Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on the Brian Lehrer Show

February 16, 2018

Brian Lehrer: We begin as we usually do on Fridays with our weekly Ask the Mayor segment with Mayor Bill de Blasio. Call in at 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 4-3-3-WNYC, 4-3-3-9-6-9-2, or tweet a question @BrianLehrer, use the #AsktheMayor. Mr. Mayor welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Thank you very much, Brian.

Lehrer: And there is so much going on this week, so first let me get you reaction to several things in the news – the acquittal of Police Sergeant Hugh Barry in the shooting death of 66-year-old Deborah Danner in the Bronx during a schizophrenic episode when she picked up a baseball bat. When it happened it 2016, you and Police Commissioner O’Neill both criticized Sergeant Barry for not following proper protocols and you called it unacceptable, was an injustice done in court yesterday?

Mayor: Brian, you know, I want to say exactly what Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill said yesterday. The central point here is we respect the court system, we respect how the judiciary handled its work. I think given what’s happened in the last year, in our nation, it is very important to always show that respect for judicial decisions.

But underneath all that – here’s an essential fact, Deborah Danner should not have died, she should still be with us. And we have to do a lot going forward to make sure that nothing like this ever happens again. And my heart went out to her family from the very beginning and I still feel for this family, what they’ve been through. So, as Commissioner O’Neill said yesterday, the NYPD disciplinary process for this sergeant has already begun as soon as the court’s action concluded.

And in the meantime, look we are going to do everything we can to deepen the training of our police force. We’ve already done a lot of training in de-escalation. We are going to do a lot more of the training to help our officers handle emotionally disturbed people. 8,000 officers have received that training so far, the goal is to get to over 20,000. And I think that is going to make a big difference. But, you know, I just go back to the essential facts, she should still be alive.

Lehrer: Do you think a crime of any kind was committed? Sergeant Barry was acquitted on all counts.

Mayor: Again I’m consistent of this – I don’t critique judicial decisions, I respect the judiciary, again we will now have our disciplinary process and that will play out.

Lehrer: And now the Sergeant’s Union is calling on the department to fully reinstate Sergeant Barry to his job. He had been stripped of his badge and gun and placed on modified duty originally – what do you want to see happen in the disciplinary process?

Mayor: I don’t pre judge. It’s another due process matter and I do respect due process. And you know, I want that process to go forward and reach the right conclusion according to those who, you know, have to make the judgement, ultimately the Police Commissioner. So I respect Commissioner O’Neill immensely. I think he has been an extraordinary agent of change and reform in this police department and he will make the decision about how, the ultimate decision about discipline but obviously about anything that happens in the meantime.

Lehrer: Next issue, NYCHA. Governor Cuomo is thinking about declaring a state of emergency for NYCHA buildings because of the heat and hot water outages this winter and general disrepair. As I understand it, the declaration would allow you to get around some contracting rules that could then expedite the repairs at a faster rate – your reaction?

Mayor: If the simple question is does the State of New York want to help us do our work better, I would always welcome help done on a collegial basis, done with us. But unfortunately here we see some real contradictions.

First of all the State has not provided us with the funding from several budgets ago, let alone the $200 million that was allocated in the last state budget back last April, 2017. This is a pattern we’ve seen with the State of New York and under this Governor where there is a lot of talk about helping public housing residents but we don’t see real resources. And same we haven’t seen all the big plans we heard about affordable housing and supportive housing to help us deal with the homeless – we don’t see the results, it doesn’t reach us.

So you’ll forgive me for some skepticism. If the State really wants to sit down with us and say how can we play a constructive role in addressing some of the challenges in NYCHA that are decades old, we would welcome that conversation, we would try to work together. But if the State’s trying to score political points, and deal in simplistic ideas that are not really going to help the people of the public housing buildings in our city who are 400,000 New Yorkers, you know, then let’s be honest about what’s really going on.

I think it’s striking. There has been ample opportunity. I’ve been Mayor for four years, there’s been ample opportunity for the Governor or anyone on his team to say let’s constructively help you fix the problems in public housing. I’ve never gotten that phone call.

Lehrer: Do you want to say yes to both – that is continue to lobby the Governor to give money to NYCHA that you say they are withholding and at the same time, yes to his proposal to get around some contracting rules to expedite repairs?

