Mayor Adams Celebrates Approved Budget That Prioritizes Working-Class New Yorkers, Seeks To Make Our City More Affordable, Invests In Library Systems
A Budget That Prioritizes Working-Class New Yorkers and Seeks to Make Our City More Affordable
Editor’s note: Staten Islander News was invited to a budget round table with the mayor’s office prior to the official acceptance and announcement of the budget adoption. We also covered the possible cuts to food pantries and libraries which would have been devastating to our communities (and these cuts have been reversed so get ready to visit the library on Sunday again!)
New Yorkers deserve a city budget that delivers for them and tackles our affordability crisis head-on. Alongside Speaker Adams and our City Council partners, we are proud to announce the passage of a $112.4 billion Adopted Budget that invests in the future of our city and the people who make New York the greatest city in the world.
Thanks to our strong fiscal management, as well as better-than-expected revenue growth, we have passed a collaborative budget that addresses the three things that cost New Yorkers the most: childcare, health care, and housing. What’s more is, this was done despite facing unprecedented challenges, including a $7.1 billion budget gap, an international humanitarian crisis that has already cost our city $4.9 billion and is expected to cost billions more, and hundreds of millions of short-term stimulus dollars previously used to fund crucial long-term programs — a major feat.
So, what does the city’s budget deliver for you?
We are investing $100 million in early childhood education to reimagine the outdated 3-K system that was no longer working for working-class families. With a $20 million investment for up to 1,700 new seats this school year, we will make sure the seats are filled and children and families are served immediately. We’re also going further to ensure 3-K is more equitable than ever, with additional investments totaling $80 million for extended day seats and to serve undocumented families and students with disabilities.
Additionally, we are deepening our commitment to our public education system with over $600 million to protect programs previously funded with short-term federal stimulus dollars like teacher recruitment, restorative justice, computer science and arts programming, and more. And, because we want our children to start out ahead in the coming school year, we are investing $75 million to ensure schools do not lose funding even if they face declining enrollment.
We know that our investments in young people don’t end when the school day runs out. That is why we are restoring extended days for Summer Rising, Friday programming for middle school Summer Rising participants, and supporting community schools. This allows young people to learn and grow during the summer, and families to work without worrying about their kids. For older students, we are funding essential programs like CUNY ACE, CUNY STEM, and Brooklyn Recovery Corps at Medgar Evers College.
Our cultural institutions and our libraries are also a critical part of our city’s social fabric, and with the City Council, we are investing $53 million in our cultural institutions. And we know that our libraries provide a lifeline to countless communities, so we are putting over $58 million back into their operations, so they can keep their doors open seven days a week and provide the services New Yorkers rely on.
Public safety has been our top priority from the start, and one of the ways we’re protecting New Yorkers is by stopping illegal cannabis sales. This budget allows us to continue our crackdown on illegal cannabis sales while supporting legal outlets.
We are also continuing to support our efforts to make our streets safer by providing funds for staff positions at our new 116th Precinct in Queens, which is due to open this fall, and by funding security at 55 New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) buildings to protect our senior residents.
New Yorkers love their parks, and we are taking care of our green spaces by funding additional park rangers, Green Thumb programs, and tree stump removals.
We are committed to improving the physical, emotional, and mental health of all New Yorkers. That is why our administration previously launched “HealthyNYC,” an ambitious plan to extend the lifespan of all New Yorkers. We have also released a sweeping mental health agenda with $20 million in commitments to invest in the mental health of children and families and canceled $2 billion in medical debt that New Yorkers owe.
This year’s Adopted Budget further invests in programs to help keep New Yorkers healthy by expanding the Office of Health Care Accountability to bring rising health care costs down and ensure hospitals and health care providers are not gouging New Yorkers, as well as by investing in key services, such as HIV related programs.
Finally, affordable housing is critical to making our city more affordable and more livable. With this in mind, we have added $2 billion in capital funds to NYCHA and the Department of Housing Preservation & Development to develop more affordable housing. This will support our administration’s moonshot goal of building 500,000 new homes by 2032, as well as our commitment to transforming NYCHA so every New Yorker has a clean, safe place to live. This $2 billion investment will bring our investment in affordable housing over our current 10-year capital plan to more than $26 billion — a new record level.
Early in our administration, we made it clear that our mission is to support working-class New Yorkers by protecting public safety, investing in our economy, and making the city more livable. The budget we just passed delivers on that mission, as it helps us continue to build a city that is safer, cleaner, and more affordable for all New Yorkers.
TRANSCRIPT: MAYOR ADAMS CELEBRATES $58.3 MILLION INVESTMENT IN CITY’S THREE LIBRARY SYSTEMS
Commissioner Adolfo Carrión, Department of Housing Preservation and Development: Okay, good morning everyone. There you go. It’s a day of celebration. Happy new fiscal year. Come on. In my home we don’t celebrate January 1st, we celebrate July 1st. We stayed up late last night, popping corks.
