Speaker 1: 0:00

Yes, I was on the board for a little time and it's a lot of work. People don't give enough due to board members. Because it is a lot of work, because you're maintaining an entire building and that's everything from repairs to collecting rent, to legal issues, to making sure that the buildings stay the quality that you like, and I just believe we need to really take our hats off to those who are on the board.

Speaker 2: 0:34

This is the Co-op and Condo Insider, the podcast dedicated to New York's cooperative and condominium communities. This is your trusted source for the latest insights, strategies and stories shaping the world of shared housing. You will hear from the people who are leaders in this community information and insights you will not hear anywhere else. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you're in the right place. The views and opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of the host or any affiliated individuals or organizations.

Speaker 3: 1:04

Hello and welcome to the Co-op and Condo Insider, where we explore the real-world issues facing co-op and condominium communities across New York City with insight, expertise and a healthy dose of straight talk. I'm your host, jeffrey Mazel, a co-op attorney and legal advisor to the President's Co-op and Condo Council. I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host, richard Solomon. A seasoned voice in public radio for over 20 years, richard has taken his listeners around the world to meet experts, newsmakers and the people making a real difference in our lives. Richard, it's great to have you on the mic today.

Speaker 4: 1:40

It is an honor to be here, especially with an esteemed high school graduate from Dayside High School. All right.

Speaker 3: 1:47

Okay, don't give away the leads, richard, we got to say so. Our guest today and talk about a newsmaker and person making a difference in our everyday lives. I don't think you can get a much more important person in the lives of millions of New Yorkers, and it's a great honor. The mayor of New York City, eric Adams.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Thank you for joining us. Thank you Really great to be on with you and you know we chatted briefly over at the co-op several months ago, so I'm glad that we followed up to do this podcast.

Speaker 3: 2:18

I really appreciate it. I thank your brother for helping me get in touch with you again and he sounds like a great guy and I look forward to speaking with him further. So our podcast. You know we don't just jump right into issues and we like to, you know, get to know our guests a little bit. So why don't you tell us about your early life, your upbringing and your family influences?

Speaker 1: 2:42

upbringing and your family influences. I was born in Brownsville and grew up in South Jamaica, queens. My mom still has a house there and I think that my story is a New York story. We all went through tough times, particularly during the 60s and the 70s in the city, and mom's a struggle. She was raising the six of us on her own. She was a very, very attractive woman and she could have easily departed and just had her own life, but she hung in there with us and she was the type of person that not only talked about never giving up, but she lived never giving up.

Speaker 1: 3:30

She would do three jobs during the day she would work at Amstead Daycare Center, and during the afternoon she would go and clean homes of people, and during the evening she would clean office spaces when offices closed down. So she was resilient and I think that I take my resiliency from her. And you know, we survived. We survived and thrived. I suffered with learning disability as a child. I thought I was a dumb student until I got into Queensborough Community College and heard a documentary on dyslexia and I realized that I was dyslexic. And so all those experiences that everyday New Yorkers go through my story is their story and that is why I love the fact that I'm just a working class mayor. This you know, cuny grad you know, when you look at my life, story is the life story of everyday New Yorkers.

Speaker 3: 4:39

Do you have any inkling? You know I've watched these interviews. I saw a few with baseball players and they you know they all say I never dreamed I'd be in the major leagues. You know I love playing baseball. Was there ever like anything in your head that said I'm going to be mayor someday?

Speaker 1: 4:55

That came later in life, but no, when I was a little boy, running up and down the block on 167th Street and playing in St Albans Park and going through PS 140 and IS-8, my two elementary and intermediate schools, that was the furthest thing from my mind. When you grow up in environments where you don't see a lot of vision of possibilities, you believe to believe there are no possibilities. You start to think that, and so it wasn't until later in life that I saw the possibilities, and it really came from law enforcement. Law enforcement just opened my eyes to what is possible in this city.

Speaker 3: 5:37

Okay, so you talked about your school years. Before we got on the air, we were discussing attendance at Bayside High, along with our co-host, richard Solomon. I guess you guys probably passed in the hallways and didn't realize who each other was, or maybe you knew each other who knows. Talk about Bayside High, queensborough, and your public education and the importance of how it kept you on the right track going forward into where you are today.

