Transcript: Mayor Adams Hosts Older Adults Town Hall

December 5, 2023

Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella: Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Vito Fossella, and I think on behalf of all of us in this room, mayor, we want to welcome you to the greatest borough in the City of New York.
You know, these are important times and they're their sensitive times; and in part, they're dangerous times. And everybody in this room also knows that the most important thing government can do, and I'm sure there's going to be a lot of things to discuss here, that's to protect innocent people. That's what the government does, whether it's here or in Israel, and we have an obligation to all of you to work together to do so.

And I'd just like to ask everybody who is part of NYPD to take a stand and take a bow.

These are the people, maybe in other parts of the world, the country, wherever these are the people we respect every day and we thank them for keeping us and our family safe. So, thank you.
And finally, you know, as we are here for, as we say, older people, but there is a dignity and a wisdom that comes with aging, and we worship your contributions to Staten Island, to the city, to this great country. Many of you who have served and wore the nation's uniform know that we will continue to work together to improve your quality of life and make living on Staten Island the best possible place and the best possible thing.

And we do that by working together with these folks from the agencies here and with our good mayor who we work [with] almost every day we are interacting to make Staten Island the best place to live. So, Mayor Adams, thank you very much for all you do.

Councilmember David Carr: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is David Carr. I'm privileged to be the council member for the mid island where we are right now. And I want to add my welcome to the borough presidents, to our mayor for coming here; and in particular, to the mid island and the neighborhood of Willowbrook which is so often in need of some attention from City Hall.

And that's what we've been getting from this mayor. And I thank you and your administration for working hand in hand with the elected officials that represent this community to try to improve our quality of life.
The borough president just talked about how public safety is the foremost responsibility of government. But moving forward from that, it is about improving our day to day lives, and that's what our mission is as elected officials. And I think what we share with this mayor is an instinct to find common ground to figure out a way to do that, and that's what we've been doing these last two years and look forward to continue doing with him.

And I thank him for coming out today to hear the concerns of Staten Islanders, particularly from our aging community, who know better than most what our borough needs and what it could use moving forward. So, thank you, mayor, so much.

Assemblymember Michael Tannousis: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Assemblyman Michael Tannousis. I represent you in part of the east shore in Staten Island and a portion of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, in the state assembly.
I want to thank you, Mr. Mayor, for coming here to talk about how to protect our most vulnerable. And the mayor has made no secret of the fact that, unfortunately, there are going to be some cuts coming down, and this is a time where we really have a thoughtful discussion about how we're going to protect the most vulnerable in our community.

I'm in my second term in the state assembly. During my first term I was privileged to be the ranking member of the aging committee. Of course, at that time it was when we were investigating the nursing home deaths. Myself and Assemblyman Ron Kim at that time were the ones that actually first drafted those subpoenas that led to that investigation.

So, I have a little bit of experience in protecting the most vulnerable, continue to do so, and I'm looking forward to the discussion in the next hour or so. Thank you so much.

Assemblymember Sam Pirozzolo: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Sam Pirozzolo. I am your newly‑elected assemblyman for this district. And I would just like to say that it is a privilege to be here. Thank you to my elected colleagues, definitely thank you to the mayor, but thank you to the people from the city who are here to solve the issues that we are going to bring up to you today. So, that's greatly appreciated.

I do serve on the Aging committee in Albany. And you know, aging, to me, is a funny word. I just turned 60, so you know, I could be aging, right? But I'm not the only person or thing that's aging. Mayor, we have a lot of things aging. We have an aging infrastructure. We have an aging school system. A lot of our buildings are aging.
So, I'm sure some of the conversation that we're going to have today may not necessarily be just about us as individuals but as Staten Island as a community. So, please, you know, let the mayor know. I mean, don't hold back. That's why he's here.

So, I just want to point out that aging also equals one thing, probably better than any other group: aging equals voters. Okay? And everybody here is probably a voter. Thank you.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you so much, and thank you to my colleagues. I remember back in January during my first year, my first month in office, teaming up with these same colleagues, Vito and the assemblymen and the councilmen and others, coming out and dealing with the snow storm at the time.

If you were to keep a tabulation, you would see that in my first few months in office I have been on Staten Island probably more than any other mayor out here on various issues from your parks to looking at different sites and locations and engaging in real conversation.

And one thing I know about Staten Island, you're some plain‑talking folks. You know, you are not afraid of letting folks know how you feel and sharing your thoughts. There are 8.3 million New Yorkers, 35 million different opinions. You know, that is the city we live in.

And I just want to, even before we start the conversation, want to talk about two top line issues that is really engulfing the news. Number one, someone made an allegation against me that over 30 years ago that there was a negative encounter. I don't know who this person is. I don't know where it came from.

It's not who I am. I'm a protector. I served the city for 22 years as a police officer, always stood up for women's rights even as a state senator and as the borough president. But the allegation will take its course. We don't know much more about it, and it just puts us in a bad circumstance.

