January 8, 2020
Mayor Bill de Blasio: Alright, fire away. Questions?
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Well, I think as you saw in 2016, the Legislature feels very deeply that we have to protect health care for all New Yorkers. I'm obviously devoted to making sure that all the people who depend on our public hospitals and clinics are going to get the care they need and we spent a long time improving our public health system, we certainly don't want to see it start to fall backwards. But at the same time I have to say to you I don't know what the specific proposal is because we haven't seen any details yet. So, I am concerned for sure but I will reserve judgment until I know more. The one thing I do know for sure – there's one thing I am absolutely certain of, which is we can find a lot more savings under the current structure if the State and City work closely together. We think there's a lot of areas where we can save money and we're ready to roll up our sleeves and do that with the State right away.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: So, I think the bail reform was the right thing to do. I want to begin at the beginning because I think there's been a certain amount of conflating different issues together and I think it's important to go back to why this was necessary to begin with. I'm someone, as you'll remember in my testimony here a year ago and in previous statements, I believe the bail reform was necessary. Why? Because we had a huge number of people languishing in jail for solely economic reasons which was not fair in terms of justice, which was not good for the taxpayers, it was not good for our efforts to close Rikers and shrink our jail system. So, bail reform was one of the most necessary steps to end mass incarceration and to address the larger need for more equity in our justice system. That is not in doubt from my point of view. The question here that I've always felt is we have to do some other things beyond it, things that would have been necessary whether there was a bail reform or not in terms of ensuring that judges have the ability to act on something other than just flight risk. That's why I believe in judicial discretion.
Question: [Inaudible] and reinvest that in the [inaudible] potentially exclude [inaudible] your reaction.
Mayor: Yeah, so, I think you have observed carefully that the typical reality in Albany is we get a very broad pronouncement without a lot of detail. When the detail comes out then people start to engage. So if you said to me, do we need a bigger Penn Station for the future with a lot more capacity, I say a resounding yes, but I like all New Yorkers, we have to understand what the specific plan is. If it is a plan that ignores the rights of a locality to make its own land use decisions, I have a problem with it. If it's a plan that attempts value capture without the agreement of the City of New York, I have a problem with it. So, it might be a plan I love, it might be a plan I have questions with but right now we don't have those details on the table. We're ready to engage with the State and work it through because we do share the ultimate goal.
Question: [Inaudible] lifetime away from coming to fruition but – where are your red lines on that?
Mayor: Well, let me – before I talk about the red lines. I think we now have – what we all have, most of us have been together a number of years here. We have six years of experience and again we see a pretty clear pattern where all sorts of proposals come out of Albany and some really go nowhere and some end up being exactly what they originally were proposed to be and then a lot are modified along the way. So the fact is, if the goal is a good goal – and it is – well that's great then that gives us a ground for some common interests, common action. But you've also seen previous proposals on value capture that went down in flames and you've seen previous proposals that would have usurped local land use power not only from New York City but from suburban areas and other areas that were greatly resisted by the Legislature. So, what I think it all adds up to is if the State wants to get it right let's all work together, let's figure out something that we can be comfortable with because we do share the overarching goal.
Question: [Inaudible] considering you weren't briefed on the plan or the details before they rolled it out?
Mayor: I am never surprised by that habit. I don't think it's the ideal way to go about things but it's not surprising. But we – again it's not quite Groundhog Day but I have been to this movie a bunch of times. It really doesn't ultimately matter what happened in the first act. What matters is how it all plays out. I'm ready to sit at the table and my team is ready to sit at the table because we share the goal. But we've been abundantly clear that there are certain things that must be addressed and historically when we've raised those concerns, the Legislature has been very, very responsive. The Legislature respects local rights in terms of land use. The Legislature has been very receptive on point about respecting localities on value capture because obviously that's about local revenue and our ability to provide everything, schools, policing, everything else. So, what I have found is the Legislature – by the way even before the Democratic State Senate, the Legislature was very responsive to localities on this point and I expect they will be again. So that encourages an environment where everyone should come together and figure out something where the State and the City can be on the same page.
Question: [Inaudible] questions about the Medicaid [inaudible]?
