Reporters Ask the Mayor: State Budget, Control Over NYC Schools and More

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Governor Hochul will join us with possibly some very big news on housing and other things from the state budget negotiations that have been underway for months. That'll be at 11:10. Now as usual on Wednesday mornings after Mayor Adams's Tuesday news conferences, our lead Eric Adams reporter Liz Kim joins us with excerpts and analysis and to take some calls. Mayoral control of New York City public schools, and we'll ask the governor about that too, where the city lands in the conceptual budget agreement just announced by the governor, how did the city do and all of that and a few more other a few other topics to touch on. Hi Liz, thanks for coming on as always on Wednesdays.

Elizabeth Kim: Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Now shortly before the news conference yesterday, I see the mayor spoke at a breakfast for the group called the Association for a Better New York and he was met by a group of protesters there and he was asked about that. Do you want to set up this clip?

Elizabeth Kim: Sure. The mayor was speaking at an event held by a group called the Association for a Better New York that's also known as ABNY for short. They routinely invite elected officials to speak to their members, which are made up of both private sector leaders and also non-profit leaders, but it's typically seen as an event where an elected gets to speak to the business class. Here we had the mayor up on stage and protesters rushed him and they got surprisingly close to the mayor I think in a way that astonished a lot of reporters certainly and probably members of the audience. This is not something that happens I think ever at ABNY. I spoke to a veteran city hall reporter and she told me she had never seen this. The mayor was asked about whether there was a breach in security for him.

Brian Lehrer: These protesters we should say, these were not pro-Palestinian protesters in this case.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct. Very good point Brian, yes. Obviously, in this moment that we're in, we are seeing a lot of anti-war protesters and we've seen that at a fundraising event for President Joe Biden. This protest was very different. It was an anti-Adams protest. What these protesters were yelling was that the mayor was favoring the rich over the working class.

Brian Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, was this a security breach that was dangerous to you and others?

Mayor Adams: It was not a security breach. They know that is one thing the mayor can do, the mayor can handle himself. I saw them walking on the stage, I could have easily given them a signal to do so. He had the correct amount of steps. If he would have went beyond those steps, he would have had a problem.

Brian Lehrer: What steps is he referring to?

Elizabeth Kim: He's saying that basically he basically makes a signal to his security detail of when he wants them to intervene. He is saying that the fact that they got so close to him wasn't because his security was somehow asleep at the wheel, but because they were waiting for the mayor's signal as to when to come up on the stage. But like I said, this was quite a disruption and it's a disruption that comes at an event like I said, it's before the movers and shakers of the city. It was at a moment where the mayor was trying to make his case that he's followed through on his pledges, on the pledges of his campaign to help the city through the pandemic recovery.

This particular protest, which gets at his working class bona fides is also very important because that's essentially the tension here. He wants to be seen as a voice for the working class, but he also wants to be pro-business and a fiscal hawk when it comes to managing the city's finances and that comes with inherent conflicts. We see how that's playing out. He's made cuts to libraries, schools, parks. Those are cuts that arguably hurt those on the lowest rung of the city's economic ladder. How does he reconcile that and his rhetoric and his identity as a defender for the working class?

Brian Lehrer: Does the mayor get points for restraint here? I can imagine what might have happened if he did signal his security people to intervene, and there was some interaction that who knows how serious it would have gotten on either side with the protesters who were rushing the stage.

Elizabeth Kim: I don't think so Brian because if you watch the video, it wasn't like his security detail then politely asked the protesters to leave. You can see one of them was either pushed or they fell down the stairs. It was a rough escort out the building.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Next topic. Governor Hochul, who's going to be on in about 15 minutes, has announced a conceptual agreement for the state budget. Your fellow city politics reporter Jeff Colton from Politico questioned the mayor on the way he's framing items in the budget related to the city. There's a lot at stake for the city in this state budget. We're going to play the question first.

