Video available at: https://youtu.be/tLfLrnoBWXw

Commissioner Fred Kreizman, Mayor's Community Affairs Unit: Hi, can everyone please take your seats? We'll have casual conversations later on. Thank you. Yeah. So, good evening. I want to welcome everyone here to the Mayor Eric Adams Community Conversation on Public Safety here in Queens south. I want to first off thank our host Rochdale Village President Jean Castro, Chair Clifton Stanley Diaz. Thank you so much for hosting us this evening. Thank you. We just want to explain what's been going on here. The meeting started at six o'clock with community conversations at each table. There's three parts to these community conversations, members of the mayor's office are taking notes at the tables. You have agency facilitators or the mayor's office taking the notes and carrying the conversation. You have Department of Education representatives, members of the Police Department at your tables.

It's important that we had the leadership in the community here. We have either with leadership who are representing... Ladies and gentlemen, if you please stay quiet, we want to respect everyone's time. We want to make sure we get to as many questions as possible. So please, if everyone's seated and stays quiet, we could make sure to get to as many questions as possible. Thank you. So, the community conversations took place for the first hour, giving a chance for people to have conversations with various members of the Police Department, city officials at the table, to be able to take notes to policy makers at City Hall. Also, we have Q&A cards in every table to ensure that if you have a question, if your question is not asked, a member of the mayor's office will record this and ensure your question is answered within 10 business days.

So, we want to make sure that everyone who has an opportunity to ask a question, if it's not addressed to the mayor, we make sure we get an opportunity. We'll go around the room and take questions. The run of show basically will be the mayor will speak, we'll give an opportunity to the speaker here, Adrienne Adams, then the borough president, Donovan Richards, and the district attorney, Melinda Katz. I'll hand it over to the mayor and after we finish the run of show, we'll give it an opportunity for every table to ask a question to as many tables as we could get to. Thank you.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thank you Fred and to our entire team that's here. All of my commissioners or representative to hear directly from you. I spent many days running through the halls of Rochdale. So, I feel like I'm at home. We just want to engage in a healthy conversation and look forward to hearing your ideas. We walked away from many of these town halls with some amazing ideas of what we can do on the ground. And this is not a one and done. We are going to just continue this conversation with young people, with seniors, older adults, and everyday residents. This is a powerful community, very stable Southeast Queens and others that are part of Queens. We know what you mean to us and represent to this city. And so, I'm happy to be here. I'm ready to listen.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. We'll hand over to the Queens borough president now, Donovan Richards.

(Queens Borough President Donovan Richards and Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz speak.)

Commissioner Kreizman: Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We'll get started with the Q&A now. First table, let's get to her first question. Tony.

Question: Mr. Mayor, greetings as always. The awesome folks here of Queens, New York asked me to ask this question to you. Mr. Mayor, what is your plan to get resources into the community to address quality of life issues such as gun violence, homelessness, and mental illness? And also how can the community be involved in helping to implement the administration's efforts?

Mayor Adams: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for that, the table. I think part of getting resources was just mentioned by our Queens borough president. He didn't say we brought a couple of thousands, he said a couple of millions. And what we did not do, we did not go and say, here's what we want to do. We went to the community and stated what are the projects you want us to do and bring those dollars back into the community? But we believe in this administration in the upstream model, we don't believe in a downstream model. That's why we did dyslexia screening, putting dyslexia screening in all of our schools, what Chancellor Banks is doing so we don't have 30 percent of the inmates at Rikers being dyslexic. That's why we had 100,000 summer youth jobs for our children, never before in history, never before. 110,000 were part of the Summer Rising Program.

So, our children had a place to go over the summer, a safe space. We getting ready to institute… the chancellor’s going to help us navigate where we going to do the extended use for our schools. So, instead of the nonprofits having to pay for school safety agents, pay for the cleaning services, insurance, and all of that. We're saying you do your service. We will pay those fees and allow you to use the school builders in the process to have a safe space. And then we have to do this, we have to do this. Our best ideas come from engaging in the conversation and learning from the people on the ground, the civic leaders, the organization, crisis management team members that are here. Hearing from each other and coming up with ways how to use all of these agencies as Donovan stated, the borough president stated, "Public safety is not just the police. Public safety is every agency that's here."

That is the success the police commissioner showed us over the J'Ouvert and the West Indian Day weekend. She brought all the agencies together. We're going to utilize a full totality of our city and all the agencies. This morning, we had a meeting with our quality of life — of individual… Every agency's going to have a quality of life person that you would be able to directly communicate with. Those days of calling 311 and they disappear in the black hole somewhere, those days are over. We are going to track those 311 calls and make sure that these agencies are responding to them. So, this is how we get it done.

Commissioner Kreizman: So, thank you. Table number two. Karen.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. This question here, they have two, but I can only answer one. Sorry guys. I'm not getting in trouble. What additional resources or initiatives are you are on your agenda to enhance mental health in shelters, public private sectors, schools, workforces, households? Because it's a serious issue.

Mayor Adams: Yes it is. And I have a solid, solid person on our team. Our commissioner, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Dr. Vasan is here. Use to run Fountain House, that's how we recruited him. Dr. Vasan, you want to answer that?

Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for having me. I apologize for being late. The traffic was something special. But I will say that one of the reasons I came into city government and that I'm proud to work for this administration is the focus on mental health. The focus on community approaches to mental health. We're incredibly proud that even in the first few months of me starting and this administration starting, we launched a really historic expansion of our crisis hotline, NYC Well, with over $10 million of additional resources in line with the expansion of the new Federal Suicide Prevention Hotline, 9 8 8. And so, these are on demand resources for community members to call to get help in their communities, but also to get help for loved ones who might be in crisis and who might need support.

