Ask the Mayor: Vaccine Mandates; Rikers Quarantine; Traffic

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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone, time now for our weekly Ask the Mayor call in, my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio at 646-435-7280, or you can tweet a question, just use the hashtag AskTheMayor. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, Brian and I have up to date information on something I know you're going to ask me about, so I'm just going to jump in and tell you as of our latest information from yesterday. 90% of all department education employees now have met the vaccination mandate.

That number is going to certainly grow a lot as we get additional reports in, 93% of teachers already, 98% of principals, and these are very strong numbers. We already have what we need to run the school system well and serve our kids in a safe way but I know these numbers are going to go up in the next 24 hours, for sure.

Brian Lehrer: You know I'm going to ask you, 93% of teachers translates into how many thousands unvaccinated who wouldn't be able to report to work on Monday?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, the problem-- I'm going to answer your question, but with a really honest qualifier, it would be wrong to say a number when we know in fact a lot of people are going to get vaccinated today. Let's say it's several thousand in the end who don't get vaccinated in the first instance. If they are not vaccinated by five o'clock today, we'll move substitutes into place who are vaccinated obviously, and are ready and willing, and really excited to take on these roles and people who want to become teachers in our school system permanently, so that will be in place for Monday morning.

I think what you're going to see is a lot of vaccinations today and then I think you'll see some people who go into that unpaid leave status and experience that for a while and don't like what they're experiencing and come back and get vaccinated. I think those are going to be the two big for us here.

Brian Lehrer: Then there's the requirement that kicked in for healthcare workers in many settings this week and I know the response has also been a pretty good rate, but we do have this report from the Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn now, that there are some surgeries and other procedures that are being delayed because they're short-staffed. Want to comment on that?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, sure. I think we should separate our public healthcare system from private and voluntary hospitals and Downstate is not part of the city system obviously. The city hospitals, health and hospitals, 11 hospitals, 70 clinics were doing really, really well. Last figure, I saw 92% of all staff vaccinated. I think that number has gone up since I last saw it. Absolutely, all of our hospitals and clinics are running well.

We expected in the other side of the equation, the non city hospitals to have some challenges but we also think that that will change even over the next few days because, again, mandates are here for a reason, we tried the voluntary approach for many, many months, incentives, everything. Mandates get people to move in a good and honest way. If you got to do something, there's a deadline, people move.

I think you're going to see more people in those private hospitals getting vaccinated real quick. I also think some people, again, they stand back for some days and they're not getting a paycheck and the entire healthcare system everyone's under a vaccine mandate, so it's not like you can go someplace else and be unvaccinated. I think people are going to think better of a comeback, get their paycheck, get their vaccination, get their job back.

Brian Lehrer: Tyrus in Harlem has a question for you about your breaking news about the school system and vaccines. Tyrus, you're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello.

Tyrus: Hi, good morning, Mr. Mayor. I have two questions. The first question is, if you've been notified that you will be terminated or have been terminated for failure to take the COVID-19 shot, after you take the shot, will the termination be rescinded?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Tyrus, a very important question. I'll talk about the schools. We had a whole labor negotiation process and an arbitrator came in and the rule is this that if someone, by five o'clock today, any of our school employees of any kind, is not vaccinated at least one shot, we will move to put them on leave without pay, starting Monday. Again, we'll fill their role immediately with a vaccinated person.

They will be in that leave without pay status going forward and at some point, of course, if it's never resolved, that does lead to termination, but it doesn't happen immediately. What happens is people don't get a paycheck. If at any point they want to correct that, get vaccinated, they can come back in. We would welcome that, but we're not assuming that if they don't get vaccinated by five o'clock today after all these reminders, and warnings, and incentives and everything else, we're assuming they're not coming back, we're putting them on leave without pay status starting from Monday morning.

Brian Lehrer: You are still forecasting that you will have zero uncovered classes on Monday because you have enough substitute teachers to cover those who are not yet vaccinated?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yes. We have many more vaccinated ready, willing, able substitutes than the number of people that we expect to be out, and by the way, that's across different categories, teachers, paraprofessionals, folks who do a general education, special education, we have a lot of folks in reserve, we have about a thousand certified teachers in the department of education administrative work that can be brought over into schools for a period of time if needed.

This has been something we've been planning for a long time, but we had a real example last year, but we had to move thousands of substitutes into place. Again, a lot of these are young folks coming out of schools of education who never thought they could get into the New York City public schools as a career in the short term, and would love to do that and they're going to bring their energy and we're going to give them a really amazing opportunity now to get into the teaching profession long-term, and that's what we want. We want people who are ready, willing and able and going to be vaccinated, we're confident about those numbers.