You could… When sand blows in the wind, you can't take back each grain. And there's one thing my mother always told me, that always protect the family name. And you know, mommy's not with me, she transitioned, but that still holds true of protecting the family name. The family name means everything to me.

And this allegation into my relationship with Turkey, we're cooperating 100 percent. Any document that is needed, we're turning over. I follow the rules. I made that clear. I follow the rules. That's who I am, and that's who I will always be.
But also know this. When I was running for office, everyone that I stopped and spoke with talked about the bureaucracy of government, how long it takes to get things done, to open your restaurant, open your business, to get a permit. And I made a commitment and promise that we're not going to get in the way of getting things done.

We did a BLAST report, Get Stuff Built Report. We reached out and had small gatherings of people to talk about how do we make government more efficient. And it's not. You know, you should not feel as though every time governments shows up at your office, your building, your home that they're going to walk away figuring out how they're going to make life difficult for you. And we have really fortified that message in a real way.

And we have some real W's, folks. Some real W's. If you do an analysis of these 23 months, you will see just real W's that we are experiencing in the city with an amazing group of everyday New Yorkers. A decrease in shootings, decrease in homicides. You are watching five out of the seven major crime categories in the city, you're seeing decline.

People are back on our subway system. You remember that five‑letter word that all of us were dealing with January 1st, 2022, Covid? No one knew this city was going to come back. Everybody told me it was going to take five years. Within 23 months, we have recovered 100 percent of the jobs we lost prepandemic. We have more jobs, private sector jobs in the city's history right now. Our housing plan has put more people in housing. What we've done around mental health issues. When I come out here, I don't hear the insidious belief that people who have severe mental health issues should remain on our streets and live on our streets. I don't hear that out here.

I hear that in a numerical minority who are the loudest that [are] stating it's okay for people who are dealing with severe mental health issues to continue to walk our streets. I don't subscribe to that theory. We believe in placing them in care, and we believe in doing involuntary removals to take people inside and get them the wraparound services that they deserve.

I don't believe, I don't believe that if you have 25 shoplifting arrests and you walk into Target and steal something that you should be allowed to do it over and over and over and over again. I don't believe that.

I don't believe if you have 13 grand larceny arrests for stealing automobiles that you should just get slapped on your hand and say, don't do it again, and be allowed to go out and steal the vehicles over and over again. I don't believe that.
I don't believe if you carry a gun and you use it and the next day you should be out because we're not keeping you inside, I don't believe that. I'm a common sense New Yorker. That's who I am. I come from a common sense, blue collar family. You pull up the gate, you sweep in front of your shop, you spend 12, 13 hours hoping that the next generation is able to do better than the previous generation.

My mother had three jobs to raise six children, and she was as stern as can be, 5 foot 3, and she would kick our ass any time we stepped out of line. And she was not afraid to do so. That's my upbringing. That's my root.

And this is the most challenging moment we are facing right now, and so I want to get rid of three misnomers as we engage in the conversation. Asylum seeker crisis. This is a national problem that has been dropped in New York City's lap. Well, Eric Adams, you keep letting people in. I have no other choice. The federal government determines who can come into the city and can't. I don't have that power.

Well, why don't you deport people? I don't have that power. Deportation is a federal right. Well, you're given asylum seekers and migrants more than what you're giving everyday New Yorkers. I ask you to take a tour to our HERRCs and asylum shelters and you'll see people sleeping on cots, people in our HERRCs have outside restroom facilities, outside showers.

We're trying to treat them with a level of dignity, but we're not giving people more than what we give everyday New Yorkers; and in fact, everyday taxpayer New Yorkers have certain rights and authority that asylums and migrants do not have.
That is what our number one line was, we did not want any children and families sleeping on the streets. And we have been to Washington D.C. nine times to say, this is your problem. This is not the problem of taxpayers. This is costing us $12 billion over three years, 12 billion. Out of not a $168 billion budget, but out of a 30‑something billion dollar budget.

So, when you take $12 billion out of 30‑something billion dollars, it has to come from somewhere and it's going to hurt. And we're asking everyone to come together and tell the federal government, this is not right what we're doing to the people of this city.
But I am obligated by law, I have to balance the budget two years out. And so those of you who are homeowners — because I'm sure there's homeowners in here — imagine you budget your household for the year, your light, your gas, your insurance, your mortgage, paying for your childcare, and your roof caves in.

You go to your insurance company and ask them to pay for what you have paid for in your insurance contract, and they tell you no. You have to now find money from somewhere. That is what's happened to New York City. Our insurance contract is the federal government. We send more taxes to the state and the federal government then we get back.

And we went to them with our insurance contract and said, this is your problem, and they said, no, you guys are going to pay for it. It's decimated our city, impacting our Department of Sanitation, our Police Department, our school system, our libraries — libraries. Everything we put in place.

The budget I passed put money in our libraries, put money in our schools, put money in our older adults, put money in our Police Department. It put money in our youth and children's services. That's the budget I passed. And in November, I had to go back to the budget and readjust the budget based on this deficit that we are experiencing.

