Ask the Mayor: Vaccine Rollout, Voter Safety, And More

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now it's time for our weekly Ask the Mayor segment, my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio, Fridays in this 11 o'clock hour starting a little later than usual because the drive changes the clock the way we set up the hour. We're going to set this up today with a moment from last night's debate after Joe Biden said he would reopen the economy with more protections than Donald Trump, and Biden gave plexiglass barriers and restaurants as an example, the President said this.

President Donald Trump: If you go and look at what's happened to New York, it's a ghost town. It's a ghost town. When you talk about plexiglass, these are restaurants that are dying. These are businesses with no money. Putting a plexiglass is unbelievably expensive. It's not the answer. You're going to sit there in a cubicle wrapped around with plastic. These are businesses that are dying, Joe, you can't do that to people. You just can't. Take a look at New York and what's happened to my wonderful city for so many years. I love that it was vibrant. It's dying. Everyone's leaving New York.

Joe Biden: Take a look at what New York has done in terms of turning the curve down in terms of the number of people dying.

Brian: Mr. Mayor, welcome back to WNYC. What's your response to that exchange?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Brian, look, here's the bottom line. This city has been through so much. Yet, the people of this city are fighting back. If you go around New York City today, you see a lot of activity. You see kids going to school, larger school system in America open, you see more and more jobs coming back, you see 10,000 restaurants participating in outdoor dining, we got a long way to go, and particularly areas like Midtown have a long way to go. If you talk about the city as a whole, 8 million plus people, five boroughs. There's been a hell of a lot of progress. New York also leads the nation in terms of fighting back the disease, leads the nation in terms of opening up schools safely.

Every time the President talks about a ghost town, it's an absolute fallacy. It's just absolutely unfair to the people of New York City. I turn it on him. I say the only ghost town is going to be Mar-a-Lago after he is forced out of office by the decision of the people on Election Day. Not New York City, a place that is fighting back. He should be honoring the people of New York City, not denigrating them.

Brian: You are rolling out a vaccine distribution plan for the city. As we discussed in a previous segment, we don't know when such a vaccine will be ready for the general public or even if there will be competing multiple vaccines. How much of a plan can you announce now, and why do it at this time?

Mayor: Look, what we do know, this is what our healthcare leadership says, this is what the scientific community is saying, not the White House, that there is a potential of a vaccine to be available in limited quantity as early as December, and we have to be ready because the first phase that-- City believes, the state believes, we all agree would be to reach our health care workers, our first responders, the folks who serve us at the front line, but also, of course, the most vulnerable New Yorkers.

If there is an amount available, we have to be ready to distribute it fairly and in a prioritized fashion. The bigger effort is going to go well into next year, obviously, but people need to understand that the city, and the state as well, will not accept a vaccine unless we have independently vetted it. The city and state both believe in listening to the healthcare leadership, not the whims of President Trump. I think it's really important for people to know this would be independently confirmed before any New Yorker would be offered this opportunity.

Brian: How will it work?

Mayor: The notion here is to build upon what we know already. Our health department, for generations, has led successful vaccination drives. We've done a lot over the years on flu. We did a lot last year fighting back to measles. Our health commissioner, Dr. Dave Chokshi, gave a very powerful example from our history in 1947. Millions and millions of New Yorkers were vaccinated against the smallpox in a matter of weeks. The health department has a really illustrious history of being able to put together this mobilization. As a different time, there's different realities.

We're going to aggressively use all our tools once we're sure it's safe, aggressively use our tools to educate people, answer questions, let them hear real answers from medical professionals in multiple languages, and work with people. I think, Brian, it's natural that some people will want it right away, others will watchfully wait, that's okay. We want to make sure that when it is available, it's distributed fairly with a lot of information. Again, prioritizing those who need it most first.

Brian: Essential workers, older people, people with certain diseases, you'll identify?

Mayor: Correct, we know the pre-existing conditions that have made people vulnerable. We know the age range is where people are most vulnerable. Obviously, first, let's make sure we're addressing the folks who take care of all of us and keep them safe, so they can help so many others. Then, next priority, those most vulnerable, and one of the things we focused on, address the health care disparities. We have identified 27 neighborhoods in New York City that really bore the brunt of this crisis, where structural racism and historic economic inequality came together.

