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

June 14, 2019

Brian Lehrer: It’s the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. It is Friday so we begin as usual on Fridays with our weekly Ask The Mayor segment, my questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio. Our lines are open at 2-1-2-4-3-3-WNYC, 2-1-2-4-3-3-9-6-9-2, or you can tweet a question – just use the hashtag #AsktheMayor. Good morning, Mr. Mayor – welcome back to WNYC.

Mayor Bill de Blasio: Good morning, Brian.

Lehrer: Let me start today with two questions about forms – I mean, I should say, with questions about two forms of private transportation, taxis and helicopters. The deadly chopper crash on a building in Midtown this week, as you know, is bringing new attention to the fact that many New Yorkers don’t want as much helicopter noise and potential danger in the first place. They see it as unnecessary noise pollution and risk for the very optional pursuits of expensive tourism and rich folks’ commutes. Should the City – will you reduce the amount of helicoptering in New York?

Mayor: Brian, great question. We already have, is the first answer. A couple of years ago we reduced all those tourist flights by about 50 percent and we ensured that they had to stay over the water. We have more to do for sure. I’d like to see further restrictions and we’re going to come forward with what the City can do but remember a lot of what happens with helicopters is federal jurisdiction, federal oversight. Here’s what I think the federal government needs to do – and I’m working with Congress Members Nadler and Maloney and Velasquez on this – I think we need a full-on ban on any helicopters going over Manhattan itself. Obviously, exceptions should be made for emergency response, first responders, uniformed services, obviously, news cameras, also news helicopters should be exempted.

But for any kind of civilian traffic, it should not go over Manhattan in any way, shape, or form. What we found out from this tragedy – this pilot, and you know, I feel horrible for what happened to him and my heart goes out to his family, but he had the right under current federal rules to take off regardless of the weather. He was supposed to apparently check in with the LaGuardia Tower for authorization but the fact that a helicopter pilot can do anything they want – there’s no true oversight, there’s no sanction, there’s no enforcement – and go over the most populated place in the whole country, it makes no sense. So, I think we need tighter rules that say, first of all, helicopters are only allowed to go over water. There need to be strict oversight and sanctions if anyone violates that.

And then we have to figure out how to start reducing helicopter traffic in any way we can. We’re going to need federal help to do that, though. I have to tell you that. We need that strong regulation. That’s going to take some real work.

Lehrer: On taxis, we’ve talked before about the New York Times investigation recently into how the City helped fuel the bubble in medallion values even before the Uber era, the Times reports, and in fairness almost entirely before you became Mayor and you stopped medallion sales. And I see you have a partial debt relief plan now. Want to describe what’s in it?

Mayor: Yeah, I think the important point is that we’re going at the root cause. What we announced this week was that the cap on for-hire vehicles would remain for another year. And every year we’re going to assess the situation and make a decision through our Taxi & Limousine Commission. So, we’re keeping the cap in place. We have raised the minimum wage for for-hire vehicle drivers, and we’re now putting a limitation on how long the for-hire vehicles can cruise around Manhattan, south of 96th Street.

And what that is all going to do is continue to drive up driver’s wages, it’s going to continue to reduce congestion and pollution, and this is going to allow for the drivers of today to have a decent livelihood. We think this new set of decisions are going to put about $6,000 a year in the pocket of the average driver, allow them to live a little bit more stable life.

The fact is that for folks who are already suffering because of what happened in the past – well, obviously, we’re not selling any more medallions as you said, but further we’re setting up a driver assistance center to try and help anyone facing financial challenges to navigate them. We will intervene in any way we can with banks and lenders. We’re also investigating the brokers. And we’re going to have, very soon, a report on what the brokers are up to. If brokers have been predatory we have very substantial penalties we can bring against them including revoking their license.

And if the for-hire companies – Uber, Lyft, etcetera – if they violate these new rules, if they don’t pay their drivers what they’re supposed to, if they don’t reduce the amount of cruising time where they’re causing all that congestion, if they violate the cap – very substantial financial penalties are available even up to the point of revoking the company’s license if they violate on an ongoing basis.

