Office Of The Mayor Of New York City: Transcript: Mayor De Blasio Appears On Inside City Hall

Press release from Office of the Mayor of New York City:

October 26, 2021

Errol Louis: Welcome back to Inside City Hall. The City is preparing for possible flash flooding in subways and streets as a coastal storm passes through our region. According to the forecast, downpours are expected overnight tonight with the heaviest showers happening during rush hour tomorrow morning, with up to four inches of rain expected across the five boroughs. That's about half of the rainfall our city experienced during Hurricane Ida last month. And although major disruptions and basement flooding are not expected this time, Mayor de Blasio is urging New Yorkers to be cautious. For more on this, the Mayor joins me now for our weekly interview. He comes to us today from inside the New York City Public Library’s 42nd Street branch. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. I feel like I should be saying, shh.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yeah, no. Errol, it's just after hours here. Folks have just cleared out in the normal hours and we're here at the public library as part of City Hall In Your Borough for Manhattan. And what an amazing, powerful New York City iconic space this is. So, we don't – we can, we can speak in a full voice I'm happy to tell you.

Louis: And like, you know, like many other people looking at this, they may be having the same flashbacks I did. I never felt more like a grownup as a teenager, than when I went down to that very room because I actually had research to do, and this was the only place I could get the information from. I just felt like I was on top of the world.

Mayor: You turned out good, Errol. I see the public library was a good influence on you.

Louis: It was. It was. I feel like going down there now. Anyway, let's talk about the business at hand, Mr. Mayor. What are your weather people telling you? And specifically, what's being done in preparation for the storm, as far as any plans for sudden flooding, like we saw after Hurricane Ida?

Mayor: Yeah. Thankfully, Errol, we are not seeing anything like that in terms of the forecast. But we're taking it very seriously. We learned a very painful lesson from Hurricane Ida. We experienced something we had never experienced before in terms of the sheer intensity of the rain. What we're hearing now sounds more like a typical storm. Let's pray that's true. A typical nor'easter we're hearing now instead of two to four inches of rain, which is what I reported this morning, it now appears to be more like three to five inches from this evening through to tomorrow evening. So, spread out over that whole time frame. We take it very seriously. We have had our teams out clearing catch basins all over the city, very comprehensive effort. We're going to keep giving people updates, warnings. You know what I said after Ida is there's going to be times when we have to go to much more aggressive actions like a travel ban or a full formal evacuation. We're not talking about that at this moment. But I do want to caution all New Yorkers, be careful tomorrow as you're driving. If you see any place that looks like it may be too flooded to go through, don't go there, obviously. Pull out, turn back, go another route. Same if you're walking any place that looks like the water has accumulated. Be really careful. Basement apartment residents. Be alert. Be aware. If we see anything bigger. We going to alert people immediately. But right now, the rain appears to be spread out enough that we think it will be manageable, but everyone's got to be vigilant.

Louis: Okay. Thank you for that update. Let's talk about school safety. The City, you announced today, will be increasing the use of random metal detectors to scan and boost the police presence at public schools following the discovery of five guns at various schools over the last week. I guess my question is why random as opposed to systematic? I mean, do we not know where problems are likely to crop up?

Mayor: Well, clearly the NYPD and our School Safety Division in particular, working closely with school leadership, have a really good sense of where there are problems that need to be addressed. But one of the things that we believe is the right way to do things is let the security professionals determine what they think is best. And then they work with the school leadership to determine what makes sense for that school. Some schools have permanent ongoing scanning. Other schools have none at all, but there is another option, which is the random scanning. So, it comes up regularly, but not on a set schedule. It creates accountability. It creates consequence. But it's a different reality than having it every single day. All of the tools are available, but the decision ultimately should be what do the security professionals say? And then of course, what does the principal of the school believe is right for their school community?

Louis: Is there a shortage of school safety agents? I keep hearing about how in particular schools, what had been, you know, 18 agents is down to seven or eight or nine.