One of the things we're doing, we have a task force of city government leaders, all people of color leading different city agencies, so are task force on racial inclusion and equity. The idea of that task force has been to identify where can we do things right now to address the inequalities that came out of the COVID crisis. One of those things is to make sure that the vaccine is available to those who truly need it most. It is not a "rich get richer" situation, but a question of equity.

Brian: Katie, in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hi, Katie.

Katie: Hi. I'm the owner of two small fitness studios in Brooklyn. My businesses have been closed for about seven and a half months, with no communication about reopening, no timeline, and no financial help, since May, which came from the federal government. Like a lot of other fitness studio owners in the city, these businesses help us support our families, and we're independently owned, not to mention the thousands of employees and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of our clients who use our services to maintain physical health and mental health.

My question to you is, why are we not being given the opportunity to offer safe services, the way gyms are, to pass inspections? I just don't feel, we don't feel like our services are any more dangerous than a lot of other services that are currently allowed to operate.

Brian: All right. Mr. Mayor, why is still there distinction between fitness studios and gyms?

Mayor: Yes, Katie, I appreciate the question. Let me just say in your case, if you please give your information on WNYC, I would like our department of small business services to talk to you about the types of supports that are available for a small business that we can help with. Just see we can help you or any of your colleagues with that. On the bigger question, so this, of course, again, has been led by the science and by our healthcare leadership, who are very concerned of the different activities that happen.

If I could give you the simplest summary of what the healthcare leaders have said, it's one, be concerned about things are indoor, be concerned about things in smaller spaces, or where there's less social distancing potentially. Be concerned when people can't wear masks so easily. I think the fitness studios have been in the category of real concern. I know, as we've looked at it, it's been one of the areas that we've had to be careful about.

Now, I think the bottom line is, the more we can fight back the disease in the city, the more we can open up. We've had a situation in Brooklyn and Queens, we had to be really aggressive there to fight that problem back. We are seeing success. I hope, over the next few weeks, that situation gets cleared up. It's time for us to start thinking about what things look like after that when we can hopefully start to reduce some other restrictions. We will be talking about fitness studios. Ultimately, though, it's going to be led by our health leaders looking at the data, looking at the science, and making that decision.

Brian: This brings us back a little bit to the President's statement that New York is shutting down, New York is a ghost town, business leaders, including the real estate industry with its owners of New York's office buildings, have been arguing that people are going back to the office, much more in other cities to actual office work. They say here it's still 10%, that stat was in The Wall Street Journal this week, but they also say that you have agreed to model bringing people back to the office, by bringing back 25% of city workers by the end of the year. Can you confirm that or refute that?

Mayor: It's all going to, first of all, be based on what our healthcare situation is, what our positivity level is. We've been talking about when it's right time to start to bring back city workers, but that was before we had the challenges in Brooklyn and Queens, so we're obviously going to evaluate carefully based on how we come out of those problems. Look, I think, Brian, very important definitional point here.

I've been all over the city. I think the truth is, when you're talking about outside Manhattan, the four boroughs that make up the vast majority of our population in the life of the city, people have not left overwhelmingly, people have stayed. There's a lot of vibrancy in neighborhoods. You got commercial strips all over the city, in the five boroughs you see a lot of activity. I think, in Manhattan, particularly in more affluent areas of Manhattan, you've seen a certain number of people leave. I think a lot of folks will come back.

Brian: That's residential. My question is about office [unintelligible 00:11:31]

Mayor: Wait, wait, wait. I'm going to turn to Midtown. Hold on. Going to Midtown. Midtown has been a particular challenge, exactly because it's that huge concentration of office workers, but I think a lot of the business leaders think of the world from Midtown out. Midtown is a center of universe. The other things are ancillary. I think, and you know me for a long time, I think it's the other way around.

t's the five boroughs, it's where people live, it's communities, and then Midtown is important, but it's not the center of our universe. What I think you're going to see is more and more, it will probably take into the beginning of next year, but more and more businesses will come back, and employees will come back into Midtown. It will be slower than other parts of the country because we were the epicenter.