So, I want you to be clear: you're angry, I'm angry. I'm angry, because people don't see Washington. They see Eric Adams. And no matter what happened in this city, a guy stopping me the other day to say, you know what? My wife left me. I'm blaming you.
I get it from all ends, folks. All ends. But you know what? I want it. This is the city I served for 22 years when I wore that bulletproof vest. I want to fight for this city. My kid brother was a sergeant in the police department. My cousins were police officers. I want to fight for this city, and I'm going to fight like hell for this city.

We're not going to always get it right, I'm perfectly imperfect. Perfection is not my attribute, but dedication is. I'm dedicated to the people of the City of New York, and I'm going to leave everything I have on the ground to make sure it works.
So, let's open it up to some questions.

Question: First of all, this is the second time I've met you. I saw you at the United Palace. And let me tell you something. We were doing a contest. This man can dance. This man can dance!

My question is a general question that affects not only the senior citizens but the general population. My daughter, unfortunately, has MS, and this is regarding that horror that they're going to put on, congestion pricing, okay? Now, she has to travel into the city several times a month.

Now, out here, we sort of get raped — I'm going to call it that, and I don't mean that in that sense… We pay a toll for the Verrazano, we pay a toll for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, which is now known as the Hugh Carey Tunnel. And then we would have to pay $15 for coming into the city plus she has to pay for parking.

What I want to know, and this could affect everybody because we have to sometimes go to see the real good doctors in Manhattan. What are they going to do for people, what is, as far as the congestion pricing who have to go into Manhattan for medical purposes and things like that?

I mean, is there going to be any kind of a discount for people of that nature? I mean, most of us, we don't really go into Manhattan, but there are people like my daughter, I mean, this will cost her $100 just to cross the bridge and park. What is your opinion on that? And what is being done about that?

Mayor Adams: So, a couple of things. One, we have some great doctors that are outside the five… Manhattan. We have some great doctors, so I want to be clear on that. I just want to be clear, you know, I don't want people to feel as though our best medical institutions are only in Manhattan.

But listen, I agree with you 100 percent. And so people should note that the MTA, which is not controlled by the mayor, everyone believes that the MTA is controlled by the mayor of the City of New York, and it's not, it's controlled by the state.

And they are in charge of the entire congestion prices. I had one person that was on the board that made a suggestion, and we need to look at all that. We need to look at the school buses, we need to look at governmental vehicles, we need to look at people who have to go to Manhattan and the location was being charged for particularly for serious medical issues.

That's where we are right now in discussing this, weighing in, coming up with the right ways. We don't want to displace the environmental issue into the outer boroughs also. And so that's the conversation we're having right now, and your lawmakers are going to weigh in as well. So, that's the conversation we're engaged in right now.

Question: Who's everybody, mayor? [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: And that's what we're waiting right… That's being discussed right now.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Right.

Question: [Inaudible.]

Mayor Adams: Yes, thank you.

Question: Hello, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: How are you, ma'am?

Question: Hi. I don't know if you remember me. I knew you as the borough president and you used to go to the Borough Park Community… 

Mayor Adams: Yes. Yes. Yes, I did.

Question: This question is for with the migrant influx that you're saying was kind of like dumped on you by higher officials, it's dumped and we are the people that it's being dumped on. And our biggest thing is the question is why were the veterans thrown out of shelters, displaced, they're all over the streets, why are we not honoring those men and women for the reason that we have this freedom that we have.

And they're laying in the frozen street while other people that are migrant‑ish and also other things that we are now finding out that they're a little more powerful than what we believe they are, why are the veterans not being taken care of? Why are these people laying in the street the way they are?

Mayor Adams: Well, I'm not sure if this… Is this a specific location that you're talking about, because veterans, let me be clear on this, my relationship with veterans. You know, I lost a 19‑year‑old cousin in Vietnam, you know, Uncle Joe. And I just found out last year when I saw his military record, how he died.

And so when it comes down to protecting veterans I have an amazing commissioner at Department of Veterans Services, and what we have done around veterans has been a very clear message of protecting our vets. And we are not and we will never displace our veterans and everyday New Yorkers, non veterans, to say we're going to move them out of the location because we have to put migrant and asylum seekers into a location.

Now, if there is a specific location that this happened, please let me know and I want to look into it and find out what happened.
Give her the mic so I can hear. That's okay.

Question: Our seniors — ourselves — are the people that built where we are today alongside with these veterans and yet those seniors were taken out of Father Capodanno and migrants were put in. There were veterans in there as well, 85‑year‑old people that were living their life; and yet, for whatever behind the scenes things that were done, those people were put out and the buses came.

And on South Avenue, the same thing, and you know that there's other activities going on besides them just living there. You see them, if you're in the neighborhood you see the activities that are going on.