Speaker 1: 6:06

And public education is important. It works, you know. We need to be clear on that and that's why we've invested so much in public education, everything from universal after-school programs to expanding our pre-K 3-K to include children with learning disabilities or special needs. And while we're teaching children everything from mindfulness to breathing exercise, healthier food in our schools, and we want them to be socially, emotionally intelligent, not only academically intelligent.

Speaker 1: 6:39

And I saw from growing up in Queens. As I stated, I attended PS 140 in Queens, in South Jamaica Queens, then on to Intermediate School 8, also located in South Jamaica Queens, but during that time children were being bused to other communities to get quality education, and that was an indictment on the system because it stated that they couldn't get that same quality in their neighborhoods. And so I was bused to Bayside High School with my three other siblings. My other siblings went to August Martin, which was in South Jamaica Queens, and to Jamaica, but I went to Bayside High School my oldest sister actually it was four of us my oldest sister, my oldest brother and my other sister. We all went to Bayside. It was a great experience because it was the first time I was in a diverse environment Growing up in South Jamaica Queens, there was no diversity.

Speaker 1: 7:43

I didn't know white students, asian students, students from other ethnic and culture background, italian, greek, etc. And it was only in Bayside that it really opened my eyes to see that you don't have to stay in your own geographical area. There's a whole globe out there and that's one of the most important things that I believe Our children need to be exposed. We still have young people who are born in one square mile, they live in one square mile, they go to school in one square mile, they shop in one square mile. That's a Shakespearean tragedy when you have the level of diversity and different communities here. We want to really expose children to all of those different groups and that's what Bayside did for me.

Speaker 3: 8:34

So just to plug my daughter here, she's a first grade teacher at the Ralph Bunche School on 125th Street. You've actually been in her classroom a couple of times street. Uh, you've actually been in her classroom a couple of times. They, they, they. It's a smaller school so they've done some pilot programs on reading and and introducing new, new uh curriculum and and you've been there on a couple of occasions and I know the kids, oh, we get very excited when they meet you, at least, uh, so so she says hello and all the kids say hello at the Ralph Bunche.

Speaker 1: 9:00

Thank you, love it, love it. Teaching is a calling. What's that? Teaching is a calling, yes.

Speaker 3: 9:10

I admire her. She is a committed professional. She went to Columbia. She could probably be doing anything she wants and she commutes over an hour and a half to get there each way because she just moved out. But she is committed and she loves it there and she loves the children. So you know famously you were a New York City police officer. Why don't you give us some of your insights into community safety, public trust and some of your experience as a police officer?

Speaker 1: 9:38

Public safety is the prerequisite to prosperity. There's no getting around it, even now, that people talk about other items that are important to them during this mayoral campaign. The reason they're able to do that is because New Yorkers are feeling safer. We have a record decrease in shootings and homicides and some of the other major crime categories. The cities are determined by seven major crimes. They call it the FBI Uniform Crime Report. It reports on cities and how well they're doing in the seven major crimes like robbery, burglary, homicide, manslaughter. Those are indicators of how well a city is doing and when you look across the board, we are really breaking records.

Speaker 1: 10:28

Commissioner Tisch has done an amazing job in making sure we deploy our police officers in a precision policing and we're seeing good results.

Speaker 1: 10:37

Even when you look at some of the high profile cases like the Bronx the Bronx you saw there's a number of shootings that took place, particularly in the month of August, but overall shootings in the Bronx they're down by over 20% and we don't like to just give people stats, because people must feel safe and be safe and that feeling safe is more than just dangerous crime.

Speaker 1: 11:00

It's quality of life and that's why we put in place the Q Team Quality of Life Team team to go after abandoned vehicles, illegal dumpings, people using narcotics on our streets, music playing blasting all throughout the night, and so that's what our Q team is doing. It is matching what we have done and bringing down serious crime with how do we create the feeling of being safe? And we know it shakes New Yorkers when you hear some of these drastic shootings, like the 14 people shot in the nightclub or the four people shot inside 345 Park Avenue when the gunmen came across our country with an AR-15 and took the lives of innocent people. So we know that it is imperative that we make people be safe and feel safe, and that is our pursuit and we are moving in the right direction.