Lehrer: The head of the Taxi Workers Alliance, Bhairavi Desai, is quoted in the Times saying she appreciates these efforts but urges the City to take more drastic action such as bailing out drivers already in debt or pressuring banks to soften loan terms. This is for those who are under such pressure under the medallion loans that they took out, you know, before the market crashed. Why not go that far?

Mayor: Absolutely pressuring banks and lenders to be fair to drivers, we’ll do that. That’s part of this assistance center. Anyone that we can help and reach, we want to. Look, there’s been a tragedy here, Brian – the drivers who have taken their lives out of desperation. I keep saying everywhere, anyone who is feeling – a driver or anybody who is feeling suicidal should reach out for help because whether it’s a financial problem or any problem we can help you in any way we can and it’s – we obviously need you to stick with it and we’ll work with you.

And again reminding everyone, 8-8-8-NYC-WELL, is that number for anyone experiencing a mental health challenge. Anyone feeling suicidal –

Lehrer: But why not – but considering the unique historical aberration that’s taken place here, isn’t this a circumstance for a fairly large-scale public bailout of those particular yellow cab medallion owners?

Mayor: Brian, the problem is that there are so many folks who are struggling in this city and so many ways that people could say that they also are worthy. And the challenge is, this was a private market reality. We put the medallions out there, people made a decision whether to buy them or not. The minute we saw the market was in a bad place, we shut down the medallion sales. That’s the power we had. We are not the lenders. We do not regulate the lenders. The federal and state governments do that. But the challenge – I understand humanly why people would say, let’s do a bailout, but I think a lot of people in other industries who have suffered – I think a lot of people who are having trouble making ends meet would also feel that’s something they would want to talk about too.

And it’s just not what the City of New York has been doing. We don’t directly fund the drivers. So, we’re trying to use everything else we can for all the drivers out there now, raise their wages up, put more money back in their pocket, stop this horrible destruction of their value that’s happened because of the for-hire vehicle market. And remember the for-hire vehicles – the Ubers and Lyfts, they just flooded the market with cars to try and gain market share for their stock prices –

Lehrer: Right, but just one more thing on this. If the Times reporting is borne out by your investigations that the City was partly culpable for the bubble, would that change your position on a bailout?

Mayor: Again, I don’t understand a scenario where we could say the City was because the City at the time was selling medallions when they had real value. And the minute they didn’t we stopped it. So, I’m always willing to listen but I would caution, Brian, that again I understand a lot of times people will say can’t the City address everything? There are some things the City of New York simply has limits on and we want to do everything we can for these drivers. But, no, I think – what I saw up through 2013 and 2014 was what everyone thought was a legitimately strong medallion market. The taxis were doing very well.

And the reality of the technology change and other things just – it moved very, very quickly. That’s why I went for the cap in 2015. You know, really, Brian, the thing that would have been most valuable here that actually could have helped people a lot earlier is if the cap I proposed in 2015, which Uber radically, violently opposed and used all of their money to oppose and they spooked the City Council into not voting for it – if we had passed that in 2015 I think we would have seen an entirely different reality since then. I wish that had happened but we finally got there in 2018.

Lehrer: Neu in Manhattan, you’re on WNYC with the Mayor, hello, Neu

Question: Hi, I’m just curious, all the new rent regulations are talking about stabilization. Is rent control also included in that?

Lehrer: Right and for people who don’t know, that’s a separate and smaller and older group of apartments, the rent-controlled apartments, where the rents tend to be even more regulated and lower than the big number in the rent stabilization system. What about the rent-controlled apartments do you know?

Mayor: Yeah, and Brian I always like to be straightforward on this show, and we’ve all been so focused on the rent-stabilized apartments, which house over two million New Yorkers, and massive changes happened in Albany. I just want to give tremendous credit to the State Senate and the State Assembly. These are the reforms we waited for literally for a generation. Pretty much the entire agenda got achieved in Albany that now will allow us to preserve affordable housing for hard-working New Yorkers for decades in a way that never would have been possible before. This is the single biggest thing to finally add to – that we’ve been waiting for – to add to an affordable housing plan we have for 700,000 people. We’re funding anti-eviction lawyers to help people stay in their homes, but the missing link was Albany. The missing link, which the Republican State Senate would never approve, was really stringent rent regulation to protect tenants. It’s finally happened.