This is just the beginning. We are at the early stages of making a series of investments around serious mental illness. People who are experiencing homelessness, people who are experiencing crisis, around youth mental health. I'm a father of three school-aged kids and I've seen directly how the pandemic has affected their mental health. And we're going to be investing with me, working closely with the chancellor and others to invest in school mental health. And our overdose crisis, which is a mental health issue. These are our three main priorities for our administration. More to come, but we are committed to this issue for the long haul.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you very much. Next table.

Commissioner Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, Department of the Aging: Can I add something to that, Mr. Mayor? Thank you. Can I add?

Commissioner Cortés-Vázquez: Thank you. I would like to also announce that we have 40 geriatric mental health services across the city and under this administration, we are expanding to 88. We know that mental health and social isolation greatly impacted the older adult population. So, those services are also now available. Thank you.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. Thank you. Next table, Angelica.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor, our table is concerned about teen violence. How is the city engaging youth via community engagement programs and social media to promote programs that can help youth stay out of trouble?

Mayor Adams: You want to touch on that PC, or department of…

Mayor Adams: DYCD. Okay. Okay. So listen, it's a couple of layers. Number one, pathways to opportunities for our young people and exposure to this. Sheena, Deputy Mayor Wright, is working on… We’re partnering with our corporations for 100 percent paid internship programs year round. Not just over the summer, but year round. Exposing our children outside of the environments that they're in so that they can learn the real job opportunities that are available. We're going to lean into real after school performances. Chancellor Banks, I'm sure he could touch on some of the things that we're looking at. When we want to deescalate the environment of our youth, our young people participating in some of the violence that we're seeing, we have to give them the opportunities and we have to identify them earlier. We know beforehand where some of the problems that are coming from. Our goal is to find these young people upstream and not wait until they fall in the river, then you pull them out downstream.

That means going into our homeless shelters, where many of our young people… If you grew up in a homeless shelter, you are less likely to graduate from high school. If you don't educate, you will incarcerate. I keep saying this over and over again — 80 percent of the inmates at Rikers Island don't have a high school diploma, equivalency diploma. And so, our goal is to be really proactive. And for the first time we've partnered… A.T. Mitchell, who's represented a crisis management team with a deputy mayor to make sure every agency in this city is having a program that's dealing with our young people so that we can connect the dots with everyone together. We're getting ready to bring on a sports and wellness director, that's going to tie sports and wellness together. Meditation, yoga, team sports, really teaching our young people how to engage together. This is something that's big for us. Every town hall we've went to, people have talked about this topic and this administration is laser focused on it.100 percent

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Paula.

Question: Hello, Mr. Mayor. Our question is what are you doing to increase NYPD foot patrol presence in the main corridors? We want more police on the beat. We also want to make sure that… we want to know how are police improving relationships and also improving communication?

Commissioner Kreizman: So, we'll take the deployment first.

Chief of Patrol Jeffrey Maddrey, Police Department: Yeah, I'll take the deployment. Good evening, everyone. Just a really quick, just to touch on how we are increasing foot patrol. And one of the things that we're doing this year that I'm very proud of is our Field Training Program. Our Field Training Program, for the past few years, wasn't on foot. It was being conducted by way of the patrol car, and that's how our officers were getting trained. I'm very happy that this year we put them back on foot, because that's where they really learn how to patrol. They learn how to go out there and talk to people. They have to basically learn how to do this to survive those eight hours out there. They have to make friends out there. They have to know who's who in the community. So, it's very important.

I think that's one of the best things we did this year, bringing the Field Training Program back to foot. They did on top of that this summer we did our supplemental deployment, our Summer Violence Strategy, which was all basically cops on foot posts, putting them on foot posts. Putting it in areas where we were having challenges, that's how we started bringing down the gun violence this summer. So, we had the cops out there in the right places. We're fortunate enough to have overtime, we put them out there, crime reduction overtime again on foot. So, a lot of the models that the police commissioner’s implemented is going back to the basics. Going back to foot patrol, getting out there in the community, talking to the community, working with the people. Our NCO program, our enabled coordination officer program, and that's all about getting out there in the community, walking around, working closely with the community, increasing the communication, resolving issues. Our youth coordination officers, they were directed to patrol parks all summer long. Every youth coordination officer in the city had to adopt a park, because we wanted to increase that engagement with the youth. So these are some of the strategies we use to increase foot patrol and communication.

Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell: I think we... Your other question — I just wanted to address your other question in terms of communication. We recognize as the mayor said that those days where you call 311 and nobody responds like a tree falls in the forest, those days are over. And the way we can increase communication with our communities through technology and we're leveraging social media to be able to do that.

We have a number of different things we're going to try to put in place so that the community can reach out to us and that you do have some feedback and you do have a record of that feedback. If it comes to an application on a phone, if it comes to quality assurance surveys, some way where we can know our community hears us and we hear you. But if I could ask, just because I think it's very important that as a community, you know who your representatives in the police department are. So if I could ask the NYPD in this room to stand up for a moment so everyone can see who you are, every member of the NYPD, please stand up in this room.

I am truly... I could go all night about how proud I am of all of them and the work that they've been doing, but they are here tonight because they care about the communities they serve. And you should know who they are, because you should be able to go to them with any issues or concerns and they should be responsive to your concerns, and we're going to make sure it gets better in the future. So thank you.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next question, Tiffany.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. My table posed a question and it's how will you work with the DOE and MTA to ensure the safety of our children that are returning back to school on public transportation, to and from school?

Mayor Adams: And I know today the chancellor was speaking with the school safety agents. I'm a big school safety agent person. I believe in school safety agents, predominantly Black and brown women. When I speak with those school safety agents and see their commitment to those children, there's more than just security that they're providing. They provide a nurturing environment and I'm really proud of the men and women who are school safety agents.

