FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM APRIL 15, 2022 • THE QUEENS COURIER 18
Mayor Adams discusses fi rst 100 days in offi ce
BY STEPHEN WITT
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
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 data-driven 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.
Th e 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
fi ve accomplishments/initiatives so far in offi ce?
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 offi ce and we’re seeing
the revitalization of our business districts. Th at
is so important.
Number three, we’re laying the foundation
for public safety. Th ese 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 traffi c, rolling out our antigun
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 oft en mentioned you wanted
to de-silo city services and agencies. Th at they
oft en 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: Th e 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.
Photo by Dean Moses
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. Th ey 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 notifi cation. Homeless
services went out and notifi ed 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 identifi ed. It shows how you collaborate
and work as a team and we’re going to continue
to do that throughout all of our agencies.
Schneps Media: Speaking of the homeless
encampments, I have two questions. Firstly, a
lot of the homeless say they don’t feel safe in
Mayor Eric Adams speaks about his fi rst 100 days in offi ce.
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