 Good evening ladies and gentlemen. My name is Fred Kreisman, commissioner of the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. Just wanted to basically go through what the format has been. Six to seven o'clock we had the round table conversations with a member of the mayor's office, taking diligent notes, insured to transcribe the issues discussed. We also have Q&A cards on every single table just in case your question is not asked. With two to three week time frame we make sure that all the questions are recorded. Everyone gets a phone call back from the agency the questions raised concerning. This is the second round of community conversations. This one is the second one and flushing in the set round. The first one were public safety. This is a wide range issues and we were going to start off by giving the borough president a chance to give a statement, comments, as well as the council member Ang. And then afterwards the mayor will speak. Thank you. Let's give it up for Mayor Adams for doing these community conversations and all of his agency heads who are here this evening. It is great to be in flushing. I feel like I'm in flushing like every day. It's just in flushing opening a new health center. I think we were Friday, but really a great time to see all of you and listen, there's nothing more important than being engaged in your community. And I think for most of you in this room, I see many friends, we cannot do this alone. We can't do this without you. So it really takes the partnership between the communities, between our city agencies and more importantly the follow up after conversations like this. It's been a lot going on in flushing. I know the mayor will hit on some of those areas, but I'm very grateful to this administration's partnership and really getting a lot done for Queens. We've been able to invest close to $200 million in Queens since I became President working along also with our city council member and just some quick highlights. We're investing in the Queens Botanical Gardens. We're investing in flushing hospital in a big way. We've invested in flushing high school. We're gonna have some news on Casino Corridor Park in a few days after the budget passes working with the parks department and of course to all of our cultural institutions like the Bound House as well. I really want to thank them for their partnership. Just some other quick things I'll touch on and I know flooding has been a big issue as we see climate change continuing to roar. It's ugly head right here even in flushing. I want to thank the DEP commissioner who's been working very closely with us on Peck Avenue and I know we're working on some long term solutions there. And then on the safety issue which I know Mr. Mayor will come up over and over again. I want to thank you for providing us with an additional I believe 40 officers to the 109. We still have a lot of work to be done in flushing in particular in the 109. I want to see inspect the whole here. I know he's doing everything he possibly can and we'll continue to work with him to make progress. So thank you all for having me this evening and am I passing it to the councilwoman and now I get to pass it to my partner here who works with us day in and day out to ensure we're leaving this community better than we founded your city councilwoman Sandra on. Thank you and I want to thank the Queensborough president being such a great partner and I want to thank mayor Adams for coming to flushing all the CA unit for putting this together. I know it's not easy to print this event together but the mayor is not a stranger to flushing. I'm sure all of you know that actually does like two or three weeks ago we were standing out in mainstream flushing giving out flyers to invite everyone to the hiring hall right here in flushing and I heard it was one of the most successful ones. So for tonight it's so important that they hear from all of you. It's so important we work together as city agencies as partners to always better flushing and always the better New York City. So tonight is actually for all of you and I also look forward to hearing the questions and concerns that all of you have. Thank you. Thank you. Let me ask you just to have the commissioner stand up while I read their names. We have the commissioner of small business services, commissioner Kevin Kim. We have deputy commissioner Mark Stewart of NYPD. We have the department of education deputy chancellor Canita Lloyd. DEP commissioner Rita Garawa here. We have the commissioner of DCWP Vildaveira Mayuga consumer work production. We have the chairman of city planning Dan Gorodnik. We have the commissioner of probation Juanita Holmes. We have the commissioner of immigrant affairs, commissioner manual Castro. We have EDC president Andrew Kimball. We have a DOB commissioner Jimmy Otto. We have ACS commissioner Jess Danhouser. We have OEM first deputy commissioner Christina Farrell. We have the mayor's office of climate environmental justice acting executive director Vicky Cerillo. We have H&H Calvin Thomas CEO of Queens hospital. Mayor's office community health executive director Eva Wong. Department health mental hygiene chief of staff Jenna Mandela Ricci. DSS first deputy commissioner Jill Berry. Sanitation borough chief Iggy Azza. FDNY borough commander chief Joseph Rante. We also have EMS chief here. HPD assistant commissioner Nicole Simmons. We have DOT first deputy commissioner Margaret Farjeon. We have DFTH chief general counsel Penny Vacharap. Parks borough commissioner Jackie Langsum. NYCHA executive vice president Daniel Green. DYCD first deputy commissioner Alan Chang. Department of finance director Kieran Mahoney. MAGJ director Deanna Logan. Human rights commissioned deputy commissioner Kajori Shoudry. And Jander based violence first deputy commissioner Saloni Sethi. And of course we have the mayor's office people disability commissioner Christina Curry. Thank you. I'll hand it over to Mayor Adams. Thank you so much and deputy commissioner Curry said you know you better not forget me down at the end. You know can't do that. So we really want to hear directly from you. These community conversations are so important to us. We did a round earlier last year and earlier I believe into this year. This is a way of hearing directly from you and hearing directly from me and not allowing others to really distort and to interpret what we are doing and what we are saying. I remember the first town hall we left a gentleman walked up to me and he said you know this is the first time I heard exactly clearly what the vision was while city in the direction we were going in. And that is why we're doing this. I'm going to try to do as many as possible. My team they know that I enjoy doing this a lot. I enjoy you know interacting with people on the subway in the streets in the parks walking the streets together. This is how you should be interacting with the person you elected. You know I'm the mayor of the city and I cannot run this city from city hall. I have to be among you and hear directly from you. It really blows the mind of my team. We walked down the block and someone would stop me and ask me a problem and I'll give them my cell number and it drives them crazy but I want to hear directly from people. A young girl that was at one of the schools LaGuardia High School, New York Post wrote an article on it. She texted me from her school when they were doing a walkout and she said we're having a problem in our school. We want to you know we need your help and I said number one you need to get back in school. Let's start with that. But I responded back to her in 30 seconds and they wrote an article about it like it was unique and it wasn't. This is what I did as a state senator as the board president and I'm not