Our focus... Our focus in the transit system, it's crucial. Our subway system must be safe. We have something like 3.2 million people ride a day. You probably have an average of six crimes a day. When you look at the number of people that use the system, you see that the system is relatively safe, but the perception of this disorder is real. And how you feel is how you are going to believe your status is. So what do we do? Week one, we went in, I canvassed the system, I rode the system. I ride the system a lot. We noticed the encampments, we noticed the disorderly behavior. We went in right away and stated that we have to remove all the encampments off the system. We have to take people who are living on the system, dealing with mental health issues. We stated that we need to place them into safe havens.

First week only 22 people took us up on the safe havens that we wanted to give them because we have to build trust. Now we're up to close to 2,000 people that were living on the system — we were able to take off the system, put them into safe havens into wraparound beds and give them the services of their need, also we had to deploy our police.

You all saw it, because many of you showed me pictures. Five, six cops standing at the token booth, looking at their phones, not really doing the job we expected them to do, because previous administrations told them not to do the job. We made it clear that we want our police officers riding the train, doing patrol, interacting with the public, doing something revolutionary. "Good morning. Hello. How are you? Are you seeing something on the system that is questionable?" So we are being more proactive in that relationship to give you that comfort that you deserve and your children deserve while they're riding the subway system and while they're going to and from their place of road, that system must be safe and we are going to continue to move to make it safe.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next question, Jerry.

Question: Thank you. Good evening, honorable mayor and panel. At this table, we would like to know, well there is a proposal that is restricting... that, excuse me — redirecting, redistering. Excuse me.

Mayor Adams: I got you.

Question: Which splits Rochdale in half. This is a concern because the line goes straight through, there's a... You could pass on the paper, yeah. This is a concern because the line goes straight through buildings and potentially will split neighbors and communities. There is also a public safety concern around this because it potentially creates friction within the community, which one side is against the other. Number one, what can be done to ensure that the redistrict thing doesn't split Rochdale? And number two, what is the communication like between NYPD and the community to improve relationships? It's important for both sides to understand each other.

Mayor Adams: Well, there's an independent redistricting committee and I only know one Rochdale, I don't know two Rochdales. And so we are going to look into this, but Rochdale has been united. It has been united as long as I can remember. And I don't see any reason to divide it, but there's an independent commission, but we are definitely going to look into this, because there should be one Rochdale. Commissioner, you want to talk about it?

Commissioner Sewell: Sure, talking about improving communication and relations, we have a new... Is the chief is sitting here? Please stand up again. This is who you need to see. He is brand new — this is Chief Kevin Williams. He knows this area very well and he has assured us that he is on point and he will make sure that the communication in this community with the police department is where it should be and where we want to be going forward.

Audience member: What's his name?

Commissioner Sewell: Kevin Williams. Chief Kevin Williams.

Mayor Adams: And listen. Kevin was one of my cops when I was a lieutenant and he studied hard, he was committed, he was dedicated and the community reached out and said, "There's an open for a chief. We would like Kevin Williams to come back to our community?" That's why he's here because you asked for him and you got him.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next question, Malcolm.

Question: Good evening Mayor, how are you? You basically answered him. You touched on the mental health issue. We had two questions. One was, "What safety resources is the mayor taking besides more policing to make our neighborhoods safe, especially after the rise in the mental health crisis, in our community?" That was one, but there was another one because the gentleman was so persistent. Nothing is more safer than having home ownership and affordable housing opportunities. What is the mayor doing to make sure the housing connect is operating efficiently and effectively and home ownership opportunity resources are available?

Mayor Adams: Well, first, mental health is crucial, as Dr. Vasan stated. 48 percent of the inmates at Rikers have mental health illnesses. Makes no sense that we've been using our prison system as a way of dealing with mental health illnesses instead of giving people the services that they need. We need our state lawmakers to open up the mental health beds that we lost during COVID. And then we need to do the type of program that Dr. Vasan is known for.

I ask anyone to look at Fountain House. When I met him on the campaign trail, I said, "We got to get this cat as part of our administration." He's doing an amazing clubhouse model and he's really leaning into, "How do we become more proactive with mental health?" And as you heard the commissioner of Department of Aging, as even older adults, loneliness is a crisis. It is a contributor to some of these indicators of real health issues. And so we are taking a holistic approach to this manner. I have Commissioner Carrión because I know that one of the greatest prophets of our time has a quote that I live by, "The rent is too damn high." And so going to give it to Commissioner Carrión.

Commissioner Adolfo Carrión, Jr., Department of Housing Preservation and Development: Thank you, mayor. Good evening, Rochdale. Great to be out here with the mayor and the team. We all know that one of the most important building blocks for a family or an individual is a safe and healthy home. And that's why this administration and this mayor has made the most historic unprecedented investment in affordable housing that we've seen in our history, $5 billion over the next 10 years to build new housing that's affordable for, as we said this morning with the mayor at the steps of City Hall, whether you're a young family that needs housing, you need affordable housing.

If you're a senior, you've run your race, you're now in the winter of your life, you need affordable, safe housing with supportive services. If you're a person who works for the city, for government, you need affordable housing. If you're a cop, if you're a nurse, if you're a teacher, we need to ensure that, that affordable housing is available to every New Yorker and the key, one of the keys, and one of the differentiators for this administration and Mayor Adams is that it happens in every single neighborhood across the entire city, not just in certain pockets that have been receiving their lion's share of the affordable housing.

Another high priority for us is home ownership. And the mayor has charged us with increasing the opportunities for home ownership, just in this area alone we were here in the first couple of months of the administration announcing 13 sites for home ownership, 24 homes. The borough president was with us that day, the Council member — that's the speaker of the City Council — was here. Large investments are being made in the Rockaways, in this area of the city.

One of the highest priorities for this administration is ensuring that we protect that very essential social contract that we stand on, that we all believe in, that everybody deserves a safe, healthy home. So we're committed, we're going to work with you. I've been out here a lot, right, Mr. Borough president? Quite a bit in the last couple of weeks, Mr. Mayor, a little shoe leather out in Queens and Brooklyn. So we're going to continue to do this and it's a pleasure to be here with you all tonight.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Okay, the next question, Anthony Illiano.