Mayor: By definition Brian, if there is a constructive way to speed up contracting –

Lehrer: Is this one?

Mayor: I don’t know yet because it’s been put out in such a manner without the kind of legal discussion and you know, procedural discussion to know if it would actually work. If it would work, of course I would be very interested.

But you know, I think the point is – is this a political exercise or is this about actually helping the people who live in public housing? If it’s about helping the people who live in public housing, again of course, if there is a way legally and appropriately to speed up the work that is done at NYCHA, of course I would embrace that.

Lehrer: Your State of the City speech Tuesday night, to my ear – the biggest applause line was when you got to NYCHA as the final point of the 12 from your action plan booklet. Then yesterday we had on the show Gabriel Strachota from Community Voices Heard who said this –

Gabriel Strachota: de Blasio has a chance to demonstrate a real progressive alternative, you know if he truly wants to be part of the resistance and not just say no cuts to Trump but actually put his money where his mouth is and move in the other direction – fully fund repairs in public housing and create a [inaudible] oversight council.

So he’s calling on you to fully fund, that was his term, the $2 billion I guess boiler repairs right now rather than spread out over years – your reaction?

Mayor: I would say a couple of things, first of all and I know your listeners really want to sort out the facts and understand what’s going on so I have to say this. The problem in public housing goes back decades to federal government that was supposed to be primarily responsible for funding public housing that started reducing that commitment, right after the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. And the State of New York really obviously has not played a substantial role as well.

So New York City has been left to defend for itself in a situation where it was never supposed to be the primary agent of funding these kinds of things. We are responsible a whole host of other things – schools, police, fire, sanitation, ect, ect.

That being said, when I came into office I made the decision that what was happening in public housing demanded a response from the City. So we ended the requirement that public housing, that NYCHA pay for policing which was ludicrous, we ended the requirement that NYCHA pay taxes to the City of New York, we started giving money back and giving money back.

What I’ve said in the speech the other day – we’ve now committed to the $2.1 billion in major capital investments in NYCHA roofs, and facades, and boilers, and you name it. And then we’ve committed another $1.6 billion to day to day operations including a lot of what’ve done to make the developments safer and to address the repair backlog.

Lehrer: But this is over a period of many years right?

Mayor: Yes but it’s a hell of a lot of money. So you have to recognize – you put this money in and it has to be spent effectively, we don’t want this quick money – you know putting out a dollar figure and not spending it, which is what the State has done many times, is not helping anyone. So this is an honest estimate of what is needed that we can spend effectively in this time frame. We are always going to look to do more and do faster.

So to the point made – I just want argue very squarely the City of New York under my Administration, pound for pound, year for year, contributed more to NYCHA than ever before in history. We intend to continue those investments. We intend to get involved and finding many more ways for NYCHA to be more effective.

But you can’t, you know if we are going to have this discussion, ignore what is now over three decades of the decline of public housing and the lack of federal investment than we are kidding everyone. I think it does a disservice to the residents, I think it does a disservice to your listeners and all New Yorkers to think this is sort of a free standing problem that just emerged and we can deal with it simply but the overall cost of the repairs needed in NYCHA – our early estimate was $18 billion. There’s a lot of indications that it’s going to be well over $20 billion now. That’s not something the City can produce on its own. But we will continue to invest constantly and we’ll continue to do everything we can to improve the life of NYCHA residents.

Lehrer: I’ll just follow-up once with what I think Community Voices Heard might respond to that which is you can’t continue to go back three decades and blame Ronald Reagan or even blame Andrew Cuomo if, here you are and the need is so immediate that they don’t have heat in the winter, then maybe the City has to step up, sad as it is, commit more money in the shorter term, take it from other things if necessary, they would argue. Because we’re talking about heat in the winter for residents who are in New York City public housing.

Mayor: Brian, I understand the argument but then I’m going to put it back on you with deepest respect and everyone else who reports on this to give the whole perspective here. I don’t belittle the challenge but I also want to say the vast majority of those heating outages were for a single day. That doesn’t make it good, I don’t accept that. I want to do better but I don’t want it to be some kind of stereotype of you know these endless times when people didn’t have heat. We’re trying to fix buildings that are in many cases 50 years or more older that have in many cases boilers that were long since passed their normal life span.