going to do it stop doing it as a mayor. I have the same number for so many years on how I communicate with people. And before we go into today's town hall the announcement came out today that the police commissioner is leaving at the end of the month. I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate the service. Her service I appreciate what she has done and when she came in crime was moving in the wrong direction she worked 24 hours seven days a week really making sure that we can do what we saw with gun violence what we saw with homicides what we saw with our major crime categories we were trending in the wrong way no one wanted to get on a subway system. You saw just a really dangerous environment. She turned it around look at the numbers today it shows double digit decrease in homicide double digit decrease in shootings you're seeing all the major crimes moving in the right direction and I just cannot thank her enough for what she has done for the men and women of this amazing department of department I was proud to serve in and as she moves on with the next stage in her life we want to just really thank her for coming to our city serving this city in the manner in which she did and so we want to hear from you we want to open the floor floor up I don't want to take any time I want to maximize the time of hearing your questions directly and you know continue to learn but I also want to thank council councilwoman um she called us a couple of months ago she was having a real problem with the vendering on her sidewalks she reached out to us the precinct sat down with her mapped out a plan we first went out and told people that you can't vendor in this magnitude we're gonna give you a period of time to clean it up the councilwoman saw that was a real quality of life issue in her district and we went in we were there the other day handing our flies for our hiring hall it was a different area over there the streets were clean people able to walk by local representation and communication is the success of any community thank you so much a councilwoman for raising that issue and partnering with us as we address the issue in your community queen queens get the money Donovan Richards he he's a match master at getting capital dollars for your borough I don't know what the number is right now but he finds ways to get money and we have been doing so many ribbon cuttings so many capital projects he's focused on getting resources he's a master at doing it great job continuing to do the good work that you're doing our president summer turn it over to open the floor to you thank you so we'll start off with table number one every table has a community affairs officer as well as a member of the mayor's office so go table number one Ed hello mr. mayor we met a number of times you came to the Clinton Democratic Club and proud to see you again thank you tonight I'm here as the vice chairman and the land use chair for community board 7 and community board 7 has oversight on the Willis point redevelopment so over the past 15 years I've attended or chaired over a hundred meetings on this project so we're very familiar about this project and very excited about going forward with the next phase in past administrations we had access with deputy mayors it was very important to make a positive approach to bring this to fruition and and I asked one of the things I asked tonight is access again to your deputy mayor economic development and your deputy mayor public safety their strong support in our community for the construction of affordable housing and the soccer stadium at Willis point but however the community board has already raised the concern and one condition for approval of the soccer stadium we need the additional police precinct to supplement our existing and heavily overburden one or ninth and as you remember we met in the late fall last year and it's been something that's been in our budget for the past 20 years and we desperately desperately need the public safety equity for our underserved community board so I thank you thank you thank you so much and given the mic for a moment I need to have some clarity when you say access to the deputy mayors and the deputy mayor public safety and economic development would define that for me so I can make sure we well in the beginning we Robert labor was the deputy mayor of economic development we created the special district it was very helpful ADC I see Mr. Kimball is here obviously they're spearheading but it helps to work the the synergy about what we need and what we're talking about and obviously the deputy mayor for public safety would be part of what we need as far as the precinct yeah Andrew you want to touch that up sure first of all just we're so thrilled to be involved in this project I mean this is this is a game changer is as you well said this has been in the works for many many years but I couldn't be more thrilled to be part of administration with a mayor that took this project to a whole new level a project that was maybe going to have a thousand units of affordable housing now we're going to 2,500 units largest affordable housing project undertaken in this city in 40 years plus a stadium entirely financed by the private sector three-quarters of a billion dollars of investment I'm very familiar with the community commitments that you're bringing up and you can be sure as we work through the community process and work with the council member in that district council member Moya but also with the borough president who have made it very very clear that the kinds of public services that you're talking about need to be there in the project so we look forward to working with you and I obviously work very closely with deputy mayor Torres Springer and she's intimately involved in this project and we both look forward to discussing with you as we move on and public safety is crucial so let's talk about how you would like that communication to be with the DMs we will we're more than willing to accommodate that communication is the key so define it for us and let's map it out and make it happen okay oh yes give it right then I'll make sure we give it to deputy mayor banks and deputy mayor Maria Torres Springer okay and we added 40 new offices to this command you know I was watching the numbers I saw what was happening in the 109 and we need to turn the corner on it and that was why we added those new offices here thank you thank you very much next table Lamona to someone good evening everybody my name is Dong Fang Zhao and everybody call me sunshine so that's easy name I work for DSS Iza but tonight I help with table number two as a translator and first of all we'd like to thank you mr. mayor and the board of present council members and every commissioners to join this meeting and this is a very important for us and we like to thank you all for this and our question is about the housing crisis for mayor Adam how can we have more housing or senior housing inflation as well as in NYC that are affordable for working people and families thank you so much and I know we have this assistant assistant commissioner Nicole Simmons that's here but many people don't realize how much we are dependent on Albany to do the housing here in the city the governor put in place an aggressive housing plan Albany did not pass that plan we needed Albany to pass an extension on 421 a that is the tax incentive that allows housing to be built they did not take that up we needed Albany to look at lifting how high we can we can we can build is called the FAR how high we can build they did not take that up as well we need to expedite the capitol process and have capital reform they did not take that up and so there was some very serious initiatives that the governor partnered with the mayor's