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Ladies and gentlemen I'm delighted to welcome to the mayor's office this distinguished gathering representatives of the New York City Polish community and particularly want to extend the warmest welcome to the grand marshal of the Poleski Day Parade Monsignor John Karr Pinsky's my right. And a salute of course to. The team that is heading up the Poleski Day festivities. Are our own Tom poster. Felix pup Laski and Ted Maxima which I think I got it or correct. And then I have this pretty girl sitting beside me Miss bestie keep right. Best techie or some up a stack who is all dressed up in a very good looking handmade costume that was made in Poland the most important thing for me to do is to sign this proclamation which declares that October fourth one nine hundred seventy is full Lasky day in New York City and calls to the attention of all New Yorkers the festivities on that day which salute the great tradition and history of Polish Americans in our city. We remember too on that occasion. The contribution to this country by General Casimir Polaski came to Poland came from Poland to a new country but dissipated in in a series of campaigns. Most importantly Brandywine and Germantown. He was a cavalry officer. And in honoring the anniversary of his his death. We remind ourselves that the freedom and heritage of this country is in significant measure due to the leadership that was offered by this brave gentleman and I think. This delegation for coming to Mary's office today. Signed this proclamation. And turn it over to the monsignor. Thank you. Very much thank you. We are most grateful to you May Allen thing for taking time out. To battle the show this proclamation and we also appreciate your interest and I told him unity we thank you for giving us your time and I got that here when you off for many years to come happy to see the population. And Lindsay and I like him to carry on using these. Things well I am I am pleased I must say that we are now in a position to announce that within the next nine to ten months twenty five hundred heroin addicts will enter the city's new method on maintenance treatment program. Which approximately doubles our present capacity for method on maintenance treatment and the whole city. These twenty five hundred heroin addicts will be treated in a program which will be administered by the Health Services Administration the administrator Gordon Chase is sitting on my left and working with him is Dr Robert Newman sitting on my right who will supervise the overall implementation of the probe. This will be done through twenty units which will be opened within the next five months each unit beginning with approximately twenty patients adding twenty more each month until it becomes passageway of about one hundred twenty five patients is reached per unit among the units incidentally will be an office at Rikers Island so that prisoners who are heroin addicts can receive method on treatment upon release. This is in accordance with city council legislation that was passed proximately a year ago the narcotics Council. Which I'm chairman has given this program its number one priority. I wish to express my thanks to the many professionals cooperated with us all thoroughly on this particularly to our minister Gordon chase and the Michael Wood him OK. What I might do is explain a little about the program and how we've moved into it first of all the it's pattern on a Beth Israel program that has been in effect for some years about five or six years. What it does is our program is a hospital based program that will in effect each hospital involved in the program will run one or two facilities sometimes more. Each of these facilities will distribute a a maintenance dose of methadone to the patient in each facility will provide a number of supporting services to the addicts who are enroll in the program for instance there will be job counseling efforts in the program as well the experience of this kind of program has been very good for instance say an independent study of the Beth Israel program indicates that. The arrest record of people going into the program drops off about ninety five percent the job holding moves from about ten percent to as high as eighty percent in some cases the success of the program the past has been has been very good we hope to run a very good program to now what I'd like to do is also give you a a brief idea of when we started it and when we started our planning and how we've been moving. During the summer. During the summer months we did a lot of prep. Aeration and we started negotiating with the state we received a state grant at the beginning of August of two million dollars which has an annual ization of the program of about four and a half million dollars. By mid August largely through the efforts of some wonderful staff people like Dr Newman and a Mr Alan Gibbs who is not here right now we were able to negotiate out with hospitals set up. To get ourselves set up so that by the middle of August we had already gone to the Board of Estimate and had a number of contracts approved in September we had more contracts approved by the Board of Estimate. In October we will have the balance of the contracts done and at the end of the the end of October we will have. At that time roughly ten contracts with hospitals that will involve twenty facilities now the facilities are as follows. All. Right those. Units that are now in operation pick. From state. Twenty three. He. Read. This. Has already