Transcript: Mayor de Blasio Appears Live on WNYC

April 28, 2017

Brian Lehrer: It’s the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We begin as usual on Fridays with our weekly Ask the Mayor segment with Mayor Bill de Blasio. Last week, I asked for calls specifically on public safety and criminal justice, with some related things very much in the news last week. Today, we’ll rotate back to wide open phones. Your questions for the Mayor from any borough on any topic. 2-1-2-4-3-3-W-N-Y-C, 4-3-3-9-6-9-2. Or you can tweet a question – just use the #AskTheMayor. I will be watching the tweets come in. And we will look for some Twitter questions to ask as well. Use the #AskTheMayor.

And Mr. Mayor, welcome back to WNYC.

Whoops, do we have him?

I think maybe now you can hear me. Mr. Mayor, I apologize. Are you there?

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Hello. 

Lehrer: Hi.

Mayor: There we go. 

Lehrer: There we go. Now you can hear me, right?

Mayor: Yeah, we were having some technical difficulties before. Here we go. 

Lehrer: Sorry about that. You’d think – 2017, we would be beyond technical difficulties.

Mayor: Brian, we can put a man on the moon, but we can’t get the call-in radio to work.

Lehrer: Old media. Call-in radio.

Let me start on the topic of rent. After two years of zero percent increases in rent-stabilized apartments, for one-year lease renewals, the Rent Guidelines Board, appointed by you, has now recommended allowing a one to three percent increase for next year in its preliminary recommendation for a one-year lease; two to four percent for two-year leases. The landlords wanted four to six percent. Tenants advocates wanted rents reduced. You’ve defended the zeros here before for the last two years. Did they get it right for this year in your opinion?

Mayor: Yeah, it’s based on the facts. And here’s the reality – the Rent Guidelines Board that I’ve appointed was given the specific responsibility of looking at all the facts, not favoring landlords as I think the Rent Guidelines Board often did in the past, but actually looking at all the facts, considering affordability for tenants as an important factor. That’s what led to those rent freezes for two years. But so to be clear about the facts, in those two years, one of the most changes objectively was the price of fuel had gone down so much for landlords. Now, the price of fuel has started to come back up. It’s the single, biggest moving part here. This was a choice based on those facts, taking everything into account, no bias towards the landlords, but actually going by the numbers. When you add up the four years I’ve been in office, this is by far the lowest increases over four years in the history of the Rent Guidelines Board, which goes back almost a half a century. And it’s because I think the rules are finally fair. And they’re finally respecting tenants as much as they do landlords. So I think the Rent Guidelines Board has really done an extraordinary job. This is the range, as you know. There has to be a vote later on the final numbers. But I believe it’s being done the right way. 

Lehrer: I’m going to go right on to another topic. You released your latest budget proposal for the fiscal year that starts on July 1st. And you’re proposing to spend tens of millions to begin expanding public pre-K to three-year-olds, not just four-year-olds. Do you have enough data on the impact of four-year-old universal pre-K to take this step?

Mayor: Absolutely. The national data – and the one thing that makes me very hopeful, Brian, for the future of our country is that we have a lot of data on pre-K, and it’s from blue states and red states, alike. New Jersey, New York, Washington, D.C. have been leaders on pre-K, but also Oklahoma and Georgia have been leaders on pre-K. I think we have lots of evidence and consistent evidence that that is one of the smartest educational investments we ever make is early childhood education. Some of the biggest impact for the dollars we spend. It sets up success at all the levels up above. I remind you the linchpin of my Equity and Excellence vision for the schools is getting our kids reading on grade level by third level. When I came to office, that was only 30 percent of kids. Now it’s 41 percent. We have to drive that up to as close to 100 percent as humanly possible in the next few years. This is one of the ways you do it. You start even earlier with quality education, full-day 3-K. And then the other piece of it is, of course, you lighten the burden on parents. There’s a huge economic stress that parents experience with the $10,000 or more they pay for preschool per child per year and the lack of certainty, whether they’re ever going to find a seat. We want to take that stress off of parents. We want to create consistency and reliability. I think it’s proven itself many times over. And I got to tell you – I hear a lot of complaints in New York City on a lot of things from my constituents, I rarely hear a complaint about pre-K. I think parents feel it really has helped their kids.