On rent control, that smaller slice, as you said, much smaller than stabilization, I honestly do not know whether this bill covered that entirely or partially. We can certainly get you an answer right away. Neu, just give your information to WNYC and we’ll get back to you on that.

Lehrer: Thank you for your call, Neu – we’ll take your information off the air. Also on the rent, you were just cheering the reforms coming out of Albany, so many people are. But I want to ask you about a warning about unintended consequences from Crain’s columnist Greg David today. He says they could cripple your affordable housing construction program, some of these new rules. He writes that a wage requirement for construction workers made it more challenging to make new projects profitable so provisions were included in this bill to soften its impact. One of those provisions allowed units in new buildings to escape rent regulation if their initial rents exceed the decontrol threshold. But, by ending vacancy decontrol, which this package does, it puts those new units back under regulation. And so while their initial rent is at market levels, increases will depend on the actions of the Rent Guidelines Board, which are almost certain to be less than renters would pay in the free market. So Greg reports that some developers are already wondering if they should proceed with new rental construction that they had planned. Are you concerned about that?

Mayor: Look, first of all, it’s always important when we’re making major reforms, and we’re making progress – every good progressive, I always say, should ask themselves about unintended consequences and keep an eye out, and be ready to make adjustments if something does not work as planned. We can’t be dogmatic.

But I would disagree with Greg David in the first instance. He’s a smart guy, he happens to be a guy who is much more a free market-eer than I am in the sense of his faith that markets will address all issues. The fact is that we’ve been very mindful and the Rent Guidelines Board has been very mindful of all factors when they make their decisions. They look at the costs that landlords have, they look at the impact on tenants, they do look at the affordable housing market, they look at all the trends in the economy that affect the rental market in making the decision each year. And each year is different. So that will be something that will be accounted for.

Also remember, so much of what we’ve been doing with our affordable housing program is creating new rent-stabilized housing, we believe in it. We think it’s the kind of housing that New Yorkers can depend on, that they know will be affordable for the long-haul. We’ve been trying to build much more and preserve much more of it and this law – for the first time, Brian, we’re going to have in New York City, for the next years, a net gain in affordable housing in a very serious way. After decades where we kept losing affordable apartments, we’re actually going to be able to turn that around.

So we’ll watch for any unintended consequences, but our whole team was deeply involved with the legislature, and I would say to date, from what – every analysis we’ve seen of that bill, we think it is consistent with our vision of affordable housing, and we think we could make it work.

Lehrer: So, you’re telling developers, don’t worry, the rent stabilization increases will be fair to you and provide enough for this to be worth your investment?

Mayor: It’s always been that way that when we make these decisions we look at all the factors, and look – for the last six years, because it’s been six years now that under my watch the Rent Guidelines Board and, you know, the folks I appoint have made decisions. We’ve worked very closely with the affordable housing world to understand their needs and the facts of what they are going through—

Lehrer: Though on your watch the rent increases have been very low, zero a few years, 1.5 percent last year I believe.

Mayor: And I’m proud of it. Again, Brian, listen to the overall picture. We did two rent freezes because when the facts bored out that it was the right thing to do – on the facts it was fair to the tenants. We have done low increases all years while keeping an eye on the costs of everyone involved in the market, including the affordable housing developers, and what’s happening right now? Huge amount of affordable housing being developed – we’re ahead of every schedule we’ve ever set in terms of creation of affordable housing. There’s a lot of developers lined up to create more affordable housing. They believe in the program, they’re involved with it. I don’t see this law changing that. We will make whatever adjustments we need to, but I’ll tell you, we are on schedule to create enough affordable housing, built and preserved for 700,000 New Yorkers, a huge number, and we made sure that anything that happens in Albany is consistent with that. So far, so good in keeping our ability to do that.

