NYC NOW - SPECIAL EXTENDED EPISODE: Mayor Eric Adams speaks with Brian Lehrer

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

This is a special extended episode featuring an interview between WNYC’s Briah Lehrer and New York City’s Mayor Adams. Following last week’s State of the City address, Adams joined Lehrer to discuss several issues including his decision to declare social media an “environmental toxin”, Councilmember Yusef Salaam’s traffic stop by the NYPD, the vetoing of the “How Many Stops” bill, housing, and funding for pre-k programs.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Brian Larry. This is a special extended episode featuring an interview I did with Mayor Eric Adams that aired on my show Monday and included calls and texts from listeners. The conversation was wide-ranging from his state of the city address to housing issues to funding for pre-K programs. We started off talking about Adam's decision to declare social media. a quote environmental toxin and public health hazard, especially for young people. That conversation after the break. Mayor Adams, are you planning to propose anything at the policy level,

not just advice to parents, to limit unfettered access to social media sites for kids? Well, we should be clear. This has been a space that I have been in for some time, even in the time I was the president. We brought in, it was Facebook at the time, and sat down with them. We communicated with other social media platforms because there was a clear correlation of the actions of young people and what they were seeing on social media. It was everything from subway surfing.

And now as we're seeing, I was spiking grand lancany autos involving tiers and Hyundai's is being displayed on social media. how to the steel a car challenge. You see how it's impacting the mindset of our children. Suicide ideation increased by more than 34%. And when you look at the impact of this, there must be an immediate response. And that's why Commissioner Dr. Fassan put in place the public health has it. It really allows us to focus on this.

And you're starting to see other electives coming forth with different ways that we need to really rein in how social media is impacting our children. I'm curious if you saw the Florida House of Representatives, which just passed a bill that's making national news, to actually ban kids under 16 from many social media sites. And parental consent wouldn't even matter. We'll see if the Florida Senate goes along. But I'm curious if you've seen that and if you think anything along those lines would be good for New York. Yeah, we have to think differently.

and we have to be extremely creative of how these algorithms are used to really zero in on our young people. They're extremely sophisticated, and that's why we believe a young person should not have it, you know, a device into their age of 14th. We held the summit last year on this and had experts come in and talk about the impact of social media, and I think that what they're doing across the state is sitting in the right message. So, but you wouldn't want, it sounds like you wouldn't want, a total New York City ban, even though you're advising parents not to give kids smartphones until age 14. You're not going to propose if I'm hearing you right, a total ban on social media use by minors. Is that correct? Well, at this time, I don't think anything should be left off the table,

just as we did when we saw the harms of cigarettes. You know, Mayor Bloomberg went further than some of the other rules were and stated that we should not have it in restaurants. We should be extremely careful. And so we have to peel this back layer at a time until we find the right balance to allow people the freedom of social media, but it cannot continue to impact our children the way they're doing it. And it's going to be up to the social media companies also to step forward and make these right decisions. So it sounds like you're open to something even potentially like Florida is doing. Let me ask you next about the experience over the weekend that's all over the news of city council member Yusuf Salam.

Of course, also one of the exonerated Central Park Five, who spent 10 years in prison wrongfully convicted. Councilmember Salam, as I'm just going to bring the listeners along on this story, was pulled over by a police officer who Salam says wouldn't tell him why. When the officer learned who the council member was, he let him go with no other interaction. Let me play for our listeners a 15-second audio clip of that interaction so they know what we're talking about. we will hear the officer and council member both ID themselves. The officer allows the council member to go on his way, and the council member asks why he was stopped, and the officer does not say why.

That's a lot in 15 seconds, but here it is. I'm Officer Pletka from the 26th precinct. I'm Councilmember Salam from this district, District 9. Oh, okay. Is everything okay? Yeah. You're working, right? Yeah, can tell me what I was pulled over?

All right, take it, sir. Can you tell me why I was pulled over? And he said, okay, take care, sir, and walked away. So, Mr. Mayor, the question the council member Salam and others are asking is, if he asked the officer why he was pulled over and the officer wouldn't tell him, is that okay with you? Well, I don't know. Let's peel this back in layers.

We all saw the video, many have, and I really will ask everyone to see it. I thought this was really a picture perfect. way of civilian, Counselman's Salon, very polite, courteous. I taught what to do was stopped by the police when I was a police officer. He interacted in a very calm matter to de-esclicked the situation.