Question: Thank you. Good evening. The consensus question here at table eight is all their plans to pilot a program or a hub for the Southeast Queens youth, which would support them with services such as mental health screening, internships and work-based learning programs. And if so, what framework could be put in place to publicize this in the area so the youth can access these resources?

Mayor Adams: We have DYCD that's here. One thing we need to do and we're going to do is hold a series of these town halls with just young people. So we can hear from them. They need to design the program that they want. DYCD?

Darryl Rattray, Associate Commissioner for Youth Services and Strategic Partnerships, Department of Youth and Community Development: And one of the items... Hello, good evening. Darryl Rattray, associate commissioner, youth services at DYCD. One of the items that we have throughout communities are our community centers where young people can go. They get services, activities. Community centers are open seven days a week in the summer to 11 p.m., throughout the year we're open to 10 p.m., five days a week and on Saturdays. We also have our Saturday night lights programs that provide a safe space for young people across the city. In Queens, we have 28 Saturday night lights programs that are open 5 to 10 p.m. every Saturday night throughout the communities providing those services.

Commissioner Kreizman: Okay, next question is table number nine. Lamona.

Question: Good evening, everyone. Mayor Adams, you opened the schools to organizations. Did you open the schools to all of the organizations or just some of them?

Mayor Adams: All. The goal is, I say this over and over again, we have these great resources in our schools. 7 a.m. we tell our babies, "Welcome." 3 p.m. we say, "Get out and don't come back until tomorrow." The great partnership that we want to develop, I did this as the borough president, we had something called extended use — DA Katz, I can tell you about it. We were able to get money from the previous administration, and we stated, "Why aren't we utilizing the gymnasiums, the pools in some schools, the classrooms, the auditoriums? Why aren't we allowing the communities to use these assets as an extension of the community asset? These schools belong to you, these schools, they don't belong to those outside your community.

And so every organization that presents the right proposal and come and let it be ensured that it's vetted properly, we want to find a space for them in the school hours that we are going to pay for the use of the building, the lights, the school safety agents, and all the things that are involved. We did this in Brooklyn, it's called extended use. Let's get full use of our school buildings and not only during 7 to 3 p.m. hours. And so it's open to whomever comes with a good proposal, financial literacy, HVAC training, carpentry, electrician, all of these skills that we could be teaching, not only our young people, but adults, teaching them these different ways by using our school buildings in the process to do so. It's open to all.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next table, Ed.

Question: Good evening, sir. Our table's question focuses around vocational training. Vocational training has always been an effective tool at engaging and empowering youth, but it seems like these programs are becoming rarer and rarer in our high schools. How can we increase these programs and bring programs like D79 co-op tech to Southeast Queens?

Mayor Adams: Chancellor Banks. And before the chancellor answer, I opened in Brooklyn in the Brooklyn Navy yard, something called the Brooklyn STEAM Center. First of its kind, young people attend the classes there, they get certifications, OSHA training, all of these certifications by the time they leave. We want to duplicate that. There should be a real transit tech with the campus. There's going to be thousands of transit jobs that are going to open in the future. Our children must be ready to fill these jobs that are available. Skilled labor is a great job. I knew I was in the wrong profession when my plumber drove off with this Porsche. Listen, have you paid an electrician lately? Have you paid a plumber? A carpenter? Our children can do these jobs and that's what I'm happy about, what Chancellor Banks is planning on doing around this area. Chancellor Banks?

Chancellor David C. Banks, Department of Education: Yes, Mr. Mayor. First of all, the young man who asked the question, would you just stand up again? I just wanted to... What's your name?

Question: Ed Jackson. Ed Jackson.

Chancellor Banks: Hi Ed. Thank you so much for that question. You should know that for this administration — career and technical education, career pathways, career connected learning — is our new north star. That is where we are going as an entire city administration. We have to, and we are now starting to reimagine, re-engineer what the entire school experience is for all of our kids. For far too long our kids have been going to school and we've done a decent job at schooling, but we've not done a good enough job of fully preparing them for the 21st century economy. And when we talk about career and technical education, CTE, I'm not talking about your grandfather's woodshop, the kinds of programs and jobs that are out here now in this CTE space.

When kids are graduating from high school, they will be on the path to the middle class and beyond. These are great jobs, but we've not been developing our young people with the skills that they need to take those jobs. And one of the people that's here today, Principal Milczewski, he's the principal of Hillcrest High School. Stand up for a second, Scott.

I'm happy that he's here because first of all, he's the principal of the school that I hold dear. I know the mayor talks about Bayside High School all the time, but I graduated from Hillcrest High School. And so I'm glad that Hillcrest is represented. He's the principal of Hillcrest and I've been to the school and the work that he's doing, preparing young people for real careers is critically important.

And so you should just know that that's where we are going. That's where we're leaning. We have several of our superintendents who are here today. If you're one of the superintendents here in Queens, please stand up. Tammy Pate, Josephine Van-Ess, Mr. Cintron, our superintendents. Where's Crystal Bonds? All the way over there. (Applause.)

Don't just applaud for them — I want you to know who they are and the work that they are doing right here in this Queens community. We have invested the energy, the resources in our leadership. They are the leaders for this Queens community, so if you have not met them, please make sure that you meet them tonight. If you have any issues, questions, concerns about what's going on in the DOE don't call me, call them. That's why we put them in place.

And all the educators who are here tonight, please stand. I see the principal of Eagle Academy for Queens. If you are a teacher, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Yes. And you can feel the energy, you can feel the spirit, you can feel the love. And that's what our kids feel each and every day. I don't believe in the hype that I hear about all the negative stories that we hear all the time as though there's nothing good that's going on in our schools. The mayor knows better than that.

