the number we know we’re dealing with right now, and these – meeting the overall need of almost $32 billion – and the specific money we’re talking about, we believe, is very reliable, that we’re going to have that money, some of it we’ve committed ourselves, some of it is already consistent streams of federal money, and in terms of the money that we get from RAD, from RAD which is clearly a high priority for the federal government as well, from the development, from the air rights, we feel very confident in these figures. Now the x factor, which you’re pointing to, rightly, is where is the rest going to come from? The first and foremost place it should come from is the one place that prints money, which is the federal government, and the root cause here of the problem is that NYCHA was created by the federal government and then no longer funded the way it should have been to keep up the buildings. We have a chance to fix that once and for all. That – I’m I telling you that’s going to happen tomorrow? No. Do I think we are entering a time and reflecting on the November elections for example, where the door is going to reopen to getting real, serious, federal funding in to fill the rest of that gap?  I am more hopeful than I was even a month ago that that is a potential for the future.

Question: So, if you flip to page 20 [inaudible] it assumes that somehow you guys will be reducing repair bill outlays by somewhere between 62 to 75 percent—

Mayor: Right and I’ll pass to—

Question: —more than a decade, I’m wondering how do you magic New York City construction costs down?

Mayor: I’m just going to – one more thing and then pass to Alicia and Stan – the – what’s so important to understand is if you address the underlying problem, if you fundamentally rehab a building, the cost of keeping it up suddenly changes, it makes total sense. Take a building that’s 50 or 60 years old and has gotten nowhere near the consistent maintenance and investment it deserves, and now upgrade it soup to nuts, and you have an entirely different level of need to begin with, but also now you have a private management schema that is continuing to take care of those buildings. We take then all of our NYCHA personnel, all of our NYCHA resources, and apply them to the other buildings, giving us more to work with – that’s one of the governing thoughts here. Go ahead.

Interim Chair Brezenoff: So, let me take a shot at it. The PNA, the $32 billion is a five year picture of what would be needed in that five year period to get to a state of good repair –

Question: [Inaudible]

Interim Chair Brezenoff: No, no I get the question because what we are applying to that five year picture, that’s a picture, is a 10 year strategy and funding to address those issues. We then analyze – what – investing the dollars that we have over the 10 year period with a – two different estimates of continuing deterioration and that becomes the gap. The money we’re investing against that five year picture over 10 years, assuming certain rates of deterioration leave a certain gap depending on what rate of deterioration you postulate. That’s all that that is, we’re taking a 10 year approach to what is a five year picture, right that’s—

Question: What I’m saying is that NYCHA is still spending down its current capital budget and that how would you get to $32 billion out the door in a decade – is that even possible?

Interim Chair Brezenoff: No I think that there are a number of elements that go into meeting the $32 billion and one of the principal elements for example is RAD, right? So I’ll be glad to go over the components with you but that’s – I can show you how each component matches up with the resources that are being applied.

Deputy Mayor Glen: Yeah I just want to add one thing. This is not a $32 billion capital plan. It is a plan to address approximately 75 percent of the capital need. In fact, using RAD allows private money to be leveraged and other people to do that work so that the Authority can more effectively focus on those units and those buildings that are not.

Question: $13 billion [inaudible] the question is like if you have 10 years of funding that you hope to generate $23 billion over 10 years and if your 10 year bill is $41 billion how have you vanish $9 billion repair [inaudible]

Mayor: I want to try and bring a – I’m not the expert, they are, but I want to bring some common sense to this, hold on—

Question: [inaudible] that’s basically guessing [inaudible]

Mayor: Wait, whoa, I don’t agree with that assumption—

Deputy Mayor Glen: We’re not guessing, we’re modeling them and in fact we’re being intellectually honest by acknowledging the fact that there is a deterioration rate and a range of construction cost increases that you have to take into account. We could have just said it is what it is but we’re acknowledging that there is an environment of construction costs that we cannot control.