The officer was extremely courteous, identified himself. He was stopped because the windows, tents were beyond the legal limit. We don't know if at that scene, it was on the street, there was noise. I don't know if the officer even heard him say, can you say, tell me why

I would stop? Although it's not in the law that an officer has to state while they're stopped. I think that you want to show a level of courteousness and professionalism. And that's what Councilman Salon showed, and that is what that officer showed. And I think all of us should be proud of that interaction. That video showed why civilians and police can operate together to de-escalate situations. You mentioned, and I read it elsewhere over the weekend, too, that the law does allow an officer to not say, why he pulled over a driver. Some people say change that law to require that transparency, both for police accountability and for public trust in the NYPD. Maybe human nature says,

if they won't tell us why we're stopped, we'll be more suspicious of their motivations. So I'm curious from your experience on the force and obviously as mayor, would you support or oppose that kind of change in the law? I don't have a problem with that at all. Anything that we can do to, number one, de-escalate a situation. Number two, continue to build that relationship between police and communities. A real win for me. This is my life works.

You know, Brian, you know that this is what I've dedicated my life to, testifying federal court to end abuse of stopping frisk, being arrested as a child and abuse by police officers. This is my life work. And I think we've come a long way. my fight to give video cameras on police officers with former councilman, Latisha James, we're seeing firsthand. So it's not that he says, she said, she said, we're seeing firsthand. And if you look at that video and don't see that the councilman and that police officer responded correctly and appropriately and professionally, I think that we are tempted to find

a problem when there's no problem. They did it right. And I'm really pleased at the professionalism of the councilman and the professionalism. of that police officer. And people are using this incident to talk about your veto of the city council's How Many Stops Act, which would require documentation of the race and gender of more New Yorkers who are stopped by the NYPD. My understanding is that the law currently does require the traffic stops be documented in that way.

So the encounter between Council Member Salam and the officer would have been documented including the driver's race and gender. Do you know if I have that right? Yes. The conversation that we're talking about around intro 586 is dealing with level one stops. Those are stops such as, for example, if a person has a lost parent

who's dealing with Alzheimer's or dementia, everyone that officer asked, did they see the person? He will have to document that. That's the aspect of the law I disagree with. I support the law. I think level two stops, level three stops, level four stops. We should definitely ensure that we expand the documentation.

That's in line of what I have advocated for for years. That stop with the councilman was not a level one stop. It was documented. It was documented on paper. It was documented on the camera. It clearly shows the purpose of the stop. It has already created. So when people state that this is to reinforce,

force why the law is needed. It's incorrect. It's documented already. And, you know, it's so important for us to understand. And that's why I did to write along so we could understand how it is policing and not, you know, make laws that really can't reach what we want. The council was had the right spirit. But they, the level one stops is the stops that we are in our position of. Part of the city council's argument is that it's not that much work for the transparency involved to enter that into their handheld devices. You're afraid that more paperwork, even though it's not on physical paper, it's on devices, but still it's like paperwork, is going to prevent the officers from protecting the public.

Do you know how much time it took the officer on that stop of the council member? And did that hamper the officer from keeping the public safe in other ways? Yeah, and this is when we is so important that we did the ride-along, Brian, because And just so people know what that is, you invited members of council to ride along with police officers on Saturday night and eight council members took you up on that, right? Yes, actually it was nine. The councilman Savina, Brooke Powers, also rode out in Rockaway with police officers. And I just really commend them for doing so because we should see firsthand the policy.

policies and laws we passed, how does it impact every day New Yorkists who are doing this job? In this case, we had an incident where six people were staffed out in Queens, and we knocked on and communicated with a thousand people here to interview. And so at a minimum, that's 3,000 extra minutes, 49 hours, you know, two full days in time. So when you talk about one individual incident, no, that doesn't take a long time. But one is the cumulative of many different incidents in times and impacts out. It impacts that officer doing his job. It drives up overtime.

It becomes duplicative. And that killer is out there on the loose while we're doing technical aspects of the job. You referred to an example where an officer is called because somebody's parent is having a problem, you know, from Alzheimer's. When the city council speaker was here on Friday, she said, investigative stops are the only ones that would be included. And so that's not that many more stops. Would you say that counts as an investigative stop if somebody has a parent with dementia call? Yes, it will.