I am delighted to be here at this beautiful new library, which has 170 some odd brand new 100 percent affordable housing units above. This is emblematic of where we’re going and the mayor’s vision for the future of New York City.
Last Friday, the mayor announced our city’s next budget. This was a budget for the people, for working families, for retirees, for anyone who’s struggling to make ends meet in New York City. Mayor Adams and Speaker Adams, only related in purpose and commitment, delivered an incredible additional $2 billion for affordable housing in New York City over the next two fiscal years. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
You’ll hear the mayor talk about the entirety of that commitment, spanning over 10 years and $26 billion, the largest investment ever made in New York City. The mayor’s commitment marks yet another important step toward giving us the resources that we need as an agency at the Department of Housing Preservation and Development to tackle the affordability crisis.
We’re surrounded by a bunch of leaders today that have committed their lives to public service and ensuring the secure and prosperous future of the city of New York. First, at bat this morning, is the mayor of New York City, my boss, Eric Adams. Thank you.
Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you. Thanks so much. I’m really happy to be joined by Assemblywoman Rajkumar, Councilmember Carlina Rivera, and one of the hardest working senators that I know, Senator Robert Jackson. Thank you so much.
When you do a real analysis over these last two years and seven months, if you look just from the outside, you don’t realize what took place. I just cannot thank Speaker Adams enough, despite all of the conversation and noise around the finance chair with Jaques Jiha, Speaker Adams and her team, Tiffany, Ingrid. We had an awesome task in front of us.
Little did we know when we started out finding efficiencies in government, that we were going to be faced with not only the devastation of COVID, but also how we’re going to deal with 200,000 migrants and asylum seekers. Just learning the basic rules that blue collar parents teach their children. We did that.
We went across the board. We looked at every agency, and we told every agency that we were going to have to find efficiencies. Everyday mothers and fathers and homeowners have to look at their budget and have the money that comes in balance what’s going out. That’s what we did. Because we did that, we had a $7 billion budget gap, deficit, $7 billion.
We had sunsetting programs, pre-K, 3K, summer rising, many of the other programs. We had $4.9 billion in migrants and asylum seekers. We had to settle union contracts that were outstanding. Some of them [for as long] as 13 years. Police officers were up to almost eight years. We had to bring our city employees up to the pay scale that they deserve. We had to protect those basic entities. We saved over $7 billion.
Then the Council and City Hall sat down, and said let’s look at some of those things that we told everyone across the board. They must have these savings. Now let’s go back and look at the ones that we can reinstate. One of them was the libraries. We were able to put back $58 million in our libraries. $53 million in our culturals. Able to finance pre-K, 3K. Able to ensure the Summer Rising program was still in place. Able to put money into fighting the illegal cannabis.
We smartly looked at how we could put back those dollars that we thought were crucial. They were priorities not only for the City Council but for the City Hall as well. Out of that $340 something million, we still had the savings that we found in efficiencies in government. Because if we like it or not, agencies and government was not using taxpayers’ dollars correctly. We knew we could produce a better project. Without one layoff. Without raising any taxes.
Go look at the other cities and how many layoffs happened after the fiscal cliff took place after the COVID dollars were removed from their budgets. We survived that in a real way. Even with 200,000 migrants and asylum seekers in our city not sleeping on the streets. 65,000 still remaining in our care and able to provide service for that.
Under any other review, you would say job well done. Job well done. We know what the future holds for us because we have $8.2 billion in our savings to deal with the crises that are coming before us and more housing finance in one year in the history of the city.
More people moved out of being in shelters into permanent housing in one year in the history of the city. More people participating in the FHEPS voucher program in the history of the program. More children and summer youth programming in the history of the city. More jobs in the history of the city. More small businesses open in the history of the city.
Transit, one bump in January, now we have the safest transit system in generations. Decreasing homicide. Decreasing shooters. Five of the seven major crime categories down. 40,000 illegal mopeds off our streets. Ghost cars off our streets. We’re bringing in the Independence Day without the fireworks that I saw all over our city when in 2021 I was running for mayor. We’re doing it. We’re doing it. We’re doing it.
New Yorkers are going to continue to see how well we’re doing. We have great partners that realize that these are tough times and we have to make tough decisions. That’s what leadership is. Leadership is not putting your finger in the air, feeling where the wind is blowing, and going in that direction. Leadership is taking the tough choices so we can be prepared for the future. I didn’t learn that when I became mayor. I learned that as a child because that’s what my mother did to keep the roof over our head no matter how difficult it was.