Jeff Colton: You’re talking a lot about the wins, you're really focusing on the good stuff, but I'm seeing a lot of compromise in the budget. You talked about mayoral control, there's compromise and then a housing tax break that isn't expected to bring in as much development as 421A, half the debt limit increase you're seeking, less migrant money than you've asked for. Is it as good as you're saying as a whole or are you actually getting a half loaf from Albany?

Brian Lehrer: Are you getting a half loaf only from Albany? And here's the mayor's response.

Mayor Adams: People view this glass as half empty. I view it as half full. I'm part of the half full team. I know what we were up against going to Albany when Tiffany Ingrid and Diane and others were coming back and stating that there's a real challenge but they always came back with the same report, speaker, majority leader, and governor, they want to help Eric.

Brian Lehrer: Liz that's very general, “I view the glass as half full, I'm a half-full kind of guy,” but it didn't get to any specifics of any of these things, on housing or mayoral control of schools or what he wants the governor to do with respect to locating migrants in places other than New York City. Did he ever get more specific on that as the news conference went on?

Mayor Adams: No, and the reason for that is because the details of the budget are yet to be announced. So I don't think the mayor can get ahead on any of these proposals that we have heard are part of the budget deal but I like the way that Jeff phrased that question because this is the annual assessment that we make out of every mayor, did the mayor get what he wanted out of Albany? Can this be framed as a win for the mayor?

The mayor did talk a lot about housing and the fact that there’s a housing deal being discussed as part of the final package is very important to Adams, that as the mayor has said, there is a 1% vacancy rate in New York City, so there is a severe housing crisis. But I would also argue that the state needed a housing package too. They were under significant pressure, especially after last year when they failed to deliver reform on how to build more affordable housing. They were under tremendous pressure to get something done.

I think that for sure, it's a win for the mayor, it's a win for the governor, it's a win for all the lawmakers in the legislature when it comes to housing but we will see the contours of that deal as Jeff hinted at in his question, is this enough? Will it be enough to spur housing?

Brian Lehrer: Similarly, I'll be asking the governor about mayoral control of public schools, which reportedly she reinserted into the budget process after had been taken out to be dealt with later in the term. I guess she wants Mayor Adams to get this on paper now that he has control of the New York City public schools, but reportedly, members of the legislature are pushing for a compromise that would give him control, but with some strings attached including especially in the immediate future, complying with the earlier state law that requires reduction of class size in New York City, which the mayor has been resisting. He was asked about that push and pull yesterday and he said this.

Mayor Adams: And so if it's about givebacks and negotiation, that's part of the process that's part of life in- -government, the willingness to compromise.

Brian Lehrer: But again, that was general on control of public schools. I may have to try to get this out of the governor, but do you know, Liz, if the enforcement of the class size reduction is part of the mayoral control package that may have been agreed to?

Elizabeth Kim: That's what's being reported out. Mayoral control is something that if the mayor were to get this as part of the budget, that has to be construed, I think as a win for the mayor. Coming into budget negotiations in Albany, the expectation was that he would not get mayoral control as part of the budget negotiations, that lawmakers would elect to make the mayor wait on it. This is because for a variety of reasons. One, he's facing dismal polling. He's not a popular mayor in this moment so he doesn't have a lot of political capital. It's also driven in large part by the fact that he's made cuts to areas including schools.

The fact that this is potentially back on the table, I think that that is something that the mayor could call a win, but like you said, it hinges on class size. I think the mayor's remark yesterday by saying, "We had to make some compromises," I think he's foreshadowing the fact that he does have to make some significant deals and it may likely be on class size. This is something that the mayor has been unhappy about ever since the law was passed in 2022.

Brian Lehrer: Because of the cost, right?

Elizabeth Kim: Because of the cost.

Brian Lehrer: Hiring a lot more teachers, creating potentially a lot more spaces.

Elizabeth Kim: Correct. It's a cost in terms of both the hiring of teachers and also, where does the city find the space to hold these additional classes or additional schools to comply with this law? The new law would cap, just to give you an example, would cap classes at 20 students in kindergarten through third grade and that number would rise slightly as you go on to older grades. The law was a culmination of a very long movement in New York City by education activists to bring down class sizes. It's based on studies but also surveys of parents and teachers who say they want smaller classes.