And we should be very clear. The definition of level ones, any credible police interaction of that nature falls into that. And so if I am called to deal with a person who loved one is missing wandering the street, something that I did a lot as a police officer. That's carrying out an investigation, binding them, asking people, did you see this person? Did you see Ms. Jones? She's suffering from dementia. Dementia. And those are the interactions. And that's why the terminology in Rodin is important, I think it's imperative that until we, up into the time this bill is executed, we should sit down and understand the terminology that are being used. We can't alter the definition

of level ones. And that is so important that we understand. Let's get the council what they want because I think in the spirit of what they want is the right thing, but let's not do it at the threat of having offices not carrying out public safety. All right. Let's get some listener calls in for you on other things. Stephanie and Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with Mayor Adams. Hi, Stephanie. Hi, Stephanie. Hi, my name is Stephanie, and I'm from Brooklyn. I have two children, a mother, I have a four-month-old and a two-and-a-half-year-old. And I wanted to know why the mayor is cutting $170 million of 3K and pre-K. In my school district, children are not guaranteed a spot at Universal 3K.

There's a limited number of seats, limited neighborhood outreach. And I'm a board and raised Brooklyn who wants to raise my children here. So his decision to remove funding for universal child care may force families like mine to leave the city. And Stephanie, I'm going to leave it there. so we have time to get as many people as we can in our limited time. She says you're cutting $170 million from $3K and pre-K in the budget. Accurate and defendant if you are. Yeah, thank you, Stephanie.

First of all, we don't want you to lead the city. Family like yours is who we want here in our city. Here's what happened, Brian, just giving a brief synops. We, this first of all, pre-K, 3K was on temporary dollars. It was dollars, stimulus dollars that the previous administration put in place. Those dollars are sunsetting. We have to find the right funding. But in addition to that, we were not paying for bodies and seats.

We were just paying for seats. The misalignment of the number of seats that were needed in a particular community were left open. We saw that people were being paid different dollar amounts based on where they were located. So we saw a system that was totally not aligned correct. We are properly aligning these seats, and our goal is to make sure every child that wants to see will get a seat, and we have lived up to that. The administration also cut subsidized child care costs from $55 a week down to less than $5 a week. So we are very much in line with making sure that we can make child care affordable. We know how important it is.

Craig in the Bronx. You're on WNYC with the mayor. Hi, Craig. How you doing? I want to know why, instead of traveling to the border towns of Texas and Arizona to see how they're dealing with the immigration issue for years with less infrastructure than New York City has, why would you go to Venezuela? What were you going to do? Tell them not to come? I don't understand.

Thank you. I'm going to leave it there, but you hear the question. Mr. Mayor. Yeah, no. Thanks for his question. And, you know, I could just pick up in his voice. he's feeling what a lot of us are feeling. We're all angry about the national response.

And just for his knowledge, my first trip was to the border. I went to El Paso, Texas, with a delegation. And even before I went, I sent another delegation down to take a look at how they're handling it. And they're not handling it. People were sleeping in the streets. People were sleeping around churches. They were sleeping in airports.

And so they were not handling the problem. I went to the Daring Gats in Venezuela, Colombia, and Equino, and Mexico, not to Venezuela, I'm sorry, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico to see the origin of the problem and to communicate with the local officials there. And it was extremely informative. Like Columbia, for example, they were willing to help a buffer some of this flow if we give them some support from the national government. And so many people don't know. I don't have the authority to deport people. That's the federal authority. I don't have the authority to tell the buses they can't come in. That's against the law.

I don't have the authority to say we're not going to feed housing clothes people. I'm binded by law. So many people are saying, Eric, why don't you fix the problem? It's a national problem. Cities should not have to fix national problems. And we've done an amazing job with over 170,000 migrants, asylum seekers that have come to the city. Over 60 percent, we have based self-sustaining. And so I say to the caller and others, when you look at what this administration has done,

other cities and states have acknowledged the awesome job that we have accomplished. Here's a follow up on the Yusef Salam Stop from a listener writing a text message. It says, based on the answer by the mayor, that council member Salam was pulled over for illegal tinting, illegally, you know, too dark tinted window, and nothing happened beyond introductions. Doesn't that pose other issues with the system? I think the listener is asking, did the officer give Salam special treatment because he's a city council member? What would happen if someone else was pulled over

for the same thing? Well, the power of discretion. We always give officers discretion of the interaction. I pulled over people as a police officer because of a traffic or vehicle infraction, and I would give them a warning. It could be anything from a broken headlight. It could be anything from a dark intent. You let them know what happened. I think the officer wanted to show a level of professionalism to the councilman and use the power of his discretion. That is allowed. There was no violation of police procedure that that officer carried out. He utilized his power of discretion on how he moved forward. You get one more caller in for you. Sean in the Bronx. You're on WNYC. Hi, Sean. Hi, Mr. Mayor. I am a member of Shout, the supportive housing tenants group,