Commissioner Carrión, great job. HPD and the entire administration. I cannot say enough; thank you to Speaker Adams. As I say over and over again, Adams and Adams United. We landed the plane. We landed the plane. Despite facing all the challenges that we were facing, two blue-collar electeds citywide working for blue-collar New Yorkers. We reached a budget deal that invests in the future of our city and the working people of the city.
I’ve said this over and over again. I’m a working class mayor. People stop me all the time and say, you’re one of us; you know what we’re going through. We made those smart decisions and tough choices that will support our North Star. That’s protecting public safety, rebuilding our economy, and making the city more livable and affordable. Part of that, making the city more livable – I love hearing babies – is to ensure that we do the right things like our dyslexia screening.
When New Yorkers spoke, we listened. We heard. We had great partners in the City Council. We were able to bring back real funding to our city and put $2 billion in our housing plan. I think we’re up to, what, $62 billion? $26 billion in our housing plan. Now our libraries can keep their doors open every day of the week with peace of mind and continue to serve New Yorkers.
We know what libraries represent. I use it often. I knew how much having access to high speed broadband, going for your passport, being able to use it as a community hub. We know what the libraries represented to so many people. That’s why that was one of the priorities with both the Council and the City Hall. We know it’s a community hub. It includes one of our groundbreaking, right here in this building, our groundbreaking teen centers, which we invested $15 million towards so every borough could have their own center.
Teen centers are places where young people can connect with each other in person instead of over the cell phone and social media devices, learn new technical skills, learn to collaborate, receive social emotional support, discover new passion, and prepare themselves for future careers. I’m really proud of these teen centers and what they represent. We’re going to continue to give the resources that’s needed there. The youth of New York City aren’t only our future, they are the leaders of today. I say that over and over again.
Finally, we know that our libraries provide a lifeline to countless communities in so many ways. The Inwood Library is not only a new library, but it is connected to the Eliza, a new building, which has 174 deeply affordable homes that will put a roof over the heads of 174 families. This is an amazing model because there’s so much air space over many of our libraries that we can do some great things with. This model shows that you can live upstairs and come check out a book downstairs.
This partnership is central to addressing our city’s housing crisis head on. 1.4 percent vacancy rate, we have to build more, and we have to find creative spaces in our city to do that building. It’s part of what Dan Garodnick and what HPD have been saying. The City of Yes for Housing Opportunity is so important to us and is part of our overall plan to make this city more affordable.
These are exciting times. Really, hats off to New Yorkers for understanding how important it is. This is how we get the city back on track. We turned this city around in two years. Two years. We’ve turned this city around. We’re not coming back, folks. New York is back. Thank you.
Commissioner Carrión: Thank you, Mr. Mayor. It is a day of celebration. It’s a great way to close out the old fiscal year and start a new fiscal year. That’s why I said, happy new fiscal year today.
Quiero decir algunas palabritas en español porque estamos aquí en el vecindario de Washington Heights Inwood. Esta inversión en una biblioteca y en viviendas asequibles (la inversión más grande en viviendas en la historia de la ciudad) la ha hecho el alcalde Eric Adams. Con este equipo, con el presidente de la biblioteca de Nueva York, la presidenta de la biblioteca de Queens, de Brooklyn, perdón, de Brooklyn. Más grande todavía, más grande todavía. Y nuestros colaboradores en el gobierno, en la legislatura. Gracias a todas las personas que han hecho esto posible hoy. Esta es una inversión en nuestro futuro.
Translation: I want to say a few words in Spanish because we are here in the Washington Heights Inwood neighborhood. This investment in a library and affordable housing, the largest investment in housing in the city’s history, was made by Mayor Eric Adams. With this team, with the president of the New York library, the president of the Queens library, from Brooklyn, sorry, from Brooklyn. Even bigger, even bigger. And our collaborators in the government, in the legislature. Thank you to all the people who have made this possible today. This is an investment in our future.
This is an investment in our future. Now, it gives me great pleasure to introduce the president of the New York Public Library, our partner in this project. We’re preparing to do another project in the Bronx on 173rd and the Grand Concourse, Mr. Mayor. We’re already engaged with that community. This neighborhood kid, full circle, comes back 60 years to celebrate this moment because this is where the president of the New York Public Library grew up, right here in Inwood, Tony Marx.
Anthony Marx, President and CEO, New York Public Library: Gracias, Adolfo. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor, I cannot thank you enough. On behalf of all New Yorkers, what an amazing success. On top of everything else, you faced real budget challenges, we know. We always knew, we know, that you love your libraries.
Like all New Yorkers, [the library is] the most used, the most trusted civic institution in this town. We faced some real threats together. You had hard choices to make. In the end, thanks to this mayor, the City Council, and Speaker Adams, everyone came together to say, let’s do what’s important.