Again this used to be funded federally. When you take away – and it’s totally in context with what’s happening in the country right now and I think again your listeners are focused enough to get this point. It’s not a throw away, it’s not a blame, it’s looking at the structural reality. If you had a commitment from the federal government to pay for this – it’s essentially been federally funded, it was not City funded – and then it’s not anymore, you say take away from other things but I think that’s not a very accurate version of what happened.

People in this city are demanding more affordable housing. They’re demanding more school seats be created in so many overcrowded areas of the city. They’re demanding a lot of things that we put money into while we also try to do everything we can to support the residents of public housing. And we’ve got to do all of the above. And what we’ve shown here which was different in any previous administration – and go back and look at what the annual contribution was in the previous 12 years before my mayoralty, what the annual contribution was [inaudible] you think the heat wasn’t going out in the previous 12 years?

Lehrer: To NYCHA. Right. And I will acknowledge, so I don’t leave a false impression with my questions, you do get credit broadly for investing more in NYCHA than the last several administrations. So just putting that fact out there. Alright, well, let’s go to some of our callers. Listeners, our lines are full but as people finish up you can call for Mayor de Blasio at 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC and Theo in Hamilton Heights, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Theo.

Question: Hi, Brian, Your Honor. The City of New York was just amended to create the position of Chief Privacy Officer. I have been leaving messages at City Hall but nobody gets back to me. So, my question is simple – have you given any thought on the characteristics that you believe that would make a great Chief Privacy Officer and will you invite the stakeholders to vet your list of nominees? For example, by putting the names on the City website and having public hearings.

Mayor: I appreciate the question and nothing is more American than making sure our privacy rights are protected. I do not make personnel decisions, you know, through crowdsourcing. This is something I think is really important. I owe it to the people of the city to make these decisions very, very carefully for any office, for any appointee. So, no, that’s not a way that I would do it but with anything we’re going to appoint, we do it carefully and we do take into account a lot of what we’ve heard from communities about their concerns.

Lehrer: Theo, want do you want to see in a privacy officer since you asked about criteria?

Question: Well, the [inaudible] for example the Mayor said that he doesn’t give the information to the NYPD but ICE is able to tap into the NYPD database and get the data out every time there is an arrest with the fingerprinting –

Mayor: No, that’s not accurate. Theo –

Question: So, the question is –

Mayor: I know you’re [inaudible] of faith but that’s not the facts and that’s what I said so, you could [inaudible] your question but I need to correct that.

Lehrer: The question was what Theo?

Question: So the question is simply – does he see for example the privacy officer position to review all the data exchanges and what points of contention are in those databases? Like for example what needs to be looked at as a privacy issue.

Lehrer: With ICE – with ICE in particular, is your immediate concern. Mr. Mayor –

Mayor: I think this is a much bigger question than any particular appointee. So, first, I have to correct what he just said. I was very explicit and I’m going to keep saying it and I ask people to really pay attention to the facts, how they [inaudible] since the day Trump took office. The City of New York made very clear our police officers do not ask documentation status, our teachers, our public health professionals. We do not allow ICE onto school property. We do not participate in deportations unless it is under City law which indicates 170 serious and violent offenses where only if an undocumented person is convicted in a court of law would we then cooperate with ICE.

What I said the other day about fingerprinting was a specific question. If someone is fingerprinted, it goes into a national criminal justice database. But the point I made was many, many people who come in contact with the NYPD are not fingerprinted so there’s no way that that information travels to the federal government in any way, shape, or form.

No, the federal government cannot reach into NYPD’s information broadly. And what we’ve seen consistently is ICE pursuing a very strange and provocative pattern of deportations whether it is someone who has done a serious crime or someone who has done no crime. There is no rhyme or reason except they’re trying to provoke and it’s politically driven. But the NYPD has been very, very consistent and followed the broad City policy. We do not want to see anyone deported unless they are convicted of one of those 170 crimes.

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

Question: Good morning, Brian. And good morning, Mr. Mayor. I really take pride in being a New Yorker and when I hear you speak about making New York City the fairest big city, it really brings hope. I mentioned this two weeks ago, if you were looking or if you were able to do some research as to making some changes to the requirements in order to join the NYPD or the FDNY. And you mentioned that since you’ve been Mayor, there’s been a lot of diversity in the department however right now there’s 800,000 Mexican-Americans in New York City and only about 50 police officers of Mexican heritage and about one firefighter.