Mayor: Okay

Deputy Mayor Glen: We can control the deterioration rate.

Mayor: Listen, let me clarify this because there’s an underlying point if we had a specific pool of money, a resource, that could get us to the full $32 billion and we said we want a reserve fund beyond that, et cetera, et cetera, we would happily be presenting it. We’re trying to be honest that this is what we can account for. The rest should be accounted for above our level, especially at the federal government, and this is the truth, but thank God – $24 billion is a huge amount of money. Thank God, with $24 billion we can fix the most pressing needs. Can we fix everything? No, but we can fix the health and safety issues that are so primary. We can to the buildings that have the biggest problems and go at them. This is why it’s important. If someone is looking for perfection, it’s not here. But it’s also a point that’s saying we have all the skin in the game in the world and it allows us to show the federal government that we’re doing everything in our power – and by the way, the new labor deal as well is important – doing everything in our power to fix what has been a decades old problem and to encourage the federal government to come in with the resources they have. All right let me get, go back around.

Question: When thinking about the costs of all of this the biggest chunk obviously is the RAD program unveiled at the press conference last time we talked about how HUD would have to in fact approve every single element. You did meet the secretary last week, I know you can get into what you talked about [inaudible] settlement agreement but as for HUD, did he express an interest in scaling this program up, the RAD program up, to this level?

Mayor: Again, while respecting the sanctity of a private conversation I’m going to make a broad statement and you should reach out to Secretary Carson’s team for their response. I believe that Secretary Carson and HUD believe deeply in the RAD program and understand it has tremendous potential in New York City. Of course there’s going to still be an approval process you have to go through, that’s normal, but I think it is an area they’re focusing on a lot. Sally?

Question: What conversations are you having with the state about the $550 million or so [inaudible]?

Mayor: I spoke to Governor Cuomo over the weekend. All the pieces interrelate, as clearly the state has previously said they were waiting to act on the resolution of the legal case. Again, I think the governor wants to be helpful, we’re going to work closely together. We need to first and immediately address the situation leading up to end of this week with the other federal partners.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Yeah, I’m not going to speak for him, you can ask him but I’m saying we’re in dialogue – first step is to address the immediate federal situation.

Question: I think one of the numbers that’s kind of important here is the [inaudible] is that you’re essentially relying on [inaudible] this is an unusual number [inaudible]

Mayor: I think you’re right about the history, but I would also say I’m not sure that this most recent budget was an aberration because I think a lot is changing. I mentioned Senator Schumer’s real focus on this situation which I deeply appreciate – I think that’s important in this equation. Clearly you saw a very unified message from our congressional delegation in the last 24 hours, and remember the world’s about to change profoundly, remember the crucial role that the House of Representatives plays in the budget process and now New Yorkers are in some very key roles in that process including Nita Lowey – although she lives in Westchester now, originally comes from Queens. And I think there’s an opportunity now for some real change in the federal funding levels. Yes?

Question: Retaliation, Mayor. Retaliation is real for many residents [inaudible] who speak out. What would you do if let’s say workers were saying that they can [inaudible] retaliate if someone complains?

Mayor: That’s unacceptable, obviously, and any, any resident who feels that’s happened, we need to hear from them so we can address the situation. I don’t want any resident feeling they can’t come forward. They must come forward with their problems and they’re needs. We want to address them, and we’ll follow up today with you and maybe you can be an intermediary for us if anyone is in that situation we need to talk to them.

Question: [Inaudible] –

Mayor: That’s the law. Not only is that the right thing to do, I would do it because it’s the right thing to do but it’s also the law.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: We will go over all the details at the press conference later on today. I think it’s scheduled for two o’clock. Is that right, Eric?

Two o’clock at City Hall. Okay, let me see if there’s any other questions on this announcement and then we’ll take, again, a short break and turn it over to other topics. Any other questions on the NYCHA announcements today? Okay, let’s take a quick break, thank you everyone.

[...]