Mayor: The facts across the city are different than some of what has been alleged, honestly. Right now, we've got about 4,500 school safety agents. The top number we've ever had, as I understand, is about 5,000. So, we have 4,500 or so now. We have a new class that'll be coming in in the next few months. That's about 250 more. Now, clearly within our 4,500, there's a question of vaccination. 92 percent are vaccinated. That's really good. And more are coming in every day and choosing after the fact now to get vaccinated. So, I expect that 92 percent to go up. But it still means several hundred school safety agents who are not yet vaccinated. We want them back. We need them back. We're using overtime and other tools to compensate. And NYPD -- I talked about this this morning at my press conference. NYPD is also covering what is often the most sensitive piece of the equation, when kids are coming in in the morning and even more so dismissal at the end of the day. Our neighborhood coordination officers, our youth coordination officers are going to be out there at key school locations, creating a really clear presence to augment school safety. So, I believe between school safety itself and then the outside work from NYPD, we have a lot that we can use to make sure people are safe.

Louis: Should we be or are you rethinking the wisdom of placing the school safety agents under the control of the DOE as opposed to the NYPD?

Mayor: Look, clearly, I thought that they were doing well under the NYPD. The City Council really wanted to make a change. I worked with them on a plan where we all had to come together and find common ground. But we agreed to a two-year transition. That was something I was adamant about, to give us time to do it the right way. And to make sure the kids and the whole school community were safe. In the meantime, of course, Eric Adams has been elected mayor and everything I've heard him say suggests he thinks that they should continue in the NYPD. So, that will obviously ultimately be his decision.

Louis: Okay. He's, of course, not mayor yet, but we'll see in a week or so. The anti-vaccine protest by City workers, I wanted to ask you about. Hundreds of City workers protested against the vaccine mandate. I've encountered several candidates for office, frankly, during these debates who are also opponents. They are diehard opponents. The small part of their argument that does make sense – I mean, a lot of it, just isn't, just doesn't line up with the facts or with reality. But the part of their argument that does make sense is that some people have legitimate sort of doctor confirmed exceptions to a broad rule. What are the procedures for employees who believe that they actually have a valid medical exemption or a religious exemption?

Mayor: Yeah, absolutely, Errol. I respect that. Look, when we made the announcement about all City employees following up what we had already done with our Department of Education employees, our health care employees. We said, we're going to go immediately to impact bargaining with all the City unions. And we invited them into that process. We already know a model that has worked really well in the schools, for example, which does allow anyone who wants to claim an exemption, they can put forward that claim. And it has to be backed up by evidence. And if it's a health-related claim, then of course, the Department of Health will evaluate it. In the case of our school employees and our school system is huge, obviously, I think in the final analysis, it was fewer than a thousand folks who got medical exemptions. But there was a process and there's going to be a process here for all these agencies. Anyone who wants to make that claim has that right.

Louis: So, there's a reasonably quick turnaround on that? Somebody provides a note from their doctor saying, you know, so-and-so is immunocompromised or whatever it may be. The Health Department will get back to them within what kind of period of time are we talking about?

Louis: Okay. Stand by, Mr. Mayor. We're going to take a short break. I'll be back with Mayor de Blasio in just a minute. Stay with us.

[...]

Louis: Welcome Back to Inside City Hall. I’m once again joined by Mayor de Blasio, coming to us from inside the Reading Room at the New York Public Library's branch on 42nd Street. Let me ask you, you were not able to see it because we were just setting up, but our Courtney Gross just had a report on complaints about garbage not being picked up, especially on Staten Island. I know you were asked about this earlier today at your briefing, you said you would look into it. I'm wondering if you have any updates, and, in particular, if we know whether Sanitation workers are staying out due to a lack of vaccination?  

Mayor: The information I have so far is not people staying out. We have – first of all, Sanitation has done a lot of work over the last few weeks and months to get people vaccinated. I believe they're at about 64 percent now. We do see in every agency some movement now, every day, more and more people coming in and getting vaccinated. But obviously the mandate has not taken effect yet. So, that's not what I've seen so far. We do want to understand more what's happening exactly, and I'll speak to it as we get more details. 

Louis: Is the history based on what you saw with the schools, and with Health + Hospitals, that it's kind of a backloaded, it's kind of a last-minute surge of people making a final decision about whether or not to get vaccinated? 