office and we wanted to push through to get more housing we would like to build 500,000 more units of housing we have the housing shortage and so even when people have the vouchers that gives them a housing if you don't have a housing place to go to that voucher is not going to serve the purpose we are hoping that Albany sees how important this is and consider doing something to pass what the governor presented to deal with the housing crisis that we're having and in addition to that we're still going to become creative and do what we have to do to try to get a shovel in the ground but it's going to take even longer without that housing proposal that the governor put in place that we agreed on we were in Albany repeatedly attempting to get them to understand how important it is so Albany has a big role in the housing that you're talking about and we were not able to get the plan done that would allow us to build we want to build but Albany must give us the opportunity to do so so you can reach out to your state lawmakers and tell them we need to build more housing low-income middle-income housing for those working-class people in the city thank you we have assistant chief best of back at the table chief of the borough Gilbert you have someone at your table to ask a question good evening my name is Jerry Filipinas mr. mayor thank you for coming here to Flushing you could tell that you've put together a great team with all these commissioners so thank you for bringing your time and coming to us one question we have from our table is how is your team dealing with addressing the homeless and mental health crisis here in Flushing in the trains we just see a lot of it lately we're gonna turn it over to the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene but if you you know I always say there's a moment before you go from what you felt to what you are feeling I know what I felt January 1st 2022 I know what I'm feeling right now I spent a lot of time on the subway system I walked through I look at what we're doing there is a noticeable difference than what we were seeing January 1st 2022 I made a commitment that we were going to remove all the encampments of our subway system you don't have an encampments anymore we rolled out an ambitious plan of removing the all of the you sort of tense the cardboard boxes on our streets you don't see that any anymore we put in place to Dr. Fassan deputy the Commission of Health and Human Hygiene Commission of Dept Department of Health and Human Hygiene we put in place a plan that really leaned into giving people the care that they deserve we got a lot of pushback from a lot of people that said it was we should not have people who are dealing with severe mental health illness remove them in voluntary removers off the streets we felt they were wrong we felt if you are in danger to yourself you can't take your take care your basic needs we should not wait until you commit a crime before we give you the service that they deserve we rolled out an ambitious plan we presented that plan also the Albany to have Albany codified in law with the courts already ruled on but we are moving forward with a combination of mental health professionals and police officers because there's nothing dignified of a person sleeping on the street I'm not going to accept that we're going to give people the services that they deserve we want to have who do we have over from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Chief of Staff hi good evening everyone thank you so much I'm Jenna Amanda Ricci Chief of Staff with the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene thank you so much for the question so to build on what Mayor Adams said we released in early March a comprehensive plan for the city that focuses on severe mental illness the opioid crisis and youth mental health and within severe mental illness we want to see people's humanity these are our brothers and our sisters mothers and fathers we believe everyone deserves to have health care have a home and have a community and so we're really building on those three areas and it's fitting that I'm sitting next to the Office of Community Mental Health and Health and Hospitals and this really is a team sport and we're very very focused on building community for these individuals so that once they're stable they can live productive lives thank you for that question I'm Eva Wong I lead the Mayor's Office Community Mental Health wanting to add to what Jenna had already said is that folks who are on the street there is there of course intersection between maybe have a mental illness and other factors why they're on the street and we're also thinking about those who maybe not feeling comfortable right when they are on the street thinking like am I safe I'm not sure so balancing the both making sure that everybody in New York get the access they need when it comes to mental health services and people reach a certain point you don't get diagnosed one day and next day you are maybe away from your family there is a continuum we really need to get the services and support to people and also looking and I spend I live in Queens myself and also my children go to school in Flushing we know a lot of our cultures we don't feel like mental health is something we can talk about so how we can partner together to really address the stigma and misconception we might have so that people who are that we care for even including ourselves will not be afraid to reach out for the mental health support that they need earlier so I'll leave it at that and we have just witnessed an uptake post COVID and with Dr. Fassan and his team is doing in the schools he's created a web based app where young people can communicate directly with a mental health professional if they go into a crisis we know this is a real issue this is really impacting entire country but we have been a leader there's just a few days ago we held a summit on the role social media is playing we have social media experts from from all over the country that came in to really lean into the role social media is playing on impacting the mental health of our children and adults so this is something that's very much on our radar and we have been implementing real initiatives to address it. Excellent next table we have you know. Good evening Mayor Adams my name is Joseph DiBenedetto I although I currently sit as president of community education council for our district I have to represent the concerns of my table table four so there seems to be a really big concern regarding local law 97 and for those of you who don't know that's that will affect co-op owners but it regards the efficiency of buildings and certain penalties that will be arising out of the enforcement of that local law which is I think scheduled to come to fruition January of 2024 a majority of the constituents in this community are co-op owners or residents and they are very concerned because they're on fixed income and they'd like to know what your opinion is regarding the enforcement of local law 97 what if anything can you tell the constituents about when what the what the repercussions are and what you're looking to do to protect their interests you know I feel like this is a hair club for a men moment you know I am a co-op owner my first property that I own was that co-op and I know that if you are co-op owner if you're on a fixed income or if you are dealing with the repairs of buildings I know this is a serious issue and it is really my goal this this law was passed prior to my administration I know that we have to deal with the environment if anything is a reminder of that we saw it last week we have a real greenhouse gas problem we need to figure it out with without harming those entities like our co-ops you know and I am