We heard from New Yorkers, hundreds of thousands writing to the mayor, to our city leaders, saying we can’t have libraries closed on Sundays. We can’t even imagine libraries being closed on Saturdays, or not being able to reopen beautiful new libraries in neighborhoods that are so needy, where we are the crucial resource. You turned it around, Mr. Mayor. You turned it around and you delivered.
Look at what has been delivered. Just as this example. This library, bigger and better, grand, huge, windows, lights, space, atriums. There’s a community center, there’s a senior center, there’s 174 units of affordable housing. We’ve never used the air before this partnership, Mr. Mayor. We can innovate together. We can create a public-private partnership together. A $5 million gift from the Rosenblatt family unleashed $90 million of additional investment in this neighborhood. My neighborhood.
I grew up here. This was my library. I was that little kid. 60 years ago, sitting here, imagining what the world might produce, what I might make of myself. Reading and imagining and learning the crucial ingredients of opportunity and of democracy. For New York, for this mayor, for the City Council to invest, to produce this result in this neighborhood, speaks volumes to your values and to what New York stands for.
The libraries have always been the first port of call for the immigrant communities, waves of them. This neighborhood has seen waves of immigrants. Jews and Irish, when I was growing up, now an amazing Dominican community. Always respected, always given the education programs and the library services and the books and the amazing librarians that they deserve. We need to respect New Yorkers. This is our sign of respect, of giving people what they need. A public-private partnership in service.
My dad didn’t go to college. I don’t know what he would have thought of my standing here with you today, Mr. Mayor. I don’t know what they would have thought of this amazing new library. My mom died two weeks ago. She would have been amazed. Let me just say, at this moment, when there is so much trouble in the world, when there is so much bad news, today is good news, New York. Today is good news. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Commissioner Carrión: Thank you, Tony. I told you, full circle. He was a kid right here in this library. There are so many stories about New York libraries, like there are so many stories about those of us who grew up in affordable housing. I always say that this is very personal to me, and I know it’s very personal to the mayor and to this administration.
We have a partner in the City Council and one of our champions for cultural institutions and public libraries. She is an outstanding leader and an outstanding voice and a reliable partner supporting and defending New York City’s cultural institutions and New York City’s public libraries. The little bambina that you heard a little while ago, I think, is associated with our next speaker. This is the chair of libraries and cultural affairs for the New York City Council, a real champion, Carlina Rivera.
City Council Member Carlina Rivera: Hello, everyone. Good morning. I have to say, it is quite something to view the world as the mom of a baby, of very young children. To be able to walk into this facility, this gorgeous building, knowing that it is ADA accessible, really is just something that gives you hope as to what is possible across the city when we’re looking at new infrastructure being inclusive.
Take a look around. The diversity here is incredible. There are babies here, I think, in addition to mine. Libraries provide incredible programming even for our youngest New Yorkers. You can go to your library branch, listen to a story, and have tummy time with other mothers and caretakers. There’s toddler story hour. There’s drag story hour at a time when books are being banned across the country. Membership is up, accessing books here at our New York branches from people across the country.
There’s the teen center. I was just at my teen center at the Tompkins Square branch where the teenagers were showing me how to use a 3D printer. They were making friendship bracelets, and they were also using the college readiness material that was at their disposal. You’ll see seniors, you’ll see people here searching for housing, just reading books, having a quiet space to themselves, and, of course, a cooling center. There’s no doubt that this will be a hot summer. We are dependent on our libraries as cooling centers. It is important that they are functional and open. Now we will have seven-day service.
I want to thank everyone here. Of course, the mayor’s team, the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Public Library is also in the house. We were in front of the Walt Whitman branch in the middle of Fort Greene, in the middle of public housing, just highlighting how important these institutions are to so many people, especially our low-income working class families. You heard the mayor speak about that. It is a good day.
In the final hours of negotiation on the budget, we all worked very diligently. We knew that we had to come to a consensus and an agreement, and we had to pass something responsible that delivered for the families of New York City. Some things that were mentioned, $58.3 million for our libraries. That higher baseline for libraries, a commitment by the mayor so that next year we can even focus on what’s next and what’s possible in this fiscal year that started today, which is very exciting. I’m really proud of the New Yorkers who made it very clear how important our library system is. We all received thousands and thousands of emails. The New York Public Library memes are just, they’re really iconic.
This was always a top priority. People really know that libraries are more than just buildings. People rely on them for access to books, to computers, to search for housing, career, financial support, other resources. During that heat wave, I just want to thank all of the library systems because we needed these institutions for so many things. When it comes to this budget, I think we made very clear that the programs and services available in these institutions were our priority. We would settle for nothing less, and we came to an agreement that really delivered.
