Ask The Mayor: Vision Zero, City Budget & More

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Time now as usual on Fridays for our weekly Ask the Mayor segment. My questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio. Our Ask the Mayor lines are open at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or tweet the question with the #AskTheMayor. You never get a busy signal on Twitter. Again, just use the #AskTheMayor, we'll watch those Twitter questions go by and pick some good ones. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, Brian. Just want to do some breaking news with you first, of course, a very happy 4th of July to you and all your listeners, and hope everyone's really going to enjoy the fireworks, the Macy's fireworks on the East River, and the Coney Island fireworks on Sunday night, but also I have some breaking news about our hometown heroes parade. Now, this is coming up Wednesday, we're going to honor the healthcare heroes, the first responders, the essential workers, the members of the media, everyone who was there for us during COVID and saw us through.

Want to urge all New Yorkers, if you want to be a part of this absolutely historic parade up the Canyon of Heroes, all are welcome to come and enjoy and see the heroes that we'll be saluting. It'll start at 11:00 AM on Wednesday, July 7th, and then there'll be a ceremony at City Hall. We're going to honor as grand marshall, Nurse Sandra Lindsay, who was the first person in the United States vaccinated and the host of the ceremony will be the anchor of Good Morning America, Robin Roberts. It's going to be a very, very special moment for the city.

Brian: Are there going to be rules and regulations for what you have to do to go inline the route? Are there going to be any limits on crowds or people? I certainly remember some of the ticker-tape parades we've had in the past, in recent years for sports games and other things. You'd get like hundreds of thousands of people out along that route.

Mayor de Blasio: Look, I think everything's a little different because people are still not used to going out to big events, but we want to really encourage people to come out and salute these amazing healthcare heroes and essential workers who really deserve all the thanks we can give them. Look, if someone's vaccinated, this is very similar to what we're doing on Sunday with the fireworks. If you're vaccinated come as you are, if you're not vaccinated, feel free to come and join in, but the advice from our healthcare team is to wear a mask to protect everyone around you and obviously be aware, keep distance as best you can.

The fact is this is outdoors and it's really a moment to celebrate folks who just-- Without these folks, New York City wouldn't have made it through. It's as simple as that. This was the biggest crisis in the history of New York City. These are the folks who were the heroes, they're everyday working people. They often don't get the accolades they deserve. Here we're treating them like the generals of wars and the astronauts and the champions in different sports. We're giving working people the salute they deserve and I urge all New Yorkers who can come and be a part of it and let's thank them.

Brian: Let's take our first call on the new New York City budget for the new fiscal year that began yesterday that was passed by the deadline on Wednesday. The call comes from Alex, a public defender in Brooklyn. Alex, you're on WNYC with the mayor. Thank you for calling in.

Alex: Thanks so much. Good morning, Brian. I am a first-time caller and a long-time listener, and I'm really excited to be on your show today. Good morning, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor de Blasio: Good morning, Alex. How are you doing?

Alex: Well, thank you. I'm well, thanks. Well, sort of well, honestly, I'm pretty outraged about what's happened with the passage of this budget because this is a budget that has increased funding for the NYPD by 200 million and local district attorney's offices by combined 36 million and other law enforcement functions, but it has failed to provide any even nominal funding to organizations such as Defense, so it's targeted and funneled into the legal system by these exact government entities.

It's going to shortchange low-income New Yorkers including communities of color and deepen the inequities that we as defenders see every day in our work, particularly in the aftermath of the pandemic. Mr. Mayor, I know that you have run on a platform and spoken at great length about a tale of two cities. This budget Mr. Mayor is creating and furthering a tale of two cities. These legal services organizations which one I am a part of we provide essential services and fight for the constitutional rights of everyday New Yorkers who have disproportionately struggled in the past 18 months. You've left us out. You've left us, our clients, and many low-income New Yorkers hanging out to dry without even cost of living increases or any nominal payment.

Brian: Mr. Mayor.

Mayor de Blasio: Well, first of all, we disagree and I'm going to explain why, but I do want to thank you for the work you do and I believe in that work, and that's why we have continued to increase funding for legal aid and legal services for years. Including creating the right to counsel with the city council where New Yorkers facing eviction have the ability now to get free representation on a level not being done anywhere else in the country and I'm very proud of that.