So, we're not being protected. We are the seniors that built this. We are the seniors that are paying the taxes. We are the seniors that are being run over, hit and knocked down. Who is protecting us?

Mayor Adams: We are, and that's the role of the Police Department and that's the role of the city. And again, if there's some specific areas that our vets… If anyone was displaced and put into a homeless environment, that is not coming from this administration, it's not coming from my leadership. And so if there's some specific cases, I need to know about it and find out exactly what happened there, because that is not how we operate.

The locations we use were locations that were not occupied. And we've run out of room, folks. I cannot… 150,000. This week we got up close to 2,900. We're getting approximately 2,200 to 2,500 a week, a week. I really need people to understand, every night we're trying to figure out where we're housing people. Every night we're trying to figure out where we're housing people.

[Inaudible] subscribe to this and stay for as long as they want on taxpayers' dime. That's the theory we're in court fighting on. I don't subscribe to that.

And so what I am now fighting, so that we are not being held in contempt that when people come in the city by law there are requirements that I have to fulfill and find locations to house until the judge makes the ruling that the right to shelter law does not apply to a humanitarian crisis.

But let me tell you something that's very interesting also. Out of all of these migrant and asylum seekers that are coming here, you know what they're asking for, the number one thing? They want to work. That's what they want to do. They don't want anything free from anyone, they want a job like all of our ancestors were able to work.

And we have thousands of jobs that are available, but they're not allowing us to give them the authorization to work and pay into the tax base. That's the big problem that we're facing. The next table. Yes, yes. I'm sorry, hold on one moment.

Yes, trust me, knowing this crowd, it's going to come up. But if it doesn't, Mark, we'll summarize. Yes, sir.

Question: Thank you, Mayor Adams, for taking my question. I appreciate your efforts to keep our city safe, especially for the Jewish community during this difficult time and supporting the JCC Jewish center here.
My question. The police do a great job of arresting criminals, but I get the impression we have become a decarceration city. The police know who their worst perpetrators are. How can you keep them off the streets or even safer than we are today?

Mayor Adams: Well, by joining these elected officials who are here, you know. These elected officials behind me, I think the DA here, we stood side by side on several initiatives, by sending a very clear and loud message that the, like to say the "frequent flyers," the extreme recidivists who commit crimes, come out and just to commit the crimes over and over again.

When we go back to Albany this year we need to focus on the small pocket of people who are extreme recidivists. And I think that if we zero in on them, you are going to see a substantial decrease in crime. And in addition to that, they must empower us with the right to enforce our cannabis laws.

These illegal cannabis shops are opening up all over our city. We don't have the power we need. If we're given the power we need, I tell you, I can close on these cannabis shops in 30 days, if you give us the local power to do it, and we don't have it right now.

But we have to have laws that are very clear, execution of those laws that are going to keep these habitual recidivist individuals inside. Police are...our arrest numbers are high. Our arrest numbers of taking guns off the streets, our arrest numbers of dealing with grand larceny autos, our arrest numbers of dealing with violent felonies are high. But you are seeing this recidivism that is really problematic. Yes ma'am.

Question: Good afternoon.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Hello, representatives, everyone here. I have a couple of concerns, but number one is affordable housing for seniors that we can afford on Staten Island. I don't want to move to Jersey, I don't want to go to Long Island. My children are here. I would like to be on Staten Island.

My second concern is group homes on Staten Island to take better care of our children, pay them a decent salary so our...we could live in peace knowing that our children are well taken care of.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Do we have HPD, anybody from… Yes. Yep, yep. Talk about our housing, what we've done around housing. Yes. Just introduce yourself.

Kevin Parris, Director, Queens and Staten Island Planning, Department of Housing Preservation and Development: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Kevin Parris, I'm here with HPD, so totally understand your point. I just want to throw a couple of figures out there just so you can understand we are always looking for opportunities to expand what we can do out here on Staten Island.

Currently right now we have over 1,200 units that's in the pipeline to be developed here on Staten Island. And then also in the pipeline we have about 31,00 units that's currently either have been financed or in the process of being financed since 2014. And some of those projects are still either in construction right now or in the process of being completed.

So, again, that's what we have happening currently today. Moving forward, we also are looking for other opportunities as well to develop more and more senior housing here on Staten Island.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. And what we've learned particularly around housing ‑‑ I want to get to the question around young people — around housing, everyone says more and more housing, and I can, if I could only tell you how many times people say, yes, but not on my block, you know, not in my neighborhood.

You know, so what we are doing so with the head of city planning, we're doing a city‑wide rezoning where everyone is going to have their share of affordable housing, because I agree with you, people should be able to age in place, they should be able to have veteran housing, senior housing, right in their community. And so it's going to take all of us to join with our city councilmembers and push this city‑wide rezoning so that we can build enough affordable housing.

