Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Holds Press Gaggle After Marching in the Columbus Day Parade

October 13, 2014

Question: [inaudible]

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I think that New York City’s approached this very differently. There’s been a lot of preparation over the last few weeks. First of all, we have one of the finest healthcare systems anywhere in the country. We have a public health department and a health and hospitals corporation that are very, very advanced. They have been emphasizing safety. They’ve been emphasizing preparation. We know in particular at Bellevue there’s a high state of readiness if there are any cases. We do not have any cases today. I want to emphasize – there are no reported cases in New York City. But the level of preparation and communication with the hospitals is great. The level of preparation with the people who work in the hospitals is great. We’re ready for anything. I want to let Joe Esposito, our emergency management commissioner, speak too.

Commissioner Joseph Esposito, Office of Emergency Management: Yeah – we have been meeting constantly. Over – right through this weekend we’ve had meetings – Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Today we have meetings planned. We’re dealing with health and hospitals – all the city agencies, all the partners that we need to meet with and we have plans in place if and when it comes here.

Question: Mr. Mayor there have been a few developments over the last couple of days with Rachael Noerdlinger and there have been charges that there is a double standard at City Hall. Can you please respond to that?

Mayor: I have absolute faith in Rachael. She’s a fine public servant. She’s helping to move the agenda we were sent here to work on and I think we have talked enough about this. We’ve explained all the situations. It is time to move forward.

Question: [speaks in Italian]

Mayor: [speaks in Italian]

Question: There was a report last week that the Department of Consumer Affairs has sharply reduced fines – I know this was a priority of yours. Could you talk a little about that? Was that something that you specifically charged them to do?

Mayor: Yes. Yes – we said as a matter of policy and also as a matter of budget, I don’t want revenue that’s based on arbitrary fines. I want fairness for small business. I want fairness in each borough. And I give Julie Menin and the Department of Consumer Affairs a lot of credit. We said in the budget we were reducing their revenue from fines explicitly to send a message to the department that we wanted a new approach to small business. I think she’s really aggressively implemented that approach. And when we see a problem we’re trying to resolve it with small business before we have to fine. We only fine in situations where there’s no other choice. But it’s very, very important to note – we need fairness among the boroughs and we’re finally getting that when it comes to small businesses.