open to figuring that out I know we have Rick Rick here Rick Agawala who's in the commission of DEP he could give you an update on the start date and all that all of that good stuff okay thank you mr mayor and and yes thank you for the question um the global on 97 as as the mayor says is a very important law because across New York City the largest source of our carbon emissions is energy used in buildings we have to get our buildings to be more efficient or the climate crisis will only get worse as you're suggesting and as the mayor points out however we have to do it in a way that's realistic about what building owners and the co-op members and others can actually achieve so the law has a couple of phases its first phase as you point out kicks in in December or sorry January 2024 it then has a much more aggressive target that kicks in in 2030 in 2024 relatively few buildings will actually have to do that much work and I don't have it off hand but we can certainly get all the information on how many of those buildings are in flushing etc we're working very closely with the Department of Buildings which actually administers this law under Commissioner Otto's leadership we are working on a set of regulations that will come out over the next couple of weeks maybe a month or two to give guidance to building owners about what they need to do either to comply with the law or to figure out how to come into compliance over time the law has a clause that talks about the city having discretion to help buildings that are undertaking good faith efforts what that means is that if a building is genuinely trying to do the right thing we don't have to hit it with all of the fines we have no interest in finding buildings what we want is the carbon not the money and so we are going to be working on on how those regulations take place we are also thinking about and under Vicky Surula's leadership at the Mayor's Office of Climate Environmental Justice an interagency approach to add a number of new financing mechanisms to help buildings come into compliance with that law over time so i guess my overall message is building owners have to take decarbonization seriously there are there's lots of resources out there with the federal government with the bipartisan infrastructure law at the state government the new york state energy research and development authority new york city has the new york city accelerator which any building can call and they can get advice on what they might qualify for but we are also going to do everything we can to make sure that this law is implemented in a real way in an aggressive way but in a way that doesn't bankrupt the kind of people that you're concerned about hi so i we are actually the queensboro president in my office in the congresswoman grace men's offices we are actually hosting a town hall next week from six to eight where we're gonna have the department of building and it's also new york city accelerator to talk more about local law in 97 so i really encourage all of you if you don't know about it to come to the town hall and please feel free to reach out to my office for the pacific times and location thank you so we are with you we can't we can't destabilize our co-ops in the city and that is not our goal and i think there's a win-win anything from finding a way of just doing some form of tax abatement to of finding some dollars to assist our co-ops we we cannot destabilize our co-ops you know that it's just going to really undermine the entire goal of doing so and i thank you for that question next table table five tony good evening honorable mayor eric adams and other public officers my name is so young lee segredo i'm currently working as an international baccalaureate primary years program a coach in long island but my heart is in flushing because i grew up in here and i'm today representing kaaq korean american accesses of queens education committee i'm attending with our leaders such as mr hyun tak lee and mr john park as well at our table five we have representatives of these communities acupuncturists educators and police officers and i found that today alarming fact that we wanted to share with you that we need to increase more security guard in our public schools some cases thousand fifty students go to public school with one security guard i think this issue matters because it affects teachers students and community as well we strongly suggest the increase of the security guard in public schools thank you for listening and your attention thank you so much and many of you may recall during the campaign when there was a push by just about every candidate that was running that stated they wanted to take school safety officers out of schools i was very clear that that would not happen if i was the mayor of the city we will never take school safety officers out of school i think the numerical minority that are the loudest gave the impression that our students don't want school safety officers that is just untrue we held a series of about five or six town halls with young people every one of those town halls those young people overwhelmingly stated they want their schools safe and they want school safety officers in their schools so i don't know who the loud folks are speaking on behalf of but they don't sure aren't speaking on behalf of the children we need to increase the numbers of school safety officers we have a real deficit that is part of what we were doing with the hiring halls these are good jobs and we're hoping that we will all encourage people to come in be a school safety officer every time i walk in the school i'm impressed that the school safety officers are doing more than just provided security they know the children they show a lot of compassion they're very caring for their school environment and we want to encourage more people of different ethnic groups and backgrounds to come in be school safety officers we would like to increase the numbers in school but we have to increase the ranks of school safety officers we have a real deficit in all of our agencies we have 12 000 jobs that are available in the city 12 000 jobs we have been doing these hiring halls all over the city where we're bringing the agencies to the community i'm hoping that all of you encourage people to become an employee of the city in general but specifically as a school safety officer and we get ready to do something new with school safety officers we are looking at how do we allow school safety officers to eventually graduate into the new york city police department after serving a certain number of years as school safety officers traffic enforcement officers and others how after doing that you can get promoted and go into becoming a new york city police officer because we saw how well you are at doing your job thank you next table anesthesia if you give us some of the mic good evening mayor and esteemed panel i'm jenny mornar on the principle of wjps district 25 and our table represents the new york city department of education we have superintendents principles parent advocates cec president parent leaders and here's our question almost a year ago the governor signed a bill requiring new york city to reduce class size significantly meanwhile new york city public schools are welcoming and supporting thousands of asylum seekers how is the city addressing these issues separately as they exist and as they affect each other great great question and it was codified in law so we are going to always carry out the law is going to cost billions of dollars to do and unexpectedly we were really hit with the financial course and the number of people who came into the city over 70 000 when i was when i was became mayor and january first 2022 we had about 45 000 people in our shelter system and a little