The problem we're having is inventory. There's not enough inventory. We have to build more to get that inventory so that you can remain in your borough, remain in your community and live in your community in an affordable way. That's important.
Our young people, we have invested so much resources in our young people, 100,000 summer youth jobs, 110,000 young people in the Summer Rising program. And one of the number one things that I ran on as mayor was to lean into our foster care children. Our foster care children age out, we know what happens when they age out. 600 to 700 age out every year. We know they're more likely to be victims of crimes, homeless, mental health issues.

We are now paying the college tuition for our foster care children when they age out, and we're giving them a stipend and we're giving them career readiness programs so we don't let them slip through the cracks and make sure that they could be a part of this great city instead of just abandoning them.

It's unimaginable that we have a system when a child reaches 18 years old we basically say, you're on their own. That is just not realistic. It doesn't build a support system that is needed. And we have what's called Fair Future where we allow them to have life coaches until they're 21 and let them stabilize in the right way and not abandon them. So, we know we have to be more proactive and not reactive, and that's what this administration has done.

We'll come to you, ma'am. He's going around with his microphone, he's like a Phil Donahue type guy.

Question: Good afternoon. My question is, how can traffic regulations be enforced regarding red light cameras, red lights, people speeding passing through red lights. You take your life in your hands when you try to cross the street; or, even if you stop at a light you don't know if somebody's going to rear end you because they chose not to stop at the light.

Mayor Adams: Listen, I'm a big supporter, my former council, Andrew Gounardes pushed the red light camera and it worked. Around schools, traffic fatalities have decreased substantially. Who do I have from DOT? Anyone from DOT?

Staten Island Borough Commissioner Roseann Caruana, Department of Transportation: Good afternoon. I am Roseanne Caruana, the Staten Island DOT borough commissioner. And I just want to share something personal. My grandparents back in 1958 were both killed on Highland Boulevard. You know, back then, we never collected data, we didn't have fatality information, we didn't have any kind of traffic safety programs.

But I somehow feel like I was put here for a reason. So, I can tell you from the bottom of my heart personally, I take every single fatality personally, and I am on it before I even get the e‑mail in my inbox.

So, as far as traffic safety, one of the things that we're doing, we're actually looking at Manor Road right in front of this facility. There is a little bit of speeding, we recognize that. So, we're going to be looking at some traffic calming measures, perhaps a speed hump.

I try to be proactive as opposed to reactive. Reactive means that there's either been a serious crash or a fatality, so that's not how I play as the borough commissioner. I try to be very proactive.

So, if there's a specific location, you know, my staff is here. Give us the location. We'll be out on it tomorrow, that I can promise you. I'm sorry?

Mayor Adams: Bring the mic to her so we can hear her, please?

Question: And can I speak to someone now about it?

Borough Commissioner Caruana: Sure. My staff is right here.

Question: Excellent.

Borough Commissioner Caruana:  Come on around.

Question: Thank you.

Mayor Adams: And we want to… And if you have, as the commissioner stated, if there are locations, we're big on identifying what are trouble spots. And no one knows it better than you. We are zooming in with a plan, we are planning to deal with these scooters that seem to be everywhere right now and no one is following the rules, really getting about calming the traffic and the flow of how our streets are being used more and more differently. That's our goal.

Borough Commissioner Caruana: And Mr. Mayor, I'm sorry, if I could just… 

Mayor Adams: Yes, yes.

Borough Commissioner Caruana: She asked to talk about a little bit more of our traffic safety programs. So, especially for seniors, as was mentioned by the commissioner, we do walk throughs, and to me, that is the best form of proactive mitigation is to have the seniors walk with us and show us exactly what the issues are.

Very often people will come to us and say, we need a traffic signal here. But let me say, traffic signal sometimes increase speed, because people are racing to get to that green light. So, that's not always the solution. So, I'd rather hear just what the problem is, and leave it to me and our engineers and our planners to come up with a solution. Give me the problem and I will resolve it.

So, some of the things we're looking at with seniors is walk through the neighborhoods, we're doing some workshops. We want to hear from you, because you are the folks that are here during the day. You see things. And that how we make the program work, is to hear from you, each and every one of you. So, again, my staff is here. Let us know where we can target our next location.

Mayor Adams: And those walk throughs are great because we're seeing it through your eyes and you're able to walk through and show exactly where the problems are.

Question: Good afternoon. A question for my loving new friends over here. Regarding public safety, should the public be concerned with the current budget cuts to our first responders and other crucial agencies?

Mayor Adams: Well, listen, first of all, we should all be concerned with all of these cuts. There's not one agency that's not going to be impacted. And as I say over and over again, this is not the budget I passed. The budget we passed invested into all of our agencies. And I believe the prerequisite to our prosperity is public safety. That is the foundation to our existence.

But we're not going to do anything that is going to harm our city being safe. Commissioner Caban is continuing the rich legacy from the former commissioner, Commissioner Sewell, and he is showing how he's properly deploying our police. We've had over 400 protests‑slash‑rallies since October 7th, since those terrible attacks that took place in Israel, over 400.