He and I are going to be visiting three schools tomorrow. We know it. I visit schools all across the city and our parents who are here, who give us their best every day when they send us their children. And we want to make sure that we are giving you the absolute best that we have. And so the question that was posed about career and technical education is a big piece of the puzzle, but the puzzle is much larger than that. We are re-imagining how kids are taught how to read. The mayor talked about all throughout the campaign — 65 percent of Black and brown kids never achieved proficiency in a DOE that has a $38 billion budget. That's shameful and it's going to change.

We are changing the way our kids are taught how to read because you can't even take advantage of career opportunities if you haven't had a solid literacy foundation at the beginning. So we call it bright starts and bold futures. I thank you for the question and I'm very, very happy to just celebrate our teachers and our educators and our superintendents who are starting the first day of school tomorrow. Thank you so much.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next question, Anastasia.

Question: Good afternoon, Mr. Mayor. Which city agencies can collaborate with NYPD to assist them with A, enforcing illegal ATVs and dirt bikes, and B, enforcing loitering in front of homes or local businesses that are causing safety and quality of life issues?

Chief Maddrey: I thank you for that question. A lot of city agencies partner up with us to enforce illegal ATVs and dirt bikes, so since I took over this spot here as a chief of patrol, that's one of the main things I started doing. And since we started doing the illegal, the enforcement of the illegal ATVs, we've taken about two, 2,000, 2,500 of them throughout the city.

We've partnered up with the sheriff's office. Sheriff's office has been one of our biggest partners. DOT has helped us out not only with just enforcing illegal ATVs and dirt bikes, a lot of things that we are doing throughout the city to help address chronic 311 calls. We've been going out with DEP, the Department of Buildings. If you saw the press conference yesterday, we talked about Labor Day West Indian parade and J'Ouvert and how it was just so peaceful.

A lot of it was because of the planning and the collaboration with the city agencies and the community, a major part of it. And even in enforcing the illegal ATVs and the dirt bikes, the community's been a tremendous part. People are calling us, telling us they're storing illegal bikes in this location. They're hiding the bikes here. They're riding out here every night. So when the community's providing that intel, we know exactly where to be, what time to be, what location to go, and they're not ready for us. And we're taking them by the dozens, more than the department really can handle.

The people who are in charge of storing the bikes and stuff they're mad at me because we're bringing them down. I mean, we're bringing truckloads of them down. So far for the year we've taken close to 5,000, so we are taking them and we'll continue to take them. And we'll continue to collaborate with other city agencies. And again, the community, you're our number one partner. We need the information and the intelligence from you, so thank you all.

Mayor Adams: And it's not only the ATVs, campaign trail, you took me over on Springfield Boulevard and you said, these darn trucks are stored here overnight. And you know what we learned? We learned that it was happening also in the Bronx. We learned that it was happening in the Staten Island. So the commissioner and the chief of patrol and chief of department, we all got together and we did our operation on the illegal trucks and just started sending the right message.

We either going to boot you or we're going to tow you, but one thing is for clear, we're going to clear that mess up. And I want to thank the borough president of Queens who took me around and showed me how these illegal trucks have been just really destroying your community, staying overnight. If you can't park an illegal truck in front of Gracie Mansion, they should not be able to park it in front of your house.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Next question, Mark.

Question: Good evening. First I want to start out Mr. Mayor, by introducing you to the youngest constituent in the room, Mr. Emmanuel Washington, 9-years-old. I told him I was going to do that and he didn't think I would. So I…

Mayor Adams: I thought you was going to say me.

Question: I would've, but I didn't want to call your age out in the room, sir. And second, police commissioner, I want to thank you for allowing us to share with you the most amazing deputy inspector that we got to know tonight. Don't get jealous fellas, in our Deputy Inspector Gray here. So thank you for his participation in the conversation.

And such, amazing conversation so thank you for doing this first and foremost, Mr. Mayor. But the consensus around this table was to ensure that we ask a question that really encompasses what this room looks like tonight. And that is how do we integrate partnerships which will ensure a development of the village mindset to support our communities?

Mayor Adams: Deputy Mayor Wright, she's deputy mayor of strategic partnerships and she's going to share some of the things that she's doing, but also it starts from being in this room. If you walk out of this room only knowing the individuals you knew when you walked in, then that's a Shakespearean tragedy. All of you are doing different things. Whatever's your passion, if it's financial literacy, find out who else here is doing that. If it's crisis management, all the crises management team. If it's our older adults, if it's mentoring, we need to learn from each other, because you are the leaders and organizers and you are part of the organizations here and we need to know each other. We don't know each other as well as we should. But Deputy Mayor Wright is doing some amazing things in that area. Deputy?

Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright, Strategic Initiatives: Yes. And thank you so much for coming out tonight. As the mayor said, this is an essential step. Some of the hallmarks of this administration are this. We center everything we do on community, on families, on individuals. This mayor has said we need to have a customer-centric point of view, not an agency-centric point of view, not an institutional point of view, but a person and community point of view.

So the work that we are doing is focused on, as you said, we know there's not one silo, not one agency, not one program, not one initiative, that's going to solve the problem. It's the coordinated and aligned approach that's going to get it done.

So part of what we are doing is we're bringing nonprofits together. We're treating them like partners, not vendors, nonprofits that are in service of community and that are doing all of that work on the ground are our partners and we need to treat them better. So one of the first things that we did is that we should pay them, right? We should pay them for their work. We should pay them on time. We shouldn't take a year and we should make sure that we're working with them in a coordinated, aligned way.

This year we had about $5 billion that we owed nonprofits that are in service to community that had not been paid to them in previous administrations. We cut through the red tape and in 12 weeks got $4.25 billion to those organizations and we're focused on solving the problem.