over a year we um had 70 000 over 70 000 additional about 40 something thousand are still in our care we're close to 90 000 people in our care one of the areas where it was greatest the greatest impact was our school system our school system was impacted because every child that came here we had to provide education we wanted to make sure that they were placed in the school and now we have to ensure in next year when the stimulus dollars run out we have to still meet our obligation based on the law of ensuring we have class sizes and we have to build new facilities via of the capital dollars we're going to do so we're going to comply with the law like we've always have done but it is a real challenge and we're hoping we get to proceeds from Albany to assist us they did the class size bill but they didn't attach any money with it an unfunded mandate is something that we should never put on our local municipality we need Albany to examine the bill that they pass and attach the dollars with it so we could accomplish the goal but we will accomplish the goal the law is the law and we will follow the law next table we have Socrates can you give someone the mic at your table good evening my name is Gwangok Sung and I am a AAPI advisor council members and thanks for coming in flushing and I'm really grateful to see everyone here my question is this table seven we choose one of the topic that I know Sandra Wong city council woman was working on the city vendor I mean unlicensed vendor take it out from the city I mean the main street especially it's wondering they keep coming back after even had a very officially take it out but is there any other what other solution can that we can come up with some alternative the issue with the street vendors and overcrowding on the main street thank you I'm sorry I finished the last part in here for you say is there is there a plan yes there's a overcrowding on the vendors keep coming back and is there any other the alternative issue you can think about and strip and illegal street vendor right well the first thing is we better still be coming back you know because you know not tolerated something means you don't tolerate it and so chief why don't you grab the microphone and tell us what the plan is to make sure hey you can grab it here from from Fred what's the plan on making sure that is repeated enforcement I'm not into one time enforcement repeated enforcement since the right message and so so give us a plan he could grab my mic can you hear me okay yes so there there actually is a plan and we are continuing to address this issue we did work hand in hand with council member Ung and and her team all the city agencies we had sanitation dcwp the police department we do have additional officers in the precinct it has been very good in the area we we have heard some recent complaints that folks are starting to migrate their way back deputy inspector hall has his officers out there and anytime that there is an issue they are doing enforcement so we're going to keep on it every day so our goal is not to allow it to cycle back and the as the chief stated we're going to do continuous enforcement and I'm going to from time to time I'm always in this area hanging out with peter cool you know so we're going to we're going to make sure you know we'll walk up and down the block but it's important to us that we don't slip backwards and I'm sure the council person will let us know if there's there's a problem but we we will be consistent in what we're doing next table elina hi i'm david good to be here tonight together with you thank you for taking time out of your schedules and i'm sure you have commitments to family etc appreciate it the table conversation that we want to ask is what policies can the mayor's office put into place to protect our communities from the over development of luxury properties therefore keeping the integrity of our smaller neighborhoods thank you thank you thank you very much and and there is a real process in place that's what you know you lurp is about those who are here from the community board these projects go through the you lurp they go through the borough president they go through our office as well of dan wisdom dan former council person that's in charge of city planning and then you probably want to you know go into some of that but you know as we make sure we don't oversaturate communities i want to be very clear that we have a housing shortage you know our residency the numbers we don't have enough inventory and so we have to be creative and find in places for people to live we want to do it without destroying communities and so that's why it's good to have input from communities but we have a real housing crisis that must be addressed so dan you want to go into what you guys are doing thank you mayor i think that that is exactly um the the most important point here which is that in a crisis like the one we are in we are going to be thinking city-wide as to how we deal with it you know we in the last decade have created you know we've had a growth of 800,000 jobs with only 200,000 homes in the last 40 years our population grew by 1.7 million people and we created housing at half the rate that we had rated that we had created it in the prior 40 years when we actually had seen our population decrease the results is what we see for people who are really struggling in the city with rent burden you know 50 percent of new yorkers are rent burden today and there can really be no tenants rights or no opportunities for people to push back against bad practices when there is insufficient supply but your question is a very specific one which is how do you make sure that you do not overdo in the process and i can say from the perspective of the department of city planning we want to make sure that every neighborhood is doing their share the mayor has set very ambitious goals which we are 100 behind but we want to make sure that every neighborhood is doing their share not just one neighborhood not just another neighborhood but every neighborhood we also intend to do this thoughtfully we do not want to do harm even as we grow so we want to do it in ways in which infrastructure is supported communities are supported and quality of life is supported so these are really important principles for us so we want to grow we want to grow thoughtfully and we want to do it in a way which alleviates the burden on new yorkers which they are really struggling with today as a result of decades worth of lack of production thank you next table kevin can you give the mic to someone at your table good evening sir um the table was a little shy nobody wanted to ask the question but over the years flushing has enjoyed vibrant growth however it has also witnessed the rising traffic congestion throughout the community what we really need is a comprehensive traffic study that will address the many challenges in traffic congestion particularly along roosevelt avenue margaret you want to grab that thank you very much for the question yes so as we continue to thrive in new york we hear from various communities that they are feeling the effects of traffic congestion what we will seek to do in this neighborhood and in every neighborhood is improve transit working carefully with our partners at new york city transit to develop better bus service look at other alternatives as well such as city bike and other micro mobility but we're also happy to talk about any specific corridors or issues that you are seeing in your community so we're happy to follow up with you with our borough commissioner's office next table leo can you give the mic to someone at your table mr mayor we also had a bit of a shy table as well too but one of the topics that was discussed was in the community there is a huge