Meet the Candidate: Comptroller Scott Stringer

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. The lines of New Yorkers waiting to cast ballots in person at early voting sites around the city, the lines prompt the Daily News columnist, Harry Siegel to tweet, "I really hope Democrats lining up around New York City to vote early are going to show up in June to decide our next mayor in a race that unlike the presidential election here, doesn't have a predetermined outcome." That's from Harry Siegel in the Daily News or tweeting from the Daily News and yes, with Election Day 2020, one week away,

next year's mayoral race is already taking shape.

Now we talked to former De Blasio official Maya Wiley when she announced officially a few weeks ago. Now I'm joined by another official candidate, the current city comptroller, Scott Stringer, but as comptroller, there's a lot in the news right now to talk to him about including the intense economic challenges facing the city right now. Yes, those long lines at the polls are they enthusiasm? Are they policy failure? Are they some kind of mix? Hi, Comptroller Stringer, welcome back to WNYC.

Scott Stringer: Good morning, Brian. Great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: What do you make of the long lines at the polls? Are you more inspired or more ticked off?

Scott Stringer: Look, I think it's very inspiring. The people who waited four years to come out and change this country and get our democracy back people are full-on, but I have to say as someone who has audited the board of elections six times since I've been comptroller, it's always the same thing. We've seen no meaningful reforms, further incompetence.

It's outrageous that people have to stand in line for hours. I have to tell you while the intent may not be voter suppression, the impact is.

I think we have to simply blow up the structure of the board of elections and create a professional and nonpartisan agency. This board of election it's actually codified that political bosses run the board of elections through their appointments and through their whole way of viewing elections, not through the lens of participation, but through political hierarchy. It's just time to change it once and for all.

Brian Lehrer: Everybody's calling for board of elections reforms, but do you have a proposal for how that would most effectively prevent long lines at the polls, or thousands of people in Brooklyn wrongly being removed from the voter rolls that happened? What would make a bipartisan or nonpartisan board of elections that you just referred to any better than the one that's in there now? I don't think there's reason to believe that they're doing this on purpose.

Scott Stringer: Part of the reason why this is happening is the board has failed to demonstrate capacity to roll with the changing times. It's actually very instructive to look at this from a historical perspective because we've seen scandal after scandal and incompetence through the last 30 years. It's been well-documented by reporters. I just think now we should take a different approach. Let's professionalize this agency. Now, what do I mean specifically? Take a city agency, hold them to a standard and then hire people who have real expertise in voter turnout in measuring a lot of the new metrics.

It's necessary as we start thinking about election reform. The good news is early voting is helping. The bad news is we have to build capacity, meaning we should already have more locations. We should have better performance, both inside and outside of the polls. That is going to be the challenge, not just in this election, but in 2021 and beyond.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls for New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer. They don't have to be on the lines at the early voting polls. They can be on anything relevant to his job. (646) 435-7280, or for that matter, his candidacy from there, which is officially announced (646) 435-7280. Let's see, when the mayor is on we call it, "ask the mayor", when Speaker Corey Johnson comes on we call it, "speak to the speaker". I think it would be inappropriate to call this "control the comptroller", but something. Maybe you can come up with one, Mr. Comptroller.

Scott Stringer: Something, maybe, "We can be a little out of 'comptrol' today." How's that?

Brian Lehrer: All right. Listeners, out of 'comptrol' at (646) 435-7280. However, you can't be out of 'comptrol' outside of FCC guidelines, or we'll have to cut you off. Comptroller Stringer, there's a story in the Times today about the city's economy, obviously your bailiwick, and how long the recovery might take. As comptroller, how long a process do you think it will be? Is Mayor de Blasio handling it in the best way so far?

Scott Stringer: Well, the thing about this Brian, in February of 2020 the city had its lowest unemployment ever. We were at 3.4%. Over the last 10 years, we had added 970,000 jobs to our economy, 970,000. When COVID hit within 30 to 40 days, our unemployment rate went from 3.4% to over 20%, the highest ever, and those 970,000 jobs, we lost 900,000 of them. This recovery is going to take some time.

Now, the good news is we've gotten about a quarter of those jobs back, but turning back on this economy, it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of vision, a lot of collaboration, but also a lot of experience with the city's financial markets. That's why I'm running for mayor because I believe that it is critical that we not just open up our economy, but we actually open it different than we closed it. I hope we get to talk about that today.