We want to bring our philanthropic institutions. There's a lot of resources and foundations and corporations that want to participate and engage in partnership. And we want to bring them to the table in strategic ways, so we are doing that work as well. And just community planning. As we've said this evening a couple of times, community knows what the issues are, but they also know what the solutions ar. And our job as government is to provide a platform and resource to facilitate this planning and aligned action.

What's happening at a school should be reinforced by the afterschool program, should be reinforced by the social services that our family is receiving. All of those things should be working in concert and our job as government is to really make sure that that's happening then to facilitate it, so that's part of the work that we're doing across government.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next question, Patrick.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. My table discussed about how we can build better community relations across community as well as breaking the intergenerational cycles of poverty and violence. That is, having the community experience a lot of multi-generational trauma and lack of opportunities for equality, housing, and quality jobs and opportunities.

Mayor Adams: And it's so true and we have to take that holistic approach and we have to hand off those who are needed to the next support group of… Something I spoke with the chancellor about the other day, we often look at those who are NYCHA residents and you look at the small number that are doing illegal behavior and you attempt to demonize the entire housing community there, but people ignore those accelerated learners in NYCHA. You have some young people in NYCHA that are A and B plus students yet they have to grind it out on their own.

So what we want to do, we are going to look, find them and give them the wraparound support services that they need so they can excel at the levels that they can possibly excel to. But even those C students and D students, how do you continue to hand them off? When they finish high school, we drop them off the cliff and say, "Make it on your own." That is just not right, particularly if you come from a foster care community or you grew up in the shelter.

We need to have these agencies hand off to the next agency everything from job placement, to college readiness. We have to continue to nurture people so we can break that generational poverty that we witnessed so much. That's the job of our agency, that's the job of ACS, that's the job of DOE, that's the job of CUNY. We have to continue to nurture people throughout the entire process because the support system that many of you and I know is not the support system that many who are living in institutional poverty is aware of that we are supposed to be the safety net and not say, okay, "Bebe graduated from Bayside is no longer my problem." No, it is your problem. You need to make sure he is in safe, loving hands for the next step of his generation. That is what we are going to do as a city.

Commissioner Jeff Dannhauser, Administration for Children's Services: Mr. Mayor.

Commissioner Dannhauser: Mr. Mayor, can I just add one very important thing that you mentioned about foster care? I'm Jess Dannhauser from ACS. Maybe one of the hallmarks will be no more cliffs because one of the things the mayor did first and foremost, coming into this administration was put $30 million to make sure every young person coming out of foster care has a coach until they're 26 to make sure… Because we know that's wasted talent that we've wasted year after year.

These kids are extraordinary and can accomplish so much. We're going to bring this to the justice side of our work at ACS as well. But I think this theme of no more cliffs, we can't be in someone's life and convince them that we're really there for them if we say goodbye, as soon as the funding stops. So the mayor's ending that and we're really proud to be part of it.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next table. Penny.

Question: Good evening, mayor. The question at this table was describe the city's plan to bolster the shortage of school safety officers on level three supervisors in our schools. And is there any forthcoming initiative that will foster stronger ties between the NYPD and our local schools?

Mayor Adams: Yes, and Chancellor Banks should go into that. And I'm glad you remind me. I'm going to talk with the police commission about it later. There was an initiative that was put in place that I advocated for when I was, I think I was a captain actually, that we need to build a pipeline to law enforcement. What we did back then, they did it for two years and then it was removed under Commissioner Kelly.

We told the school safety agent, the hospital police, homeless service police, some of the other law enforcement communities. We said after you do two years in these agencies, you should be able to get promoted into the Police Department. Why is that important? Over 80% of those other law enforcement communities are Black, brown, and predominantly women. If you are able to observe someone for two years doing the job as a school safety agent, as a traffic enforcement agent, as a hospital police for two years, you're able to observe them 100 percent live in the community. Those are the type of pipelines we want to bring into our Police Department and build those relationships.

I am a supporter of school safety agents. I believe in what they're doing. I speak with them, I see how they treat these children and how much they love these children. We need to support them and give them pathways to promotion instead of having a dead end occupation or profession and we need to find ways to do that. Chancellor Banks, you want to touch on some of that?

Chancellor Banks: Yeah. We had an announcement today where together with the police commissioner, we've just graduated almost 200 school safety agents who will be in schools tomorrow and I think that is a great thing.

And I want to, first of all, I want to echo the mayor's comments. I don't know how many of you know this, but before I was an educator for one year I was a school safety agent. That's right. I was. She said, "Really?" I wore a uniform and I worked at Clara Barton High School in Brooklyn, breaking up fights in the lunchroom. But that's another story.

But the reality is that we do what we need to do. School safety officers, I don't know how this happened. Have gotten a very bad rap, right? I mean this notion that there's somehow bad guys in our schools, there's nothing that could be further from the truth. In fact, the people who complain about school safety officers are people who don't work in our schools.

The people who work and go to our schools every day are extremely supportive of school safety. Because as the mayor said, most of them are Black and brown women. They are Ms. Williams, they are Mr. Vasquez, they are the people who kids look to as well as not just agents, but they are mentors. They are big brothers and mamas and auntie figures for these kids. They come to work every single day and for not a lot of pay. And they put themselves on the front line to help our kids every single day. And I want them to know that this chancellor and this mayor fully support them. 

I tell them that any school that I visit, the first people that I say hello to are the school safety agents. And I thank them for everything that they do on behalf of our young people. And we will continue to stand with them. We have plans to bring in over 800 school safety agents for this school year because the schools desperately need more agents and more support. But I will tell you that the answer to school safety is not just school safety agents. It just as the Mayor said, it's the village. It's all of us. The responsibility for safety is a responsibility for each and every one of us. In the school, outside the school. We had a 15-year-old in Brooklyn who was shot today, who's a 15-year-old charter school student. While we were in here this evening, I got the word that that young man has died. 15 years old.