Speaker 3: 11:57

So you took over. You were sworn in during the pandemic, if I recall. So you took over a very difficult situation in terms of public safety. So describe how things were then compared to now and what measures you've taken, and also with the migrant issues. You know that's coming on during your term too, so this is your chance. Go ahead, tell us exactly you know how this went about and let us know how you feel about these issues.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Yes, and you know you mentioned a couple of things, and what really overshadowed the great success we have had in this city is three things One, random acts of violence. The second is severe mental health illness and the third is dealing with repeated offenders. People commit dangerous crimes over and over again and our criminal justice system continues to allow them on our streets. And the random acts of violence and severe mental health issues. It goes hand in hand, because that's what we're finding for the most part Individuals who are pushing people on the subway tracks or individuals who are punching women as they walk down the streets, or, as you saw, an individual who stabbed three innocent New Yorkers in Manhattan. These are people that were dealing with severe mental health illness, and so when we address that issue, we will address the random act of violence, but we're going to need the courts to address the public safety and the constant of allowing dangerous people out on our streets. We have to stop the revolving door. Some of the laws that former Governor Andrew Cuomo passed bail law and something called raise the age and the cannabis law they fed some of the crime problems we've had in the city and what we're seeing. As the mayor, I want a holistic approach to policing. Archbishop Desmond Tutu has a quote if we spend a lifetime pulling people out of the river, no one goes upstream and prevent them from falling in the first place, and so my administration is an upstream approach, and public safety is probably one of the best areas where we talk about upstream, such as those who were formerly incarcerated. We are giving them a pathway to get their CDL license because we have a tractor trailer shortage, a driver shortage in this city and country. These are jobs that pay $74,000 to $125,000 a year, and we are now training these formerly incarcerated people to become employable so they can be a benefit to society and not a burden to society. But we're also looking at dyslexia screening. 30 percent of our inmates are in Rikers Island, our city jail. 30 percent of them have learning disabilities, so now we're going upstream to prevent them from not getting the resources they deserve. So we're doing dyslexia screening in our schools to identify those who need the support they need, and so it's things like that Summer youth employment, summer rising, all year round school those are the things that we're doing to not allow young people to get on the pathway of crime.

Speaker 1: 15:26

But if someone does break the law. We are very serious about the apprehension. We removed over 23,000 illegal guns off our streets, ranking file police officers. We wanted to make sure we didn't hemage officers so we gave them a good contract. They've been asking for a fair contract for many years. We did just that. We settled the fair contract. They got about 98% ratification rate. They're staying on. When I inherited the city their morale was down. Crime was increasing. You see a complete turnaround in the three and a half years that I have been a mayor.

Speaker 3: 16:07

What about the number of officers of policemen?

Speaker 1: 16:12

We are about to reach in the next hiring class, we're going to reach the highest number of police officers ever With the next class we're bringing in. We committed, as you saw, last hiring class. We had over a thousand recruits that came in. That was one of the highest number in decades. And now, because of the salary, because of the morale that we're seeing and because of the increase in people who love this city and love this country that have come from other countries deciding to join the police department, it is really exciting when you look at it. And so now our numbers are going to get back to the highest level ever in the city with the next class that's coming in.

Speaker 3: 16:55

And it is the greatest police force in the world and I know people come from all over the world to see our methods. I was once in court and I saw there was a group of officers from all these different countries and they were there to learn from the New York City police, Richard go ahead.

Speaker 4: 17:13

So one of the things that you've championed is plant-based nutrition, and I don't think we've heard anything about that, but I believe that that's something you should talk about, because, as far as I know, no other government official has done more to promote plant-based nutrition than yourself.

Speaker 1: 17:30

Yes, and people often ask what is that? They always say are you a vegan? What is plant-based nutrition? Plant-based eating is where you try to have the bulk of your food. It's not processed.