Lehrer: Sarah in Queens you’re on WNYC with the Mayor. Hello, Sarah.

Question: Hi, Brian. Good morning, how are you?

Lehrer: Okay, thank you.

Question: Yes, I have a question for the Mayor.

Lehrer: Go ahead.

Question: Yes, Mr. Mayor, good morning, how are you?

Mayor: Good morning, Sarah.

Question: I am – I live in Queens – Hollis, Queens, 183rd, and I make four requests to the Sanitation Department for a garbage can where I live, because there’s four houses there and they have a school, they have a deli, and the kids are keep on throwing cups, and plates, and straws. And I have to come out twice a week to do the sweeping. Finally, I was at work, I got a ticket, like six months ago, $400 ticket. I separate all my garbage in black, blue, and white bags. I had to the pay that ticket. I tried to fight it, and I had to pay. But I pay my taxes. Why can’t I have a garbage can? The guys that are picking up garbage in my street, every Tuesday morning, and Friday – they can empty it, they can provide bags. I don’t have to pay for somebody else’s trash. I come out to do a work [inaudible]. Why should I do that?

Lehrer: Sarah, are you saying that the Sanitation Department isn’t doing what it should do?

Question: Yes. These guys are coming here Tuesday morning and Friday to pick up regular home garbage. They can empty the cans. I’m asking the City for [inaudible] for – get a trash can.

Lehrer: The street corner – you want street corner trash cans?

Question: Yes. By the deli, or even further down they have a laundry there, they have a restaurant and a deli. Everything blows in the yard all over, I have to come twice a week to sweep. And then the bad part, I got a ticket also, and I had to pay it? That’s not fair.

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor, it sounds like there are two issues here. One, she thinks her tickets are unfair. The other is she thinks that there aren’t, you know, the public trash cans that there should be in her neighborhood in Hollis.

Mayor: So, Sarah, thank you very much for raising these issues. I want you to give your information to WNYC. I’m very sympathetic because what Sarah said here is, you know – this is a classic New York story. A person who’s trying her best to keep her community clean and is going out of her way to pick up after others and a hard-working person trying to do the right thing. So, Sarah I thank you for that, and I want to see how we can help you. First of all on the ticket, it sounds excessive to me. I don’t know the facts and Brian you know I’m going to comment without having the benefit of hearing the entire story or hearing from the Sanitation Department, but that sounds excessive on first blush. I want the Sanitation Department to look into that and see if that was a valid ticket. I also, you know, we’ve reduced the number of Sanitation fines on homeowners and storeowners. When I was, back I was Public Advocate, we looked at the fine levels, they were ridiculous, and all sorts of arbitrary fines were being given. We’ve cut those, last I checked I think, about by 40 percent. We want to keep reducing those, we don’t want to punish the hardworking people, we just want to make sure streets are clean and sidewalks are clean. On the question of garbage cans, there are some places in the city where we really should put them in but it requires a Sanitation route, meaning you don’t just throw one out there randomly. It has to be a place that the Sanitation Department will pick up along a whole stretch. Think about most major commercial corridors where you have those public trash cans, that’s the way we are able to then have a Sanitation truck go down a whole long stretch and pick up a bunch of garbage cans. If that’s what describes the area where Sarah lives, I’d hope we can do that. If it isn’t we will try and figure out if there is some other solution to help her address the problem and I do appreciate – you know, she’s heartfelt and she’s trying to do something good, let’s see how we can help her.

Lehrer: Alright, Sarah, hang on and we will take your contact. When you were talking before about restricting helicopter flights further and that you need the federal government’s help to really do that – that seems to have prompted a tweet by the former New York City Parks Commissioner, Adrian Benepe, who served under Mayor Bloomberg, and he writes, “Mayor was not being truthful. He can end 90 percent of helicopter traffic over New York City by ending concession contracts at City-owned heliports for nonessential tourist and charter flights. FAA, federal oversight is a separate issue out of his control.” What do you say?