My heart breaks for these young people. You can't tell me that school safety agents don't matter. We all matter. They need everything from every one of us, our superintendents, our principals, our deputy superintendent, everybody. We are all part of the fabric. We will be announcing, together with the mayor in the next few days something that I want you to all pay attention to. It's called Project Pivot. We've lined up hundreds of men and women from our communities across the city who are going to be leaning in to be mentors, big brothers, credible messengers. Helping to provide and fill that gap that so many of our young people continue to have.

So, safety is about a collective response. It's not, 'Well, what is the mayor going to do?' The city is too large for that. It takes all of us. I'd love to see us begin, Mr. Mayor… This is just a suggestion, right, to talk about. Because the deputy mayor just said it. Deputy Mayor Wright said it. Our community knows the issues, but we also know the solutions. So, I would love to see us, even as we engage in these conversations, have the community give us solutions as well because you have the answers. So, we need to hear more and more of those answers as we work together as an administration to piece it all together and find the solutions for our entire community. Thank you.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next question, Valerie.

Question: Good evening, mayor. I have the honor of facilitating the conversation at this table, a table filled with community leaders in education, community boards, and BID leadership. Their question is, what do they do when dealing with unresponsive agencies?

Mayor Adams: You need to hit me. Listen. Nothing, nothing, nothing angers me more than an agency that's not respondent. That is the highest level of disrespect. And we've had a few, not many, but we had a few and I am... My team would tell you up here, I am quick to call them on a Zoom with the person that's complaining. My team would tell you, I walk down the block, I give folks my cell phone and I said, "Text me and I'm going to do a joint text with that agency person and find out exactly why you didn't get back to that person." People who know me... I was this way as the borough president. You are not going to ignore people. If I can't solve your problem, I need to at least tell you I can't solve your problem, but it cannot be silent. It cannot be silent.

And when I speak with my electeds, they say all the time, "Your administration has been the most responsive administration we've ever dealt with." So if you have a problem that you are reaching someone and you can't reach them, right here is Fred Kreizman. Fred is my CAU person, Constituent Assistance Unit. He'll tell you, I text him joint text right away. I say, "Fred, I got Ms. Jones on this text string. She's been trying to get such and such done and no one is returning her call. By the end of the business day today, get back to me and tell me about why this didn't happen and get that commissioner on the phone." My reputation can't be that I didn't respond to you. That is not going to happen. I'm going to be the most responsive mayor in the history of this city. And no one better not return your call if you reach out to them and give you an answer.

(Queens Borough President Donovan Richards speaks.)

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Muhammad, next question.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Before the question, I was advised to give a shout out to August Martin High School and Epic South High School. All right, there it is. The question is, how does the mayor's office plan to address the cuts made to programs and services that support the growing need for access to mental health and academic programs to keep our schools safe?

Mayor Adams: We're going to lean into them more. We're going to give more services and we're going to give them where the services are needed. People often use the term equality. That is not the term. The term is equity. Equality is not the term. If you are giving everyone in this room a size 44 suit, then yes, the person that fits size 44, he got what he needs. If I fit 34, you didn't give me what I needed. We got to move away from this mindset that everyone is supposed to get the same thing. No, we need to give people the things they need.

And so, what the chancellor's doing, he's analyzing where the needs are and he's putting the resources where the needs are. Every year we know the schools who are failing yet we're not doing anything about it. That's a real number the chancellor said. How are we in a city where 65 percent of Black and brown children never reach proficiency and that's alright? It's not alright with me. And so we're going to invest in where the needs are and that is what our focuses are.

And speaking of needs, I meant to say this earlier. Listen, we got a lot of jobs, folks. We got a lot of jobs. There's no way you're not telling me you got a brother that's still home with mommy and you trying to get him a job. We got a lot of jobs. We need people to apply to fill these jobs. These are good-paying union, health care, pension jobs in city government. So, we want to encourage you to tell people that these jobs are available so that we can make sure we start hiring people to give these agencies response that are needed.

Commissioner Kreizman: Next question. Faith.

Question: Hi. Good evening, Mr. Mayor. Our table's question was how will the city address lack of parking concerns when new development is being built in our neighborhoods?

Mayor Adams: Well, there was a rule that was put in place, I know it was removed that based on parking, based on if you use apartment buildings or housing, you had to have a certain number of parking spaces online, but... I mean inside the site. If there's a particular place that you're talking about, please let the team know and then we can identify that because we need to balance that out as we continue to develop in the city.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next question. You have Athea. Next question.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. My question is what, if anything, is being done to address transportation access for students who are often late to school? Because not enough buses are on school routes and safety on subways, specifically the growing homelessness population living in trains and subway train lines. And I have two more questions after you're going to give answers-

Mayor Adams: Uno, uno. But we're collecting the rest of the questions as the commissioner stated and we will respond. But just one. Chancellor, you want to address that?

Chancellor Banks: Well, I think one of the issues that we talked about even at today's announcement is really about restorative justice. And that we've not cut the funding to restorative justice programs and supports for restorative justice. And for us, what that really means is that when schools talk about they have zero-tolerance or they're no-excuses, I think that's ridiculous. When kids misbehave... We all remember, we were kids as well. Kids misbehave, that's what they do. They make mistakes, they do things that they shouldn't do. It's all part of the process of learning and growing up.

The response to that ought not be we throw them out of school, like throwing them out of school is going to teach them a lesson. And so, we want to make sure that they're learning from the things that they're doing. And yet we don't want our schools to be places of chaos. That's not going to happen. So, we're very focused in terms of what they're doing in schools. Some of the other issues in terms of how they're traveling to and from school, I don't know if there's some others who may want to speak to that kind of-

Commissioner Kreizman: Great. Excellent. Thank you. The next question will go to Ido.

Question: Thank you. Good evening, Mr. Mayor and everyone. How do we create a system where principals and their school leadership teams have input in the budgeting process to articulate their needs before receiving their actual budget to address needs such as public safety? Thank you.

