Scott Stanford: We’ve been talking this morning about the historic City Council vote yesterday. By a vote of 31-20, the council passed a set of housing reforms that are going to create nearly 80,000 new homes over the next 15 years, a concerted effort by the mayor and the Department of City Planning that’s been touted as the solution to the city’s housing crisis. Mayor Adams joining us live this morning. Mayor, thanks for a few minutes, and hey, the council said yes, to the City of Yes, mayor. How about that?
Mayor Eric Adams: Yes, and I think the real lesson here is two-fold. Number one, having negotiations, disagreements, having to give, having to take, is all right. That’s our democracy at work. This is the greatest housing reform in the history of our city. We need to be clear on that.
And the second is that there’s many roads to building more housing. We did it in the state, lawmakers, with the partnership of the governor, and we had to come here to the city to do this next level, and we were able to accomplish that. So hats off to the entire team over at the City Council and my team here at City Hall.
Stanford: I love it. Yeah, yeah, a lot of help from the mayor on this one, from the governor, I should say. Mayor, this sounds kind of like a no-brainer, right? You got the creation of new housing, thousands of construction jobs on the way, great for the economy. What’s been the opposition to this plan?
Mayor Adams: Well, we’re used to our communities the way they look, and there was a lot of mis and false information out there that stated we were going to make a drastic change to the landscape of our low-rise communities, and it was just not true.
The goal here was to spread out the housing crisis so every neighborhood can play its part in building new housing. You can’t have a city with 59 community boards and 10 were building more housing, affordable housing and housing, than the other 49 combined. That is just unfair, and we can’t allow that to happen.
We were able to get into the council and give some real truth, and I went out into the street as the council speaker asked me to do and speak to everyday New Yorkers, and that’s why we have 80 percent of New Yorkers that embrace this concept of [City of Yes], and we were successful in doing so.
Stanford: Mayor, again, congrats on that. I know you guys worked hard on it. I want to switch gears here to the execution-style shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson Midtown on Wednesday. You know, it’s got the whole country talking now, NYPD detectives seemingly pulling in more clues each day. Where are we this morning on tracking this guy down?
Mayor Adams: No one does it better, and when you look at the number of hours from the shooting of a fully masked individual and having to bring him to justice, you realize how fast the New York City Police Department is moving.
To get that visual was extremely difficult to do. My entire 22 years in law enforcement, I have never seen a silencer before used in a crime in the city, but here you had someone use it. Clearly, this was not a random act. Our preliminary investigation sees this as a targeted shooting, but we are moving closer to apprehending him and taking this dangerous person off the streets of our country.
Stanford: That video, just so chilling to watch. Mayor, you know, we have so many security cameras in this city, right? But does a case like this make an even better case for more cameras, more city cameras on the streets?
Mayor Adams: No. Think about it. This individual was fully masked, and as the investigation continues to unfold, we’re going to see how he kept that mask on, and so this is a fully masked person. And because of the cameras we have in the city, we were able to use various angles and shots to get the still photo that we have, and we know that it was extremely important to have the level of technology and video of surveillance we have in this city.
This city’s camera system and partnership with our corporate partners has made this city even more safer, and we’re the safest big city in America, and an act like this sends chills to all of us. But New Yorkers should know that the Police Department continues to drive down crime year after year.
Stanford: Yeah. Hopefully they track this guy down. Mayor, two migrant teens stabbed last night. One was killed, the other in stable condition. Police saying they were attacked just for the crime of not speaking English. I mean, is this being treated as a hate crime?
Mayor Adams: If this is still under preliminary review, and if it is that they were stabbed but not speaking English, are we going to bring this person and hold them accountable? I’m still getting briefed on exactly what happened, but if someone is harmed because of that, that is a hate crime, and they will be treated accordingly as such.
Stanford: You have a meeting set up next Thursday with Tom Homan, right? He’s the president-elect’s new border czar. Mayor, what’s the message you’re hoping to convey to Mr. Homan in that meeting next week?
Mayor Adams: Let’s work together. We both are concerned about those who are committing violent acts of violence in our city and country, and we could work together to resolve this problem. And I’m looking forward to sitting down and sharing some of my ideas on what we could do to secure our border and deal with real comprehensive immigration reform. I look forward to that conversation.
Stanford: And mayor, listen, we started on a great note with the City Council vote. I want to end on a high note. A global hospitality group, we had this story all morning, has named New York City the top destination in the world already for 2025. Only American city in the top ten. That’s got to make you happy on the tourism front, right?
Mayor Adams: Yes, it does, and it just continues to state what I have been stating. We have created an unbelievable environment in the city. January 1st, 2022, we were dealing with a 40 percent surge in crime. We had COVID and other crises. We put the right team together, and that really shows and personifies the success of this city. Turned around our economy, turned around crime, turned around our housing. This has become a City of Yes, and because of that, we’re going to have a lot of guests. Everyone wants to be in New York.
Stanford: All right. Mayor Adams. Mayor, thank you so much. Have a great weekend, sir. Big day for City of Yes. Mayor, we’ll talk to you down the line, my friend.