Let me just start with something and I’m happy to take question on that, and then everything else as well. There was an incident last week at an HRA facility. It was deeply troubling. It was 100 percent unacceptable. What happened to Jazmine Headley and her son Damone should never have happened. It never should happen to anybody. And it’s unbelievable to me that people who had the title ‘peace officer’ would do this to a woman and her baby. We will not allow this to happen in New York City. I want to be crystal clear. This happened in a public benefits center. It should never have happened. It will not happen again.

I want to just say as a parent, my heart goes out Ms. Headley and to her son. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to have that happen. It’s just deeply, deeply troubling and no mother should go through that and no child should go through it.

There’s a full review going on right now. Two of the HRA peace officers have been put on modified duty. There is an ongoing investigation at HRA. There is an ongoing investigation at the NYPD as well. We will get to the bottom of exactly what happened and we will put in place specific changes to make sure this does not happen again. I’ve been involved on social service issues for decades, never saw anything like this in my whole life – never want to see it again.

And it’s just not consistent with our values as New Yorkers. If you go to a benefit center, you expect to be treated respectfully. She posed no threat whatsoever. I watched the video. There was no threat at all. There was no call for that kind of response. So, this situation – disturbing, shocking, unacceptable, can’t happen again. I just want to make that abundantly clear.

Alright, let me take any questions – yes?

Questions: She was there to get [inaudible] line four hours –

Mayor: No, of course not. Whatever benefits are due to her, we’ll make sure they’re granted immediately.

Questions: Mr. Mayor, have you spoken to Jazmine Headley, if not are you planning to? If not, what would you say to her –

Mayor: I would say to her, I certainly would be willing to talk to her and what I would say to her is I want to apologize to her on behalf of all 8.6 million New Yorkers. This should never have happened to her. It shouldn’t have happened in any – it’s a public center. It’s run by the City of New York. It’s paid for by the taxpayers. What happened was unacceptable so I want to issue a formal apology to Ms. Headley, and I’d be very happy to talk to her as well.

Question: [Inaudible] city employees [inaudible] –

Mayor: You’re – 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: You’re raising a very important point because everything we’ve been doing in policing, but not only in policing, with security that works for example in our shelter system, everywhere, our School Safety Agents, you name it – everyone is being taught de-escalation. Now, I have asked Steven Banks to look at the situation and come back with whatever changes are needed.

I don’t know specifically at HRA where there are peace officers what type of training was provided in terms of escalation. We can get you that answer today. I do know the norm has been, the thing we believe in, is de-escalation and it has to happen anywhere that our uniform officers of any status deal with the public.

So, if it was – if that training was provided, clearly it was not followed. If it wasn’t provided sufficiently, we need to. But even without the benefit of that training, common sense tells you don’t treat a mother and her baby that way. Period.

Question: Mr. Mayor, I have two questions –

Mayor: Please.

Question: [Inaudible] –

Mayor: Marcia, this report reached me Sunday evening. I reached out to the Commissioners involved for an update on what had happened and why. They both told me they were getting facts immediately. Until I got their side of what happened, I could not speak to the public. Once I had it, I did. It’s as simple as that. And I spoke out to the public early afternoon on Monday – so, less than 24 hours after learning of the incident. Back there – sorry, go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible] –

Mayor: Yes.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Of police officers?

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Retraining cops has been a huge success unquestionably. We’ve put a lot of energy, a lot of expertise, a lot of resources into retraining the entire police force in de-escalation. Now, we’re going into implicit bias training. I believe it has had a power, positive impact.

Question: [Inaudible] –

Mayor: Marcia, we know with a police force of 36,000 people, every day we’re working to make sure that every one of our officers lives up to their training. It doesn’t mean it happens every single time. Our job is to try and get it to happen every single time. But I also want to be fair to the NYPD. By the time the NYPD arrived, this situation was already out of control and should not have been and that was because of the mistaken actions, in my opinion, of the HRA peace officers.