Lehrer: Now, I believe this would start in two neighborhoods, and – 

Mayor: Two districts, actually – two full districts. District 23, school district 23 in Brooklyn, which is Ocean Hill, Brownsville, East New York. And then district 7 in the South Bronx. They will go fully universal over the next two years. Then we’ll add two districts per year with each successive year. The goal is to get some additional funding – State, federal, or both – to bring this up to fully universal by the fall of 2021.

Lehrer: Now, Governor Cuomo usurped or helped, depending on your point of view, the universal pre-K program for four-year-olds by making it statewide after you proposed it for the city. Any indication he’ll jump in for the three-year-olds?

Mayor: Look, I think anytime the State of New York is focused on early childhood education, it’s good for everyone. I think it’s true the 2013 campaign here in New York City generated a lot of focus on pre-K. I think that did help to increase the State’s focus and the investments the State made. By the way, to be fair, the New York State Assembly for almost 20 years previous had been fighting for a truly universal pre-K program. But there wasn’t the focus in the whole public debate to get it there. I think the 2013 campaign helped it do that. We’re going to do it again. We’re going to crystallize the focus on early childhood education. We now have unlike in 2013, 2014, we have a real living example to point to in the success of pre-K. So look, I think the State has been making important investments, they should keep going. This is the best way to secure the – both the social and economic future of New York State is to make heavy, heavy investments in early childhood education.

Lehrer: Here’s a tweet, the exact same tweet is coming in from a number of people, probably involved in tenants’ organizations on the Rent Guidelines Board recommendation. It says landlord profits up 11 years straight, and tenants get only two rent freezes – where is the justice? 

Mayor: I think the fact that we’ve had two rent freezes for the first time in our history is absolutely an example of the facts winning the day – the Rent Guidelines Board no longer being biased towards landlords, but being fair to all. Again, the price of fuel objectively has rebounded, gone back up. The ranges we’re talking about here that the Rent Guidelines Board voted for – you know, to be very clear – one to three percent increase on the one-year lease, two to four percent increase on a two-year lease. That’s going to be honed to a final decision. But if you look at those ranges, those are still very low by comparison to what’s happened in the past. And again, over the last four years, the lowest by far. I think this is justice. I think this is consistency and justice, and I’m amazed if people don’t remember what they experienced just four years ago and before where tenants I don’t think we’re taken into account in the process. This is – this is what’s going to happen from this point on in my view – an objective process that creates real balance and fairness. These are very fair numbers. 

Lehrer: Morgan in Manhattan, you’re on WNYC with Mayor de Blasio. Hello, Morgan. Morgan, are you there?

Mayor: Morgan, can you hear us?

Question: Hi, I’m here.

Lehrer: Oh hi, you’re on the air.

Question: Good morning. Hello. Thank you both for everything you’re doing for the public, for the city. Thank you, God bless you both. I’m calling about a wonderful independent lady who is slowing down. I made the mistake of recommending Access-A-Ride to her. And her account opened in January, and between January and March, there were seven times that they never showed up. She put in requests for reimbursement because you can do that. You have to wait six to seven weeks for each check. She got two. She’s waiting for five. It’s been nothing but a disaster. I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have horror stories. I was wondering if the City can do anything to help regulate the three companies – I think it’s three companies – who are servicing the five boroughs for the people in need. I don’t think it’s right. I don’t think it’s fair. 

Mayor: Well, Morgan I really appreciate the question. In fact, I had a townhall meeting last night in Queens, and the same topic came up. A senior citizen was really upset about similar experiences – rightfully so. Well this is a chance Morgan, Brian for me to say something I like to remind New Yorkers of. The Access-A-Ride program is run by the MTA. The MTA is run by the State of New York. That does not mean we don’t want to fix it. It doesn’t mean we’re not going to contribute in a lot of ways to fix it. Doesn’t mean we’re not going to contribute in a lot of ways to fixing it. It just means we have to be clear who’s making the decisions. The State of New York is making decisions about Access-A-Ride.