And my concern is really for the youth right because right now the Mexican-American community is leading in the high school dropout rates. Forty-one percent of the youth are dropping out of high school and when interviewed most of their response was because they don’t see enough Mexican-American role models.

And so, if the time that’s going to come is going to be now and it’s going to be with a great mayor like you that really believes in inclusion and diversity – so I was wondering if you had any updates on that research that you were going to do.

Mayor: Jessica, thank you and I want to – Brian, I want to give Jessica a model activist award here because she raised this concern at a town hall meeting and now twice on your show –

[Laughter]

And I commend her for that. I am scheduled to talk to the Police Commissioner to get a better sense of how the NYPD looks at this. My understand, Jessica I want to be very straightforward, is right now the current requirement which is for citizens for NYPD and FDNY that again we – my sense is from everyone who’s looked at this – that we think it is producing a very diverse workforce in the NYPD and increasingly at FDNY, and that the system is working the right way – now, more and more New York City residents, for example.

We have that deeper conversation, report back. I do not want to lead you down a path of thinking I’m going one way or another until I’ve had that fuller discussion.

But to the bigger point that Jessica’s making – first of all, there is definitely a large and growing Mexican-American community. I have never heard a number as high as 800,000. I think it might be lower than that but it’s still a big and growing community in this city.

I think our young people need role models from their own communities and beyond their own communities. I think this is a really powerful point about how we reach young people and inspire them. This is a lot of what we talked about in terms of this concept of being the fairest big city in America.

We have to reach young people in every conceivable way that gives them hope for their future whether it is things like pre-K or even more so 3-K which is coming next. You know full-day early childhood education for three-year-olds for free. We’re going to have that universal by 2021 in this city.

But also when I talked about the democracy plan, DemocracyNYC, to have civic education fully revamped, made universal in our schools, made current and pertinent and vibrant so young people are getting a message from the very beginning that they are going to be owners of this society. They need to get involved in their community right now. We want to register young people to vote when they’re 17 getting ready for them to immediately get involved in the electoral process when they turn 18. There’s a lot of things that we can do that I think will be inspiring to young people and make them understand the importance of everything they’re going to do going forward and give them that sense of being stakeholders.

So, I will come back with more for you, Jessica. But on the bigger point, the entire concept of being the fairest big city in America revolves around reaching young people and showing them an environment where they can feel they are stakeholders.

Lehrer: You recognized her from a previous call. I didn’t. You have a good memory for our callers, I guess.

Mayor: She’s a good caller.

[Laughter]

Lehrer: Here’s a question from listener Sophia via Twitter. She asks, “What does the Mayor intend to do with Rikers Island if they close the prisons? Who stands to benefit by the availability of that island sitting in the middle of our harbor with such gorgeous views and water access,” asks Sophia on Twitter. What’s your response?

Mayor: Well, I appreciate that question, Sophia because that’s a big question for the future. It is – look, it is a very important site because it’s big, it is obviously a complicated site because we’re going to have to take down what’s there now. Obviously there may be a need for environmental mediation. We’ve got an airport right next to it which for some people may not be the ideal place to be.

It’s – a lot of opportunity and a lot of challenges too. But a number of ideas are already being floated whether it is a place where we could put manufacturing facilities and do job creation, whether it’s a place to move a lot of City facilities a lot of our sort of physical mechanical space that our departments use so that we can open up other space for things like affordable housing and in other communities.

There’s a lot of interesting possibilities there. We’ve got some time for sure to start planning that but I think once we take a few more steps towards the closure – and we took a big step this week announcing the four sites for the new jails in the four boroughs that are going to allow us to have decent humane rehabilitative facilities for the future and that’s crucial, crucial to getting off Rikers.

And I want to tell all your listeners, Brian, the number one thing we need to get off Rikers more quickly is for the State of New York to step up and pass legislation to get bail reform, to stop having people anguish in jail because they can’t afford a minimal bail, to get speedy trial reform so that our judicial system works faster and acknowledges the constitutional guarantee of a speedy trial. There a lot of things the State can do this year by June that will allow us to shave years off the timeline for getting off Rikers. But in any situation we have the time to plan the next steps and I think there’s some real positive opportunities for the city.