Brian Lehrer: That's good long-term positioning or commitment to fighting inequality, as I think all the candidates who are running are going to say they have. In the immediate term, for example, I asked the mayor last week about the stat that the business community leaders are citing, that only 10% of Manhattan office building workers have returned to their onsite jobs. They want him to bring back city workers to their offices in the municipal building et cetera to model for the private sector that it's time to come back. It's okay to come back. Would you do that as mayor right now? Or would the state of the pandemic at this time make you say, "It's not the right moment."?

Scott Stringer: I would begin a planning process with the goal of opening, both the municipal building and various city agencies through the lens of science and medicine. We all agree we want people to get back in the offices as soon as possible. We want to generate the economy, but we also have to be very careful and cautious as another surge would set us back. I do think while we have to be more robust in planning, we also have to be very careful.

There is the media challenge, as you mentioned, it's not long-term and that is, we do have to grapple with what is a $4.2 billion budget deficit. That's the matter at hand and we're going to have to have an all leverage approach to turning on the economy. Where I disagree with the mayor is his plan seems to be just borrowed $5 billion, $6 billion and that's the way we're to bounce the budget.

Well, we're going to have to pay a lot of debt service on that. When you borrow money for operating costs you certainly get into a lot of trouble. I think there's a number of ways to get to balance the budget. I think we have to draw down on our reserves. We do have to find efficiencies in our city agencies. The answer is not to lay off people or cut services, but there's so much inefficiencies that we can draw down or save $1 billion through that. Then we're going to show in a matter of days in my office that the economy and the resources we have, we're actually doing a little better.

I don't think we're in a '70s spiral economically, but I do think we need to plan seriously about how we're going to balance this budget. Obviously, a Biden presidency will see stimulus money coming our way, but we do have to confront the immediate challenge of a $4.2 billion budget deficit.

Brian Lehrer: I thought you were for the mayor's plan to borrow more money because we're in a unique emergency. Did I get that wrong?

Scott Stringer: My plan was any money left over after we did efficiencies, after we draw down on reserves, after we ask if necessary people to pay a little more to raise some revenue, then I would support a small amount of borrowing to get us to a stimulus package. I am not in favor of borrowing money without doing the hard work of governing, to borrow $5 billion to pile on all that debt service on our children and grandchildren.

One, I don't believe today it's necessary, two, it's short-sided, and it means that we're not doing the hard work of governing. One of the things we need in a mayor is the, "roll up your sleeves, do the hard work, and manage the hell out of the city". That means finding efficiencies and agencies that we've long ignored and bring the city to a place where we're safe economically.

Brian Lehrer: Just to button up the previous question, that would be a no to the business leaders about bringing back a lot of city workers to their offices right now, because the science doesn't support it yet. Would that be a fair position? Is that what you're saying?

Scott Stringer: I believe that we should be working closely with the business community, closely with our small business community and city government to tabletop different scenarios to bring workers back. Again, we have to be very cautious and careful. We're already seeing an uptick in COVID cases right now. We're really at this intersection of cold weather and coming through the summer very successfully. We've seen good indications in our schools, but I do think caution through the lens of medicine will allow us to bring the economy back a little slower than what people want. Again, we cannot open too fast to bring the surge that we're seeing across the country.

Brian Lehrer: Holly, in Bed–Stuy, you're on WNYC with Comptroller Scott Stringer. Hi, Holly.

Holly: Hey Brian. I was accepted to be a poll worker, I went through the training and I passed my exam, but I wasn't assigned any work and a bunch of other people had a similar experience. It's not that I wanted to criticize the New York Board of Elections at all, but it does seem really clear to me in my personal experience that it's understaffed and underfunded and under-supported. The training itself was a complete mess and not at the fault of the poll workers, the existing ones themselves, but there wasn't even enough PPE or enough feed, and they didn't even have the computers. It seems like there is something going on that's making the lines longer and more difficult aside from COVID and any additional restrictions that are in place.

Scott Stringer: Well, Holly, I can tell you that I am getting ready to once again do a investigation post this voting on Tuesday, so your input and insight would be very helpful if you could leave your number if you'd be willing confidentially to talk to our comptroller staff. Let me also just thank you for your service. We are going to need thousands of poll workers and for people who are going to donate their time, the money, the pay you get is really low, and the sacrifice is a long day. I just want to say thank you. If you leave your number, so we can call you this would inform our post-election analysis.

Brian Lehrer: All right, Holly, if you'd like to do that, we'll take your contact information off the air as we go to Catherine in Manhattan. You're on WNYC with New York City Comtroller, Scott Stringer. Hi, Catherine.