Lehrer: Well, we had a segment this week with people who were filing a lawsuit against the MTA primarily on behalf of people in wheelchairs because there are so few subway stops with elevators, and those that have elevators an unconscionable percentage of the time have un-working elevators. And part of that was that Access-a-Ride and the buses are just, you know, not a sufficient solution including kind of what Morgan was saying – that Access-A-Ride is just so bad. Would the city consider getting in on that lawsuit with the MTA?

Mayor: I’m not sure about the lawsuit, but I was just going to tell you what we think can be fixed. And again we have representation on the MTA board but not a majority. I think we’d handle things very differently if we controlled the MTA. One thing we’re willing to work with the MTA to achieve is a pick-up structure that resembles what happens with a lot of the for-hire vehicles. What’s happening now is Access-A-Ride doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. It should not be left this way. It’s been this way for years and years, and the state and the MTA have done nothing about it. We want to do something different. We take advantage of the fact that there’s this whole phenomenon of better ways of picking people up and finding a system based on that model that works for a lot of seniors. It may not work for folks obviously who need more help, who for example are in wheelchairs. But we do have more and more taxis that are wheelchair accessible, so we’ve got to figure out a different model because this one isn’t working and the city is ready to come forward and work with the state, work with the MTA to develop a new plan. We can help make that plan work, but, you know, the famous Einstein definition of insanity? We’re going the same thing over and over, it’s not working. The state and the MTA need to wake up and realize Access-A-Ride is broken, and let’s get together and figure out a new model.

Lehrer: And actually I asked you if the city would go in on that suit against the MTA – I’m reminded that the city is one of the entities being sued in one of those lawsuits for not doing enough for the handicapped.

Mayor: Again, I think you’ve got to separate what is the state’s responsibility, which is everything related to the MTA, so if people are concerned about the problems of Access-A-Ride or problems the lack of access for the disabled to subway stations, that’s a question for the MTA and the State of New York. Those are not run by the City. I wish, again, that we ran a lot more. I think we would run it differently and better. But in terms of what our responsibilities are, you know, this city has increased constantly the amount of accessible transportation that we control. Obviously the mandate we put for accessible taxis for example, and we’re putting a huge amount of money into creating more accessibility in a lot of different parts of the public world including obviously our schools. We’re going to keep doing that. We believe in an accessible society, but the Access-A-Ride situation that’s the state and the MTA. They need to fix it. We’re ready to help them figure out a new model, which will be much more customer friendly and much more responsive, and takes advantages of technological advances that allows us to do better by the consumer.

Lehrer: Nick in Queens, you’re on WNYC.

Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Mayor de Blasio. I want to thank you both for this program and Mayor for your great work for New York City. I really think pre-K is awesome.

Mayor: Thank you, Nick.

Question: The Department of Investigation released a report on your Department of Correction Commissioner Ponte regarding 90 trips to Maine, thousands of dollars in fuel and tolls, and essentially he admitted that in crisis with command centers and operations he knew that he wouldn’t be able to get back to work to manage these ,and especially he was delegating by phone and email. Do you have confidence in your commissioner based on what is really an outrageous set of incidences?