Question: [Inaudible] City Hall, were you at City Hall? And why not address those protestors –

Mayor: I don’t know what time it was. I was at City Hall part of the day. I was elsewhere for part of the day. So, I don’t know what time it was. Look, I want to make sure people know where I stand. Not only am I outraged, I’m disgusted as a parent and it cannot happen again, and we will not allow it to happen again.

Question: [Inaudible] –

Mayor: You can go to – unless anyone has anything else on this we will go to other things.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Right.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Because –

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Again, I’m not going to get into the nuances of when and how we talked to reporters. As [inaudible] to you earlier in this session, there were an extraordinary number of things happening on Monday of tremendous importance. And what we did was exactly what I described. I was waiting, in addition to seeing the video, to hearing from the two agencies before issuing my statement to the people of New York City.

You know, when I say something respectfully of all other folks in public service – what I say has to be definitive. I have to see what happened. I have to talk to the people who run the agencies and give the people of New York City a fair and honest answer.

I got at that, you’re about right, about an hour after that other event I had all those pieces.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Again, I’m not going to go into a lot more detail on the tick-tock. Go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible] after you put out that statement, why not come down [inaudible] –

Mayor: Again, I’m not going into how we do it. Go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible] –

Mayor: Again, we consistently make ourselves available in all sorts of ways – me, members of my team. Go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Right.

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Again, Marcia that is why the situation is under full review and we insist on NYPD officers living up to the training that they’ve received which is absolutely about de-escalation and knowing how to handle each situation appropriately, or knowing when to wait for backup or specialized units. That’s why it’s being investigated.

Question: Do you think [inaudible]?

Mayor: I’m only issuing an opinion on one piece, and there’s a full investigation going on both on the HRA side and the NYPD side. I believe that by the time NYPD arrived the situation was already out of hand and should not have been.

Question: Mr. Mayor, were you at City Hall yesterday during the time of the protest –

Mayor: I just said to you, I was at the City Hall part of the day, I don’t know if I was there at the time of protest because I don’t monitor when each protest is at City Hall. I was doing a series of rather important things. If they were there, I might have been there. I just don’t know when they were there.

Question: Did you – I just want to follow up, there was also – there were two protests yesterday. There was the one about Ms. Headley and there was also another one from homeless activists who talked how you’ve had a history with the social services and, you know, some of these issues –

Mayor: Yes.

Question: How does it make you feel that people were there, you know, criticizing you on these two issues, homelessness and the treatment of this woman trying to get some assistance.

Mayor: Look I think the bottom line is, what are we trying to do to make people’s lives better? And if you look at the last five years the de-escalation is a crucial example. We retrained the entire police force. I don’t honestly feel that has been given the focus and energy it deserves in the public discourse. We retrained 36,000 people in how to de-escalate. If you look at what’s happened in the last few years, I think you can see a lot of evidence of that because of that and neighborhood policing, the relationship between police and community is very different in a lot of neighborhoods and you’re seeing fewer of these kinds of incidents. What happened last week was unacceptable but – and I understand that people are angry about, they have every right to be angry about it – but it is not consistent with the approach we’ve taken and a lot of things that we are doing are having an effect.

On the question, the other protests is one I’ve spoken to many times and I’m happy to again, I spend a lot of time working with those very same organizations to fight homelessness and I insist to them that they hear the point I’m making that now it’s almost 100,000 people in the last five years have gone through our shelter system and gotten to affordable housing. That is what is working, that is the best option we have. Whenever I say that to the advocates whether at a town hall meeting or on the live radio show or any other place, I don’t get a response back, and I’m trying to say to them we have a plan that is doing the very thing they want, in fact in bigger numbers than what they are proposing, and that’s what we’re standing by. Yes?

Question: [Inaudible] Do you know what the HRA peace officers [inaudible]?

Mayor: Why – why they are modified? They are modified simply because – I’m again speaking as not the commissioner of the agency and not someone in the detailed process - but because what happened is unacceptable and is subject to a full review.