issue with the speeding cameras in the area there the community feels that there's a there's a bit of a target in the community they feel like the it's a way of kind of getting more funding for the city through the targeted camera speeding so can you speak to a little bit of you know that that particular action yeah we're gonna toss it over to margaret again but let me say this speed cameras save lives the numbers are clear when you look at the numbers of one of the top reasons for deaths and serious injuries speeding and some of these scenes are just horrific folks really need to slow down people are driving too fast and then when you add it with the scooters you add it with the skateboards the dirt bikes the bicycles our streets have become very complicated and speeding is one is one of the top issues of deaths and serious physical injuries and so we don't want to use speed cameras to as a money generator but it is clear that the stats are showing those who are hit with a speed camera violation as less likely to do it again that's number one and in areas where we have placed them we have witnessed a decrease in serious physical injuries so there's a correlation between the speed cameras and the deaths and serious physical injuries i don't think anything is more horrific than having someone knock on your door and telling you you lost a loved one because someone was speeding to a business appointment school or somewhere else speeding is a real issue that we are attempting to address Margaret you want to add anything on it the mayor covered it beautifully we we don't want our speed cameras to be ticketing people heavily okay the the violation is not expensive in addition we're only targeting people when they're going 11 miles or more over the speed limit so by and large what we're trying to do is remind people not to speed as the mayor says a crash that happens at a higher speed is much more likely to kill the people involved so that's really what it's about next table robin can you give the mic to someone on your table good evening um in the last few years the flooding issues and concerns have increased in queens communities we want to know what can be done we want to know what can be done or is being done to mitigate the flooding problems in the homes transportation in roadways uh you want to you want to grab that thank you so uh first of all there is no question that unfortunately as as the mayor was citing earlier with last week's smoke issues climate change is real and the weather patterns are changing our sewers our storm sewers were designed for a maximum level of rain that new york city had actually never experienced until two years ago at hurricane ida when literally hurricane ida doubled the amount of rain in one hour that our sewers were even designed to handle right it set a record and we've started over the last two years since then to see a number of storms that in very targeted areas for short periods of time they actually have that same record setting intensity of rain so the weather is changing in a way that makes our sewer system somewhat obsolete unfortunately it takes a long time to rebuild the urban infrastructure so we are doing a number of things all at the same time the first is my agency d e p is working on a comprehensive stormwater resilience strategy that will figure out what are the major investments that we're going to make what what the costs will be these are real costs if you worry about your water bill you will want to worry about whether we do this efficiently or not but we are working on that comprehensive citywide strategy that will include a lot of surface treatment because we literally do not have enough space underground to to expand the sewers large enough to accommodate an ida level storm so a lot of our strategy is going to be around green infrastructure we are working for example on a citywide approach to blue belts using lakes and other things to manage stormwater that's how nature does it and oftentimes what we see is the most flood prone parts of the city are places that used to be lakes or swamps or streams and they were filled in by developers but they weren't filled in very well and as people say water has memory so we're thinking about those kinds of green infrastructure strategies unfortunately those also take a long time and so the other thing that we have done is what i like to think of as band-aids the things that don't solve the problem but they give you a little bit of protection last year under the mayor's leadership we started a program called rainfall ready which included both knowledge we have issued a map that shows where we expect flooding to take place under certain rainfall categories unfortunately it has proven to be pretty accurate we know pretty well when we have an intense rainstorm where we are going to see flooding to those houses that are most prone to flooding we reached out proactively last year to offer flood barriers these inflatable kind of large pipes or hoses that you fill up with water and it actually creates kind of a barrier the same way sandbags do but you can get rid of the water and roll them up and store them they really do work they require some effort i'm not saying that's the perfect answer but it is a way to protect to protect property in the near term and then finally you mentioned you mentioned transportation and we have now at DEP just the beginning last summer we implemented a new approach to cleaning catch basins you know those are the drains on the side of the road and if those get clogged that's what leads to roadway flooding or water cascading into the subways we've actually worked closely with the mta to identify hot spots where that was taking place and we now have a data-driven approach so that we clean catch basins we inspect them on a regular cycle based on how much accumulated debris we expect at that location so it's a data-driven way so we are targeting our inspection and cleaning capacity regularly we do expect over the next year or so to see some real results from that but again i i wish i could say we could solve this problem next year there is no way we can solve this problem next year it is about homeowners paying attention to the weather getting flood barriers we're going to be doing the more events in in queens over the over this summer where we give these flood barriers away to people who feel that they need them there's also a need to get flood insurance because that is something that every homeowner really needs to be thinking about whether they need flood insurance or not that's how you protect your property and paying attention to the weather and being thoughtful about what's coming on any given night thank you thank you thank you next table bahi good evening mr mayor for the question number 12 table number 12 is for those seniors who are not qualified for medicaid to enroll in adult daycare centers what option or programs are available for them we're going to turn up to difter chief counsel general counsel drifter hi how are you thanks so much for your question my name is pennie vat your apricot and i'm general counsel at new york city aging so for older adults there are six older adult centers here in flushing so those older adults can go to any of the older adult centers and they can take advantage of any of the services that are available at the older adult centers the older adult centers offer meals and services that are available to anyone who is 60 and above so you can go to any of the older adult centers in flushing as long as you're 60 and above you can go and you don't have to even register if you want to go for meals if you want to take advantage of any services you do have to register but if you just want to take advantage of meals you can just go in and take advantage of meals the