The City will decide – to Sophia’s question – the City will decide. It’s City-owned land. We will decide the future of Rikers. There’s certainly not a private interest.

Lehrer: Joe in Queens, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hi, Joe.

Question: How you doing? Mr. Mayor, I am a veteran vendor on City Hall property and you know I’ve seen a lot of reports in reference to cheating on licenses – the selling of licenses. My concern is that everything from Central Park all the way down to Battery Park, I’ve seen that if you are a veteran vendor like myself, you are workers comp exempt but my problem is that if you go to these carts there’s no veteran behind the grill but what has been happening for years and years is that you have a whole bunch of veterans sitting on benches or what not and the law states the veteran is supposed to be there and he’s supposed to be behind the grill. And for years the City has been losing millions and millions of dollars in reference to workers compensation and I’ve contacted the workers compensation and I would like to know what the City is going to do.

Basically, on City Hall property [inaudible] –

Lehrer: Joe, is it that you feel as a veteran who is a vendor and gets special privileges as a veteran, that you have unfair competition from people who really aren’t vets?

Question: Yes but it’s mainly of the breaking of the rules by that is – a veteran is supposed to be behind the grill. If you walk by City Hall Park –

Lehrer: Yes.

Question: Or Central Park. There is none.

Lehrer: Not always the case. Mr. Mayor, are you aware of the issue.

Mayor: Yeah, absolutely and to Joe’s point – I just want to preface what an important idea and this is why when I talk about the fairest big city in America, this comes directly from my experience talking to New Yorkers all over the five boroughs. You know, this is a city – people are tough and resilient. We’re not afraid of a problem or challenge but people really want the rules to be fair and when they sense unfairness, New Yorkers are outraged.

So, this is – I think Joe’s got an important point here. The approach to vending has been really uneven. He’s right to call it out. And at the end of last year that we came close to a new law to tighten up enforcement on vendors to address what I cared about a lot which was the physical restrictions on where vendors can and cannot be vis-a-vis bricks and mortar stores, and we all know the brick and mortar stores are really hurting right now because of the changes in the retail world, to potentially increase the number of vendor permits as part of a balanced approach. And that could not be approved upon both within the Council and between the Council and the Mayor’s Office.

We’re going to back now under Speaker Johnson and see if we can get this done hopeful pretty quickly. But one of the things we need is – to answer Joe’s point – there needs to be consistent enforcement and we need to address once and for all this question of who really has the permits and how they’re using them. There has been, effectively, a black market in the permits. That’s not what we want to see but I think the only way we can address this is with a new and clearer law.

Lehrer: Lou on Staten Island, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hi, Lou.

Question: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Sir, on a scale of one to ten, I have given you a seven-and-a-half but I’m [inaudible] impressed with the way you are carrying on your administration when it comes to the pre-K business and then also your desire to bring young people into the government because by-and-large they are going to be the ones to succeed us.

My concern however goes back to policing. Since the killing of Eric Garner here on the island, there have been at least three to four killings by police officers. They cannot [inaudible] that we the taxpayers [inaudible] comfort to the deceased family or the grieving family. In other words, there is no disincentive so far to reign in these police officers. Now, I understand there are a few of them who commit these kinds of crimes but there has to be some kind of disincentive. They cannot [inaudible] they get exonerated and they go back on the force. We can’t have that. That’s what my concern is. There has to be a disincentive to reign in these police officers.

Mayor: And Lou, I want to say it this way. First of all, I know you’re speaking from the heart but I want you to understand what we’re trying to do here. Every police officer has been re-trained to de-escalate situations that in the past often unfortunately escalated and led to tragedy all around. I think that’s having a real effect. I think our officer show extraordinary restraint. When you think about 36,000 officers – and I said this the other day – 36,000 officers in a city of 8.5 million people, 365 days a year, let me tell you the fact for last year 2017 in this city. There were only 23 times all last year that police officer used their gun in an adversarial situation. And a lot of those got a lot of attention because they were situations in which someone unfortunately turned on an officer with a gun or a knife.