Mayor: I, again, have learned to not get too invested in analyzing or prognosticating about an idea until I've seen the details. I am certain the State has some fiscal challenges, I respect that, but my first response is okay let's all sit at the table and figure out how we can save money together and make sure that the common goal is to not take health services away from New Yorkers who need them. So, I can see that happening for sure, I can see that being the outcome. That's what I think has to be the outcome. I also think that the Legislature will demand that. They represent all these constituents who might lose their health care and they're going to be aggressive, I think, about protecting those folks. So, that's what it comes down to in the end. What's going to help us address the budget issue but not take away the most fundamental – like literally life and death services from people. And I think the cost savings are the way out and we're ready to work on the State on that.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Well, on homelessness, I honestly want to understand the vision because I am glad he raised it but I didn't hear a specific plan. We obviously stand ready. We have a couple of really big plans running right now. The Journey Home plan is the plan to end long term street homelessness. The Turning the Tide plan is the plan to reduce shelter population. We're moving on those plans right now and we're putting a huge amount of City resources in them. It would be tremendous to have more State support and more collaboration with the State to aggressively move those plans. The thing we need is the Home Stability Support Act. I think that's the single most important thing in terms of ideas that have come out of Albany in recent years that would really help us address the homelessness crisis. I think that's the best idea I've heard and I believe there's a lot of support for it in the Legislature. So, looking forward to understanding more of what the Governor is thinking but I'm certainly going to be focused on trying to work with the Legislature to pass the thing that I know would have an immediate positive impact on our people and that's certainly the Home Stability Support Act. Your second part was –
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Yeah, look on NYCHA, I didn't hear anything today but of course the speech is – it doesn't cover everything and we haven't seen the more tangible document – it will be the budget. We've made some progress. The $450 million has been release by the State, that was good. We certainly are going to need more, going forward. But I think here has been some coming together of all the different levels of government on a common vision around supporting NYCHA after a lot of challenges – I think that is the sum-total of what's happening, and that's a good thing.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Look, I think for anyone who has been governing for a while – and, you know, this is nine years, if I'm counting correctly – it's understandable that you're building on your initial vision and your initial program, right? I'm going to be giving my State of the City soon and I'm going to be talking about what we've been doing for six years and building on that. So, I think it's different than your first or your second such speech where everything's new. I think some of the topics he raised were certainly the right topics – you know, the things that people care about a lot – I just don't think it was the venue to hear a lot of specifics, so it's hard for me to comment because I don't really see a lot of what he specifically wants to do. But, look, I think the good news for the State of New York and the City of New York, there are some pieces of the equation – and as a patriotic New Yorker, you love to see things like those unemployment numbers. Everyone should be proud of the fact that our economy has grown the way it is. We have, in my six years, over a half-million new jobs in New York City. That's amazing, I'm thrilled about that. But we can't mistake that – this is kind of my challenge to all of us in elected office – we can't mistake that for what's happening with every-day people. There's an affordability crisis and even though the economy is strong, even though there's a lot that has improved in New York City and New York State, there's a really – a huge underlying challenge around affordability that we all have to do more to address. That's certainly something that I'm going to try and talk about in my State of the City.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Well, I want to say to you – usually I have a pretty good memory – I don't remember that one, meaning I don't remember being asked to approve that. And I want to also be careful because in all of the planning for the future of Governor's Island, there's been talk about things like academic conferences and technology research centers and things like that. So, I'm not – I want to be careful not to misstate or misunderstand whatever was being talked about. Look, I am self-critical about the whole Amazon process. I've said this before, but I'll say it again – I would love to get that one back, because, in retrospect, we should have not played by their rules, we should not have agreed to a national competition. We had a situation that was singular in New York City. We had things to offer that no place else had, and I think it would have been healthier for the public discourse and would have helped us smoke out what they were really after if we had our own individual process with them. And if they didn't want to do that, okay. But I think that's what we should have tried to do.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Yeah, I've never seen anything on this scale. I mean, correct me if you have, because I haven't.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: I would say this – so, let's first start with what it was – a single transaction that would bring 25,000 to 40,000 jobs and, between City and State, you had the projection of $27 billion in revenue over time. I've never seen anything like that, never heard of anything like that in my life. So that – in something as singular as that, I think we should have just said this is a thing unto itself, let's do it – party-to-party – you know, direct negotiation. I think if you're talking about a smaller one, it's a different dynamic. But I think the underlying point I'm making is, the "national competition" skewed everything. We could have had a different conversation with our communities if we were not working in the context of the ground rules set – we could have set our own ground rules. I think we could have acclimated people to what it would take and how it worked. I think we could have talked earlier about what the incentives were and what they weren't – what the return on them would be. In retrospect, you know, there was a secretiveness, which we had to live by, but I don't think it was healthy. The goal was a seismic goal. You'd be out of your mind not to want that for your city. But I'm very critical in retrospect, because I think we didn't see that there was another path we could have taken.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: If another company with a huge magnitude impact on our economy came along, I would say – let's sit at the table one-on-one and work this out, not through some competition.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: We are working on that. It's proven to be a challenge to engineer it the way that we believe will work. Still, we believe in the goal, absolutely, but we're working – literally, we've been working in recent months in how to get that done the right way and the jury is still out.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Yeah, so the report that we put out just over a year ago, I think, is the roadmap to the right kind of legalization process, and it is the basics about legalizing and following the pattern we've seen in other American state go through that worked, that struck the balance between public safety and health, but with addition features, like expunging records, obviously, and investing both the revenue – but beyond the revenue, the franchises, the opportunity to do business in this new industry, concentrating them in the communities that bore the brunt of the laws over many years and had the negative impact on families and neighborhoods. I think – the theory that I put forward is, we will be, all of us, present at the creation of a brand new industry – that's a rare, rare thing – and if we could go back and do it over again on the tobacco industry, or the pharmaceutical industry, or any number of others, we would have put very different rules into place. Here's a chance to ensure that this is not a heavily corporatized industry that then tries to make money and not invest in communities and doesn't have an interest in health and safety, as we saw most famously with the tobacco industry. So, I would like to see something we've never seen before – a small business-focused, a community-based business-focused model, and a heavy focus on reinvesting in the communities that suffered most from past laws.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Yeah. First of all, your hat is hypnotic. I think you should wear – you know, you should wear it more often because it totally disorients the viewer.