Mayor: Yeah, we're all human beings, and so what we see is people respond to deadlines. There's going to be a couple of stages here, you know, Friday, 5 pm, I think a lot of people are going to respond to that deadline. And then, you know, folks are going to get the same letter that we saw with Department of Education, for example, our biggest agency where the letter was sent out over the weekend saying, okay, you've made a choice, we're putting you on unpaid leave. A lot of people will see that and that'll be the moment of truth, and some will make the decision even over the weekend to get vaccinated. Then in the case of Department of Education since the deadline, since the day of the first day when people were supposed to be in work and fully vaccinated, we've seen another 3,500 employees since that day decide after all they wanted to come back to work, get vaccinated, and come back to work. I expect the same pattern here. 

Louis: You're expecting to see the same thing. So, you know, you mentioned impact bargaining, which, you know, I understand if you impose something like this and the union says, well, look, let's negotiate over the terms of exactly how it's going to go down, that's a pretty tough negotiation, I would think, from their side of the table, right? I mean, it sounds like you've got public health authority, legal authority, all on your side and that you can make concessions or adjustments if you want to, but you don't really have to do you? 

Mayor: No, we've – look, we want to work with everyone, and we're always listening for good ideas, and we had very productive conversations with other unions as we started the vaccine mandates for their workers, but the courts have spoken. You're absolutely right, Errol. The courts have spoken with extraordinary consistency. At the State level, at the federal level, they've said very clearly this is within our rights as an employer. It's within the rights of the Health Commissioner to keep the city safe. The bottom line is we have a great model that came out of the Department of Education where – we are not trying to fire anyone, we're quite clear about that. We would so much rather someone get vaccinated, come to work, move forward. If they don't, we, of course, offer them the opportunity to cure it and come back. But you don't get paid while you're during that timeframe, but no one's being fired. Folks have the chance if they follow the unions buy into the plan that came out of Department of Education, they can even continue health insurance for a period of time, not forever, but for a period of time. We're trying to be respectful of everyone as we have with all employees of all agencies, but the bottom line is either work under the terms of employment in the middle of a global pandemic that we believe will keep people safe or you don't get paid. That's the fundamental choice.  

Louis: Yeah. And then the last question on this, I mean, did something change as far as you're concerned over the last year. I seem to think of the attitude now that people have, this resistance, the protesting and so forth, very different from what we were going through at the start of the pandemic. 

Mayor: Yeah, I agree with that. I want to accent the positive first. You know, when you talk about amongst our very biggest agencies reaching 95, 96 percent vaccination levels, let's give people their due. I mean, you can't get much better compliance in the world than that. When you talk about all adults in New York City, almost 85 percent have received at least one dose of the vaccine. I mean, you know, I say it, and you'll appreciate Errol, when have you ever heard 85 percent of all New Yorkers agree on anything else, right? It's like – it's kind of amazing. So, you know, we do see the protests and I respect people even when I disagree with them, but come on, the vast, vast majority of New Yorkers have made the right decision, and more are coming in every day. So, what I think is different, to your point, in the beginning there was more of an atmosphere of solidarity. Obviously, you know, the incredibly moving tributes to our health care heroes, you know, the Friday nights, you know, a lot of stuff where people really were feeling we were all in this together more, but it's gotten politicized. It's for reasons I still don't fully understand. I think – I would love to replay this moment in history – but first of all, I wish we'd never had this moment - but if we had, I wish there was an alternate universe where we had had this moment of history without the impact of Trump in between. And I'd be very interested to see if it would be such a virulent response. You know, we all grew up getting vaccinated, no one thought twice of it. People were made healthy by it. There's something that got supercharged in the last few years causing people to see something that I honestly don't believe is there. This is a safe, effective vaccine that's simply helping to save lives. It's not political. No one's trying to make a political statement. We're just trying to save lives and get out of the COVID era. I think things have become politicized -  

Louis: There is something extraordinary going on right down to, you know, City Council races and people are saying, you know, no, no vaccination. Let me switch topics, today multiple elected officials got arrested outside your office at City Hall in solidarity with some taxi drivers who have been on protests now that are stretched out for weeks and heading into its second month, in fact, they've expanded it into a hunger strike. Have you visited the protests and what do you say to their concerns that the plan as offered by the City just doesn't work for enough of them in that their choices are either bankruptcy, which in turn creates a risk of homelessness, compared with what's effectively a bailout for a lot of the hedge funds and other financiers who have bought up the debt?  