The fact is when you think about how infrequently our officers used their weapons and how the new training has really focused on both deescalating tensions and then again on top of that where someone, unfortunately when a situation when an officer is trying to deal with someone with a mental illness – in the past the officers used to be sent out just to fend for themselves. Now we are systematically training them in how to address it. 8,000 officers have received that formal training that we are going to, again over 20,000 officers who have that training in the next couple years. It’s a very different approach and I think it’s having an effect.

And the last thing I would say is I have, again immense faith in Commissioner O’Neill. There is a system of justice in which if an officer is charged in a court that’s the judiciary and that’s its own process but the police department also pursues disciplinary charges if there is a situation where an officer did not handle something right. And if you look at the outcomes of those disciplinary actions you see when the department judges that an officer handled something right, that’s one judgement. If they determine someone has not handled something right there are clear consequences.

Lehrer: Two other quick criminal justice things before you go – NY1 had Speaker of the Council Corey Johnson who said we are not wedded to an individual location when it comes to new jails. Do you hear that as him backing away from the announcement just this week to build a new jail in the Bronx?

Mayor: No, not at all. Speaker Johnson has been outstanding as was Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito before him and Brian I really want your listeners to hear this point – what happened this week is pretty amazing. Four members of the City Council stood up with their Speaker and said we will accept new jails in our district.

This is not typical is political life and it’s something that is really worthy of praise. They said we are going to do something good for the City of New York – we believe we should get off Rikers Island, we believe there needs to be a more humane approach and a more rehabilitative approach to correction. That can only happen with new and modern jail facilities. We will accept them in our own district. That was extraordinary.

The sites that are chosen, three have them existing correctional facilities – the fourth one was the only site that we could determine was big enough, was city owned land, was available, currently a tow pound in the Bronx and therefore obviously can be moved and built upon, I mean the existing facility can be moved and the land can be built upon.

So it was a very long process to determine the right location. I think what the Speaker is saying whenever we have a land use process we are always going to listen to communities and people always welcome to put their ideas on the table. But I think he has been fantastic in his leadership saying we are going to move forward with four borough jails.

Lehrer: Final thing – school shootings, two conservatives in the State Senate have proposals, Senator Marty Golden wants what he calls smart scanners in every school which he says could spot a weapon in someone’s possession in a crowd of students, not just one at a time through inspection stations. And Senator Simcha Felder wants and armed police officer at every school. Your reaction?

Mayor: Well I swear by the NYPD on this issue – I spoke to Commissioner O’Neill yesterday, we met about what we could do in the aftermath of Florida and obviously given the incident that was uncovered – and I really want to commend the NYPD and the FBI for their extraordinary work uncovering this incident in Harlem.

But here’s the bottom line, we are going to immediately begin drills in all of our schools, we’ve been doing it in the past, we are going to do it again very quickly, drilling our schools to handle an active shooter situation.

We have extraordinary intelligence gathering capacity throughout the NYPD. It is very focused – that the NYPD intelligence gathering and counter-terrorism effort is equally focused on looking for anything that might be a threat to a school and in fact they have intervened in a number of situations to make sure there were no threats to schools. I believe strongly in that capacity and what they have achieved and what they will achieve. And we have 36,000 officers who can obviously be deployed very, very quickly so we believe that is the right way to approach safety.

We are going to be having a lot of dialogue with parents – the most important thing that New Yorkers and particularly parents can do and students can do, is if they sense something is wrong, we need it reported right away. You can go to a teacher, you can go to a police officer, you can call 3-1-1 or if it’s something that appears to be immediate call 9-1-1. But no concern should go unreported and it’s really important. This is how we stop these things. This is the number one way.

We obviously have scanning at schools that the NYPD and the DOE determine need it. We are going to be doing unannounced scanning on a regular basis throughout the school system. But the really, the single greatest deterrent is the intelligence gathering capacity and every day New Yorkers, including students, sounding the alarm if they feel anything may be a threat.

Lehrer: So smart scanners an improvement or armed police officers at each school?

Mayor: Again I don’t think that will achieve what everything I just said before will achieve. I think this is a much more, it’s a problem that has to be handled with much bigger solutions. We will look at anything, I’m never going to rule out things but I don’t think that’s how we solve this problem.

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

Mayor: Thank you, Brian.