I want to just say for over a century, New York’s public library systems have been connecting people to valuable resources, and are a cornerstone of our vibrant civic society. This building is also what’s possible as to how we can ensure there’s community space, housing, books, technology, and a real safe space for New Yorkers.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Thank you to your team. I know I’m going to sit here quietly with my baby. I also want to thank HPD. I want to thank you for your leadership, Commissioner. To everyone, is there Spanish media here? Okay.
El comisionado de Liderazgo a todos… ¿Este es el comisionado de Liderazgo? Sí. OK. Es decir, que las bibliotecas son para todo el mundo. Estamos aquí porque necesitamos estos espacios durante cuando hace mucho calor para los libros, para el acceso a tecnología. Y en este espacio, este edificio que tiene vivienda asequible, es bien importante para los neoyorquinos que son de bajos ingresos, que están trabajando bien duro en esta ciudad. Es bien importante que estemos aquí con el alcalde [para] decir que este presupuesto siempre tenía el mensaje que fue una prioridad. Que los programas y los servicios que brindan las bibliotecas son nuestra prioridad. Muchas gracias.
Translation: The Leadership Commissioner everyone… Is this the Leadership Commissioner? Yes, Ok. That is to say, libraries are for everyone. We are here because we need these spaces during when it is too hot for books, for access to technology. And in this space, this building that has affordable housing, it is very important for New Yorkers who are low income, who are working very hard in this city, it is very important that we are here with the mayor to say that this budget always had the message which was a priority. That the programs and services provided by libraries are our priority. Thank you so much.
Commissioner Carrión: Gracias, Concejal. Thank you, Councilmember. The Brooklyn Public Library president was acknowledged, but I didn’t acknowledge her by name. Linda Johnson is here. BPL. I also want to acknowledge the Chief of Staff to Assemblymember Al Taylor. Wendy Lorenzetti has joined us. Wendy’s back here. Hi Wendy, thank you. I think the mayor mentioned Robert Jackson, right? Yes.
It is my pleasure to introduce our last speaker for this morning. She is a force of nature. She is a champion for the heights. When I got to the agency and I kept seeing in memos and emails, cloth this, cloth that, and I said what are we in the fabric business? What is this? Then they told me it was Community League of the Heights and that there was a lady behind it that you had to watch out for because she was going to mow you down if you didn’t agree with her. She is really terrific. We were celebrating last week right here at the Eliza. My dear friend Yvonne Stennett.
Yvonne Stennett, Executive Director, Community League of the Heights: What an introduction. I hope I live up to it every day. I prepared some statements because I wanted to make sure I stuck to the words, but I have to say this as I say to all of our young people. I greet each and every one of you in the spirit of namaste. The divine in me sees and honors the divine in each and every one of you. That divine nature is what makes us do what we need to do to build the lives of everyone around us.
Again, my name is Yvonne Stennett. I’m the executive director of Community League of the Heights. Very pleased to be here. Jeremy, please. The restoration of these funds, not just to the library, but to all of the essential services across our city, is absolutely necessary so that we can build whole communities. None of these services exist without each other. Our housing, our education, our libraries, our economic development, our arts and culture, they’re all connected.
They’re what moves our city to be great, to be vibrant, to be attractive to others. It’s what makes our lives strong and connected in a way that makes our children, their future, really promising. I just, I get emotional when we do what we’re supposed to do, which is the right thing, by investing in communities and in the lives of the people who live in our communities. Where we just don’t offer hope, but we actually get out there and do the work.
I’m grateful for the advocates who made it, made their voice really loud, and thank God for them. Grateful to the mayor and grateful to the City Council for making this happen. We have four pillars that holds up our organization. The provision of affordable housing, economic development, education, and health and wellness. This project represents all of that, and it was the partnership, the unique partnership of a private investor, the HDC, HPD, other city agencies, and no doubt the public library that made it happen.
We are blessed to be here today. We are thankful to be here today, and we need to make more of these happen. Right? This is the way to do it. This is the way to really, truly serve community. Let’s do more of these, and let’s do them now, mayor.
Commissioner Carrión: Now the mayor will take some questions on topic.
Mayor Adams: It’s only fitting we’re up here in the Heights to hear from two of our state electors who have been real partners last year, this year up in Albany, from mayoral accountability to our housing agenda, to our cannabis enforcement. The leaders of both their conferences really looked out for New York City. I will turn it over to Senator Jackson, and then the ever-present Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.
New York State Senator Robert Jackson: Good morning, everyone. Let me be brief, but libraries are more than just the homes to great books. They are the lifeline of critical support services that help New Yorkers thrive and feel safe. After-school programs open seven days a week. What more can you ask for?
I say this to you, that the restoration that happened here for full library services and other amenities in here, and 174 units of affordable housing, this is, let me just tell you, this is what we need everywhere. We have to come together in unity to make it happen. I’m just so happy, someone that has served 12 years on the City Council, I know what it is to deal during budget time. Up in Albany, it’s even tougher.