Mayor: Nick, I understand the concern. I want to say a couple of quick things. I have absolute faith in Commissioner Ponte, just look at the facts of what he’s achieved. He has greatly improved our corrections system. He’s the guy – and I want to really give credit where credit is due – he’s the guy who got this New York City correction system away from punitive segregation, meaning solitary confinement, for young people. He’s the person who made that happen against a lot of opposition from the union and other voices out there. He’s the guy who created a system where our inmates get education and training, keeps them doing positive productive things and works on their rehabilitation instead of sitting around and unfortunately fostering violence. He’s the guy who’s brought down serious violence in Rikers in a host of ways. This is a guy who’s been a major reformer nationally and achieved a lot for us, and we owe him a debt of gratitude. On this particular issue I think bluntly our system needs to be fixed, and I think DOI did us a service by pointing out there’s something wrong in the way our commissioners are being instructed on the use of their vehicles. Commissioner Ponte, to the best of my understanding, was told by his own internal staff this was the right way to handle things. He’s someone who is on call 24 hours a day. If he leaves the city – which he has every right to do on personal matters – for example he needs to get back as quickly as possible. A lot of times it’s quicker to get back by car. I know this for a fact than trying to figure out if they’re going to be a flight in the middle of the night or anything like that. He was advised. He followed that guidance. That guidance was wrong. We’re going to go fix it across these agencies. And if there needs to be anything done to compensate we’ll work that out. So I’m glad DOI found this problem. We’re going to send a very clear message of re-orienting all agencies to make sure this problem does not exist and that commissioners are instructed very, very clearly on the use of vehicles. But if the question is his ability and how he’s run things and how much focus he’s made – look, this guy has achieved a lot. He’s been on the ball 24/7, and look we were very forgiving when my predecessor would leave on weekends to another country. I think we should be forgiving that Joe Ponte was told it was okay to go have weekends off with his family while still doing his job. The guidance about the car was the mistake and we’re going to fix that.

Lehrer: You called this weekends off, but the Times article today characterizes it as he spent 90 days, or a quarter of the year, outside of the city. Is that just weekends off?

Mayor: Well, think about two days out of seven. First of all, Brian, that’s a lot of time. And people do have a right to their weekends when they’re getting their job done. I know he did – obviously, he had other vacation time, but he also went and spoke around the country on the work being done and went to professional conferences, which we want our commissioners to do. It’s important for their growth and learning. It’s important for people in this field to share what’s working. So I’m – the bottom-line to me is always is the job getting done. The statistics, the facts on what’s happened in our Corrections system are stunning – the reduction in the number of people on Rikers down 23 percent since Joe Ponte took over. He has helped reduce mass incarceration. He has made Rikers safer. He took away the thing that more than anything contributed to the loss of Kalief Browder, which was solitary confinement. He took that away for people from 16 to 21 years old. He has done so many reforms. He doesn’t get a lot of credit for them. But he’s done them. And I give him credit. I see it. So look, I don’t begrudge someone if they need downtime, so long as they get the job done. And he worked very hard, and has continued to work hard for the people of New York City.

Lehrer: And just specifically on what you say is the wrong guidance that he got, and you’re going to fix it. One of the stats I’m seeing is Ponte spent $1,300 in gas paid for by the City. And of that amount, $1,043 was charged out of state. Is it the distinction between filling up at an out-of-state when you’re – 

Mayor: Brian, I’m not – I’m not an expert on that. I want to remind you that I just released an $84 billion budget, so the fact that there’s $1,000 in gas expenses, you know, it’s put in perspective. But whatever was done here is going to be made whole. In other words, if he was given the wrong guidance and should not have handled it that way, we’ll figure out how to sort that out and make everyone whole. I’m telling you this is a guy who has done his job with tremendous integrity, followed the guidance of the professional staff on what the uses of his professional vehicle, which is something that is true in every organization – there are guidelines. For example, a lot of first responders are supposed to keep their vehicle with them for being able to respond quickly to a situation. Commissioner of a uniformed service – it’s not surprising that he got that kind of guidance. But it proves – what we know now, broadly at least – is the guidance was not precise enough and it needs to be fixed. And it needs to be clarified in each and every agency, exactly what staff can and cannot do with those vehicles. And what their personal responsibility is. We’re going to go and clarify that. This is the good news in this situation. The DOI report is going to help us button that down with every agency. And if anyone was given the wrong guidance and didn’t do something the right way, they’ll have a chance to fix that and make up for that.

Lehrer: Lisa in Brooklyn, you’re on WNYC with the mayor. Hello, Lisa.