And you're not seeing the violence that you're seeing in other cities. This Police Department has done an amazing job of allowing people to rally without the damage, without looting and burning property, and they have done it the correct way. And I'm not going to allow the police department numbers to decrease or anything that's going to take away from the direction we're moving in keeping our city safer.

So, to your table, you have my assurance that this city is not going backwards in crime, we're going to continue to move forward and become safer and safer and safer.

Question: Hello. Our table over here has questions pertaining to transportation, specifically Access‑A‑Ride. As unreliable it seems that it has been for them, are there any other programs available to them that can facilitate.

Mayor Adams: The commissioner was laughing behind me because I… 

Question: I'm sorry, she added something. I'm sorry? Our specific senior center here, they have difficulty getting any transportation to them besides the Access‑A‑Ride program.

Mayor Adams: Yes. I was saying, the commissioner's laughing behind me because she knows I call it IN‑Access‑A‑Ride, you know?

Well, first of all we need to move Access‑A‑Ride into the next generation. And we met with a company last week that were using new technology. You should not have to wonder where your Access‑A‑Ride vehicle, the same system that is used for Uber, for Lyft, to let folks know how far the car out is, you can actually see the diagram, that technology should be used in the Access‑A‑Ride program at the same time.

We're now in conversations to see how we can adopt that form of technology to be used and more modernize the system. You shouldn't have to be sitting around for an hour in inclement weather waiting at your door hoping to see it, missing the ride. The technology is there, we need to incorporate it into the Access‑A‑Ride system, and we're in conversation to see how that could be done.

Has to be a better system. You should not have your life interrupted because you cannot move around the city the way you want to. That is the methodology we're looking towards.

Sit tight, each table, we're going to come to you, okay?

Question: Hi, sorry.

Mayor Adams: How are you?

Question: Hi. My name is [Marlene Bonfield], and I'm a member here since about 2011. Best place in the world. Best borough in the world. I only cross the bridge to go to the airport.
Okay. I have a question. I recently visited the land where SeaView Houses are.  There's a bunch of… The hospital is there, a bunch of empty buildings with broken windows. The land is a beautiful property, and it's just in a lovely area. And why that is not being taken care of so that people can move in who are homeless that don't have a place to live.
I don't want to make it any particular group, but people who need a place to live. It's beautiful there.

Mayor Adams: Where do you say, SeaView Houses?

Question: SeaView Houses. They have broken windows, big, beautiful buildings standing, and it's… 

Mayor Adams: You're talking about SeaView in Coney Island?

Question: It's here. Here. It's on the campus of SeaView Hospital.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Okay. Okay.

Question: That's where it is. And you don't have to cross a bridge to get to it. So, thank you.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Let us look at, I don't know who's the owner, do we know who owns that property, anyone? Let me look into it.

Question: Thank you, because I've been there… 

Mayor Adams: Okay. Can we make a note of that, please?

Question: I've been there recently and it broke my heart to see these beautiful buildings… 

Mayor Adams: Let us look at it, let's see who owns it.

Question: ...broken windows.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Let us check and see who owns it.

Question: SeaView Hospital and home are both located there.

Mayor Adams: Okay. Sounds like a plan.

Question: Thank you so much.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Where am I going? Okay. We'll get you, too, sir. How are you?

Question: I am a little overwhelmed. Thank you, thank you for being here. Mr. Mayor, I want to thank you very much for making the effort to come to address our concerns in Staten Island. We have many problems here, and I hope they will be resolved. And I'm used to attacking politicians, so… 

So the incentive is here. You think I'm a little bit, you know, forward like this. But my question is about rising crime on Staten Island. In the past, different methods were used to deal with petty offenses so that they didn't escalate into more serious offenses. What is your strategy to deal with the rise in crime including petty offenses? It's getting very dangerous on Staten Island… 

Mayor Adams: That can't happen.

Question: And we are being threatened here.

Mayor Adams: Yes. We have Commissioner Stewart here. Commissioner Stewart before becoming a commissioner he's been in the Manhattan DA's office and he was formerly a detective in the Police Department, so knowledge of crime is his thing. You know, commissioner, you want to talk about some of the things? Talk about your seniors' initiatives also.

Deputy Commissioner Mark Stewart, Community Affairs, Police Department: Good afternoon, everybody. My AARP card, and I have it for six years now.
Thank you. Listen, I've been in law enforcement for 39 years. I came on the job in '84. My father was a detective on the Police Department. It's in our blood, and our main concern is public safety and your safety.

Let me tell you how my week goes with Commissioner Caban and our executive staff. We meet two or three times a week, and I call it the stars and bars room, where the Police Commissioner and three star chiefs are there, and we have a plan that we go precision policing and we go to every borough and see where the crime is and we deploy our officers there.

This is not a guessing game. You know, know if you take the hospital now with the robotic surgery, that's how we are with our boroughs. Sometimes we get four hours of sleep. Sometimes we sleep at One Police Plaza. But our main concern is that you have a safe place to sleep at night and you can walk the streets.

