 Welcome to the Adams administration community conversation with Eric. We're excited to be here in Jamaica, Queens. We want to appreciate everyone for coming out here tonight. The forum tonight was 6 PM to 7 PM. We had roundtable conversations with members of the mayor's office to ensure we take diligent notes to listen to the concerns of all the community residents here in Jamaica. We're joined by NYPD community affairs at each table. We have note cards at every single table. In case your question's not asked to the dais, within two weeks you get a return phone call that's tracked from the mayor's office to ensure you get a phone call back. So please fill out those cards and hand it to the member of the mayor's office at your table when this is done. Every table will have an opportunity to ask a question to the dais. The format for this evening, I'm going to go through the dais quickly. Then we'll give it over to the speaker, Agent Adams, Senator Sanders, and then the mayor will speak. So just to go through the dais quickly, we are on the left of the mayor. Of course, we have the mayor of the city of New York to the left of the mayor. We have our first deputy mayor, Sheena Wright, deputy mayor Anna Almazar, deputy mayor Maria Torres-Bringer, NYPD deputy commissioner Mark Stewart, HPD commissioner Adolfo Carrion, DOT commissioner Adonis Rodriguez, ACS commissioner Jess Danhouser, New York City Emergency Management Commissioner Zach Isko, DEP deputy commissioner Beth DeFalco, DOP probation commissioner Juanita Holmes, Department of City Planning Commissioner Chair Dan Gorodnik, DOT deputy chancellor Danika Rux, DSS first deputy commissioner Jill Berry, NYCHA EVP Daniel Green, EDC EVP Jennifer Son, DOB first deputy commissioner Kazemir Valenciak, New York City Parks Borough Commissioner Jackie Langsam, FDNY Chief Joseph Ferrante, Director of the Deputy Mayor's Office of Operations for Strategic Initiatives Brady Hammond, OTI Executive Director Brett Silkov, and Mayor's Office of People's Disability Commissioner Christina Curry. To the right of the mayor, we have our Chief of Staff to the office of the mayor, Camille Joseph Verlach. We have, to my right, the Speaker of the City Council, Adrian Adams, our esteemed Senator, Senator Sanders, our esteemed Assembly Member, Vivian Cook. We have, it's Department of Sanitation Commissioner Jessica Tish, DOC Commissioner Keith Howard, Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Commissioner Manuel Castro, Human Rights Deputy Commissioner Kajori Choudhury, SBS Deputy Commissioner Calvin Brown, Consumer Affairs Worker Protection Assistant Commissioner Carlos Ortiz, Health and Hospitals Chief Executive Officer Neil Moore, Department of Health Executive Deputy Commissioner Deepa Vula, Mayor's Office of Community Health Executive Director Eva Wong, MAGJ First Deputy Director Carolina Chavez, CEC Executive Director Sarah Said, DIFTA Executive Deputy Commissioner Ryan Murray, Finance Director Keanu Mahoney, and Gender-Based Violence Deputy Commissioner Ann Patterson. And also, we have here Chief Kevin Williams, Commanding Officer Petrobaro, Queen South, Inspector Jenkins from the 113, Captain Lubin from the 103, Captain Deras 106, Inspector Pincus from the 105. So this time I want to hand it over to our speaker, Adrian Adams. Wow, thanks Fred. I feel so at home here. I wonder why. You know, it is absolutely great to have us all in this setting tonight. It's great to see you all here in our district, District 28, which we call what? The Great 28. So we are going to have a very, very good meeting this evening. I have the honor of not only leading the first women majority in the most diverse city council in our city's history, but also representing this district, District 28. So on behalf of District 28, I'd like to thank Mayor Adam, all of the commissioners in every city agency that is represented here with us this evening. I'd also want to acknowledge the presence of my state colleague, Senator James Sanders. And of course, we all want to thank the faculty and staff of August Martin High School for hosting us here tonight. Thank you so much. In Southeast Queens, we are so proud to be a part of a diverse community made up of people from all walks of life, from multi-generational families with deep roots in our neighborhoods, to young people who will carry on the rich legacy of Queens. Opportunities for the community to directly address the mayor and his commissioners this evening with questions and concerns, like the one we're having this evening are very, very important to all of us. They bring us together to reflect on the successes and challenges and ensure that government leaders can hear directly from you, the residents. By coming together, we can tackle the work needed to help strengthen our communities. Thank you all, my wonderful community members, the residents and constituents of Southeast Queens and District 28. Thank you for being here today. Those of you who showed up to make sure that your voice is heard, Aracilia, and