Question: [Inaudible].

Mayor: Please.

Question: I guess I’m confused because all the stuff that we know is unacceptable that we see in the video, that’s not really the HRA peace officers, its NYPD officers [inaudible].

Mayor: And there is a full review going on and we just haven’t spoken yet to the results of the review but we will in a matter of days. Everything is being looked at.

Question: And then different subject. I’m going to ask you about –

Mayor: But can I just make one point, and again I’ve been in those benefit centers. I’ve talked to a lot of people in need in this city. Whatever was happening, there was no reason to get physical. She was not presenting a danger. It’s as simple as this. She was not presenting a danger, she was a mother with a child, there was no reason for anyone to get physical. That’s my point. That’s why although I want to say, with both HRA and NYPD, of course a full review, and the full review will bring out all the facts and the specifics, but in that instance if there’s a disagreement, if there is a conflict, you don’t do something physical, you bring in higher level help. Go ahead.

Question: [Inaudible] an incident where [inaudible] commissioners [inaudible] –

Mayor: Yes.

Question: Apparently a police officer asked him who he was, he didn’t like that, sort of shouting situation [inaudible] and swearing [inaudible] body worn camera video of this that Police Commissioner said he’s viewed and he thought that the commissioners conduct was egregious, have you seen that video or spoke to the Police Commissioner about it?  [Inaudible].

Mayor: Let me bring all the pieces together. One I have to say about those officers that no one deserves to be treated that way, particularly someone who protects us as a member of the NYPD. So I have not – I’ve gotten an assessment of the video both from the Police Commissioner and the First Deputy Mayor, I do intend to see it, but from what I know already it’s not acceptable to treat a police officer that way, period. The situation is under review, an investigation right this minute. We will have a response next week. I have spoken to the Police Commissioner, I’m going to be speaking to him again about it, this is a situation that, you know, troubles me and worries me because we need to show respect – it doesn’t matter what your title is – you have to show respect for police officers and you have to go through whatever security protocols they indicate. But again, because there is an ongoing investigation, that’s all I can say at this moment, we will have a final update on this next week.

Question: Have you spoken to the commissioner yet?

Mayor: I have not but I will. Yes?

Question: Mr. Mayor, I wanted to ask you about the new office for the Parking Ticket Advocate? It was established in April but apparently that office only had one person working, one other person had been hired about a month ago, they haven’t built a website, there is no way – there’s no hotline to reach them. You know, I understand it takes a while to ramp up an office but why is this taking so long and do you feel that this initiative is absolutely necessary?

Mayor: Look for all of you I would think on the question of the position and what it’s about this would be mana from heaven from your point of view, because you’re there speaking up for every-day New Yorkers, and every-day New Yorkers a lot of times feel that their parking tickets are not fair and they don’t feel they have some place to turn, except to go through the whole adjudication process. So, the idea here is to try and have a place where you can turn and solve problems. And as I understand it, even before this office is really up and running, they’re already dealing with a number of tickets and helping people get a better resolution and a fairer resolution.

Look, do I wish that from the time something’s announced to the time it’s at full strength it was faster? Absolutely. But to be fair, my understanding is they wanted to put together a staff, train them, get them ready, and then turn on the on switch, at which point they would assume thousands and thousands of calls and emails would start coming in. They wanted to be ready to handle that at a very big volume. So, I think it’s a great idea to have some place that every-day New Yorkers can turn for help on parking tickets and I agree that they have to be staffed up and ready before they can accept thousands and thousands of calls and emails. We intend to make that happen quickly. 

Question: Following-up on the HRA officer –

Mayor: Sure.

Question: You said that they are responsible [inaudible]

Mayor: A little louder, please.

Question: You said that it’s being investigated because the situation is unacceptable. But does that mean you think they are at fault? What were they supposed to do?