We really believe and have invested in free legal services for people in need and it's made a huge difference. It's one of the reasons, for example, a lot fewer people have been evicted. This is pre-pandemic, a lot fewer people evicted because they could get legal aid support that the city of New York paid for that they never did before my administration. I do believe in this and I put my money where my mouth is. On this budget, we were dealing with a set of imperatives. We have a profound gun violence problem that has gotten much worse because of COVID, we're starting to turn the tide, but we've got more work to do.

Therefore we invested a lot in community-based solutions to violence, especially the Cure Violence movement, the crisis management system, that's where you saw the biggest percentage increases. There is a very small increase in the police budget for precisely three reasons. The reforms that the city council and I agreed to in March that included investing in civilians to do work to create dialogue and to address issues between police and community. That was one of the adds to the budget. There's some new IT costs to help the police to do their work more effectively.

Then, there was the overtime issue, which we have cut back on overtime substantially, but we found based on all the challenges last year that we had to adjust that number upward a bit to get it right. That's literally it. It's a very, very small increase in the scheme of things while the real crucial investments have been in those community-based solutions to violence. We'll keep looking always at the needs of legal aid and legal services. That's something I'll continue to keep an eye on if there's any other adjustments we need to make, but for a long time, that has been a major, major area of investment.

Brian: Alex, I don't know if that's the answer that you want to hear that satisfies you, but thank you for being a first-time caller. Please call us again. You are getting it from the other side as well. You might've seen the New York Post report today that advocates for hiring more police officers complained that President Biden's federal budget allocates money that you could specifically use for increasing the size of the force because of the increase in shootings, but you didn't take advantage of it. What do you say to that side?

Mayor de Blasio: Well, that's not the whole reality. The money that the president focused was for certain cities that were dealing with much more profound gun violence problems than New York is. We have a problem, Brian, I'm not trying to minimize it. We have a lot of work to do to turn it around, but a number of other American cities, unfortunately, are going through much, much worse and that's where that money was targeted. Look right now, we have a police force of 35,000. I think that's the right number.

We need to take those officers and continue to apply a neighborhood policing approach rebond police and community, there were real challenges last year, we have to overcome them with more dialogue, more working together, more reliance on community-based solutions to violence. I think we are hitting the right balance point and we're going to be talking next week about new information coming in as showing some real progress on fighting gun violence.

A major gang take-down in Brooklyn was announced yesterday. A lot of pieces are starting to come together. Courts are coming back rapidly, thankfully. I think we're starting to move clearly in the right direction and we have the size police force we need to do that.

Brian: One other police question. I watched you on NY1 with Errol Lewis on Monday, and you were asked about police behavior at some of the protests last summer and you said, "Certainly some mistakes were made, we learned some valuable lessons." Then, when he asked you about police behavior in Washington Square Park just last Sunday during Pride, you said, "We had some issues between police and folks who were there in the park, I think some of that could have been handled better, Chief Harrison and I talked about." My question Mr. mayor is here we are a full year after the lessons you say the NYPD learned, and you're still having to give that same answer about how the NYPD could have handled things better. You had to have a candid talk with the chief. Why is this still happening on your watch?

Mayor de Blasio: Brian, respectfully, what we've seen now is consistently changing the approach. There are going to be times when people make mistakes, there are going to be times when something was not handled right by an individual officer, and we have to address it. Chief Harrison and I were 100% in agreement that we did not like the way a couple of situations were handled there because we've set a very clear template. Community affairs officers handle the vast majority of situations when there's a protest, for example, or just major public gatherings. We want to keep it that way unless there is a real problem of violence, in which case we do need to bring in other types officers as well.

That template has been used consistently throughout 2021, has been very effective, there's been a huge number of events and protests that went off without any problem. There was a brief period of time in the park where it was not the way I want to see it, and it's not the way Chief Harrison wants to see it. People in the chain of command were told very clearly we expect better, and that situation was addressed quickly. You got to look at the overview though. The template we're using now with community affairs officers up front, and a lot of dialogue has been effective and we've seen lots and lots of events come off peacefully the way we want them with police presence at a minimum and in the background as much as possible.

Brian: Would it also be fair as an overview statement though to say that this is going to be part of your legacy now you came in ending Bloomberg stop and frisk and are going to go out repeatedly having to explain police misconduct?

Mayor de Blasio: No, respectfully, I just disagree with that characterization. I came in ending stop and frisk, I went out empowering the civilian complaint review board, creating the discipline matrix, which has revolutionized the approach to police discipline that made it much more transparent, passing a series of major reforms with the city council in March. When I say we learned from the mistakes, when you have a formal report by a government entity, in this case, DOI, that lays out in very precise detail things that needed to be done differently and then the mayor and the police commissioner say, "That's exactly right, we're going to do all those things," and then we proceed to do them, that is reform.