make sure that you are on record. Thank you for showing up to participate today. We do not take your presence for granted, community boards, civic leaders, residents, all of you. It is your civic engagement and passion that facilitates the changes that are needed in our communities. Thank you so much. Thank you, Senator Sanders. To my friend the mayor, to the deputy mayors, to the commissioners, to all who are gathered here tonight. I say welcome back to our district, which is your home also. Welcome home. As we are family in here, you're going to hear comments and statements that are warm and just as you would hear around a kitchen table. They're going to be warm, but they're going to be family. They're going to be the type of things that we say that how we need to build a community. And at the end of all of this, we're going to express our love for this great city and our love for its representative, the mayor. So I look forward to having the conversation with everyone. I look forward to having my neighbor speak and your neighbor speak also. We will be warm. We will be real. We will be Southeast Queens. Welcome home. Hand it over to the mayor now. I grew up. I grew up in this community. I was a paper boy. I used to deliver the Long Island Press. Mommy moved from Brownsville and bought a little house on 167th Street and 111th Avenue, still our family house. My brother Bernard, who was a sergeant in the police department, attended August Martin High School. Any community should be in a celebratory state. It should be Southeast Queens. The speaker of the city of New York is Adrian Adams, who grew up in this community from Bayside High School. Well, we were classmates. I went to PS 140, ISA, and then to Bayside. I had to be bussed to Bayside High School because they saw that they were not investing in our schools, in our community. And we had to go outside our community to get the services that we needed. You look on this dais, Mark Stewart, who is my deputy commissioner of community affairs that has redefined community affairs. He grew up in Southeast Queens. And I want you, you want to get a full understanding why I'm under constant criticism and attack? Look at this dais. Look at them. First African-American woman to be first deputy mayor. First Dominican woman, first Dominican woman to be a deputy mayor in the city of New York. First East Indian woman to be a deputy mayor in the city of New York. First Korean to be a commissioner in the city of New York. First African-American woman to be a police commissioner, not a first Spanish-speaking to be a police commissioner. First Spanish-speaking to be a correction commissioner. first Trinidadian that came from Queens to be a deputy mayor, first Filipino to be the deputy mayor. You look at my administration, you're going to see people who have gone through a lot and now they represent the city that is going through a lot. We are pushing the envelope and our victories are unbelievable. I inherited this city January 1st, 2022. This city was in a mess, crime was surging, I was getting calls as the Brooklyn ball president from people who lived in this community talking about crime. Going over the 40 projects, mobilizing with those who are part of the crisis team trying to bring down crime. Our schools were failing. With 30 to 40% of the people at Rikers Island are dyslexic. 80% don't have a high school diploma or a pharmacy diploma. Everybody's talking about closing Rikers Island to building. I said let's close the pipeline that feeds Rikers Island. So what are we doing? Dyslexia screening for every child so they don't go through what I went through at PS140 being bullied because I was dyslexic and no one told me that. What else are we doing? People were fighting to get summer youth jobs. 100,000 summer youth jobs never before in history because of the partnership with the speaker of the city council. 110,000 summarizing programs we were able to do. Full education throughout the year. Decreasing crime, decreasing shooters, removing almost 11,000 guns off the street before we took office. Having agencies respond to your concerns. This city was humming. 56 million tourists returned to in the city in 2022. 65% are believed to be predicted coming this year. 99% of the jobs we lost from pre-pandemic came back. We would, no one wanted to be on our subway system when we started. Now you see we're capping out at 3.6, 3.8 million riders. Tourism is back. Restaurants are back. All the things we fought for and we committed to, we delivered down. And then what happened? In April of 2022, Governor Abbott decided he wanted to play a political game and use human beings as pawns and started sending people to the city of New York. Bus loads. Bus loads. We had to come up with a plan right away. April, May, June, June, I stood up and stated New York. This is going to be a crisis that's unsustainable. And it's going to hit every one of our neighborhoods. We were able to hold this crisis down as we call for the federal government to come in and