The vibrancy, the power of New York City is unchanged. We will, the minute we think is safe, we'll start to bring back government employees to the offices. I think that's important in some proportion, but I think there's a real dissonance, Brian, because what's happening right now versus what's going to happen a few months from now, I think are going to be very, very different realities.

Brian: Zeke in Queens. You're on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Zeke.

Zeke: Hi. Thank you, Mr. Lehrer. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for taking my question, and thank you for all the work you do here at WNYC.

Brian: Thanks, Zeke.

Zeke: My name is Zeke and I'm a bus rider and a student at Queens College. Queens College is a school nowhere near any subways and halfway between your promised Main Street and Jamaica Avenue busways. Mr. Mayor, about 7,000 Queens College students routinely spend half of their bus rides stuck in gridlock and unpacked body-to-body buses on Main Street or Jamaica Avenue.

Most are still doing similar commutes today as essential workers. I can tell you that on these commutes we feel forgotten and like nobody cares. Mayor de Blasio, when you made that promise to us students, essential workers and bus riders, you're finally make us the priority on our own streets, it's 20 miles of busways and bus lanes. I don't know if you'll understand how that made us feel seen and heard as bus riders in a way that we really don't do on our daily commute.

It's been five months now and we're still waiting, stuck in traffic, unpacked buses. Mayor de Blasio, you were asked about this last week, but we still haven't heard anything publicly. Have you gotten a briefing? Are you going to roll out these busways before December when [unintelligible 00:14:00] can no longer be applied?

Mayor: Thanks for the questions, Zeke. Look, anyone who doesn't feel seen or heard, that's not what I want in New York City. I want everyone to be seen and heard. I do appreciate. Oftentimes for years and years, even before the pandemic, bus service didn't get the attention it deserved. Well before the pandemic, we've been expanding select bus service, it's really a big, big part of how people get around.

The subways get more attention, but the buses are crucial, and buses have actually been saving grace during so much of this crisis. We made the decision to make the 14th street a busway permanent, and that's been a huge success and to add-- The latest update- I did get brief, the latest update is that we said, we want to do 20 miles by the end of the year, it looks like it'll be closer to 17, which is a good achievement.

I'd like to get all 20 done, but it looks like it will be closer to 17 by the end of the year. We have a particular issue on flushing with community organizations and leaders in businesses that we're addressing, but this is the way of the future is, to keep expanding the speed and the reach of bus service. I think this is going to be a strong start that's going to help you and a lot of other people, but then we have to keep going. The future of New York City's mass transit. The future of New York City is not the automobile, it's mass transit.

We've actually really leaned into bus service, we're going to be doing more and more with that. Obviously, ferries is a big piece of the puzzle. There are so many elements that we need to have, bikes have been a huge success, Citi Bike, and we got to keep going. That's our future.

Brian: Zeke, thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, I want to ask you about the plan that I understand you're rolling out today to dispatch volunteer poll watchers to poll sites across the city with early voting starting tomorrow and of course through Election Day on November 3rd. Our newsroom has asked me to ask you if this is smart, because this is something that Common Cause already announced it was doing as it has done for years, volunteer poll watchers.

I gather from them that there's a concern that if you, as the progressive Democrat that you are doing this, maybe this is going to backfire and encourage the Republican Party to send out its poll watchers, and we know we're concerned about the kind of intimidation that Trump seems to be encouraging people to do.

Mayor: That's where this emanates from, Brian. For decades, there have been plenty of problems with our board of elections and inside poll sites with machines and things like that, but this is not what we're talking about this year. For the first time in a long time, we'd have to be worried about systematic efforts to suppress the vote in communities of color and immigrant communities, purposeful efforts at intimidation. Look, the president has made very clear. He is intending to try to defy the will of the voters.