Mayor: Well I have heard, with all due respect to Adrian, he loves to mouth off and he’s often just being rhetorical. Federal government regulates helicopter traffic and that is for – what we are talking about in terms of safety, we need federal help. The first question is about safety. So, even though he sort of indicated it at the end there, he’s being disingenuous, there’s no way that we can limit the traffic over the places that create the danger without federal involvement. That’s why Congress Members Nadler and Maloney and Velasquez are working on the federal side and we are working with them to get it done. On the question on the amount of traffic, I’ve already said we’ve cut the amount of traffic in half, from the tourist helicopters. We will look at if there is other things we need to do. But the question of safety is about – there’s going to be some helicopter traffic any way you slice it. The question is how do we make sure it never goes over the populated areas and creates a safety risk.

Lehrer: Yesterday your administration announced a pilot program, as you obviously know, that would offer homeless New Yorkers who stay in subway stations and trains and are stopped by the NYPD for minor offenses a choice between taking a civil summons or accepting help from a shelter and Homeless Services. But advocates for the homeless and many of the homeless themselves say they are in the subway system in the first place because the shelters are dangerous. Would it be a better route to helping those folks to focus more on improving safety in the shelter system?

Mayor: Well, Brian, again I know good news doesn’t travel very far in this town, but I’ve talked about this a lot and I really haven’t seen a lot of folks report on it. So, for decades you know, homeless as we know it goes back to the 1980s. For the first time since then in my administration, the NYPD took over the supervision of shelter security, took over the training of all the security folks who work in shelters. That was never done before. Should have done years and years ago. That danger that existed in shelters was real. But it was real because previous administrations didn’t address it. So, we put the NYPD in charge and that has had a huge impact on making shelters safer. But we are also building a group of new purpose built shelters that we can build in a way that can enhance safety. And most importantly on this point about the folks in the subways – you know, we’ve gotten 2,000 people who were street homeless, who were permanently street homeless, we’ve gotten 2,000 people off the streets into what we call safe havens, they are much smaller facilities. They are, you know – it could be ten people, 15 people – they are kind of places that folks who are street homeless feel comfortable and the proof is that 2,000 have come in. It’s a huge number. These are folks who have mental health problems. These are folks with substance abuse problems. Our outreach workers had to go, and in many cases, talk to some of these individuals, not dozens of times, hundreds of times to win their trust and get them in but it’s working.

And we get them into those small safe havens, they know they are safe, they get mental health services, they get substance abuse services, and those 2,000 folks have not gone back out on to the street. So this is really the beginning of fundamentally changing the reality of street homelessness in New York City. It’s the same for the subways. I think the NYPD plan makes a lot of sense. We are going to show people that they will be safe, they will get help, rather than getting summons that they will be responsible. So I think this is a step in the right direction. We got a lot more to do. But I think this is a step in the right direction and we are going to win the trust of folks who happen to be homeless because we are training the NYPD how to deal with it. We have got a huge group of outreach workers, and I think you are going to see some bigger change now because we finally have found a formula that works on a really grand scale.

Lehrer: Desmond in Crown Heights, you are WNYC with the Mayor, hi Desmond.

Question: Good morning, Brian, and thank you for taking my call. Thank you, Mr. Mayor, for hearing me. I’m calling you on a matter that is basically a matter of life and death. I live in the – we’ve been to the 77th Precinct and the Community Board 8, which used to be coterminous. And in the past six weeks there have been four homicides. You spoke with a parent several weeks ago about a shooting that took place within that district at P. S. 316/ Stroud Park. There is a lack of policing and other City services that need to accrue to my community. Our previous head of our community board just stepped down and the rest of the community board. I’m a community board member but I am calling on behalf of myself. I’m not speaking for the community board. We work very hard to implement, to help the City implement Barclays and Pacific Park and our thanks for that was that the 77th Precinct was reduced and was given to the 78th Precinct, in other words an area was taken from us and given to the 78th Precinct so resources that would have [inaudible] 77th Precinct and Brooklyn North went to the 78th Precinct and Brooklyn South. We need more police.