do its job. This is a federal job. And it didn't stop. We had 110,000 people went through our system and 10,000 are coming every month. And we're getting no help. No help. Open over 200 emergency facilities, humanitarian relief centers. And let me tell you what's really despicable about this the most. You have the controller of the city of New York running around, taking our concerns of saying we should not be waiting this whole battle. He's saying we're anti-immigrant. We are made up of immigrants in this city, calling on the federal government to do its job. It's not anti-immigrant. It is saying we should be funded. What we're doing to the migrant and asylum seekers is despicable to put them in the condition to live on. And it's despicable that New York City's taxpayers are having to deal with this issue every day. And how dare anyone say New York City is not going through a crisis? And here's the sad part about it, folks. When you get 10,000 a month, there's no relief in sight. And so I'm not gonna search through a thesaurus and find the proper way to be politically correct to tell you that this can destroy our city, this crisis. I'm gonna be honest with you. That's what you elected me to do. I'm gonna have real talk, real conversation with you. This is not sustainable in our city. Five billion dollars, we gotta go back and do a November plan. We gotta find five billion dollars. Where do you think those five billion dollars are gonna come from? It's gonna come from what we fought for. We invested in these after-school programs. We invested in mental health care. We invested in improving our school buildings. We invested in housing. We got five billion dollars we have to find because by law, we have to balance the budget. So in November, we have to go find five billion dollars. And then it doesn't stop there. We have to find more and for the next two budgets, we have to balance and find 12 billion dollars. 12 billion dollars. So let me just give you an analogy. And then we're gonna turn it over to you. All of us have to budget our household. You own a home. You budget your household for the year, to pay your rent, your mortgage, your insurance, your food, electricity, water bill, everything. You have a budget down to the dollar. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, the roof caves in. You have to find money out of those necessities that you budget for. Our roof cave in. And instead of getting the help we're supposed to get, we're left on our own. We're left on our own. And so I want you to ask the question so we can answer them on all of these issues that we are facing. But we have to do it in a manner in which Southeast Queens operate. I'm gonna listen to you when you ask a question and I ask you to listen to me when I answer. I'm not gonna talk over you. I'm not gonna be disrespectful to you. I'm gonna have my commissioners follow the same rules of engagement. But I love every one of these people up here. I call them one, two, three a.m. in the morning to respond to the needs of this city. No mayor has ever been to more crime scenes, more power outages, more floods, more hospitals with parents who lost loved ones, been on more missing children report. I'm on the ground. I'm on the ground. I know what this city can become, folks. I know what we deserve. And we don't deserve this. And I'm gonna fight like hell for the city I want our bulletproof vest for for 22 years and protect it and serve. I'm gonna defend this city to the best of my ability. And I don't care who gets upset over me doing that. But we need to ask our citywide leaders. Don't send out tweets. Get your ass on the streets and start fighting this issue that we're facing. Excellent. Let's get started table number one. We're just asking everyone to be cognizant of their and the whole community when we could make sure to get through every table. So if you could just be brief and thank you. Yes. Good evening. Welcome back. Thank you, brother. Welcome back home. Um, so the question that we have here is regarding the drug problems that we have in around our schools specifically Marconi Park and that the parks department has not been doing their part in maintaining those parks. But that drug problem is specific to heroin and fentanyl and that's leaving a lot of needles and dangerous substances around for the children. And also the support for the 103rd given that a commanding officer Robinson was promoted has not been provided. So they don't have the leadership structure. And so we're asking is when can we find the help in those services? A parks, who I got from parks? The borough commissioner. Sue, what's it? The borough commissioner. Yeah. Do you have a mic down there? Hi. So let me stand up. Ask all our speakers when they answer questions. Please stand up. Sure, sure. We're aware that there is activity, negative activity in Marconi. We have in fact been working with the police department. There are some things that we really shouldn't mention but there are activities and there is an investigation