That's profound reform. That didn't use to happen in the past. I'm very comfortable there's a clear through-line of what we've done. All that de-escalation training and implicit bias training and training to have officers reduce use of force, all of that continues to grow. I think it'll be a clear and positive legacy for this city.

Brian: Mohammad in the South Bronx, you're on w NYC with mayor de Blasio. Hello, Mohammad? Muhammad are you there?

Mohammad: Yes, I'm here. I apologize.

Brian: That's okay. We got you now.

Mohammad: Good morning everyone. Hi, Mr. Mayor. I really appreciate you guys taking my call.

Mayor de Blasio: How are you doing Mohammad?

Mohammad: I'm doing very well and you've done great and especially our child care system has helped a lot of people that I personally know. My question is about the TLC and Revel, the company Revel who wanted to put 50 cars in Manhattan, electric cars. The TLC just came out and banned all new licenses for electric cars. Me personally and my friend were in the process of getting an electric car and putting a license, for-hire vehicle license that I'm talking about. On the 22nd, the TLC just came out and just stopped issuing those licenses.

If they're fighting with Revel, why should we be the victim? Electric cars, they're not only really safe to drive, they have very, very low maintenance and they are cheaper to buy, get a used electric cars, we use Tesla, for example, for around $20,000 $25,000. If you want to buy a wheelchair accessible vehicle, the transformation alone is $10,000. If TLC is fighting with Revel, why not just come up with a new rule saying, "Every drivers can get one license per year."

Revel would be forced to wait 50 years to put 50 electric cars in Manhattan. At the same time, we'd be able to just do our job because right now the only way to get a license for a new for-hire vehicle is by buying either a minivan and transform it into a wheelchair accessible vehicle, which is a lot of money, but I want electric car because it's low cost, low maintenance, and it's good for the environment.

Brian: Mohammad, just want to make sure I understand your question clearly. The city doesn't have a contract with Revel to put new cars on the road, do you drive for another car service, and you just want to be able to buy an electric car?

Mohammad: Uber and Lyft.

Brian: Uber and Lyft. Mr. Mayor.

Mayor de Blasio: Mohammad, really important question. I'll just take a second to pull these pieces together. Revel, the company has tried to defy the laws and rules of New York City. They're threatening to try and go it alone as Uber used to love to do in different places in this country and the law caught up with them. We do not allow a company to come in and dictate the terms to the public and the city government. That's its own separate reality we're addressing aggressively. The bigger question I think you're raising about, should there be more electric cars on the streets for for-hire vehicles?

Ultimately yes, but what we found was a problem, which is the way the rules were structured led to the possibility of many, many new cars that happened to be electric cars on top of all the for-hire vehicles we had already. What we realized in recent years is that create a race to the bottom for working people, for the drivers was driving down wages, was causing a lot of drivers to circulate around with no pickups to attend to and it created a congestion problem and a problem for working people. We tightened up the number of available for-hire vehicles, and that proved to be very effective. We don't want this to be a loophole that reopens that the wrong way. We do want more and more electric vehicles.

We're trying to figure out the way that balance the equation, for the good of the earth more electric vehicles, but not at the price of a lot more congestion and a lot more for-higher vehicles over-saturating the market. Please, Mohammad, leave your information with WNYC, I'll have the chair of the TLC call you and talk to you about your particular situation. There may be more than one way to address this. Let's see what we can do to be helpful to you. I do want to understand why we're trying to balance all those pieces in the way we make these rules.

Brian: Mohammad hang on, we'll take your contact info. Steve on Staten Island, you're on WNYC with the mayor. Hello Steve?

Steve: Good morning Mr. Mayor. I'm calling you about the lifeguard shortage and the aquatics programs given by the parks department. I've been a swimmer in the lap swimming program for over 35 years. The aquatics programs cover not only lap swimming, but seniors splash, the children's and adult learn to swim, adaptive swimming, and youth swim team. The lifeguard shortage has been an ongoing problem for many years, and it's just much worse this year.

One question would be is what's the city going to do about this in the future? In addition to that, the aquatic specialists that teach those programs have water safety instructor and red cross CPR, they are not being counted as lifeguards. There is a section of the department of health regulations that would allow fewer lifeguards in those programs that is being ignored. It's 165.15. I can outline more of this to one of your persons off the air.