[Laughter]
I feel like I'm about to give you my bank account numbers. So, we should pass a bill that gives localities the right to regulate. So, we should end this reality that's illegal, even though it's happening all over the place – but empower localities to regulate. We actually thought that's what was going to happen when the Legislature passed it. I assumed it would be signed. The Governor's raised some real safety concerns that I share. So, if this is a matter of tweaking and figuring out how to strike that balance, I'm hopeful and we certainly want to see it pass. So, we will work with everyone to get it done.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Yeah, so I'm focused on the speed and, obviously, on the e-bikes, the more developed e-bikes that go faster, I want to see that addressed and limited. I'm concerned with scooters. I think we're all trying to figure out scooters, how to make things safe. I think there's a legitimate issue around helmets. I don't have the perfect answer, but I think it's an issue that has to be resolved in any regulation. My view of the world is, there's a whole lot going on on our streets and it's kind of become exponentially more complex while getting more crowded, and I'm really concerned about safety. But I think these are answerable questions. They have to reside locally. We have to have the power to create those standards.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: I am trying to remember on pedal assist – is it 15?
Unknown: [Inaudible]
Mayor: 20. So, right – so pedal-assist level is where I think everything should stop.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: You know, every mayor for generations has gone all over the country. In fact, many have gone all over the world, representing their views, acting on issues of importance to New Yorkers, but also national and international issues that came home to effect New Yorkers. This is not a new thing. And all of them for quite a while – I don't know exactly when, you know, the modern level of police protection was instituted, but it's been a consistent standard that the NYPD protects you wherever you go. It's just as simple as that.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: I don't anything about that. All I know is that protection – from day-one I was told, wherever you're going, protection is being provided.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: So, you have asked three profoundly connected questions and I commend you, sir. I would love to move it, but I need a suitable replacement. And yes, I think it has to be in Manhattan. I think there's common sense here – if your car is taken from you – now, you could say, you know, you did something wrong and that's why your car was taken – but if your car was taken, we actually believe it's right that you should be able to get your car back and that there is a proximity question there. If you have to go to a whole different borough to get your car back, I think that's a problematic. So, I believe the goal here for a long time has been trying to figure out a solution. Happy to work with the State on it, but, you know, it's sort of the classic you can't fight something with nothing. We've got to find a place for the tow pound and I can't see an effective way of doing that outside of Manhattan – listening, but I don't know how you do that.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: I don't think from everything I know there that we have the capacity to do that. But again, I would look at anything, but I think the right starting point is to say people who have their vehicle taken have to have the opportunity to get their vehicle back in some reasonable proximity.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Look, the State and the City work very closely together on Hudson River Park. I think everyone would say there was some good elements of the legislation, there were also some problems that that led to ongoing concerns and there was never enough consensus. I'm going to work from a hopeful position that everyone comes back to the table and we resolve it. What is the right way to address the revenue questions? What are the right uses? I'm hopeful. I think we got close, but not quite there for obvious reasons. I think this is the year that I'm going to see if we can all work it through and get it done.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Yeah, I'm not a scale-of-one-to-10 kind of guy. But I would say, look, the Governor and I have known each other a long time. We've had ups and downs like a lot of people who have known each other a long time. We have always communicated through everything. There's a lot of things that we agree on, some things we disagree on but we're able to work together. Our teams are working together constantly. You know, I think it's – life goes on and we deal with things issue by issue.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Design-build was huge. And I want to say to all of the folks on my team and all the folks in the Legislature and lots of folks who've labored for years, including – I remember many a meeting at City Hall where it's like, this is never going to happen. Like, that was the going assumption – it was an impossibility even though it made so much sense. And I want to say, I will pick up on a theme from the Governor's speech that I agree with in many ways that showing the public that we can do things well is crucial at a time where there have been legitimate doubts about government and then a whole lot of illegitimate doubts fostered, I think, propagandistically against the notion of government. Design-build was one of those things that drove me crazy, because here was a way to save time and save money for everyone's benefit and it was like unbelievable to me that this was not a consensus. But we're also all mature adults here, we understand there's cross pressures and interests and everything else. The fact that it finally got done on a huge scale actually is really important for the City of New York. It's going to save us a lot of money. It's going to save us a lot of time in terms of serving people, but it's also going to say to people that, you know, after a certain amount of drama, the government can actually get its act together and do something