www.qns.com APRIL 15, 2022 6RIDGEWOOD TIMES
Mayor Adams discusses first 100 days in office
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.
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 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
Mayor Eric Adams speaks about his first 100 days in office. Photos by Dean Moses
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.
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 the shelter system, and yet you
are breaking up the encampments. So in a
chicken or the egg scenario, which comes
first, the cleaning up of the shelter system
or getting the homeless off the streets?
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