going on at Marconi for the things that are taking place at Marconi. As far as our own PEP officers, we have only 50 PEP officers for the entire borough and we do have a good number that are assigned to this district. We actually just this year opened a new substation at Rupas King Park to address a lot of the issues that we have in board 12. And we also have new PEP officers at Roy Wilkins and they travel and they respond to conditions as needed. We have them on both shifts till midnight and we do work collectively with the police department and very closely at that. Tell me something. I'm on no third. Who's the chief? Talk to me. What's happening over there in that park? Who's the CEO or EXO over there? You're the EXO? Okay, talk to me about that park. What are you seeing? What are you giving back to my microphone for a moment? What are you seeing over there? What are you seeing over there? So we are seeing a lot of, but not too long ago there was a shooting in Marconi Park and we're seeing a lot of needles, a lot of drug activity, a lot of homelessness and that presence is heavy. I will say that that presence specific to Marconi Park but also in the adjacent areas of public schools like Forty Park and even ISA Park, right? This is a continuing issue. I believe that it has a lot to do with the homelessness in our restricted areas in public housing. That's where it's coming from. It's being pumped out into these adjacent areas. God, is this in the one or third? Yes, sir. Okay, talk to me. Like he was saying with ISA Park, we did take the points for the homeless people hanging out in the park close to the school. I have my overnight lieutenant. She sends out her people there every morning to clear that park out. So people go into school, they don't see them so on and so on. In regards to Marconi Park, we're well aware. We patrol the park. We have our people out there. We patrol, we make sure they're out there. So every complaint we take, we take seriously and we entertain every complaint. We have our YCOs, our community officers for the sector, the sergeant. He's out there. He gets the guys out there. So my guys are out there. They're visible. We do our part. So let me do this, a DJ. Can you just get his information? Let me meet you over there. And let me meet you over there with the CEO and the chief. And let's do an analysis. But we have to have a plan of action. Our parks have to be safe. So we have to have a plan of action. So I'm gonna meet you over there and let's do a walkthrough. Coordinate with DJ to find out the best time for me to come over and meet you over there, all right? Okay. Next table. Okay, okay. Yes, I'm sorry. That's okay. So one of the things that I definitely concur with you on is if you go down here to the migrant where these individuals are living at, it is deplorable. I go down there on a regular basis. I live in Southeast Queens right there by the Crown Plaza. I went down there and I go down there and I talk to the individuals. We communicate through Google Translate. One of the problems is we are trying to get a good neighbor policy with the Herk Center. Councilwoman Adams, Senator Sanders, and I have been going back and forward to address these issues. We have a plan, what we wanna do, but we know right now that these individuals can't go anywhere. All we are saying is that right here in Southeast Queens, we have more than 29 transitional shelters, including sanctuaries. At this point, we really do not need anyone else coming in until we get control over that situation. And if you go down here to the Crown Plaza, I would love to do that. You will see how it's depreciating the values of the community, how there's garbage along there. We did have this annotation to come to do work there, but it's only going to another level. Also, you see individuals sitting out there smoking marijuana, drinking beer, hanging out in front of neighbor's homes, and that's not a good neighbor policy. So that's why we as the Civic Association went down there to say, hey, what we can do to make this work so that you understand the community needs. Now, when we think about that, when we think about, so we are empathetic toward their plight. The other thing is that when we think about our New Yorkers who are homeless right here, we have more than 5,000 units of homeless units in NYCHA. Why can't those units, those available units be used for those who are in city shelters, right? So that that will alleviate a lot of what's going on within the city, and then we're taking care of our own. And then that way we can turn our attention more so to the migrant situation. So who's gonna talk to me about the specific site that's there? So we have DSS, First Physicist, sure. Tell me about that site, the site that we're talking about. And it should be a combination of Department of Sanitation because it's one thing to put people in the community, but those services of cleanliness, we gotta be clean, we gotta, whatever needs to be done. So that's the specific site that