Brian Lehrer: I think Lauren in Manhattan has a different kind of education question for you, Mr. Mayor. Lauren, you're on WNYC. Hello?

Lauren: Hello, Brian. I absolutely love you. Thank you Mr. Mayor for taking my call. My son has special needs and because there isn't appropriate placement for him at a public school, he attends a private school for learning disabilities, and we receive reimbursement for tuition from the city. The problem is that this reimbursement is taking years, plural, and we just can't-- we do not have the money to pay this tuition without being reimbursed and we go through the process every year to settle with the city and I know that the system is hurt, COVID has hurt everything, but my family is hurting too and many families are in this position. I just wanted you to speak to that, please.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yes. Lauren, thank you, because this shouldn't happen this way. I want to just inform that, and I'm sorry you're going through it and I don't want to see it happen to you or any other family. This has been something that we've worked on eight years straight to fix this problem. We have made some progress, but honestly, we need to make more. Will you please give your information to WNYC? I will have someone call, a senior person call you today and work to get this rectified right away.

The bottom line is, look, one day, I hope, Lauren, that we can serve more and more of our kids in public schools who have special needs. That's true, for example, kids on the autism spectrum, we can do more and more good work for them. We've got specialized programs, but we also know there are some kids with really profound challenges. It's hard to accommodate them properly in public school. We need to turn to these private schools.

Once a decision is made, that is the right path. A parent should not be put in a situation where they're waiting forever for reimbursement and few can afford that. It's just unfair. This is something we still have to do better on, so please give us your information. Let me see if we can get this quickly fixed for you and get you the help you need.

Brian Lehrer: Lauren, hang on. We will take your contact information off the air. Let me turn Mr. Mayor to the ongoing crisis at Rikers Island. As I would imagine you know for the first time since the start of the pandemic, an entire jail on Rikers is now under COVID-19 quarantine, and what I understand this means is that all 900 detainees at the Otis Bantam Correction Center, part of Rikers are considered exposed to COVID-19. As a result, they can't see visitors and, in many cases, are unable to attend court dates.

I want to play you a clip from Alfred on Rikers Island who talked to our Gothamist reporter Jake Offenhartz this week. Alfred is in on a parole violation and says he just needs to appear before a judge to be entered into a drug treatment program to get released, but they won't bring him before the judge because of the quarantine. Listen.

Alfred: All they got to do is produce me in court, but they're not taking me over there. I feel like I'm being held here hostage. Is no reason why I should be here. I had never been so enthusiastic about going to court ever in my life. They told you the same thing, you're in lockdown, you're in quarantine. Your house is quarantined. They keep saying the house that I'm in is asymptomatic and there's nobody going back and forth to court.

First, they told me it was just my house. Now they are saying that is the whole OBCC. I felt like I'm being [inaudible 00:10:08]. I got bills, my rent, the lady that I pay the rent to, she's ready to evict me.

Brian Lehrer: That's Alfred in on a parole violation at Rikers. Mr. Mayor, to his case, and to the larger situation, a spokesperson for the Correctional Health Services blames the widespread exposure directly on mismanagement by the Department of Correction. What would you say about this situation?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Well, I haven't seen what that spokesperson said. What I can tell you is that we had a really big problem with Correction officers not showing up to work. That created a dynamic where we couldn't move people around the way we needed to and provide the support to the health care workers. Now, that situation is being fundamentally changed.

One, we made very clear to the union, which has been, unfortunately, a very bad actor, and to all employees, if you don't show up for work, you're going to be suspended immediately. That has caused a lot of employees to now show up, and that's allowing us to do the work, to support the health care folks, to get people to court appearances, et cetera.

There's an underlying problem here that led to this reality, but it's not a long-term reality. That's the bottom line, we have to fix this. We have to fix it quickly. Quarantine is a limited timeframe as you know. We are now getting back a lot more officers. We're bringing in additional help from outside from other agencies. We are getting a lot of those parole violators, and you said, Alfred is one of them. We worked with the State. We worked first with the Legislature to pass the Less Is More bill, then with the Governor to get it signed.

Now, hundreds and hundreds of parole violators have either been, if they're technical parole violators, they don't have other warrants, they've been released. Others have been sent to State prison, not to Rikers. We're reducing the population greatly. The COVID levels in Rikers are being addressed. Watching it literally daily, it is something that's being-- a lot of attention is being put on it to make sure the facility is kept safe.

What's going to happen over the next few weeks is the population is going to go down greatly and the number of officers are going to return that we need, and then you're not going to have a quarantine situation anymore. That should be ending pretty soon.