And we actually have questions about your plans for supportive housing. We want you to fund voucher programs instead of build new supportive housing. Because you're proposing 3,000 units, probably at a cost of like a million dollars per unit. And we could do moving on and get 15,000 people out of supportive housing at a tiny fraction of the cost of what you're spending. Also, there's the 5,000 empty units scattered. around the city, you could renovate those apartments for a tiny fraction of the $1 million per unit. And, Sean, I'm going to get a reaction from the mayor. Mr. Mayor, you're hearing Sean. Yeah, no, thanks, Sean for that call. When you do an analysis of the success we've had,

we have an inventory problem. In addition to renovating new units, making sure the process of those who apply for housing are able to get in. There was such a bottleneck in the difficulty system doing so. But our challenge, Sean, is an inventory problem. We have to build more. And there's not just one pathway. I like to say that many rivers that feed to sea of, you know, the lack of housing. We need to damage river that's stopping it or open those rivers to flow.

We need to build more housing. We need to get support from Albany. And we need to support our city of yes. So I agree. let's fill the units that we have available. Let's make it easier for people to get in. But if you're walking around with a voucher like many people are, but they can't get in housing because we don't have the units for people to get in.

So it's a combination, building, renovation, and ensuring that we even get even a state-wide look at a voucher plan. And that's why we allow the vouchers to be used throughout the entire state. So, Sean, yes, I'm with you, but there's many ways we have to get people into homes. One other thing on housing, which of course is such a big issue for so many New Yorkers, and then we're out of time. Did you see the report that a new affordable rent building going up and inward got 80,000 applications for 174 apartments? I wonder if you would just like to expound on the meaning of that. I think it reinforces what I just stated.

Think about it. 174 units, 80,000 applicants. What does that say? it is saying that we don't have enough stock. So we need to be looking at raising the FAR. We need to be looking at, looking at almost 136, 38 square feet of available real estate and business districts

that we can convert to housing. We need to look at our plan of city of yes, using accessory dwellings and, you know, finding ways to build. We had a discriminatory housing policy in this country, in the city where certain communities was not having their fair share. We're saying every community should build a small amount that was thought accommodating

and really integrating our neighborhoods, access to good schools, good food, good transportation. That is how you really stop the segregations in our community and allowing people to live in every part of this community. So let's build more, and that's a real reflection. It's a shame the city has to go so much of this alone, right? But do you need to say anything about not in my backyard opposition, even within the city? We know what's going on at the state level and how a lot of the communities around the city are refusing to help with this, but a council member from the East Bronx just lost, a Democrat lost to a Republican, so rare for the Bronx,

largely because of backlash to a development approved for there. Do you need to say anything to New Yorkers? and then you can say anything else you want about anything on your way out. But anything to New Yorkers about not in my backyard opposition, even within the city? I hear it all the time. You hear people march on Monday, housing is the right, and on Tuesday they're trying to block a development project in their community. And it's just wrong. We need to make sure that we become a city of yes.

And that real reflection on that one project, 174 with 80,000 people are needed. looking at those units, I think it just really yells that we need to build more housing. And as New Yorkers, we have to move away for the discriminatory practices of the past. Our project out in Willis Points, our project in the Buckner Project, our project in Innovation Queens, you're seeing us going into communities that historically, people were just afraid to say to their neighbors that we need to allow more people to come into our community and be a part of this wonderful experience. And I'm going to continue to advocate that.

So I want to end on a real strong note. Big about we made it clear from the time I ran that we're going to invest in people, public spaces and spaces and make this place city more livable. Crime was surging. Our economy was hurting. COVID just engulfed our city. Look at us now, you know, largest private sector jobs in the history of the city. Crime is down.

Jobs are up. 62 million tourists. Double A bond rating from the. The bond rate is over four million people back on our subway system. You are seeing decreasing homicides and shootings. The city is vibrant and is thriving. And I'm really excited about the next two quarters. You know, we went into the locker room after the first two quarters and we're coming out and making some adjustments.

But we're going to keep trending in the right direction. Thanks, Mr. Mayor. Always good to talk at the little Bayside High School Alumni Association together. Maybe we'll bring Speaker Adams on. you know, have a three-fer. Maybe we'll go up to the athletic field and do it for the graduating seniors one day. But let's do this more often, but thanks very much for today. We always appreciate when you come on. Thank you. Take care. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. I'm Brian Ler. We'll be back tomorrow.