Mayor: So, again, let me pull back the camera a little bit because I’ve been through various instances where we see something we know is not right. I’ll remind you, the Deborah Danner case where I was clear and the Commissioner was clear – that we were not satisfied with what happened there. But there’s been all sorts of other situations like that. When we see something like that, that we know there’s an immediate problem and an immediate break of protocol or an immediate outcome that cannot possibly have been intended, we’re going to say that. I’m going to say it, Commissioner O’Neill has said it, Commissioner Banks has said it – when we think something is just plain wrong, we’re going to say it. That is different from doing a full analysis to understand exactly who did what to who, where the breakdown occurred, whether people were following instructions or not. There’s a lot of detail we have to get before we can give you a final judgement on the specific actions of the people involved. But I don’t need the investigation to say, what happened was wrong and that’s no way to treat a mother and her baby. 

A few more – go ahead. 

Question: Your administration had signed a non-disclosure agreement with Amazon [inaudible] September [inaudible] and one of the provisions of that was that any other records requests that EDC received or [inaudible] received would be handed over to Amazon [inaudible]. [Inaudible] struck me as kind of odd, I don’t know if it’s just standard, or?

Mayor: So, one, I’m not familiar with the specific wording but I do intend to get briefed on it. Two, it’s abundantly clear, if there’s a freedom of information request, we’re going to follow through on the freedom of information request. Amazon has nothing to say about that. So, the heart of the matter is –

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: No, listen to what I’m saying. There’s a freedom of information request to us, we’re going to follow through on it. Amazon has nothing to say about our process, period. We will pursue our own process. But I can get back to you on – I have not seen the specific wording. 

Okay, last call – going once, twice – there’s a third, go ahead. 

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Louder –

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: I was a City Council member. Of course I understand if people say we would like to be involved in a whole range of things, I appreciate that. But I also – I’m going to stand firm on this, and I’m happy to explain this to New Yorkers all day long – this is an opportunity to get a minimum of 25,000 good-paying jobs for New Yorkers, rising up to potentially 40,000 – could not be negotiated in public. Do you think if I went to Council members it wasn’t going to go public immediately? Whatever I told them? With all due respect to Council members, let’s be real. So, you cannot negotiate a deal that way and the deal was very good for New Yorker City. 

Yes, please?

Question: [Inaudible]

Mayor: Again, louder.

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: Well, anybody who had that happen to them could have come to us and filed a complaint and it would have been followed up on and taken seriously. If a mother said, I was treated physically by City personnel holding a one-year-old baby, we would take that very, very seriously. So, it’s unacceptable – whether it’s on video or not, it’s equally unacceptable. 

Question: [Inaudible] is that part of the investigation? To look at that particular [inaudible] –

Mayor: I’m sorry, what does that mean? That particular? 

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: Again, I want to – two points. One, I was the General Welfare Chair in the City Council for eight years, one of the agencies that was under my oversight was HRA. That was eight years. Four years of Public Advocate, now I’m on my fifth year as Mayor. In that whole time I dealt with HRA – never seen anything like this, never even close. So, this is shocking to me because it just is so abhorrent and is obviously absolutely unacceptable. We will look at what happened with the individuals. We’ll look what happened with anybody else who was involved in the situation there. And of course, it’s a great question, if there’s any history around that particular location, which would then suggest something about management, we’re going to look at that as well. 

Question: [Inaudible] 

Mayor: It’s too early to say, but it’s a very, very unacceptable, serious incident. It could have deep ramifications. 

Question: Councilwomen Cumbo criticized you yesterday, she said you didn’t act [inaudible] should have acted as if that was Chirlane holding your son on the ground. What do you think about that –

Mayor: Just again, we’re very clear – in less than 24 hours said that it was a situation that was disturbing, that we were investigation, I wanted to get people facts. I did not want to just come out and say what I was feeling, I wanted to make sure it was accurate. And my first statements were within 24 hours and you’ve seen everything else since, including what Chirlane has said. And that’s what we feel and we’re going to act on it. 

Thank you, everyone.