Question: Good morning, Brian. Good morning, Mayor de Blasio. Two of my favorite people.

[Laughter]

Mayor: Thank you, Lisa.

Question: I’m calling you because I live in a senior citizen home – not a senior citizen home, but in NYCHA that’s basically senior citizens. As of April 14th, Good Friday, our cooking gas was turned off and as of now it’s still off. The manager of this development says she can’t say when the gas will be back on due to how they will have to have someone to come in and locate where the leak is coming from.

Mayor: Lisa, tell me right away where do you live?

Question: Okay, I live at 1634 St. Mark’s Avenue.

[crosstalk begins]

Mayor: And is that a private building or is it a public building? What kind of building?

Question: Part of the Marcus Garvey.

[crosstalk ends]

Question: It is a development of 98 senior citizens. It’s a part of Marcus Garvey, and –

Mayor: So it’s New York City Housing Authority?

Question: That’s right. It’s NYCHA. Okay?

Mayor: Okay, great, Marcus Garvey. And how long has it been off?

Question: It was turned off on April the 14th. Today is the 28th. It’s still off, but they had a meeting yesterday, and in that meeting the manager said that she can’t tell us when it will be back on because they have to first have someone come in that’s called tech services. They have to go through every apartment. It’s 98 apartments and check the walls.

Mayor: Lisa – Lisa, I gotcha. I got an answer for you. I know you feel agitated for a very good reason because it’s very hard to go about your daily life without the gas on. I’m sorry this has happened, but I want to give you the clear answer. We’ve had this situation in other housing authority buildings, and for too long the delays in getting the gas back on were tolerated. I don’t tolerate it. I’m going to instruct, based on your report, the Housing Authority, Department of Buildings, Fire Department, and they will reach out to ConEd as well to fix this situation right away. So we’re going to make sure that this gets worked on immediately. If you give your information to the WNYC folks, we will get you an answer today as to when we will get the gas back on, and I’ll make sure folks are really focused on it.

Lehrer: So Lisa, hang on. We’re going to take you off the air and get your contact information, and we’ll make sure that the Mayor’s people do follow up with you today as the Mayor promised. So thank you for calling in, and I hope this gets resolved for you.

Your budget includes new spending on legal services for immigrants because of Trump, but not if the immigrant who might be deported has been convicted of various deportable crimes. Advocates are arguing that every immigrant defendant deserves a lawyer even if they’ve committed a crime in this country. What do you say to those advocates?

Mayor: I say with deepest respect to the advocates we share values on these issues, and we agree on the vast majority of the specifics, but on this one I’m very clear. The City of New York passed a law. We delineated 170 offense that upon conviction – not just charge, Brian – upon conviction someone who is undocumented, then is convicted of a violent or serious crime – a list of 170 we’ve talked about before, it’s online, every New Yorker can see it – that individuals we believe it’s appropriate to cooperate with ICE on their deportation, and we will proceed to do that. So of course if we believe as a matter of policy and law that’s appropriate, we’re not going to provide legal services to stop that eviction.

Lehrer: And we have a tweet –

Mayor: I mean, excuse me. Deportation. I said eviction. Deportation, my apologies.

Lehrer: Related to that, prosecutors in Brooklyn I see will adopt a policy of sentencing recommendations aimed at keeping immigrants from being deported for minor crimes. I’m reading from a PIX 11 story. Immigrants are facing increased deportation concerns since President Donald Trump took office. Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announcement comes just days after the U.S. Justice Department again threatened to cut funding from sanctuary cities. What do you think about that with respect to judges recommending – prosecutors I should say recommending sentences that will come below a certain level. Does it sound like they’re sort of dumbing down what the crime is just to keep people from being deported?

