TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | APRIL 15-21, 2022
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Mayor Adams discusses first 100 days in office
BY STEPHEN WITT
I have covered Mayor Eric Adams
for roughly 15 years since he
was a state senator and through
his borough presidency to his
election of mayor. Anecdotally, I
would characterize the mayor to
be politically shrewd, and inspirational
as a person, friend and
orator. He has shared qualities
of three previous mayors that he
looks up to: David Dinkins for his
being a humanitarian at a very
high level; Michael Bloomberg for
his practicality and being a datadriven
person; and Ed Koch for
his classic New York City thick
skin in dealing with over 8 million
opinions while being tasked
with running the city.
The following interview with
the mayor took place on Friday
morning, April 8, at City Hall.
Schneps Media: Good morning,
Mayor Adams. OK, it’s been
100 days. What are your top five
accomplishments/initiatives so
far in office?
Mayor Adams: Number one,
we inherited a COVID nightmare,
where there was just a feeling of
uncertainty, uncertainty in the
city. We had to stabilize it, starting
with our schools. Parents
were unsure if the schools will
be open or closed. We immediately
came in and we stated our
children will be in school. It was
the safest place for children in
the school building and we were
successful in doing so while other
schools were closing down across
the country. New York City led
the way by giving 20 million test
kits to children and families to
test to make sure that we test in
place. We were extremely successful
in doing so.
Number two, we started to
lay the foundation of our recovery.
Tourism is returning. We
see in Broadway 21 shows we announced
yesterday are going to
be up and operated. We’re seeing
people come back to the office and
we’re seeing the revitalization of
our business districts. That is so
Mayor Eric Adams speaks about his first 100 days in office. Photo by Dean Moses
important.
Number three, we’re laying
the foundation for public safety.
These are generational problems
that have created a level of violence
in the city and we lead from
the front. If the result of the current
state budget is accurate,
no one was talking about the reforms
I was pushing and people
said it was impossible. But now
it appears as though those things
that I pushed come through.
We’re going to start seeing the
results of some of them coming
out of the current budget. I commend
the lawmakers and the governor
on what they’ve done. We
have more to do but we looked at
some of those things that I raised,
brought it back on into the conversation
in Albany and we are
pleased with that.
Number 4, for what we’re doing
around an issue that feeds
crime and poverty — foster care
children. We rolled out an important
initiative at Kingsborough
Community College that talked
about leaning into our foster care.
It’s a pilot project that we’re going
to continue to expand on because
our foster care system is a broken
system that feeds crime to poverty,
a lack of education and a host
of other things.
We rolled out a blueprint to end
gun violence. We rolled out a blue
blueprint for our economic recovery
— over 70 items that we’re going
to implement in the upcoming
months. We’re redesigning 1,000
streets and intersections to make
them safer for traffic, rolling out
our anti-gun unit, our transit
plan. You’re going to start to see
the results of those foundational
things that we’re doing.
Schneps Media: When you
campaigned for mayor, you often
mentioned you wanted to de-silo
city services and agencies. That
they often worked in a vacuum,
and you wanted to coordinate
the agencies to work more closely
together from a management perspective.
How is this initiative
going?
Mayor Adams: The beauty of
that is I anticipated the challenge.
You know what my mother used
to say? You must inspect what you
expect or suspect. And so what I
have introduced is a real-time
system of using a shared Google
Doc. I did it in Borough Hall, but
now I’m using an Excel document
sharing. So what does that look
like?
I announced that in two weeks
we were going to be moving the
homeless encampments off our
streets and in our subway system.
We immediately had a team put
together made up of HRA (Human
Resources Administration),
the NYPD, mental health professionals
and the Department of
Sanitation.
And we all operated off of one
document that everyone viewed.
We had our police in their sectors,
canvass their sectors and identify
where the homeless structures
were. They immediately communicated
to the Patrol Bureau
and the Patrol Bureau spoke with
the task force of all the agencies.
Sanitation went to do the clean-up
and to do the notification. Homeless
services went out and notified
people beforehand. Agencies
came in to communicate and let
people know what services and
what housing they have available.
We saw the de-siloing of that operation,
and we were able to take
down approximately 230 of the 244
encampments that we identified.
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