only eligibility requirement is that you are 60 and above and that you reside in new york city for social adult daycares you do have to you do have to have medicaid i do want to say that the new york city department for the aging does not regulate social adult daycares so we don't contract with them they do have to register in order to operate in new york city but we don't we don't fund any of the social adult daycares we only fund nine and those are discretionary funded so we we don't contract with them we only contract with nine and the and the adult daycares are so important there was a move in albany at one time to what i thought was a mistake to take away from those local adult daycare facilities of i thought they i believe they're so important because they're culturally sensitive and to allow our older adults to have a place to come and coalesce i think it's crucial you know the surgeon general i believe just came out to report that loneliness is the equivalent to smoking several packs of cigarettes loneliness is a real issue and we need to make sure that we support our social adult daycares and make sure that we continue to do what dipter is doing the department of aging is doing to make sure that our older adults have a real healthy and environments and so i really thank the commissioner for doing so we want to continue to lean into that next table Malcolm can you give the mic to someone and all the adults are mean pickleball players they beat me the other day hi good evening miss mayer we have another sensitive table here didn't want to speak um our issue is food and security and access to healthy food in our community we have very few large supermarkets in this area small business healthy food is too expensive to acquire what resources are available to address this concern and demand like funding for pantries et cetera the pension so you repeat the last portion of the question funding for pantry food pantries we've we've we we have witnessed a real strain on our pantries and the budget director is really trying to find more money so we can put into our pantries that there has been a greater increase we have been partnering with many of our food pantry providers but there's been a real challenge and one of the things we want to do is to ensure that the food that is given out at food pantries the food is a healthy assortment assortment of food because the worst thing could happen when you're in need of of food for whatever reason you're getting unhealthy food but why don't we turn it over to DSS the first deputy commissioner Jill you want to touch you want to respond to that with Jill yeah thank you mr. mayer um uh we're really happy with the food while absolutely the food pantries need more resources this administration this mayors commitment to food is unparalleled and the amount of money and resources that we have put into food pantries under this administration is more than double anything we've ever done in the past um we've also completely revamped the food pantry program um instead of the city deciding these are the foods that we're going to make available to the pantries we've contracted with a vendor who makes lots of healthy culturally appropriate diverse food choices available to pantries and each pantry can select the food that is appropriate for their community to stock their pantries and we're really proud of that program absolutely we need more resources for the pantries but it is an entirely different and better program this year under this mayor than it has ever been in the past next table angelica you need a microphone hold on hold on one moment thank you i thought my voice would carry but apparently not our table has homeowners health service professionals and other people and i myself as an emma technology attorney and founder of wired broadband a non-profit which is focusing on safe technology for the public we have a general quality of life question what recreational projects are in the works in the area including jamaica to build pools and gyms for the youth the first time i heard about the pool part of it you know i'm a big believer in swim strong we need to make sure our children are getting more swimming instruction and learning how to swim we need to look at how do we identify those locations this is the first time anyone ever asked about more pools so thank you for that we need to put that on our on our radar but oftentimes people ask ask the question about community centers gyms open to the for our young people and i say over and over again we have community centers they have gyms there they have some have pools some have classrooms some have auditoriums they're called school buildings the problem is we tell our children at 7 a.m. come in and then at 3 2 p.m. we say get out and don't come back until tomorrow we have to change that i did that as bar president we did we did something called extended use where we open our school builders so our young people can utilize them and the school builders should be a focal point for the entire community chancellor banks is looking to do a similar version to open our schools to allow our children a safe space we do it now on saturdays with the summer rising program or meant was it summer nights what is what is the call can you saturday night lights when we allow them to come in and use the gymnasium but i think this our school should be open of seven days a week of when if we have nonprofits that's willing to do so and the cost of it should not be on that nonprofit it should be on the city to pay for it so you don't have to pay for school safety agents insurance rental of the space cleanup i think that's our job to do if you are using human capital and so we're trying to figure out exactly how to do it but that's our mission is to open up our school builders and allow our young people to use them not only during the day to be academically smart but during the evening to be emotionally intelligent as they cross-pollinate with each other next table we have hercules can you give someone good evening mr mayor and everyone up there thank you for taking the time i appreciate it my name is adam i live in whitestone i represent we love whitestone i'd like to take a moment and actually thank all the nypd that are here this evening i appreciate your time as always so we have a shy table but it made it worse because we're table 15 and we had to go through i don't know how many questions because you all asked them all thank you so just to elaborate a little bit more in representation of the educators that i have here in my table obviously flushing is growing now i don't know the numbers on how quickly it's growing but it's growing quickly enough it's very diverse so the major complaint the major issue or our concern is school space school space more and more space like we talked about uh a little bit about the school about the class sizes things of that nature um are there going to be more life centers for students with children more gym space like that obviously i heard that you're opening up the schools on the weekends and things of that nature that will definitely help but just overall obviously this community is obviously getting bigger new buildings is what we need thank you thank you for your time that's the question thank you so much there's a there's a short term a midterm and long term the long term is clearly um that's part of reform we were pushing through in order to get in the faster reform capital process the capital dollars are the dollars that are being used to allow you to build and it takes too long and we wanted to put in place a more expeditious capital to reform process so we can get this stuff and get a shovel in the ground the school construction authority has a master plan based on population on where they're going