Now, the petty crimes, it's a problem. Our police officers make an arrest, they're walking out the door. But listen, that's our job. I'm not going to stay past what goes at the DA's office, what happens, but our police officers are out there and the crimes are happening, we're going to attack it. They will be arrested. That's all we could do as a cops.

But to make sure that you know that we're on top of everything that's happening in all five boroughs, we're on top of it. So, have no worries. Walk the street safely. We are definitely here. What you don't see behind the scenes, we have plain clothes cops. We are there. We are watching. We know where the gangs are. We know where the groups are.

We know who's stealing at these retail stores. And [we’ve] arrested them. Recidivist arrests are off the chain. But we're police officers, we could do but so much. You commit a crime, you'll be arrested. Okay?

Mayor Adams: Can you talk about some of the… And you may have some of your liaisons, your senior… 

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: So, since I took over as commissioner, Commissioner Cortés and I, we noticed, I'm in charge, I oversee. Not in charge, I oversee the Community Affairs Bureau. And I'll say it again. They work with me not for me.
There was no liaison in any of our precincts or our districts for older adults that needed help that came to the precinct. We have put a liaison in each precinct and housing that if you want to come in and if you need help they're there and they'll assist you. Can you guys stand, please? Community affairs cops?

Are you the community affairs cops through the 112? 1‑2‑2? Okay, crime prevention. So, that means that when you go to the precinct, and I know sometimes you walk into a precinct, it's a little intimidating. You know, you see all the cops there, you don't know which way to go. Community affairs is there. Ask for them and they'll help you. Even if they have to come out and visit you, they'll come out and visit you.

And just recently Lieutenant Bodden, she's my right hand person, I call her all times at night, she oversees it. We recently have been getting calls from DA's office, they want to get involved now because they heard about the program. So, they're on board, too, so if the crime is...if it's committed, they could reach out to the DA's office for you.

How many boroughs do we have, there's Manhattan and…  

Lieutenant Jackie Bodden, Police Department: We have [inaudible] so just a little bit more about the liaisons. So, every precinct, all 77 and all 9 PSAs have a liaison. The office of [Maria Nazeer], that's the liaison for this particular precinct, the 122.
So, if you guys have any issues navigating the Police Department or just getting any help with older adult concerns that you may have, he's definitely going to be available. And at any point he's not in the command, we could always give you his contact information and you guys could reach out to him as well as myself.

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Yes, and also I think in Staten Island we also do our scam alerts and we...have you been to a couple, that we went out and we do our scam alerts for older adults? We have a list that we're going to give you before the end of today.

But we have been careful now, because it's Christmas time, the holiday season's coming. The scammers are out there. My mother was the victim of a scam about a month ago in 105. And I tell her every day, listen if somebody calls you, do not answer the phone, do not do A, B, C, D. She still did it.

And the problem is when you get scammed, nobody wants to report it. So, guess what? The Police Department, we don't know. So now I have my scam [inaudible] Sergeant Kelly. He will be in charge to make sure that we are letting you know, make you aware of all the scams that are happening.

These people prey on older adults, so we have that going on. We have the liaison. I have to protect myself because I'll be there sooner or later, so I know it's coming, so you know. And I see my mother, too, and I just watch her, and she's so dependent upon me now. You know what happens. And we at the Police Department and Commissioner Cortez know the seriousness of this.

You know, we joke and laugh, but it's not a joke. These scams are out there, and they're taking money from older adults every day. If they run a scam 10 times a day and they may get one or two, they won. All right? Thank you.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. So, what we should do, the director of the center here, we should invite down the commissioner's team, okay, invite down the commissioner's team and have them do a presentation of some of these scams, some of the new locations the commissioner put in place, that if you're selling an item like a car or something else on social media, now the precincts have a location. What is that called, commissioner?

Deputy Commissioner Stewart: Okay. Yes, we're doing a lot of things here. E‑commerce. I don't know if anybody is aware of e‑commerce, or know what it means. You probably don't, because I don't do it, but a lot of younger kids are involved in this. What that means is that you have a buyer and you have a seller. You're buying things on the Internet: Craigslist, eBay, and they're meeting at locations for the transaction in the streets, in the parking lots.

So, credit to our mayor that I was approached with this several times about this, about safer places that we can have. So, now we have a location in each precinct, housing district and transit. If you want to do these transactions, you go to the precinct. You don't have to make an appointment. Don't go into the precinct.

There's a locale there which says e‑commerce and there's a camera there. That camera is monitored 24 hours, seven days a week. So, if you have grandkids, if you have kids and they're doing this e‑commerce, let them know. And the whole system's up. We just started about a week and a half, we got the whole system up so every precinct, every housing district and every transit district, they could go ahead and make the transaction. You do not have to go into the precinct, we are watching and it's been recorded, too.