Brian Lehrer: Well, I've asked you before about using your 6A powers, but does this lockdown change the context enough for you to give a different answer? For people who don't know those are certain powers that you have as mayor to, and you can confirm if I’m characterizing this exactly right, release some people from Rikers on a preventive health basis? You did that with some people at the beginning of the pandemic. Given what's going on there, would it be appropriate now for you to start using that again for people like Alfred, if his story is as he represents it?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: It really depends. First of all, Alfred's in on a parole violation. That's a State issue, not a City issue. He's not in that category you mentioned, but it really depends. If he is in on a technical parole violation without any other outstanding warrant, he is likely to simply be released soon. If he is in for other outstanding matters or a bigger parole violation, not a technical one, but a more profound one, he may be in a different situation.

The 6A, we've started releases, but I've told-- I've been asked this many times. I've been very clear, it's a very limited number, probably even dozens who can be released by law and do not have other outstanding warrants, were not involved in a violent or sexual crime for example. I'm not releasing folks who did a violent crime or a sexual offense or have a history around that. That's not the kind of folks I'm going to release. That's just the blunt truth.

But careful review process with the DAs, NYPD. There will be some people we can release. The much bigger solution, Brian, is to release and/or transfer to State prison hundreds, and hundreds of inmates. That's what we're doing right now with the State effectively. We need the courts though, the courts may have about-- we've got over a thousand people who have been waiting over a year for their trial. They're not people we can release. They have to get a trial.

I've asked the courts to calendar 500 cases immediately and move them. Court system is still far from fully functioning. Almost everything else in the city is fully functioning. The courts are not. That's hurting us deeply.

Brian Lehrer: It sounds, at least from what we heard, like the courts are ready for Alfred, but Alfred can't get there. Is there a way that you could facilitate it for him and people like him?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: One of the things-- two points. One, I don't know Alfred’s situation. As you said, we will take it on face value but we need to confirm. If it's a quarantine situation, quarantine is limited. It's 10 days is the normal time frame. So, obviously, he's going to come out of quarantine soon. We would get him where he needs to be, but also something very good the Governor did that we asked for was allowing us to do certain court procedures by video. That we will start doing immediately. That was not legal in New York State, but we got the dispensation we needed to start that up. That's going to solve a lot of problems.

So, we'll look into his case, and I want our team to follow up with you on Alfred's particulars and we'll follow up on him immediately. I think the bigger point is we're moving a series of things that are going to change the equation. The quarantine is going to come off. People are going to get their opportunity to go to court, but we need the court system to actually schedule the cases or it's moot. If they're not willing to move hundreds and hundreds of cases, people are stuck in limbo. That's the biggest thing we need to fix right now.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing on this, Gothamist is reporting that this lockdown was actually in effect since last week. Before you visited Rikers on Monday, were you aware of the quarantine then? If so, why didn't you mention it during your press conference on the island?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: There's been a variety of actions taken to address the COVID situation. I obviously knew that quarantine was one of the specific tools that's being used, and that's been used throughout. So, it does not strike me as something unusual. It's something that has to be fixed because it inter-related with other problems. But since those problems are being fixed, the quarantine period will run its course, and then everyone will be moved accordingly.

Brian Lehrer: This was apparently the first time that there was this widespread a lockdown, and you weren't aware of it on Monday?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I was not-- I'll be very straightforward. I was not aware of the exact number. I was aware that there was a number of folks under quarantine. I don't know if I actually think what you're saying is as novel as you think it is. Clearly, anyone exposed should be under quarantine. That's been the rule all along. If this was the interpretation that health folks made, that doesn't strike me as surprising. It's the cautious thing to do. We do not want to see a spread of COVID on Rikers. Again, quarantine is a tool we've been using for a year and a half. It's a brief process and then everything continues.

Brian Lehrer: Michael on Staten Island, member of the NYPD. You're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Michael.

Michael: Hi, Brian. Thanks for having me. Thanks for choosing me. Mayor, you may remember me. We met two years ago at Gracie Mansion at Italian Heritage night. I took a picture with you. I told you I was putting on an event, told you my wife was in recovery. Do you remember?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I am. It's coming back as you're saying it. I remember you being at Gracie, go on.

Michael: Yes. Basically, you told me and wife congratulations. Then I gave my information to your Community Affairs Unit. Anyway, I'm doing another event in Bay Ridge, October 16th, and I would love for you to be there. You could find my information on the Instagram Sobriety Walk. I even give you my tax number, 9-4-2-9-7-6. I am a police officer, 15 years. I work out of the 6-0 Precinct. If you can't come, please, in all sincerity, tweet out the image, all through digital. Everyone needs to come to this event. We cannot let the pandemic combine further issues with the ongoing epidemic.