Lehrer: Desmond hang on, let me get you an answer from the Mayor. Mr. Mayor?

Mayor: Desmond, I really appreciate what you are saying and I am very familiar with the issue that you’re raising. You know that your community, Crown Heights, is very near to where I have lived for the last almost 30 years and I know it real well. And I am concerned and – Brooklyn North in general. We did see a real uptick in violence that had to be addressed. We saw finally in May some real change and we have been putting additional officers in and we have been putting additional strategies into address it. I don’t take it lightly at all. I think you are raising an important point. I want to make sure that the Chief of Brooklyn North speaks to you directly about the strategies that are being employed and the kind of personal that are being employed to address the situation because we do not – I don’t want you to think that because of precinct lines, there would ever be less policing when it’s needed.

We can move officers around as needed within the larger command. We also have done things like Summer All Outs, we’ve sent additional officers into a number of precincts. And this is an area that needs special attention, that has been getting it now for several months and will get more. So, no, we are going to make sure that there are the officers needed to address the problem. I do not accept any kind of uptick in violence. Thankfully, I was just looking at the figures this morning, overall we are seeing, you know – May was an amazing month. We had the safest May in the history of New York City. We had one week in May where there was only three shootings in all of New York City within the whole week. That’s an incredible step forward and great kudos to the NYPD and all the community partners for that. We are looking good so far in June, especially in terms of the reduction of murders. But this situation in Brooklyn North needs more energy and it will get it.

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

Question: Hi, good morning. Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Brian. I have an education question for you. I’m not sure if you remember, Mr. Mayor, from when your kids were in elementary and middle school, but towards the end of each school year, there are standalone field tests administered. These come after the state math and ELA tests and they’re not legally required, and they don’t provide teachers and parents with any information about students, they are used solely for research and development for the testing company. And my children attend a school that is largely white and extremely privileged, and they for years have refused to administer the field test, they just sent them back unopened. There are several other schools that do something similar and they’ve never had any issue, but we’re hearing this year when schools and other parts of the city sought to similarly protect their students and protect their instructional time, DOE Central pressured them to administer and it told them they have submit something in writing if they’re not going to. There are principals and leaders from seven different schools serving relatively privileged students have asserted that they have never been asked to submit any such paperwork and they’ve never received any communication about their failure to administer the field test. So you have mayoral control and I’m wondering why you allow this – these two sets of rules, and if you don’t allow it, what will you do about it?  

Lehrer: Are you the rare parent who is calling to ask for more standardized testing?

Question: Absolutely not. My children’s school refuses to administer them and I want all schools to have the similar ability to protect their students and to protect their teaching and learning time.

Lehrer: Mr. Mayor.

Mayor: Well, well-articulated and I appreciate very much what you’re raising. Let me just say one procedural point first, Brian I – I failed as I usually do to say that the previous caller, Desmond, we need his contact information so we can have the Chief of Brooklyn North follow up with him. I hope you guys got it, otherwise we’ll try to track him down but –

Lehrer: We’ll see if we have it, and Desmond if you’re still listening and we don’t have it, then—

Mayor: Call back.

Lehrer: —just wait until the end of the Mayor’s segment which is just in a few minutes and then the lines will open up. At the moment they are all full.

Mayor: And Brian, obviously, let’s always make sure your folks take down folk’s numbers even if I forget to say it out loud, it’d be really helpful.

To this question, it’s a very good question – look, my broad point, we have been consistently reducing the amount of high stakes testing and standardized testing in New York City public schools. We have reduced the meaning of them in the admissions process. We stopped the “grading of schools” which I think was a huge mistake and was based on test scores. A lot of things we’re doing to move away from it. Obviously, I believe that there’s another mistake going on which is the three-hour standardized test that determines admissions to specialized high schools which I think should be ended and a different approach should be taken. So I want us to continue to reduce the impact of and the use of high stakes testing.