It's also important to note that the law stands to benefit the teachers union because it would potentially grow the number of teachers at a time when enrollment has dropped off at New York City schools because of the pandemic. This brings a lot of players into this negotiation, right? The UFT could be a very beneficial ally to the mayor on something like mayoral control. They have been previously, prior to what we've heard now, they've voiced some skepticism about it. This idea of peeling back mayoral control is not just a conversation that's been happening in New York City, it's been happening across the country where there is this concept of mayoral control. In fact, Chicago elected to remove mayoral control.

We've been heading into this direction of should we as a city, I don't think remove it altogether, but consider reforming mayoral control in some ways. Now we have this moment, like I said, where I think the teacher's union holds a lot of leverage in this conversation. If they want, they will ask the mayor like, "What can you give us?" What he can give them is he can give them a commitment to following through on the law of reducing class sizes but it's expensive, right? I'm sure the mayor wants something from the governor like, "Can you give me more money?" There is already money set aside for this but I think the city will always argue that it's never enough.

Brian Lehrer: The New York Times reports, and this wasn't in the news conference, I don't believe, but Liz, that Mayor Adams is pushing to hire Randy Mastro, former deputy mayor to Rudy Giuliani. The Times, for example, describes Mastro's reputation as being a veteran litigator known for his aggressive tactics. We were just talking about Randy Mastro on the show the other day because he's representing New Jersey in the lawsuit against the mayor's congestion pricing or really, the MTA's congestion pricing that the mayor says he supports .Can you confirm that Mayor Adams wants Randy Mastro, of all people, and if so, why?

Elizabeth Kim: That was a story that came out at The Times late yesterday, and no, the mayor was not asked about it at the press conference. The Times was sorting unnamed sources. Following that, other outlets have also, using unnamed sources come out and reported that this is something that the administration wants to do. Mastro would be a replacement for the current corporation counsel, that's Sylvia Hinds-Radix. It's important to note that this comes as the mayor is facing some serious but also difficult legal cases. There's the sexual assault lawsuit that was filed by a former transit police employee back in 1993 and there's also multiple investigations into his campaign.

As you said, this poses an interesting question. Not so much for the mayor, but for the City Council because the City Council must confirm the appointment, so they get to vote on this. As The Times article states, he is known as a bulldog and he's taken some interesting stances to put it generously. Some would argue that he's been on the wrong side of a lot of cases which were directly against the city's interests. As you said, he's representing New Jersey in the fight to stop congestion pricing, something--

Brian Lehrer: If he becomes the lead lawyer for the city of New York, is he going to then start defending congestion pricing?

Elizabeth Kim: I think the idea is that he would step down from that case. That's interesting because yes, he should because it's about his client's interest. That's why I think this is a very interesting question for the council because this is not someone who's new to government as you said. He was a deputy mayor for former mayor, Rudy Giuliani, so he has government experience albeit under a Republican. There are things about him and clients he's represented that some, especially progressive lawmakers, will argue don't represent the values of the city and the laws of the city. This will become a question.

I think if a public campaign starts to build against having him be appointed, then I think you will start to see more elected start chiming in and really discuss whether or not they should go ahead and confirm the appointment. It comes at a very inopportune time for the mayor. It's never a good time to spark a battle with the City Council but we're also in the midst of budget negotiations.

Brian Lehrer: Here's a little bit of how The New York Times put the likelihood of Mastro joining the Adams administration. It says, “Mr. Mastro notified his law firm, King & Spalding, about his likely departure for the position.” That's The Times quoting a person who was familiar with the matter. We will see what happens and the conversation that it starts in New York City if Randy Mastro really does become the top lawyer for the city of New York. We thank for this week and as always, our lead Eric Adams reporter, Liz Kim, who comes with clips and analysis after the mayor's Tuesday news conferences. Liz, thanks as always.

Elizabeth Kim: Thank you, Brian.

 

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