Seriously, I’m so happy, mayor, that you and the leaders of the City Council have come to agreement on a $112.4 billion budget in order to keep New York City running the way it should be. Obviously, we always want more, but we have to work together to make it happen. On behalf of all the people in New York City, more specifically in Inwood, in Washington Heights, Northern Manhattan, which I represent, I’d say muchas gracias, señor. Thank you. As-salamu alaykum. Peace be upon everyone.
State Assemblymember Jenifer Rajkumar: Good morning. I’m State Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar, and yes, I’m here to celebrate the $53.8 million investment in our city’s library systems. First, I also want to thank Mayor Adams for shepherding through this $112.4 billion adopted budget for the next fiscal year. This is a great achievement.
New York City has the largest municipal budget of any city in this country. Our budget is bigger than the budget of 48 states. This was an enormous task. I applaud the mayor for being such an effective steward of our taxpayer dollars, as well as the Speaker of the City Council, Adrienne Adams. Today, here we are.
I just love looking at the numbers, because it’s actually going to be over $178 million for my home borough’s Queens Public Library. I’ve always loved numbers. In fact, I got a five on the calculus AP exam. I never had a chance to brag about that. Now’s my moment.
Today, I am proud to celebrate the greatness of our city’s libraries. In fact, Lady Bird Johnson once said that perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest. Our libraries are safe and inclusive spaces, and they’re open to every New Yorker, no matter what your background, no matter what your status.
For me personally, libraries were the place where I developed my own imagination. That’s where I read about great women leaders. That’s where I read about women in history, and whereas a child I first learned about the conflicts in the Middle East, here at the library. Philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson said that it takes a great deal of time to sleep, or to eat, or to earn a hundred dollars, but a very little time to entertain a hope and an insight that becomes the light of your life. That’s what happens in the library. The light bulbs go on, and it can change your life.
Today, I want to also celebrate the greatness that has come out of all of our public libraries. It was at Harlem’s own Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture that Lin Manuel Miranda did his research for the musical Hamilton, delving into the archives to learn about Alexander Hamilton’s life and historic time period, and the rest is history.
The Bronx Library and the Queens Flushing Library in my home borough are known as places where immigrant families like mine can go and learn English. In fact, the Queens Library at Flushing has resources in Bengali, Chinese, French, Gujarati, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Spanish, Urdu, and Russian, and I’m not even done yet. Of course, the New York Public Library system is second in size only to the United States Library of Congress.
That is only appropriate for the greatest city in the world. For generations to come, may our libraries thrive, because scientia est potentia. Knowledge is power. Thank you.
Mayor Adams: We’ll do a few questions.
Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: Good. I have to ask, because we’re in the library. How does it feel to go from being the villain to being the hero all in the same story?
Mayor Adams: I think that’s a very important question. We laugh, but, much of what I do is based on, as many of you have known, it’s based on my mom. There [were] things I didn’t understand. I thought she was being mean when she told us we couldn’t have those new pair of sneakers. I thought she was being mean when I had to wear my oldest brother’s clothing. I thought she didn’t understand when I didn’t have the new things that other kids on the block had. She had to make tough decisions. She tells me, she told me over and over again that, “Baby, leadership is about making tough decisions and smart decisions.”
I don’t mind being the villain of the city that I love, that I wore that bulletproof vest for 22 years. I love New York. I protected the children and families of the city as a police officer, and I advocated for justice and safety. I think that when you do a proper analysis of what Adrienne and I have accomplished, you will be proud that these blue-collar children grew up to be blue-collars adults, and we run in the most important city on the globe, and we’re doing right for everyday New Yorkers. This $58 million is going to continue doing that. Michael.
Question: I got two questions. The first one, some members of the Council have said, one has described this as a propaganda tour. What they’re basically saying is that this was, in some part, putting the migrant financial part aside, like a crisis of your own creation, that really, this could have been funded early on. I was wondering how you’d respond to those guys, and then after that, just one more.
Mayor Adams: I don’t. I think that we’ve heard enough anger in our city and in our country, in our globe. I’m saying to New Yorkers, as this is a season of opportunity, I’m saying let’s fall in love with New York again. It starts with us engaging in very civil dialogue with each other and stop finding fault in each other.
The first two years, there was just too many fights. I don’t want to fight anymore. I want to enjoy my city, and I want to enjoy the people of this city. If those who want to hurl names at me, they don’t know my commitment to this city. Whomever said that, all I can say to them is that I love them, and I’ll pray for them.
Question: One more question, just this.
Mayor Adams: I even love you.
Question: Come on. We’re here in Inwood today, and I live in this area. I hear from people around here you like to go out to some of the clubs in the neighborhood. I’m wondering.
Mayor Adams: I like this one. I love, let me tell you some good spots you can come to.