been approved by the order of best in the city program. There are a weapon. Now the triangle and. Those nine for sale of these that we are hoping to get approval for and you know we. Are timing from the time of approve old will be roughly as follows hopefully in November we will open up. The first four facilities they will start receiving Addicks on November one next four will be by December one and there will probably be three on February want in the balance of nine sometime in March. At that why don't I stop here and see if there are any questions that you may have. A good time to. That's a that's a very it's a difficult question to answer for this reason we know for instance that there is a waiting list for people who would like to go on methadone we feel that the twenty facilities that we will be opening up will meet some or all of that demand possibly the demand situation is one that could grow if the if people want methadone I suppose. They will let us know about it my own instinct on it is that we could probably will probably find that we will be able to use more and it's our intention to watch this situation if that develops we would certainly hope to go back to the state for an expansion of the program. That was about eighteen months. The experience has been that when ever the waiting period has gone down for any reason at all as been an immediate influx of additional applications to more than make up for the less and demand upon the new clinic. A big one. Our goal is to operate enough clinics so that anybody who is on heroin who wants to get into a methadone maintenance program will be able to enter a program immediately this is the goal. During the time that people have to wait to get into a program they're leading the same lives around that is they have the same problem that any other addict has the arrest record remains the same all the other parameters are identical. We get we get the. Because of the state funding here is different from ours it's an April one to March thirty first funding year the grant that we receive roughly in August was for two million dollars which in effect funds us through March thirty one the end of the state's fiscal year when you work this out or when it is worked out by financial times what it comes out to is an annualized program of roughly four and a half million therefore. For instance to keep the program at the same level that it's running it will be running on March thirty one the state will have to give us roughly four and a half million dollars. That's right. Know what it will be is in is essentially a a an orientation kind of program on the island itself to see to tell prisoners who are heroin addicts about methadone to see if they want to voluntarily in list in a methadone program they would actually receive the their first doses of methadone after they've left Rikers Island and would receive it outside of Rikers Island. What. Like that. In any. Case except that it has. Application. In the. Back when a prisoner is on Rikers Island he's clean in effect he's not getting any drugs and now the it's known that if left untreated as soon as they leave Rikers Island a very very large proportion of them go back on heroin if they were heroin addicts when they came in so while they are clean and on the island they would receive orientation but no. No methadone and only after they left when they begin the methadone treatment. The this figure is goes up and down and it's very very hard to know precisely what it is I think the best guess probably is somewhere in the area of one hundred thousand. Federal guidelines that we have to comply with. Thank you very much. OK. Very good. Thank you. Well done. OK All right gentlemen authentic fresh resolve to my best friend of center for British complication times. Has an article on Archer these conditional Yury. Not speculation in the American press that Mr Uribe is on something you hear his rights but it nasty is fairly speculation a white mark is thought through with ease their wants to see and it was the mayor arranged his new job this night and he was just as he felt that she the police was losing control of the park because one of the better job. I have not seen this issue of The Economist a lawyer have a high opinion of the publication. Of a statement is not correct any sense to all. Mr Merrill I. Can hear. You. I most certainly do I think that armed guards international flights that. Run the risk of hijacking is called for. And maybe other steps that are called for terms of international law hijacking is a violation of international law. And subject to whatever rule of law is applicable in international terms I gather that the United Nations will be taking up the subject. Next month when the General Assembly is in session which is all to the good finally. It was a very moving moment to have thirty five hostages returned to our country they came into Kennedy last night. I was delighted to have an opportunity to be there. Most of them are New Yorkers in fact and to see the the joy of the reunion with families was a very moving thing indeed Aaron status of the state. Commissioner Altman has reported on that this morning and gave me a full briefing on it a little bit earlier. They have. The city is in the process of hiring thirty two week members of those members of the Union to provide services directly to any building that has been certified as a health emergency. To date to ninety eight buildings have been acted upon and as of this moment approximately fifty buildings have voluntarily signed up