Mayor de Blasio: I appreciate that. This is a real issue, Steve. Please do give your information WNYC and we'll have a senior member of our team follow up with you. There is a lifeguard shortage all over the country. We are doing a little better than other parts of the country, and that's why we can keep the core functions that really matter. The beaches, the outdoor pools, we're able to keep them protected properly, and a huge number of people are going to come out this year, of course, to beaches and pools as we recover from COVID. The good news is we have the basics, but the tough part of the equation is exactly what you're referring to. We're not sure we can do all of the extra program. When we normally would do, if we had all the lifeguards we'd want. We're still addressing that. Actually, new people are being hired and trained and coming online. It is a good fluid situation in that way. I'll have folks talk to you about what we can do to keep working on it. I think you're making a really good point What can we do going forward to try and avoid this problem in the future so we don't have to worry about it? These swim programs are so valuable. We need enough lifeguards so I think we need to think differently about how we do things going forward.

Brian: Steve, hang on, we'll take your information off the air. I have a budget question that I think you'll probably like, and then one that you may not like as much.

Mayor de Blasio: Thank you for warning me.

Brian: The baby bonds program, as hopefully a blow against wealth disparity, people who have heard the term baby bonds may associate it with Senator Cory Booker, who has a proposal like that at the federal level or as a form of reparations. What is it in this new New York City budget and how do you see it in the context of American history?

Mayor de Blasio: Very quick to say I'm very proud of this because we have a task force on racial inclusion equity in our city government. This is leaders of color in each of the city agencies who came together as our own collective and their mandate was determine what we need to do right now to address the disparities that came up from COVID. As we were coming up to Juneteenth, I said to the task force, "Look, we want to do something important in the spirit of Juneteenth to invest in communities that have been historically disadvantaged in so many ways.

This task force said, "We want to do several things," we did CUNY scholarships, and some other investments in Medgar Evers College, which is the one historically Black college in New York City. They real powerful goal they had was to make baby bonds universal in this city. We agreed that for every kindergarten child coming in September, everyone, we will start savings account for their future for college and for their future.

Every single child the city in New York will start that account for, put an initial investment in, and then it will grow. We're going to bring in a lot of partners non-profit and business and community partners to keep building up those accounts so that by the time kids graduate from high school, they have a substantial amount of money and the whole idea here, as you said, this is where it gets to the national picture. That generational wealth gap is terrifying in this country.

White families have 10 times as much wealth at this point as Black families, and COVID made it worse. Right now the notion of saying, "Okay, one of the difference makers would be securing a college education for more and more people of color and particularly African-Americans," is one of the most profound things we can do. It is a step towards addressing the history. I think the reparations discussion is going to proceed on many levels, but if we're serious about that discussion it needs to have individual elements like baby bonds.

It needs to have structural elements. In my view, it would be things like pre-K and three-K for all American kids, which would disproportionately help people of color and particularly African-American kids. I think we need to do all the above if we're going to change things, but this is really exciting, that the biggest city in the country is going to do this with a municipal approach for everyone make this a reality on the ground. I think it's going to inspire similar efforts all over the nation.

Brian: Very good. I think a lot of people are excited about that as a pilot program for the nation. Here's the question you may not like as much about the budget. The size of the budget is getting raised eyebrows or outright criticism from fiscal conservatives and deficit hawks. They point out, for example, that the New York City budget is now about the same size as the budget for the state government of Florida around $100 billion for the year in both places but Florida is a whole state with 20 million people, New York is a city of 8 million, your reaction.

Mayor de Blasio: Well, I don't pray at the altar of the fiscal conservatives and the budget hawks and the pro-austerity forces that have led us astray so many times and didn't want to ever invest in working people. This is a budget that invests radically in working people and in our recovery and in addressing disparity. I'll take on those folks any day. If you're saying, do I want to emulate Ron DeSantis's Florida budget? No, I don't. In Florida, there are so many things that they do not do that are needed for the people of that state.

They have a view of limiting government and favoring business over people's needs and I don't want that in New York City. What we do is something that's about favoring working people and actually trying to develop human talent and protect people, not leave them to the whims of the market. Look, this budget is absolutely fiscally responsible. We increased greatly our fiscal reserves almost up now to the level they were pre-pandemic, and we're doing things that we need to do for our future.