Speaker 1: 17:47

You know, as many people know, I was impacted with diabetes, severe diabetes, where my vision. I was losing my vision, had permanent nerve damage in my hands and feet, had an ulcer and had a host of other items. I like to call it the American package cholesterol issue, high blood pressure issues, all of that. And it wasn't until the diagnosis, when I went to my doctor. The doctor I thought I had colon cancer and the doctor told me no, your real problem is your diabetes is at a dangerous level and you're going to lose your sight and you may lose some fingers and toes because of the nerve damage. And he gave me a pamphlet that says living with diabetes. And instead of doing that, I went to Google and I changed one word. You know that's how life is, but I changed one word. I changed from living with. That's how life is, but I changed one word. I changed from living with diabetes to reversing diabetes. And all this information came up.

Speaker 1: 18:50

I met a doctor, dr Esselstyn, in Cleveland Clinic, and he told me basically, yes, my mother had diabetes and it didn't mean that that was my life, it was in my DNA, it was my dinner and if I change my dinner I can actually impact my diagnosis. And within three weeks of doing so, my vision returned and about a couple of months my nerve damage went away in my hands and feet, my ulcer went away, my high blood pressure normalized and my cholesterol normalized and it was just a complete turnaround. And that is why I had a doctor, dr Mick Mackin. She was in Bellevue Hospital. She was a plant-based lifestyle medicine physician, medicine physician and I met her and as board president I convinced the former mayor to do a program in Bellevue Hospital on lifestyle medicine, plant-based eating.

Speaker 1: 19:53

And once I became a mayor we moved that program into all 11 health and hospital corporations and we have changed lives. We have gotten people off their medication. We have really taught people how food is medicine. In fact, pharmacy P-H-A-R-M-C-Y should be spelled F-A-R. You know it should be pharmacy. Food is the key and we want to continue to tell people how you can eat healthy and it doesn't mean that you know you're not going to pig out sometime and eat that pizza and do some things that you say I know you should not have done, but the overwhelming part of your diet. By some slight modifications you could have some great health outcomes outcomes Great information and very inspiring.

Speaker 3: 20:43

And if no one gets anything out of this broadcast, hopefully they take your diet advice. All right, so let's get into. You know we talked about quality of life issues. Obviously, a concern to the call-up and condo community Housing in general is a major issue, and I was reading an article and I was surprised to read I don't know why I was surprised that your administration is building, or is planning to build, more new housing than the last couple of mayors, I think, combined. So here's your platform. Why don't you explain what that article was talking about and let us know what's going on there?

Speaker 1: 21:20

Because that's a crucial issue.

Speaker 3: 21:21

It's a good article. I figured you'd like that article.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Yes, Well, we broke records in year one, year two and year three of our administrations when it comes down to housing. It's clear, as one of the editorial boards said, you know people need to really recognize what we accomplished around housing. And we broke records. We preserved and built more affordable housing in individual years in the recorded history of the city. We moved more people out of homelessness into permanent housing in each year in the history of the city and more people got housing through the FEPS voucher program that's, the subsidized housing program in the history of the program. But more importantly, we had a moonshot goal of 500,000 units of housing and we are in the next decade. We're going to preserve, build and we have zoned, basically got the city ready to be able to build 426,000 units, new units of housing. That is more than 12 years of Bloomberg, eight years of de Blasio combined. So in 20 years of what they were able to accomplish, we were able to do more than that in three and a half years of making sure the city is ready to deal.

Speaker 1: 22:52

Have an inventory issue we have a 1.4% vacancy rate, meaning there are only 1.4% apartments that are vacant in the city. We have to build more, and so we knew we had to build more. So we did what was called City of yes and, for the first time in our city, every community board in the city is going to play a role in building housing. Prior to our passing of City of yes, our city is divided by community boards, 59 of them. 10 community boards were building more housing than the other 49 combined. You know, when you think of that number, you realize why we have a shortage, and this is basically supply and demand. If the supply is low and the demand is high, the price is going to be high. And we have a perfect example of that. If we develop a housing project, let's say in the Bronx, where we have 500 units of housing, we're getting 34,000 requests in the lottery system to fill those 500 units. That's just an offset that we have to address.

Speaker 3: 24:12

Okay, great information. Now this is the Co-op and Condo Insider, and you and I spoke four years ago and you're one of the rare elected officials that actually is a former co-op owner and co-op resident. I know you lived on Washington Avenue and I believe I was the attorney for that building maybe not when you were there, but at some point in time. So just explain to the folks listening your experience as a co-op shareholder.