smart. So, it's a big, big deal. In terms of this coming session, the things that I would love to see a focus on – Home Stability Support Act would be a seismic contribution to addressing homelessness. And since New York City – I would literally say we are on the offensive now because we do see a reduction in the street homeless and a reduction in the shelter homeless population. We intend to drive those down aggressively. Getting that support from Albany would be hugely important, strategically crucial moment for it. I think in terms of a public housing, again, I'm an optimist by nature, but I think it's an objective statement – something important has happened the last year, a sort of coming together the different levels of government – you know, monitor in place who everyone's working with. There's a very productive moment for NYCHA. Having additional State support as we move forward will be crucial to fueling that. On schools, very, very happy with some of the basic metrics – graduation rate, number of young people going on to higher education, test scores – like, some real stuff is happening, but we've got to keep our, you know, our foot on the pedal. And so, seeing our State education support go up, not down – it went down last time. That was a rarity. I think there's a lot of energy in the Legislature in general around education. You won't be shocked if I say in even-number years, sometimes that energy goes up. And so, you know, we're going to push hard to get some additional education investments so we can keep building. Those are all central pieces of the agenda from my point of view.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: I think that's right. I don't know if that's right, but I think you're right.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Does that sound right? Checking third-base umpire –
Unknown: [Inaudible]
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Yeah. Look, let's separate again these concepts, because I think there's been some conflating here, as I said earlier, on the very valid and necessary bail reform and then something else that I think is valid and necessary, and have felt for a long time, which is judicial discretion. But then there's a separate question, which is what has been happening in recent months on hate crimes? And –
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Hold on, hold on – mid-sentence. Commissioner Shea said this very clearly with me that the question on the hate crimes is not bail at all. That's not pertinent to this discussion, because what we're talking about here is if someone commits an offense, we want to arrest them, we want to prosecute them, we want them to get whatever appropriate penalty. Bail is just the thing that you deal with on the way to your trial and your potential conviction. So, I think we have to separate those pieces.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Okay, I'm sorry if I misunderstood.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: Again, my view is our interest here is not remanding people, it is prosecuting people and having them suffer whatever appropriate consequence. The bail process historically – so this gets back to the remanding point – is about whether someone was a flight risk. If someone is not a flight risk, they generally speaking were able to make bail. And now, the bail reform clarifies that. What I am concerned with is stopping the crimes to begin with. If someone has done a crime, and particularly if they've done it repeatedly, I want to see the appropriate penalty. That consequences is what will change hearts and minds, not whether someone is held in or not. I want to see the consequences. And I think we're going to be able to show more and more, because there is now this dedicated force of over 150 officers who will stay in the areas that are most greatly affected, continuing to show arrests, prosecutions, penalties. That's where I think we change the situation.
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: So, I would say, if there's a mental health challenge involved, that's where – we talked about it a few days ago – all of the agencies – and this is the missing link we have to perfect – prosecutors, police judges, health agencies, social service agencies all have to coordinate in a way they never have, because if someone needs a mental health evaluation and that's what might determine whether or not about bail or about remanding, but whether they need an evaluation that leads to mandated services, that's one track. Otherwise, again, I have faith – and we all are trying to speed up the trials – I have faith that ultimately the combination of penalties and consequences, which I think ultimately changes behavior, a huge amount of police presence, things like Community Safety Coalition patrols, the work we do in the schools are all going to change the trajectory of this. So, that's the best answer I can give you.
Last call –
Question: [Inaudible]
Mayor: I have heard concerns in a lot of different settings – town hall meetings and other settings – and I have a sense of some of the things that people want to see. For example, one of the most productive ideas is how can we do conversions of bikes to bring them to that speed limit so that if someone has invested in a bike, you know, they don't have to lose the bike, but they can conform with what our goal is for safety. I think that's a really actionable idea. I think the idea of focusing our enforcement on the businesses, not the person, which was the original idea, but a lot of advocates have said that's not happening effectively, I take that to heart and I've asked the Police Department to go back and evaluate what it's going to take, if it's true that's not happening sufficiently, and, if so, how do we change the approach to focus the penalties? I don't want the penalties to be on the little guy. I want the penalties to be on the people who hire the delivery person. That was what we said from day-one. If that's not happening, it has to happen. So, those are two of the things that I want to see us act on to the maximum extent possible now, but also on the way to hopefully a legal framework that will take us forward. Okay, last call.
Thank you, everyone.
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