Mayor Adams: We did in Brooklyn something called participatory budget. We would like to expand on that more. And I'm sure that the chancellor will continue to engage because local stakeholders and school communities should have some input in those public safety issues. And that's what the young people did in Brooklyn. And we would like to look at how I can do that from the City Hall aspect of it as well.

Chancellor Banks: And I would say also just from the school perspective, and I'm hoping that our superintendents are hearing this clearly, right? Because schools and their school leadership teams should be engaged in that process before they receive their budgets. We should be hearing very clearly from you about the very specific issues and needs that you have. We do not want this to be a top down system where there is one size that fits all. That's what the mayor just said. If you give everybody the same thing, but if people have different needs, then you're not really properly responding. I want this system to work from the bottom up and there's nobody who knows the schools better than the principals and their administration who are working in those schools each and every day. So we want to lift up your voice. I'd love to follow up and learn more about that. But that's the way the system actually should be working and that's what we're going to be leaning into for sure.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. We just... I know we're past time. We want to thank the mayor for finishing up the last three people.

Mayor Adams: Wait, hold on. I'm sorry. I want to catch... I got to bounce but I want get these last two.

Mayor Adams: You have two more?

Commissioner Kreizman: We have three more. Saba. Next question, Saba.

Mayor Adams: Where (inaudible) table.

Question: Hello, everyone. Good evening. Tonight's table featured principals and community-based organizations such as Violence Interrupters. And the question is, what funding exists for these groups, community groups, schools, NYPD to work together in order to create safe passage to and from school for youth? Because part of the discussion featured a topic of some students carry weapons not because they want to use them necessarily but they don't feel safe going to and from school. So the question is how can these groups work together and what's the funding there for that?

Mayor Adams: That's some of the things that A.T. Mitchell from Man Up is working on with Sheena Wright, our deputy mayor of public safety, and those who are part of the Crisis Management Team, they're now playing a larger role in our schools. If there's some specific ideas that you have, please catch A.T. and Sheena before you depart here.

A.T. Mitchell, Co-chair, Gun Violence Prevention Task Force: Mayor, you mind if I just add, because today was also a press conference that we attended with the Department of Education and the chancellor in that same regard. And we actually announced today how we are going to partner with the DOE in relation... As it relates to the safety for the children going to and from school. So, you'll be seeing very shortly a large presence of the Violence Interrupters and credible messengers at certain schools throughout the city and here in Queens as well. And so, that's something that you should expect to see going forward. With that said, because a lot of them I've already had... I noticed that they left. But there are a lot of crisis management system organizations that are still present.

Can you please stand and be recognized as the hardworking frontline? Kenny, please come on. Kenny Carter, stand up, man. With Faith, Alive in the Hood, Fathers Alive in the Hood. I see Lance Feurtado, King of Kings, of course. Life Camp Incorporated with Justin. All of the other organizations that were here, 100 Suits. We have a lot of great grassroots organizations that work this borough of Queens and we appreciate their work. Of course Mother Donna and others that are here. And we hope that you continue to support us in our efforts. Thank you so much.

Commissioner Kreizman: Thank you. Next.

Mayor Adams: I don't want to leave until I finish the last question. We have a — you got another? Okay, so now I know what's going to happen when you finish. You guys are going to come and rush me, but I got to bounce. I got two more events tonight, okay. So there's a lot of love, but I got to get to another event.

Question: Good evening, Mr. Mayor. First of all, let me just thank you and welcome to the beautiful Rochdale Village Grand Ballroom. But public safety has been and is impacted by the last a hundred years and how communities, particularly communities of color, have been treated historically. With that said, what is being done to change the mindset of the rank-and-file of the NYPD when engaging with the community? What is the proof that these actions are being taken and what has been the impact?

Commissioner Sewell: I think it starts with diversifying the staff of the NYPD, the men and women that do this job every day. There is no greater billboard for the NYPD than the person you see who is walking the street, who is riding the subway, who is leading the command, who runs the borough. I think the first engagement people have with the Police Department should not be negative. And it should be someone who they can relate to and they can understand. So, fairness, and as the mayor said it should be equitable, is what we strive for every single day. And the outreach to our communities of color is what's important to us. I know that there is a history across policing with communities of color, but we are committed to bridging those gaps and making those connections to show that we are in this together. And we want you to even consider careers in the NYPD because that's how we make a change from within.

Commissioner Kreizman: Excellent. And the last question. We have Pastor Gil Monrose.

Question: Yes. Last question. Good evening to everyone. Question on the table from our lovely seniors. What resources is there to help migrants coming to New York City and what is the comprehensive plan from the city?

Mayor Adams: We all see what's taking place down in Texas. And New York has a legal and moral obligation. Legal. The law states that we are a sanctuary city. That's the law. No matter who comes to this city, if they want housing, by law, we must give that housing. And then we have a moral responsibility. If a child comes here, the chancellor has done an amazing job of making sure that they're going to be in the educational system. We are here to assist people in stabilizing their lives and we are focused on that.

I think the numbers now are up to close to over 7,000 that have come to our city. We believe there's going to be more. We need help from the federal government. We need help from the state to also make sure that we get the support we need and that we're not ignoring the fact that we have folks here in New York that also we have to fulfill our requirements as an administration. And so we are going to do our job, but we need you to add your voices to tell the federal government, the state government to say you have to be here for the city as we do our job here.

Thank you so much for allowing me to get here. I got two more. We have borough directors here. Raise your hand, borough directors. If you have questions, our borough directors are here. Please get them over to them as well and we'll keep up. Thank you for coming out today.

Commissioner Kreizman: I just wanted to thank the Mayor and all the commissioners who are here on the dais. I just want to call out Ido Shargal, Kevin Morris, the mayor's office, borough directors for the borough of Queens. If you have any issues at any time, they're always here available to help out with the concerns. Thank you.

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