Speaker 1: 24:41

Well, I believe housing of any kind should be protected and preserved. But some people use co-ops in two ways. Some become a permanent lifestyle and they enjoy the living of apartment living and they look forward to it. I own another co-op after leaving the previous co-op and for those like me it's a stepping stone. It was due to my co-op that I was able to have enough revenue to buy a building, a three-family building that I later used to leverage to pay off my son's college tuition.

Speaker 1: 25:25

But co-ops are so important and it is part of our city houses stock and we should be careful of what we do that could harm our co-ops. Many people in co-ops are on fixed income. The builders depend on the shareholders to make sure the repairs are done and all the other legal aspects of running and maintaining a building. It could be very complicated and time consuming and I just really believe that we do not fully appreciate the role that co-ops and condominium owners play in the city. But I do and whatever I can do to ensure to protect them and protect the builders, I am going to fight hard to do so.

Speaker 3: 26:13

So some of our prior episodes we've had board presidents who I always say don't get enough credit as leaders in the city. Did you ever run for the board or ever think about running for the board?

Speaker 1: 26:23

Yes, I was on the board for a little time and it's a lot of work. You know, people don't give enough due to board members. Because it is a lot of work, because you're maintaining an entire building and that's everything from repairs to collecting rent, to legal issues, to making sure that the buildings stay the quality that you like, and I just believe we need to really take our hats off to those who are on the boards.

Speaker 3: 26:58

Well, I always say you're dealing with the sanctity of people's homes. Yes, nothing more important to people, so tougher job board. Member or mayor of the city of New York, you don't have to answer that.

Speaker 1: 27:10

You know all jobs, difficulties and challenges are relative to the job that you're on. I'm sure if you go to a shoeshine man he would tell you the challenges that he's facing every day, and so I respect all workers because they all have their level of difficulties. You know there are good days, there are bad days. There are days you want to pull out your hair and there are days you just want to make sure it looks right. So it's all ups and downs.

Speaker 3: 27:38

So one of the big concerns facing the co-op and condo community is New York City. You know the DOB is extremely aggressive and the unfunded mandates keep coming and with severe penalties. So has your administration? Have you taken a look at some of the unfunded mandates to see how they affect the co-op community and what can be done to help ease some of the burdens of these unfunded mandates? Go ahead.

Speaker 1: 28:10

Yes, like Local Law 97. And you know it's unfortunate that oftentimes we make these decisions without really seeing how they play out on the ground to everyday working people. The Local Law 97 was passed prior to our administration. We tried to find ways to ease the burden. I just really believe that we need to think through this better because we don't want to destabilize the co-op and condo housing stock and you know, some of these unfunded mandates are really challenging for our co-op and condos owners and my hope, in turn, too, we can go back and revisit some of these rules and policies. Yes, we have to do everything possible to improve our environment, but we shouldn't do it at the level that is going to hurt the environment of those who are in co-ops and condominiums.

Speaker 3: 29:16

Just while I have you captive here. There's been no affordability study. Nobody ever did a study. How will Local 197 affect the affordability of? I'll stay with the call-up and condo owner because that's who I represent. And now the numbers are coming in and you're talking 30, 40, 50,000 per household maybe, and that doesn't even factor in the cost to renovate the grid, to be renewable, and we see what's going on with Con Ed. So this is something that needs to be looked at closely because you know, if we get too deep into it, you know it's going to be hard to turn back at a certain point.

Speaker 1: 29:56

I agree, and we need to examine the affordability, we need to examine all levels of how these rules that we make in the sterilized environment of a legislative chamber, how does it impact the working class people on the ground?

Speaker 3: 30:36

Because there are you know, people always think of Park Avenue, but I always think of Hillside Avenue A lot of co-ops there. We represent the co-ops near your neighborhood in South Jamaica, ozone Park, whitestone Bay, bronx and they're all going through the same trepidation regarding local 197 compliance, and right now is a critical time to stop and look at it. I know your office of sustainability is doing research on it. I was actually contacted by them at some point and I gave them some facts and figures and I think that's moving in the right direction. So, richard, this is your time to shine, buddy.