Catherine: Hi, thank you for having me with my question, and also thank you to Scott for his commitment to the public. I have a quick question which is, if you could comment on the chancellor's decision, which I think is pressure from the mayor to have school kids make their decision to come back this November. Initially it was supposed to be quarterly that parents and families would decide whether to send their kids back full time or remained remote, and they've just decided now that it has to be done, decided now that if kids are to stay out there, they'll stay out to June, as opposed to waiting till January, some other date.

Parents seem to think January would have been a better choice if you're going to do it once. Regardless we were told we could make this decision quarterly, and I'm wondering one, how you feel about that. Two, do you think this is for budgetary reasons that the mayor is trying to pull nearly three quarters of students back into schools? Or do you think this is just a matter of pride?

Brian Lehrer: Catherine thank you. For listeners who don't know this issue, Catherine got it exactly right. For students who had opted out of in-person during remote-only there were supposed to be quarterly opt-in windows through the school year. Now there's only going to be one more and it's going to start next week and last, Comptroller for two weeks, is that right? Starting next Monday for two weeks?

Scott Stringer: Yes. Right.

Brian Lehrer: Then that's it until June. As Catherine asks, what do you think about that?

Scott Stringer: Look, let me just talk to Catherine as a parent of a third grader and a second grader who were doing remote learning, they're public school kids. The one thing that parents need is certainty, to balance, life, work and kids. Parents have to make real decisions, and a lot of times those decisions are based on their own health conditions, their preexisting health conditions.

I've always felt that the mayor closed the schools too late. He didn't come up with a plan soon enough, and this is the end result of it, which is they're shooting from the hip. There's no transparency as why these decisions are made. There's no reasonable explanation by the mayor of the [unintelligible 00:15:55]. This is starting to become the gang that can't shoot straight. The step here is one, keep our teachers, our principals, and our students safe, but also second part of this is give parents certainty.

I just think it's too quick for parents to make that decision in the midst of what everyone is going through as they settle down with learning, making the decision. "Maybe I need a little more time to see where we are with the surge. Maybe I have to go back to the doctor again, make some light decisions." For the mayor to just say, "Use it or lose it," is again just exhibiting gross incompetence when it comes to navigating the public school system and parents.

I'm outraged as a parent because it's uncertainty that drives parents to make decisions that end up hurting their family. While I can certainly see a rationale for streamlining the system, kids coming in and out can be disruptive, he's got to give people a chance to think this through and they're not doing that, and that's wrong.

Brian Lehrer: The balance is between that and how difficult it is to figure out staffing over each quarter of the school year from their perspective.

Scott Stringer: No. By the way, as I said, there are legitimate staffing issues. Principals have a very difficult job trying to figure out who's in and who's out, but again, you don't throw the gauntlet down without more discussion and more just assessing where we're at. Maybe it's better to do this on December or in January. I don't know.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, you said you had two kids doing remote. Did I hear that correctly?

Scott Stringer: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Are you going to opt in your kids next week? The mayor emphasizes that and a lot of scientists are emphasizing that the case rates among students or teachers is extraordinarily low.

Scott Stringer: That's right, and I'm very excited about that, but my wife and I are going to reconvene. We thought we had a little more time to make these decisions, but we're going to convene them and make a decision that's right for our children at this time. We're going through what every parent is going through. We've been following this as parents since the beginning. I always felt it was pretty unbelievable that the teachers had a better plan than the chancellor, and we had to navigate through that, so this is a continuation of challenges. Look remote learning for me, Brian, is a lot harder than running for mayor and navigating the kids, but I'm a privileged person with resources.

My wife and I have resources, and I really worry about how the Department of Education is not getting to the kids who don't have devices, even though I authorize them. I'm really worried about the lack of internet capacity because whether you're in school for a few days, you're going to spend most of your education on remote. This is where they should be focusing the kids in homeless shelters, the kids who are struggling. All of this should have been war-gamed way before now.

Brian Lehrer: Antonio in Bayside, you're on WNYC with New York City Comptroller and mayoral hopeful, Scott Stringer. Hi, Antonio.

Antonio: Hi Brian. It's a pleasure to speak with Comptroller Stringer and you again. My question is essentially, Mayor de Blasio has put in development this idea of the BQX to have a light rail going from Queens to Brooklyn. Will you be following that proposal and put it into fruition following it? Because it's very clean being low to the ground. It's something that you see readily, like a bus, but it's much cleaner. Essentially it's a permanent thing unlike a bus line. When you see the tracks on the ground you know it's going to be there. Studies have. shown that its uses are businesses and it's just a nice way to travel.