Mayor Adams: Yes. And you know, we lost a police officer last year when he was selling his car. And when he was selling his car, the person had him come to a desolate area and robbed him and murdered him. And so this idea that the commissioner has done where if it's you or your loved one you can go to the precinct, and if you tell someone that's selling something to meet you at the precinct in the e‑commerce location and they don't want to do it, then it's more than likely they were up to no good. So, thank you. Thank you, commissioner, great idea, and it's implemented.

Question: From this table, what is the Police Department doing to ensure safety from hate crimes for the Jewish community in particular.

Mayor Adams: Yes, no, great question. Great question. And there's a concern throughout the city, antisemitism unfortunately for the year we were down, but since October 7th you're seeing an increase in hate crime particularly around graffiti, drawing of swastikas and messages. And you're also seeing an increase in Islamophobia. Even today we saw someone damage a vehicle using some hate rhetoric at the same time.

We are taking it extremely seriously where we believe that, number one, we're making arrests. We are not going to allow it to be just passed over like it didn't happen. We're doing very thorough investigations. We have made several arrests for some of these hateful incidents.

And but we're asking our community, if you see something, say something, but most importantly do something, report it. I think Commissioner Stewart was correct, oftentimes we ignore it and we won't report it. We're saying report it. We want to investigate, we want to arrest, and the district attorneys have been real partners to make sure we prosecute people to the fullest extent of the law.

You're not going to live in a city where you're afraid to wear a yarmulke on the streets, where you're afraid to go to your synagogue, where you're afraid to go to a church, a mosque, a Buddhist temple or a sikh member. That is not the city we're going to live in.

There's no room for hate. And we have to be as vociferous as possible whenever we see someone carrying out a hateful act, we should report it. We will do an investigation and we will make an apprehension. So, thank you for that question.
I thought I saw someone over here had their hand up. I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. All right. You got the answer to your question.

Again, listen, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holiday to you all, all the holidays that are coming up. I think Commissioner Stewart was right, be aware of the scam artists, be aware of people who prey on you. We're here to do our job, and we want to come back with the commissioner and his team to give use some specific areas that we think are important for you as you move throughout your day.

But I want to thank the… Okay. I want to thank the commissioner. We're going to come to you. Commissioner, this is number one for us.

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department for the Aging: This is seven out of nine.

Mayor Adams: This is the seventh Older Adult Townhall, I think we've done nine community town halls. We did youth town halls. This is where… This is my sweet spot. I like to be on the ground talking to people. I don't want you to read about me, I want you to hear about me, and I want to talk to you one on one. That's why I want to be here. Sir, we'll take your question, you'll close it out for us.

Question: I was wondering why we're keeping New York a sanctuary city, because I think that contributes to crime and it takes money and manpower away from the citizens. And it's also costing money and taking money away from the program for legitimate programs.

Mayor Adams: And so it's so important to really break this down. The sanctuary city has nothing to do with the right to shelter law. And that's not my… I don't have the authority to determine if the city's a sanctuary city or not. We're in court right now for the Right to Shelter law. That's the issue that we're fighting right now that states when you have these humanitarian crises that New York City residents are supposed to take on that responsibility.

The right to shelter law was a lawsuit that was filed for a specific number of New Yorkers that now we believe has gotten out of control, and we're asking the court to rule that we are not obligated to the right to shelter when you're dealing with a humanitarian crisis. The state should take this on and the federal government should take it on. That is what we're in court right now fighting for.

But I can't just arbitrarily say we're not going to do this, we have to go to the court and receive some form of action from the court to make this happen.

Question: But before this problem happened, New York City was a sanctuary city.

Mayor Adams: Yes.

Question: So, why did you keep it a sanctuary city?

Mayor Adams: Again, I don't make the… It's a law that I don't make. I don't make the law of what's a sanctuary city or not. And a sanctuary city just means people are allowed to come to this city and be free of prosecution by coming to the city. But that's not the battle we're having. We're not having the battle with sanctuary city.

Question: But that's where they're leaving the other cities, because they get prosecuted there, and they're going to a sanctuary city so they don't get prosecuted.

Mayor Adams: No, it's… Well, if we take that mindset, then those who fled the Ukraine, we're saying that they should not be allowed here. Those who flee persecution because they're Jewish in the Soviet Union or other places, they should not be allowed here.

So, this city has always been a city that was welcoming for immigrants. That is who we are. People have always fled prosecution. That's not the battle we're having right now.

Question: No, but I was talking about the people that are already in the United States, citizens that are criminals in other states that come to sanctuary cities so they don't have to be prosecuted. I mean, there's many states that are not sanctuary cities and they have the lowest crime rates.

Mayor Adams: Well, many states don't have the largest Jewish population out of Tel Aviv, that's why they're not good states. New York is a place of diversity. We have the largest population of just about every ethnic group, and all of us, this is a city of immigrants. It's a city where immigrants come together and are able to build this amazing city.

But the only common denominator that all of us have as a city of immigrants, we've all had the right to work. We've all had the right to provide for our family. And that's the right we need to give those who come to the city. Thank you so much for allowing me to come out today.

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