Question: What are the spots you like to go out to here late at night?
Mayor Adams: There are a few, particularly on Dyckman. Dyckman was struggling. They were struggling because of crime, COVID. Many of their businesses were not open. I could have done what traditional mayors do and hang out in Midtown Manhattan. I said, let me go to The Hood.
When I go on Dyckman Avenue, where they now have a new plaza, people hear that the mayor comes up here. People come out. They come out and eat. They enjoy themselves. I tell them that the community is going to be safe. I speak with the commanders. I walk up and down Dyckman. I walk up and down Broadway. I visit the restaurants. I sit there and have a cigar and a Tito’s and seltzer. We see a new energy there.
That’s what people don’t realize. Being mayor is substantive and it’s symbolic. The substantive is passing these budgets of $112.4 billion. The symbolism is that I don’t stay in Central Manhattan. I expand out. I’m in Brownsville, East New York, in Inwood, in Harlem. They have not seen their mayors before. You now have an urban mayor that is comfortable in every community.
No matter where I go, people say the same thing. You’re one of us. You’re one of us. I’m comfortable on Dyckman Avenue. I’m comfortable in Times Square. That’s the uniqueness of this administration. You have a mayor that’s comfortable throughout this entire city. Yes, I’m up here a lot.
Nightlife is a $35 billion business, industry. We’ve ignored it for so many years. I go inside. I talk to the cooks. I talk to the waiters. I talk to the owners. I started our entire nightlife program. We are now helping our nightlife industry. This is what you’re supposed to do as a mayor. This is the uniqueness of an administration. When you just have an ordinary person that is the mayor of the City of New York. I am perfectly imperfect. Yes, how are you?
Question: Good, I’m well. How are you, sir?
Mayor Adams: Quite well.
Question: We arrive at this moment with no small amount of frustration and disruption to the library system because of the cuts you say were necessary approximately a year ago when you came out and said, hey, we got a problem. Hindsight being 2020, do you regret any of those decisions that were made and will you be more hesitant to make similar cuts moving forward?
Mayor Adams: No, I laid out at the beginning of my conversation and we need to really hear because sometimes people get mixed up with M and B. We had a $7 billion hole in our budget. $7 billion hole in our budget. $4.9 billion were due to asylum seekers. We’re still getting 5,000 roughly a month.
We were able to do right programming to drop down those 200,000 to 65,000 in our care. It was unforeseen what we were facing. If I didn’t make the right moves with the speaker back in 2022, we would be having a different conversation right now. We were able to find $7 billion in savings in how we were running our agencies. No layoffs. No increase in taxes. Right now today after the City Council sat down, we said now let’s look at the top priorities that we want to go from and libraries was on top of that.
This is a smart decision. Any other fiscal analysis would tell us how brilliant Adrienne and I were and that’s why bond raters increased our bond rating because they see how we’re managing the budget of the city. We can’t ask homeowners, manage your budget correctly and then government misuse tax dollars. Ms. Jones who’s raising her children with Mr. Jones, they look at the money that’s coming in and they make sure that it balances what’s going out. That’s not what we were doing in the city. We were overspending in the city and we found efficiencies.
I just cannot commend the speaker and the entire team over at the City Council for what we have accomplished. When you do a proper analysis of it, you’re going to realize how well this blue collar speaker and blue collar mayor did their job.
Question: Looking at the next budget, which you mentioned and several people have mentioned, do you anticipate us having to do as much of a dance and bob and weave, do you have the system down moving forward and won’t be like the cut and replace, cut, replace?
Mayor Adams: The library is the baseline. That’s number one. Number two, we don’t know the uncertainties of the future. It would be foolish not to say what we have to be prepared for. We don’t know what our economy is going to look like. The beauty of it, out of all of this, we have $8.2 billion in our savings.
If the economic floor falls out because we made the right decisions before, we have 8.2, almost a record level in our savings for the rainy days that are coming. This is what you call smart fiscal management. This is what you have witnessed here. When Bloomberg came in office after 9/11, he had to make smart fiscal painful decisions. I don’t know if people remember what he had to do.
We saw an overspending in the previous administration that I inherited. Then after that, we had to right size a government and get things under control. Any financial expert will say, this guy, oh, they did say that, the bond raters, that I’m doing a good job. All the experts are saying that this mayor has navigated this city out of COVID and asylum seekers and fiscal cliffs and settled union contracts and deal with the uncertainty of the economy. Why the financial experts telling us how great of a job I’ve done and why you guys haven’t picked up on that? I’m just not understanding this.
Time for the last question. I wanted to do a tour upstairs. Hold on, hold on, one moment. We’re going to come to you. I know you’re not the press, but I know you’ve been waiting. I saw you in the corner of my eye, so I’m going to come to you, but I think I got one more from the press.
Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: How are you?
Question: I’m good, thank you.
Mayor Adams: Good.
Question: Budget negotiations are over. You had a win with libraries. Now, you’re always talking about how the administration is about public safety, justice. How are you dealing with the prevalence of Venezuelan gangs, smuggling in guns to migrant shelters, and there’s also been talks about …
Mayor Adams: That’s the beauty of having a bad guy. Then I can, like …
Question: There’s also been talks about the drug 2C coming into the Big Apple. What’s the administration doing about this?
Mayor Adams: We first got wind of something was happening with organized groups. We did a takedown in the Bronx with a credit card scam. It looked like it was being fed out of Florida. I asked Commissioner Weiner of Intel, can we do an examination of this? We started to get little hits.
Then after the arrest of the individual who shot two police officers, I sent Commissioner Weiner and First Deputy Commissioner Kinsella, I sent them to Colombia, which borders Venezuela, to do a deep dive in this gang. We started receiving information that this gang is extremely violent, and we wanted to get on top of it.
Now we received a lot of useful information. We’re going to be doing a couple of initiatives in our HERRCs, our shelters, and really start to pinpoint this gang. We cannot allow them to get a foothold in our city. From the intel that came back from Colombia, they are extremely dangerous. They represent a small portion of our migrants and asylum seekers. I don’t want people to say that asylum seekers are part of this gang. No, they’re not.
The best thing we can do to even stop this trend, allow people to work. I cannot say it enough. We need employees, full-service workers, nurses, writers, lifeguards. We need to allow people the dignity of work. There’s nothing more undignified than waking up every day and saying you can’t provide for your family. It baffles me that we’re not moving at a faster pace to give people the right to work. That is the dignity that New Yorkers want to give to others.
We’re on top of this gang. We’ve identified some, and we’re going to be doing several initiatives. Police Commissioner Caban has really put a team together. We are really monitoring the situation.
Question: [Inaudible] …ramping up security in migrant shelters, and what does that look like?
Mayor Adams: Combination metal detectors, making sure that people are not bringing illegal weapons inside the shelters, because the overwhelming number of migrants and asylum seekers, they are there patiently waiting for the opportunity to find the dream that all of us have pursued and all of us have moved.
As we were stating, your parents being immigrants, just about everybody in this room, our parents came from somewhere. The ability to work was their way of participating in the American Dream. Right now, that dream has turned into a nightmare for thousands of people who are in our country. If you parole people in, we should give them the authorization to work.
It’s about making sure that they’re safe also. I visited many of these shelters, and they tell me, they said, Eric, we don’t want any free food, we don’t want free housing, we don’t want anything free from you. We want to work. We must make sure that they’re safe, and that is part of our obligation. There’s several initiatives we’re going to do around that. Yes, sir?
Question: Hey, I just want to say I’m not a plant. I was literally walking down the block …
Mayor Adams: It’s all good.
Question: I was like, is that the mayor? I was like, then I came in. I am a member of the Inwood community, soon to be a teacher in the Inwood community as well. I love this library. I love the affordable housing.
What do you say to those people that live here and feel like, hey, $2,100, $3,600 for a one, two-bedroom apartment does not feel affordable? What policies and what monies have you allocated to ensure that people living in the community who are in desperate need of rent stabilization and renovation to their apartment buildings also get to experience this renovation that this area is going through?
Mayor Adams: Yes, no, so true. Because we definitely don’t want, we want to develop, not displace. Here’s what we’ve done, and I have Commissioner Carrión, so if I missed anything, commissioner, you could back us up.
We’ve built, we financed more affordable housing in one year in the history of the city. We moved more people out of homeless shelter into permanent housing in one year in the history of the city. Historically, NYCHA was ignored from the housing program. We included them in. We have put in additional $2 billion into this budget to go into the already $20-something billion. We now have $26 billion going into housing, more in the history of the city. We also have something called the City of Yes that we’re trying to get pushed through the Council because we’re saying we have to build more.
We’re seeing these prices go up because of supply and demand. The supply has run out. We only have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate, and so we need to build more throughout our city so that we can bring down these prices. Right now, when you have a limited amount of resources, then someone can charge the price they want. We need to build more into our housing stock.
Too many communities, out of the 50, how many community boards? 59? 59 community boards, 10 last year built more affordable housing than 49 of them. There’s a lot of communities in the city that are saying housing is a right, but not on my block. We need to build all over the city where we have good transportation, good access to food, good access to healthcare, good school system. Everyone needs to be part of our housing population.
You’re dead on. If I could borrow the words from the greatest philosopher probably of our time, the rent is too damn high. Okay, thank you.
Banner Image: Tony Marx of NYPL and Mayor Eric Adams. Image Credit – Mayor Adams
There are no comments yet
Why not be the first