This is not some tabling event. It’s not NARCAN. This is going to be powerful speakers who talk to the truth about it, who use science. Whatever you could do to help me, I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Hey Michael, thank you. Thank you for what you're doing, both serving us as an officer, but also really working on these issues. As you know, I've dealt with issues of recovery. Unfortunately, folks in my own family who didn't take that path. My dad, in this case, was an alcoholic. It was a very, very painful reality in my childhood, and many times people have tried to convince him there was another opportunity and he just couldn't see it. Other members of my family have really successfully followed the path of recovery, and I really want to thank you for encouraging people and doing events like this. I'm going to try and to get down there if I can, and certainly, we're going to support you online as well. Thank you very much.

Brian Lehrer: Michael, thanks for checking in. Different kinds of questions related to the NYPD. I know you're familiar with the article that WNYC and Gothamist published yesterday about possible ties between a far-right militia group called the Oath Keepers that had a notable presence at the storming of the Capitol in January and members of the NYPD.

The reporters, just to let our listeners in on this, searched through data on Oath Keepers membership that said to have been hacked from the group and found the names of two NYPD officers who they then contacted, but we didn't release their names because they couldn't be confirmed as members. Your office has launched an investigation, you confirmed. Could you tell us more about the scope of that investigation? Will it be limited to just the two officers the story mentions, or will it involve going into the data and looking for more possible names?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I’d say this, first of all, when you look at the manifesto of the Oath Keepers, they're basically telling their members to defy orders from democratically elected civilian governments. It's such an ironic, painfully ironic name because they claim to be supporting the United States Constitution while telling people to violate it.

Anyone who's claiming allegiance to the Oath Keepers is inherently denying their own oath as a police officer, and they can't serve as a police officer under that status, just can’t. If we confirm that any police officer has pledged allegiance to the Oath Keepers and to those values, there'll be due process, of course, they deserve a trial, but if that's found to be the case, they shouldn't be a member of the NYPD.

In terms of how we would identify anyone else, again, we're not going to do-- I was asked this yesterday, we're not going to go through all the ranks NYPD is looking for what people's political values are. That smacks of McCarthyism to me. I said yesterday, my parents went through the McCarthy era and were victims of the McCarthy era. I'm not going to start a new, progressive vision of the same thing. I don't accept that.

What is appropriate, if there are known databases, of course, we'll cross-check them. If there's any report of someone being involved. Of course, we're going to pursue that. So, we will investigate specific leads a hundred percent. Any officer who pledges allegiance to something other than the people of New York City and democratically elected government, shouldn't be in public service, period.

Brian Lehrer: It's a very interesting tension that you point out. In a democracy, you don't want to engage in anything that looks like McCarthyism, but it is a threat to the public safety if members of any police force are involved in something like right-wing militia groups, such as the Oath Keepers. How do you monitor that it isn't taking place without violating people's privacy rights?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I think it's about being specific. I mean, the problem, again, just very briefly to say, my parents were put through loyalty tests and put through a proceeding in the 1950s on loyalty, which was just disgusting. I've seen the details of proceedings because they literally had glancing contact with people who happened to be members of the communist party. Had nothing to do with what my parents' values were or their lives were, anything, and yet their lives were fundamentally affected by the madness and the hysteria of that time.

My dad was a decorated World War II veteran, who lost his leg on Okinawa, and he was still put through that. As loyal an American as you could possibly imagine. We cannot, as progressives, go down that road. What we can do, and we are doing with all of the right-wing far-right nationalist, all the efforts to attack people violently because they are immigrants, because they are of different ethnic backgrounds, all the ethnically and racially motivated violence, we're constantly scanning for that. NYPD has a very aggressive effort looking for threats, because those are the biggest threats right now, the right-wing militias, etcetera, the biggest threats to democracy, they are the biggest threats to law enforcement officers, ironically.

We have had many violent confrontations with law enforcement by those kinds of forces. We're scanning constantly for any activity. If we see any inter-connection to an NYPD officer, it's going to be followed up on immediately, but I think it's looking for the activity rather than asking every person whether they're loyal to one set of values or not, that, to me, is where it gets very slippery.

Brian Lehrer: Friedman, in Brooklyn, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Friedman.