Mayor: Look, if someone wants to say that the titans of Wall Street got bailed out by the federal government way back when, after the recession, they've got a damn good point. And I do believe the federal government and the State government could have stepped up here and done a lot more for these workers. I have talked to a number of them over time. I've gotten to hear the pain they're going through. I take it very, very seriously, and that's why we put forward a real plan, and already hundreds of taxi drivers have stepped forward to participate in our plan, and we think it's going to be more like a thousand or more soon with a potential full impact in terms of debt relief of half a billion dollars. So, we put a real plan on the table. Real people are benefiting from it. It really does relieve a substantial amount of the burden. It's not perfect, but it's a way to help people and get them out of the worst of the crisis. I want to see everyone helped. But I think the bottom line here is we need the ability to reach people in a way that actually works, and I hear the critics, but I would say to the critics then look at the fact that our plan is actually reaching a number of drivers, and more are coming in every day. That's actually happening. Those are facts on the ground. Let's do more of that. Let's help more drivers to get out from under this burden with the plan we put forward.  

Louis: Okay. On a related note, the taxi mogul, the legendary taxi mogul Gene Friedman passed away this week owing nearly $19 million in back taxes. This is somebody who at the peak owned 900 medallions and was, you know, pocketing surcharges and cheating drivers and doing all kinds of things, getting some of them in scenarios with predatory loans. Surely, we could do better for the drivers who were the victims of people like him. 

Mayor: Well, I think we have to keep working. I mean, first of all, again, we've got a plan right now that hundreds and thousands of drivers could benefit from, and I really wish that beyond the politics and the different viewpoints here, everyone involved was saying, while we're trying to see if there's other things we can do, get everyone to sign up for the relief we have right this minute. I do think we should keep pushing on the State and federal level for more relief beyond what the City can do, and the City will keep looking if there's any other viable alternative, anything else we could actually afford that works. I'll keep listening. I'll keep looking. But in the meantime, why wouldn't we help the drivers with what we have right now? Right now, they're signing up for debt relief –  

Louis: Nobody is asking you not to do that, it’s just that people are starving themselves outside your office, trying to make clear that, you know, if they owe $500,000, and they're making $400 a day, maybe, before expenses, writing that down to $300,000 that they owe, it's equally unpayable. That's what they're saying. 

Mayor: Right, but, Errol, I totally understand, but I'm – first of all, I would say any way we can make progress for people and reduce the immediate burden, so they have a chance to get out of the situation, is something we should be doing. But second, again, this crisis was created for many reasons. I want to get the maximum help we can, but the help we need is beyond the city. It's not as simple as with this or any other situation where people hurting because of the actions of individuals who did the wrong things or state and federal regulators who did not regulate this industry aggressively, whatever those other reasons, I can't say the City of New York can make everyone whole, we just don't have that ability, but we can help people. And we want to help people. We want to lighten the burden and that's the first step, and we're going to keep doing that and keep looking for any and all other ways to help beyond. 

Louis: Okay, we're out of time, so I'm going to let you go. I did enjoy seeing you and hearing your speech at the memorial for Mayor Dinkins over the weekend. I did not realize that his mortal remains, that of him and his wife, are right there at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. Are you planning anything like that? I, you know, it's never too soon to start thinking ahead, Mr. Mayor. 

Mayor: I hope it's a long way off, but I'll tell you just as we think of David and Joyce Dinkins, it's a grand, grand place, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. It's a place worthy of two really good human beings who made this city better. And they, throughout everything thrown at them, their decency, their humanity, their kindness for others, their ability to give people hope, it was absolutely outstanding. They have not gotten their due. A lot of us talked about that, as you heard, Errol. They haven't gotten their due, but they will. History is going to be kind to both of them. I really believe it. 

Louis: It was an extraordinary service. Absolutely. Thanks very much, Mr. Mayor, we'll see you next week. 

Mayor: Thank you, Errol. 

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This press release was produced by Office of the Mayor of New York City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.