Mayor: I haven’t seen what the district attorney wants to do, so I can’t comment in detail. I can comment on the broad strokes. The first responsibility of the city government is public safety, and a lot of advocates – good hearted people – have said, you know, change our approach to policing because of Donald Trump. We’re not going to do that. We’re not going to do that in any, way, shape, or form. We’re not going to go back to stop and frisk because Donald Trump wants us to. We’re not going to change what we think will make our people safe. We’re not going to ask people their documentation status. We’re also not going to change things that are working like quality of life policing because advocates are concerned about an effect it could have on ultimately a very small number of immigrants. Remember, the vast majority of immigrants are law abiding. This is where the cart and the horse are totally messed up since the Donald Trump election. Trump and Sessions have created a fiction that a huge amount of crime is committed by immigrants and narrowly by undocumented immigrants. It’s just not true. It’s never been true. The vast majority of immigrants, undocumented or documented, don’t commit crimes and to the extent that any of them commit crimes, the vast majority of those crimes are very low-level. It’s just like the rest of humanity.

Lehrer: Right, but it sounds like the Brooklyn DA wants to make sure that they’re charging people with things if they’re close to that line that are outside of your list of 170 rather than inside, even if it might have been charged on that more serious list, were it not for Trump’s threat.

Mayor: I think that I can’t – I’m not a lawyer and I have not seen the DA’s plan, but I can make a broad statement about how we’re policing that I think answers your point. We don’t want to change who we are, or what we’re doing because of fear of a policy of the Trump administration. We want to do what we think is right in terms of public safety. So my broad answer would be – we should continue doing what we think is right for everyone. We should not segment it out and say well if you happen to be undocumented we’re going to think about a different approach. I think we should keep to the same constant approach. But I also remind people there’s a lot of fear around deportation, legitimate fear. But if you look at the facts and the reality so far, and the numbers so far, that sad, hard truth is the numbers are not profoundly different than what happened under President Obama. And a lot of people, myself included, were critical of that. But let’s be clear – not a lot has changed on the ground even though there is tremendous fear. We’ve got to do – again I’m not going to speak to the specifics of the DA’s plan because I have not seen it. But from an NYPD perspective and a City of New York perspective we’re going to stay with our approach to public safety because it’s working. We’ve been driving down crime constantly. We’re going to stick to that; we’re not going to alter it because of what’s happening in Washington.

Lehrer: One more related question. As you know Attorney General Sessions is on Long Island today, making a point about the gang MS-13 that they are believed responsible for 11 murders in Suffolk County last year. And at least ten people arrested in a recent sweep of suspected MS-13 gang members were undocumented immigrants. So how much of a MS-13 problem does the city have to your knowledge, and how much related to undocumented immigration?

Mayor: A very limited problem. This came up at my press conference yesterday, and our Police Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill, our Chief of Detectives Bob Boyce both said – an exceedingly limited problem with MS-13 in New York City. It’s by far not one of the chief concerns of the NYPD. We are – we’ve had a number of gang takedowns in the city in the last couple of years, very successfully. But MS-13 does not have the presence here of a number of other gangs that are much more of our focus. I think the bottom line is – the Attorney General is trying to create, again this fiction that crime is created by immigrants that the President tried to do at the State of the Union with the “Office for Victims of Immigrant Crime.” Everyone’s being sold a bill of goods here. The problems we have with crime are not because of immigrants. We do have crimes problems, we do have to address those problems, they are not first and foremost because immigrants by any stretch of the imagination. And if you look at what’s happened in this country, who is committing crimes? People from here. I’m not saying there aren’t immigrants who do it too, but the vast majority of people in this city, in this country are from here. It’s not that immigrants create – commit crime at a higher rate, in fact a lot of experts believe they commit crime at a lower rate than the general population. So we’ve got to stop allowing this debate to be moved by the histrionics of Jeff Sessions. The fact is, if he – and by the way I asked Commissioner O’Neill yesterday this – has Jeff Sessions ever called Jimmy O’Neill and said how can we help you address crime? What kind of gang problem do you have? What would be the best approach, how should we approach immigration? Never. I told him to his face in November when I saw then the President-Elect and Senator Sessions, I said if you want to know the best way to handle these issues, call our Police Commissioner Jimmy O’Neill, call the Police Commissioner of LA Charlie Beck, talk to the experts. To this hour, Jimmy O’Neill has never gotten that phone call which proves this is not serious, this is political posturing. The Attorney General is not actually trying to reduce crime if he’s not talking to the people who fight crime every day.