On this specific one, these field tests, I have to be straightforward – the particular ground rules around this and how much it is about research versus academic evaluation, I’m not familiar enough to give you an answer right this moment, but I absolutely get you an answer and if you leave your information with WNYC, I will have folks get back. I’ll raise it to the Chancellor directly because I want to make sure if there is a misunderstanding publicly about the impact of these tests, I want to address that. If it’s a question of something that, upon further evaluation, we think, you know, is not so necessary, I want to be open about that as well and what the ground rules are for each school. So this is one I will have a direct conversation with the Chancellor on working from the values I stated earlier and then we’ll be able to give you an answer on the next show.

Lehrer: Alright, so Sam, hang on, we’ll get your contact information. Also as a program note, listeners, Chancellor Carranza is scheduled to be one of our guests on Monday, so we’ll talk about lots of education issues with him, obviously, and let me ask you one education question and then we’re out of time for today, Mr. Mayor. Last week, as you’ll remember, we had a teenage caller who asked why things are moving so slowly on school desegregation and you told her to wait a few weeks for your advisory group to issue its report, and you had to deal with possible reforms for this in Albany first before their session ends next week, but then on Monday you made a big announcement about accepting 62 desegregation proposals that the advisory board did make in February. So I’m curious why that announcement right at this time when you just said that you want the focus to be things – on things that the Legislature can do between now and next Wednesday?

Mayor: I think there is a misunderstanding, with all due respect on your part, Brian. There’s two waves of recommendations coming from this School Diversity Advisory Group. The first one, as you said, was from several months ago. I met with that group a few weeks ago and we finalized our response to them and we overwhelmingly agreed with their recommendations and we’re putting them into effect which will really intensify our diversity efforts. But there is another set of recommendations that will be coming out after the Albany session is complete and we’ll address those then.

So, we took care of the old business, the previous recommendations of the School Diversity Advisory Group, an amazing group of folks, a lot of students involved, they’re doing really great work. We are fighting right now in Albany for the changes we still need, most especially to reform the admissions for the specialized high schools, which I know that’s still deeply being debated in Albany, and we’re still looking for a pathway to something better that will end the reality that we see in the last admissions – in Stuyvesant, most obviously, seven black students admitted into Stuyvesant, in a huge high school, absolutely unacceptable.

So, we’re – that’s the focus certainly for the next week or two in Albany to try an address that, and then there will be the new recommendations from the School Diversity Group, and we will respond to those.

Lehrer: Just as a follow-up, one of the three proposals you did not accept was to create a chief integration officer position in the DOE. I know Chancellor Carranza said he’s the chief integration officer and he’s very committed to this. But, you know, administrations change, individuals change, why did you not think it was a good idea, structurally, to create that position for the future?

Mayor: Because – I’m really passionate on this point and I believe deeply in diversity and my whole career have worked on it, but, what I find is, you see this in the corporate sector particularly, that [inaudible] someone is given a title, and then they’re sort of segmented off and their not involved in the core leadership and day-to-day, hour-to-hour decision-making, and you cannot achieve diversification that way. If you want diverse leadership, diverse staffing, diverse contracting, diverse admissions, you can’t achieve it if the person who is responsible is not in the center where the power is. And I felt that really, really deeply and that’s how we comport ourselves at City Hall too. Deputy Mayor Phil Thompson plays a very crucial role in ensuring diversity efforts, MWB efforts, et cetera, across the whole administration because he’s right there in the center. He sits, you know, 20 feet away from me. That’s how you get things done. The Chancellor is adamant, he will make sure these diversity efforts keep moving, he has the power to do so. Anyone who wants [inaudible] accountability can look to him. But if you take it too far away from that seat of power, and you try and it up as sort of its own silo, it just does not achieve the results [inaudible] look at what we’ve done on MWB side. The amount of minority- and women-owned business contracting is greatly increasing because it’s been centrally directed from City Hall. You’ll see the same on school diversity – because the Chancellor is holding that portfolio himself, you’re going to see constant movement on, and progress on this issue.

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

Mayor: Take care, Brian.