to. Sign the labor arrangements with thirty two week which put an end to the matter in that area. In short to Commissioner Altman that my direction is moving vigorously and speedily. To give relief to tenants to take over wherever necessary to hire. Employees who are members of the Union in order to provide services. And. We obviously have appealed to the owners here. Who are like before seeking to force the city council to reopen the question of rent control. Feel to them and their intransigence. To end their continued violations of the law and the public interest. And advise them very clearly that Councilman killed in the city council myself or brain. It is of government are one in this that there's no chance at all that the city council will reopen the question of revision of the rent control laws do you believe that. There are signs that of movement more than fifty buildings I'm advised have signed the agreement and saw that there as there are some indications that the leadership of the in trenchant and landlords did not have as wide a following as they thought they did something take over every building that has a health emergency on its own we are yes. Well they have when the health laws are violated. Then there are certain rights that flow from that and that is the basis on which the city just moves in and takes over as it's a violation of sanitary and health codes of the city. Which my then corrected Tom reminds me that it's that the rate at the moment is fifty buildings a day that are signing up. With the the Union. So you. Can. Be right. The way I did know we had a very brief meeting with with some of the landlord groups. Simply to to advise them directly that the city council had had finished its work on rent control revision. The law that was passed was not fully the law that I'd asked for. It was a compromise but it was a big step forward and revision of rent control laws. I told them that there was no chance at all that the city council would reconvene to reconsider any aspect of rent control revision and that if they did and the result would be worse in respect of the landlord side of the issue. Second May that we had given them every assurance that in so far as we had administrative flexibility we intended to use that to grant speedy hardship relief wherever it was found. And that they there would be no administrative or bureaucratic roadblocks towards that end finally I advised them that. The city council and the mayor stood side by side in this and their continued. Refusal. To bargain in good faith with the union as had been done in Manhattan. Was violent of of the public interest and I asked them to. Think it over. Your concern is the demonstration by certain. We were going to stop as far as demonstration. City Well there are two demonstrations here today one problem one con one group that is for the high school complex and one group that is against. The they I gather the group against is making more noise than the group that's for. That matter the matter of that particular school when the question was raised by residents of the community. I invited and asked. The Board of Education and the site selection board to again review their decision which they had done times previously and they came back to me after that advising me that their decision stood it is within their power as you know to make those decisions. Their decisions. And I saw advise the public. Based on every survey that had been taken as to be tough for. The well the process is known as areas where they have to take property process the. Cessna's of condemnation go forward obviously and the courts on the whole been generous in the making of condemnation awards acts are actually the by I'm advised by the site selection board and also the Board of Education general that in respect of the building of. The capital structures through the capital budget of the city is probably less taking and in this area than there is in most large capital construction processes schools hospitals fire stations. Colleges etc This is probably less taking and in most cases so it did at my request the operative and responsible organisations such as the Board of Education and the site selection board made sorrow re review of the whole question came back and indicated that their decision stood. Obviously the. Peers all saw that there's. There is emotion here Sanjay but there's also just to much emotion on the other side. Of the larger community that has sought this school for a long long time to Mayor is it your belief that there are any special interest groups outside of the no I don't want them selves who are prompting the a protest for example demonstration. I don't know the answer that. Yes or three. Feet. Or. No sir no sir that's a tally police matter. The police is you know the police policy is is not to have demonstrations in City Hall piles of it outside of the plaza. And that's been a consistent policy all along and in fact I when I arrived this morning I didn't know what all of our case was already another promotion ceremony like yesterday and asked the question of say ranking officers what's going on and he advised me that there are several groups coming in this school thing one pro one Khan and also. A high school bro protesting overcrowded conditions and perhaps something else that may or you may let. Me. See you think that would seem. Pretty hard to say stop here. OK I don't know the answer that question I can't so I can answer it or I just I don't know the answer the question. You'll be the first to know if.