Three-K for all is such an obvious example. If we're not reaching every three-year-old and giving them a quality education across the board, regardless of how much is in a family's bank account, we are undermining our future. This is the kind of thing we should have done decades ago. We're finally able to do it. That's an investment I will make all day long and it's going to pay off intensely for the people of this city.

Brian: Question from a listener via Twitter. It says this week a 71-year-old cyclist was killed by a driver on Central Park West at the 86th street transverse, we've long known this intersection is dangerous. What are your plans to improve safety here? Do you have a plan for safe cross-town bike passage through Central Park?

Mayor de Blasio: We need to do more immediately. I'm waiting to hear back on a plan for the next steps we have to take. Look we've we have too many in the city that still needs a lot of work. I'm not going to mince words about that. Vision Zero as the strategy works because we know that changing traffic design works, we know that speed cameras work, we know that enforcement on speeding and failure to yield works. We're going to do all of these things and in fact, be able to redouble our efforts now because we're coming out of COVID.

We also know starting long ago with Queens Boulevard, that many, many places needed to be profoundly changed. We've done that now with most of Queens Boulevard, we'll be done with all of it soon, but there's other places we have to address so I'm looking forward to hearing from DOT, getting a plan for this site, and then we'll talk about how we're going to take the next steps immediately to keep it safer.

Brian: Vision zero was such a success. Now I just read this morning that we're on pace to have the most deaths on the road. I want to characterize it accurately of any year in your administration. What went wrong?

Mayor de Blasio: Well, what went wrong is COVID. There's not a strong parallel-- Look, really important to say. When I came to office, there were so many traffic deaths that really weren't getting the attention they deserved. When we looked at the actual numbers, the folks we were losing in crashes versus the folks who we were losing to murders was shockingly similar numbers, but there was not a plan to address it that's why I instituted Vision Zero from the very beginning.

We saw it radically reduced crashes and injuries and deaths. Along comes COVID and just like with our efforts to fight violence, for six years we drove down violence, drove down crime very successfully with neighborhood policing, and changed the reality between police and community, COVID unglued everything. COVID was the perfect storm that led to huge uptick in gun violence around the country. It also led to an uptick in car usage and speeding around the country.

We've seen a really horrible trend since COVID began with these crashes and deaths, we will reverse it. It is more vision zero, it's getting people out of their cars by bringing mass transit back, it's congestion pricing, which we need to now aggressively implement now that the Biden administration is here and willing to do it with us. We will go back. I don't doubt. I think this is a statement about everything in New York City, Brian, anyone who thinks that New York City lost ground permanently doesn't understand New York City.

We will go back to the place we were before the pandemic, and then we'll surpass it and make things better. I don't have a doubt in my mind, but we've got to get people out of their cars and we know the tools to do that we just need to bring our city back and have the recovery that will allow it to happen.

Brian: Last thing, Mr. Mayor, I want to give you a chance to comment on one aspect of the Trump organization indictments. As mayor of New York City, this is relevant to you I would say because allegedly the Trump organization helped its CFO Allen Weisselberg falsely claim he lived outside New York City, which allowed him not to pay the New York City income tax as described by the Associated Press, Weisselberg claimed residency on Long Island, despite living in a company-paid Manhattan apartment prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, says the AP, Weisselberg paid rent on his Manhattan apartment with company checks and directed the company to pay even his utility bills and parking by doing so, Weisselberg concealed that he was a New York City resident. Mr. Mayor, he is innocent until proven guilty. These are just charges, but what are your comments as mayor of New York about someone who might have cheated the other taxpayers of the city that way?

Mayor de Blasio: I admire you're invoking his constitutional rights. I think there's very little chance he'll be innocent in the end when the process is over. Look, we know people have tried to cheat the people of New York City and cheat the city of New York on their taxes. I think it's actually incredibly powerful that such a prominent person is being caught doing it. We're going to get back to the work of enforcing on tax cheats, coming out of COVID this is the kind of thing we're going to aggressively pursue.

I actually think such an example being made of this individual is going to help get the message across. If you love New York City and you're a part of life in New York City, and you benefit from New York City, pay your godforsaken taxes. We're talking about wealthy people who have the money. If you don't want to live here, okay, cool but then you will not be able to experience everything that makes this place so extraordinary. Choose a side, but we will also enforce aggressively. I think even though the Trump world tried to cover their tracks, the law is catching up with them.

Brian: Thanks as always Mr. Mayor. Happy fourth. Talk to you next week.

Mayor de Blasio: Happy fourth to you and all your listeners. Take care everyone.

 

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