Friedman: Hi, Brian. First time, long time. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. I had a question because I recently read an article about congestion pricing and how discussions are being held around that topic now and I'm curious about how the city plans to deal with how it's going to affect the outer boroughs. Ever since the pandemic started, we've had increased traffic throughout all five boroughs due to people moving towards more individual-centric modes of transportation versus public transportation and it's not only getting a little dangerous out of here with all the cars on the road, it's also an increase in noise pollution. I hear honking from 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM every day right outside my living room window. It's starting to become a little unbearable.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Yes, I got to tell you, Friedman, I am right there with you that this is-- this whole reality we went through, COVID leading people to turn back to their cars after years and years where mass transit had gotten better and better, and in many ways, and obviously the subway has had a lot of problems, but I'm saying, the Citi Bike, Select Bus Service, the efforts we made with NYC Ferry, I mean, there's been so many more options that have been embraced by people.

That was really working, and then COVID put everything into like full reverse, folks went streaming back to their cars. It's been really problematic. We have to go back the other way. Congestion pricing is going to be one of the ways we do it. I believe in it, I think, bluntly, the MTA has been dragging their feet. The State's been dragging their feet. The federal government has been dragging their feet. It's time to get this done.

It's urgently necessary to reduce congestion, to reduce emissions, to end what you're going through, that's because there's too many cars on the road, what you're experiencing, we're seeing more fatalities from crashes. This needs to happen a hell of a lot quicker, and I'd like to see the other levels of government really embrace this more than they are right now.

Brian Lehrer: I read a story this morning that Governor Murphy is threatening to stop cooperating with New York at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey if this congestion pricing fee goes into effect. Do you want to respond to him? Did you see that?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: I did. I think I'm just a huge fan of Phil Murphy. I really am. I feel close friendship and a lot of respect for what he's done. He's led a very progressive vision in New Jersey. On this one, I understand where he's coming from. He has constituents who are upset.

I would like to argue that let us figure this out together if there are some appropriate things to be addressed like should your George Washington Bridge tolls be counted, so you're not double tolled? That's a fair discussion.

I think there's a lot of things we can do to appropriately lighten the burden without losing the value of congestion pricing, which is that it should discourage people from using their cars when there's lots of other great opportunities and alternatives and allow us to deal with a growing emissions problem and congestion problem. I think that we can strike the balance. I imagine he is standing up for his constituents, but I also believe he's a very reasonable person that we could all work together to find a solution.

Brian Lehrer: I also read The Times has this article today and a version yesterday that the numbers of people killed in traffic crashes this year is up to 189 as of mid-September, which would be the most since you took office. It had been going way down to record lows before the pandemic, but we have these trends. You mentioned more people getting private cars, 120,000 more new car registrations than last year, according to The Times. At the same time, again, from what they report, traffic tickets, traffic violations as issued by the NYPD have plummeted by more than half. Why are traffic tickets plummeting while vehicular deaths are soaring?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Hey, Brian. Look, I think this is one of the places where we got to have an honest conversation, a thoughtful conversation, I'll do this very quick. Let's be real, I am still amazed a year and a half plus into a global pandemic this surprise in the voice of so many folks when asking questions without actually starting with guess what there was a global pandemic that disrupted absolutely positively everything. It disrupted policing, we had a period of time where we had a huge number of officers out. We had a whole host of new problems. Obviously, all over this country, we saw an uptick in shootings and violence.

That's where we've been putting the energy of our officers, we need to get back to intensive traffic enforcement, that worked for six years. Vision Zero was as you just noted, really profoundly reducing the number of crashes and deaths and injuries. We've been in essentially a wartime footing for the last year and a half. We've got to get back where we were but the way you do that is get everyone vaccinated, which is why we need the mandates, get essentially full recovery of our economy. Get things back to normal, that's going to affect reductions in violence and shootings as well.

A normal city, a normal economy is going to help public safety, then we can take officers and move them on to the things we were doing before the pandemic. Every single thing we've talked about today, including schools, including Rikers, the roots of all these problems are a global pandemic. The good news is we're coming out of it and really powerfully because this city is now so vaccinated. 83% of New York City adults have had at least one dose. Let's keep going with that and then we can literally turn the corner on each and every one of these challenges.

Brian Lehrer: Quick follow-up, advice to the next mayor on furthering the Safe Streets work?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Go deeper into Vision Zero, it worked. More enforcement, absolutely, as we can free up officers. More ticketing for speeding and failures to yield, more speed cameras, which we fought for a long time with Albany on, get the Crash Victims Rights bill passed in Albany. That would help us immensely. Double down on Vision Zero. As things come back, that's the perfect moment to take it into the next gear.

Brian Lehrer: Thanks as always, Mr. Mayor. Talk to you next week.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Take care, Brian.

 

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