He's saying out loud. He told his partisans standby, and we've seen acts of intimidation, we've seen efforts to discourage people from voting or to make them think their votes are not valid. We've seen horrible efforts to discourage immigrants from doing anything in their lives. This is a warning sign, and so we have to react differently than business as usual, so we have election observation court, that'll be out in force on Election Day, hundreds of volunteer lawyers, city officials, folks from the city government who are empowered to act if they see any effort at intimidation.

In the past, maybe this was something we could leave to nonprofit efforts, and they're very good efforts, very well-intentioned, but this year we may be dealing with something more systematic. I actually think cities around the country should emulate this, have an official presence outside, board of elections handles inside, but outside have city lawyers, have official presence in the places we fear may be victim to intimidation, and be able to move very quickly if we see any systematic effort to stop people from voting.

Brian: I gather that Common Cause poll watchers go through a specific training. How many people do you have, and what kind of training will they get? I gather from what you just said, you're only doing this on Election Day itself, but how many people and what kind of training?

Mayor: The focus is Election Day, because that's where we think the concentrated problems could come. We know where the areas of concern are. We've seen this before in history. We certainly know the votes that President Trump and others are trying to stop. We are training-- These are city employees, as I said, primarily, folks who from our law department, from our democracy NYC team, from our census team that have just finished their extraordinary and successful work, will now be turned to this focus.

We have to protect the vote. This is a classic example, Brian. Folks, I think, want to believe obviously that our democracy will survive Donald Trump. We want to believe that nothing like that could happen here, but when you start saying it can't happen here, that's exactly when it does happen. I would rather be too vigilant and too prepared to have hundreds of people out, the polls, ready to act, than be painfully surprised on Election Day by a voter suppression effort.

Brian: You have a number of how many people it's going to be?

Mayor: It's going to be hundreds. We'll get the final number, but definitely hundreds of volunteer city employees, folks who will be trained for sure in how to report in the act on anything they see.

Brian: Let's get one more caller in here. Peter in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC with the mayor. Hi, Peter, we've got 30 seconds for you, so right to it. Okay?

Peter: Hi, right to it. Thanks for taking my question. Obviously, my industry, the theater industry has dried up. I know so many theater companies who've had to close because of not being able to pay rent and all these things, and it seems to fall on the producer's shoulders to bring back theater, but I'm wondering if the city can step in and do anything to help.

Mayor: Peter, real quick, I'd say. First of all, an allied part of your world, film and TV production is coming back strong. I think that's going to be good for everyone in the cultural world. Cultural institutions are starting to open up, but I think theater's going to be, because of being indoors primarily, a challenge we've got to be careful about, but what I'm hoping for is, we continue to fight back the disease successfully, that's been our history in the city, that's the door opener. Then we work hard at a real federal stimulus, which looks like February now is the honest truth, but one that would reach cultural workers and reach sectors that have been hard hit would direct subsidy so people can get back on their feet.

I think that is doable as a result of the election. I think we're going to see, I hope we're going to see, but we have to help bring back the theater community. This is essential to New York City's identity, humanity, economy, you name it.

Brian: Quick follow-up on that. We had a guest who you probably know of Dr. Ashish Jha the Dean of Public Health at Brown, this week, who said that if New York and other places can ramp up these rapid tests to a very large degree, pretty quickly over the next few months, things like the theater district can reopen with these sort of, did you get your rapid negative test passport that day?

Apparently, they're already doing that at Saturday Night Live for the limited audience that they are allowing. I'm just curious if the city has any plans considering how much of a concentration of theater and music and other venues we have and how shuttered they are for you to go really big on this. We have 30 seconds.

Mayor: It is real simple. We would love it if we can get two things done. One, confirm the quality of the tests which has been an open question up to now, and two- and the accuracy, and to get it in sufficient quantity, which has also been a challenge. Rapid testing is absolutely on the agenda, but not yet confirmed, both in terms of quality and the availability of serious numbers, but if it does become available the right way, it could be a big piece of reopening theaters and other parts of our economy.

Brian: Mr. Mayor, thanks as always, talk to you next week.

Mayor: Thank you, Brian. Take care.

 

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