to build and where the new school spaces are going to be but you're right just we're seeing growing population back when i was a transit cop in district 20 this place was not this crowded i mean this place is boom and when you have the growth that you are experiencing out here you need to have the school space to fit and i believed one of the speakers earlier the edu the i think was one of the educators were talking about the class size of we are going to live up to the class size agreement and something that is going to cause call for us to build new spaces so next table so crony just speak okay hello uh mr mayer thank you so much for joining us tonight and all the panelists who took their time to come to queens and particularly uh beautiful neighborhood and very diverse and broad neighborhood of flushing um our table is not bashful we had a great conversation led primarily by our facilitator and our community affairs officer and we talked a lot about quality of life issues um i am a lifelong resident of queens for the last 41 years i've been a homeowner in a beautiful and historic neighborhood called broadway flushing i am here tonight to ask you one specific item um i am the current chairperson of the leguardia committee of the new york community aviation roundtable for the last 10 years we have been fighting to restore a bit of our quality of life and what happened was in 2012 the fAA made certain flight procedure changes to help de-conflict the airspace between leguardia airport and jfk the roundtable was established by gubernacomo to bring all the interested stakeholders together so that we could meet on a regular basis to identify problem spots talk about solutions and to work directly with the fAA and the port authority um queensboro president donovan councilmember sandra angler very familiar with the with the roundtable the roundtable is made up of elected officials community boards other interested airport stakeholders and i was asked and honored to be asked by congresswoman grace meng to represent her as a volunteer constituent who was directly impacted what happened was that although certain flight procedures were put into place that ticked off all the boxes for the fAA because their mandate is safety and efficiency what helped what happened was that these flight procedures created what they call noise corridors and we have become in flushing beginning downtown flushing west and heading out points north northeast queens we have become our residents live under a noise corridor and we have become known as a overflight community now the airport roundtable seeks to identify and work out equitable solutions so that we can keep our airports to be the economic engines that they are to build the airports to allow people to travel everyone loves to travel but we are trying to seek solutions where we are asking the fAA for more dispersed flight procedures so that everyone gets to share in the excessive aircraft noise which the fAA calls an annoyance but it's really not it's really a national health public health problem so my question to you tonight is that is there someone in your office specifically perhaps the environmental protection agency or the economic development who would be more hands-on who would be willing to participate more actively in the new york community aviation roundtable because we really do need the support of and advice and suggestions of the mayor's office thank you thank you so much for that it was extremely thorough and explaining what the issue is and i was surprised it was a wake-up call for me when i was in rockaway and someone did a presentation on noise pollution and how it's a it's a public health issue of you know sometimes we don't realize that we get used to the noise awareness but it does impact your health and so we would love to participate i don't know if someone in your unit is best to do that or if we get someone from a commissioner crisis man's unit let me drill down and find out who's the best person but we're all in we would like to participate we met with the fAA of last week on another issue and so we have established a good communication with them if you brief us and let us know what are the talking points if you could give me sort of a one or two pager to explain this issue to us i could better tell you who on the team would be the participant participate but thank you for that it was very thorough and i want to make sure that we we're on top of it with you before you leave jessica will give you a card and we'll follow up directly with you next last question andrew your table good evening sir this table spoke a lot about the redevelopment of lands in the surrounding areas can you speak about the importance of public lands for public use and how that model is going to be used in the redevelopment of the will will its points area i love this guy's voice he's sounding he's sounding to smooth this thing and you know you know we we just did an announcement today that was really proud of i was with the commissioner rodriguez talking about open streets that's open throughout the entire five boroughs not just manhattan i'm a five borough mayor and we are open throughout in an open street program of we are really pushing the use of public space and everything from pedestrian plazas to how we're going to use this project that's taking place and will its point to have real community engagement i think that's so important to determine uh how that space is is going to be used now folks if you have ideas and we want plazas what are you you know what are your recommendations on how as we move this project forward as andrew stated we want to hear from the community to make sure we get this project moved forward and other public space uh in of your your your community how to better use it the more open space we have the more public space the more parks we have an amazing commissioner parks with su danahue uh the more we hear from you and utilize any spaces i believe it creates the right environment for our our city okay yeah so we want to listen i see winnie greco is in the back uh she has been you know amazing in this community and just really want to thank her for what what she has done give it up for winnie and the diversity of this room um when you look at uh commissioner uh kim first korean america to be the commission of small business services uh peter koo eve wong you know you see the diversity of this team and really pleased on that and could i could all um men and women of law enforcement please stand up we don't give them enough acknowledgement for the job that they're doing really really thank you you know really really thank you and as i and as i stated we did these town halls with young people and you know those of us who have attended these town halls with us not one town hall with young people we had about three 400 young people in the room not one town hall did the conversation the most important conversation was we want to build a better relationship with our police department our young people love their police they support their police and we're going to continue to do all that we can to build that relationship there's some good ideas we're going to follow those uh ideas um and doing so i got i got fred over here giving me all of these darn notes you know but uh but no we are we are really really big on building that symbiotic relationship between young people i think you could have and we must have public safety and justice they go together we all want it we want to be safe that's the prerequisite to our prosperity if we're safe thank you all for coming out i look forward to continue the conversation and just we want to really commend the new chief eng the new xo for chief patrol borough patrol borough queens north oh that's right congratulations chief