Speaker 4: 31:00

So, for those listening, this is my copy of the Bayside, so I always like to ask some fun questions. What are your fondest memories of Bayside High School? We were both there and what's interesting is, when we were there, you know, maybe we were watching reruns of the Jetsons, whatever. And now there's like self-driving cars. What do you see coming up from our past and what does our future kind of look like?

Speaker 1: 31:21

as far as technology, I, you know it was. It was a a remarkable experience of and I'm still in contact with a lot of my friends from Bayside. I still communicate with many of them and we, you know, stay in contact with each other and it's just. You know, high school is an important part of your socialization and your development. You start to become a young adult and you really start to find your independence. I spent a lot of time in that park across the street, you know, and I was a Commodores fan. That was our football team and you know, even the basketball team. Coach Nelson gave a lot of insight and I still hear some of his quotes that he would have. But, yes, it was a wonderful experience of just interacting with different cultures and really finding your innocence as a child to coming into your young adulthood in terms of technology and all these things that are on the horizon.

Speaker 4: 32:36

You know monorails and this and that. What do you see maybe 40, 50 years down the road for the city? As far as how we're going to be living, am I going to be like George Jetson, driving to work in a little space vehicle that you know zips itself up into a suitcase?

Speaker 1: 32:50

Yeah, no, no. Think about it. How far fetched was it for us as children when we saw Dick Tracy talking to the watch? We thought that was impossible, and now we can't even see ourselves without being with these smartphones and devices. Technology could be helpful and it could be harmful. I would like to see that. Say that it's going to be helpful for us.

Speaker 1: 33:15

We're going to use artificial intelligence to help in our educational system, we're going to use it in our hospital systems and we're going to be able to use platforms like ChatGPT and Google Translate, where language barriers will no longer exist in this city. We're already there. Barriers would no longer exist in this city. We're already there. You could get on JackGPT and have a clear conversation with someone that does not speak English at all, and so all of our agencies will be manned with devices that, if you come in and you speak Urdu, spanish, you know Creole. No matter what you speak, we're going to be able to give you the services that you deserve, because when you pay your taxes, no one asks what is your dialect. They take those taxes out, and we want to make sure that New Yorkers can communicate with city agencies to get the resources that their tax dollars are paying for.

Speaker 1: 34:13

But we also want to utilize artificial intelligence in a better way. Our children should know it, understand it and not be afraid of it. Take, for example, the number of hours a teacher will use to grade papers every day. Imagine if she's able to just use a good artificial intelligence program to grade those papers. She'll now be spending more time and giving that child the quality of support that they need. So we're not looking that jobs will be displaced. We're looking that jobs will be improved with this technology. We want to use this technology for New Yorkers to be able to get access to the services they deserve.

Speaker 4: 35:01

One last question On the future of plant-based food in the schools. Do you see an expansion of the programs you've pioneered?

Speaker 1: 35:08

Yes, without a doubt, and of course, children would rather have right now, at this age of their lives. Children would rather have right now, at this age of their lives. They would rather have pizza. They would rather have a nice saturated, fat-filled hamburger and processed cheese. Of course there's a reason that all of us remember our mom saying eat your vegetables, eat your vegetables. The science is clear Vegetables are healthy for not only your physical body but your mental state. There are now links between the lack of proper nutrition is linked to depression, is linked to other mental anxieties, and so we know we have to make these smart and right decisions about for our children. Food must look good, it must taste good, but, most importantly, it must be good for you, and that's where we are making this evolution in our school system.

Speaker 3: 36:02

Mr Mayor, thank you for your time, thank you for your service, thank you for your leadership and you are now officially a Co-op and Condo Insider.

Speaker 4: 36:10

Take care.

Speaker 3: 36:11

Thank you very much.

Speaker 4: 36:12

Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you for your service. Take care.

Speaker 3: 36:15

So we would like to thank Mayor Adams for joining us today. This was an informative and fun episode. Richard, I would say right, and you got to reminisce with the mayor about your Bayside High School days.

Speaker 4: 36:28

Which is a rare treat.

Speaker 3: 36:30

So this is the Condo Insider. Thank you for joining us.