Lehrer: Lauren in Sunnyside you on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Lauren.

Question: Hi Brian, I love your show –

Lehrer: Thank you.

Question: Hi Mayor.

Mayor: Hey, how are you doing Lauren?

Question: I’m calling to ask your advice about – the Mayor’s advice about advocating for a – for approval for a second Pre-K for All class. My son goes to an S1 Preschool here in Sunnyside called Amazing Magic Beans, and they applied for a second pre-K class and were not approved because apparently there are adequate [inaudible] in the district. But a spot is not a spot, you know, the grade school isn’t a great school. And Amazing Magic Beans has 30 kids on their waitlist for pre-K, 16 of whom, including my son are current students. And so they would be forced out of that community if they don’t get a second class. While I think Pre-K for All is a great program, but ideally it keep an excellent preschool community together. And I’m curious if you have any advice for us in helping to advocate for that second class.

Mayor: Well Lauren, I appreciate the question and this is something that’s a concern all over the city about how as we build out pre-K where exactly the classrooms are, which organizations we’re working with. You know we’re working with a lot of different non-profits and faith organizations in the creation of this program, and that will be true in 3-K as well. Now, what is the name of the organization? Amazing Magic Beans?

Question: Yes, Amazing Magic Beans.

Mayor: That’s a hell of a name.

Question: Yeah, it’s a good one right?

Mayor: It’s a good one. My kids went to a – they went to public full-day pre-K, but before that – for preschool – they went to a place called Beansprouts, so it’s sort of in the same family. But the – here’s what we’ll do. I’m going to have one of our senior folks at the Department of Education follow up with you today, Lauren, to see what the situation is. I want to remind you two things. When we do have a lot of capacity, look we would obviously always prefer to use the capacity we have in our public school buildings. We want kids, if whenever possible to go into pre-K in a public school building and just continue on up in the same building, or the same school. So when we can do that, we will. When we have other good options in the neighborhood – sometimes in the neighborhood there’s more than one good community-based organization doing pre-K and we have to make a judgment based on geography, and quality, and a lot of other things. There are still pre-Ks that are privately run or non-profit that are not part of our pre-K program, but continue on because parents want that choice, and even if it’s not part of what we’re providing they still want to do that independently. So there’s always that option if parents prefer, that costs money, but they have the right if they prefer it over what we offer. But I’ll have a senior person at DOE call you today to hear directly what the concern is and make sure that we’re looking at every option in Sunnyside and see if this something that we can do more on.

Lehrer: Lauren, thank you for your call. Last thing, I see on your schedule you’re honoring Mets legend Dwight Gooden this afternoon. And he’s been in the news a little in the last year for looking really bad in that ESPN documentary about him and Darryl Strawberry. The documentary was about both of them, and Strawberry later said Gooden is an addict. I know they’ve since made amends and he is going to be at this event too – Strawberry is. But what’s the honor about today, and why are you attending?

Mayor: You know Brian, this is a story of redemption, and it’s been a very complicated and painful story. But, the fact is that for New Yorkers – you know Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry in their moment of glory were extraordinary and you know, heroes, and we want to honor what they achieved. And we want to honor the fact that they’ve reconciled. And you know, people – and this is something we talk about all the time with the ThriveNYC program that my wife, Chirlane, has put together – we’re humans. People sometimes go astray and folks get addicted, and it’s tough. And the important point is – are they and everyone who loves them trying to help them overcome it? Are people trying to reconcile their differences and move forward? And Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry have done that, so we want to honor that. We want to honor that you know, there wasn’t necessarily the opportunity back in 1986 for them to enjoy everything they had achieved because these other issues that were roiling about, and we want to try and put that to rest and show the power of redemption.

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, thank you very much. Talk to you next week

Mayor: Thanks a lot, Brian.