Brian Lehrer: Antonio, Thank you. For background, for people who don't know the issue, yes, Mayor de Blasio has proposed this trolley that he calls the BQX to run across the Brooklyn and Queens, or around the Brooklyn and Queens waterfront, a public transportation line that does not run into or out of Manhattan, along what's becoming an increasingly busy carter. The opponents of BQX, as I'm sure you know Comptroller worry about gentrification, and that it's really a SOP to the business community. It's not really pro-people. Do you have a position on BQX?

Scott Stringer: Right now I'm still listening to the communities. I do have concerned about how people are going to travel in terms of gentrifying already gentrified neighborhoods, public housing, but I'm not prepared to say no to anything. I'm not mayor yet and I do want to hear all ideas. I do think the overriding issue is how we can change our transportation network, invest in more bike lanes, busways, and pathways for people. The car culture in this city can change. We showed that with outdoor dining, we should show that with retail, outdoor classrooms. We really can reimagine the entire city as it relates to transportation.

I've been one of the advocates for that whether it's re-imagining or redeveloping the BQE to have less reliance on cars and more Greenways. There's a lot that we can do and everything should be on the table, but we also have to make sure that the people who struggle in the city are also at the table on all of these crucial decisions. That's what's been missing in our land use and zoning process with these rezonings that have gentrified our communities.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC-FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1, Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are in New York and New Jersey Public Radio, where we have just a few minutes left with New York City Comptroller, Scott Stringer. Yesterday, you called for faster action to repair NYCHA developments and talk about leaping from one New York City crisis to another. NYCHA development still dealing with problems from Superstorm Sandy, that was eight years ago, just about this week to improve ventilation and heating before winter really sets in. I see you even see a COVID-19 relationship to this. Tell everybody what you call for with respect to NYCHA.

Scott Stringer: What I said is what we all know that COVID is the great discriminator. It does not hit communities equally. My mom died of COVID in April and she died at a Bronx hospital. When I talked to the doctors there it was very clear that the pre-existing health conditions in so many communities of color were the cause of so many of these unnecessary deaths, so we have to do better investing in our communities in the Bronx, in Brooklyn, and in parts of Queens because the data shows who's vulnerable.

Winter is coming, and a second wave might come, and we're not prepared. I'm very concerned about the NYCHA development because from March to May, in the height of the pandemic, the COVID positive rates were higher than the citywide average. 7,800 NYCHA of tenants died-- I'm sorry, tested positive, but more than 1,200 tenants lost their lives.

What I'm calling for is for the city to be ahead of the curve. There's money that's available to fix air ventilation systems, clusters. We've got to look at those broken elevators because people piling into elevators will only create more danger for people. Again, we've asked them to look at the boilers.

There's a lot that has to happen for COVID response in NYCHA developments where the poorest people in the city are struggling with buildings in complete disrepair, but this time Brian, we bemoaned the fact that there's no money, so what are we going to do? The reality is we've been awarded $3 billion in FEMA grants yet we've only spent 59% of that money. We have community development block grants, $300 million, we've only spent 70%. This is a management issue, not a money issue. Let's have a COVID response before we get to winter.

Brian Lehrer: Last thing, do you have a reaction to the lawsuit that was just filed against the NYPD charging that they were using kettling and tear gas and other unnecessarily aggressive tactics, systemic police brutality in response to the post-George Floyd protests?

Scott Stringer: I have been going to protests literally since I was a little boy listening to my cousin, Bella Abzug in anti-war rallies growing up. I have protested--

Brian Lehrer: Is that when [unintelligible 00:25:19]?

Scott Stringer: Yes. For another day, that's how I got involved in politics, getting signatures to impeach Nixon and the war in Vietnam. I've never stopped since, but I've been going to protests [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Did you inherit any of her hats?

Scott Stringer: No. Not the hats, but a lot of great memories. Look, from that time to now I have gone to protest under multiple mayors. I have never witnessed what I witnessed during the Black Lives protest. It was outrageous. Batons being used on citizens, press people being pushed around. How could there not be a lawsuit? Because we can never allow this to happen again. I believe the next mayor has to get control of this police department. No more slowdowns, no more going after protesters.

We cannot continue to have a police department and mayor that are operating at cross purposes. This is not good for communities of color that have been victimized for too long, but it's also not good for our neighborhoods. We want to make sure we have safety in the streets. We want to make sure that we live in a safe city, but we need an overhaul. I think this lawsuit will shed light on the problems, the systemic problems we have.

Brian Lehrer: New York City Comptroller, Scott Stringer, none of our callers got out of 'comptrol' even though you invited them to do so.

Scott Stringer: Well, for the record you stayed the course.

Brian Lehrer: He's now a mayoral hopeful for next year as well. Thank you as always.

Scott Stringer: Thank you. Take care, everybody.

 

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