we're talking about. What's happening there? Yeah, if you're talking about a her, we can coordinate with our partners to make sure that we keep it nice and clean. Which location are you talking about? It's the Crown Plaza. I have been down there on numerous occasions. I know Mr. Mike, I know Mr. Christian. I know them there. So they keep saying, we're gonna get back in touch with you. We're gonna get, no one gets back in touch with you. Even Senate senators know we have gone down there because we want to see how we can be good neighbors. We have already had a book bag giveaway here, the 149th Street Civic Association with other entities. We had a book bag giveaway over there in Basely Park. We gave clothing, we gave book bags. We had food to show that we are good neighbors. We're not blaming them, but at the same time, we all deserve to have decency within our community. And also the bus routes. That was another thing because at that stop is the first stop of the Q40. Once individuals from the solemn tickets get on, the second and third bus stop, people cannot get on. Mr. Mayor, Mr. Mayor. Yeah, who? Yes, yes, go ahead. I believe this is a health and hospitals managed site, one of our herks. And maybe SAC, I don't know if you wanna weigh in. But Laura Atlas would be the person to connect with. She manages coordination with communities and she'd love to probably work with you. Eileen Reyes from my team is right here. So she can connect with you and put you in touch with Laura Atlas. Also wanted to shout out Senator Sanders for holding rally yesterday to call on more federal support for our communities to deal with the crisis. Okay, so I wanna drill specifically down with what they're saying here. Because if we have, you know, team, if I have a block of South Ozone Park, Civic Association, if I have a Civic Association that's saying, we wanna work with you, we wanna help, we gotta, I don't wanna come to a meeting and hear somebody say they didn't get a call back, folks. So we need to immediately sit down with this Civic Association, find out their input. Cause you know, the crisis is here, so we need this partnership. And they're saying they wanna help. So we gotta rectify this, this cannot happen. If you have some ideas, share them with us cause we're gonna need some ideas as we navigate this. So, this is the Chief of Staff here. Can we give her your information? And she's gonna make sure that we coordinate all these pieces, okay? Thanks a lot. Thank you. Next table. Good evening, everyone. How are you? Great. Our concerns, with such a large influx of migrants being placed in our communities, how can we address the health and safety of our communities? Example, immunizations, immigrant students, entering schools, and those who are living in the shelters. For instance, we have to get vaccinated when we was younger. What is, what's happening with the children that's coming in that can possibly get our children sick or we can possibly get them sick. Our elders and other people who have other health concerns. Thank you. Is H&H, who's gonna take that? H&H, we have Chief Executive Officer Neil Moore. Good evening. Thank you for the question. Health and hospitals remain steadfast with its mission in providing healthcare services to everyone that comes through the doors, including the migrants. We accept everyone irrespective of their ability to pay. And we have been receiving migrants in the hospital for primary care service and other services that they so desire. You know, he had a specific question. Vaccines, all the aspects of the precaution of everything we have for children. What do we do on with that? All healthcare services, including vaccination and other health issues are addressed at our hospitals. Whether they come through the emergency room or through our clinic, we have been receiving them and providing those primary care services, including vaccinations. Okay, so we, at our intake of immunizations in schools, there's a 30 day window that's permitted for schools immunization. But for the vaccine, what do we do at the intake centers when people come in the intake centers? Are we, what's the procedures we're doing? Can we do a screening check? So what are we doing there? Mayor, maybe I can weigh in. This is Commissioner Castro over here. Okay. Yeah, at our arrival center, which we set up at the Roosevelt Hotel, again also managed by Health and Hospitals Corporation. They get every asylum seeker that arrives gets a screening. And we especially check children's immunization records to make sure that they have everything they need to enroll in schools. One important thing everyone should know, we have a program called NYC Cares who everyone is eligible, regardless of immigration status. And they get access to our city hospitals and programs from day one because we want to make sure that any health conditions are addressed and communicable diseases are also taken very seriously. So just go through, so you'll know everyone that comes in, they go to the Roosevelt Hotel and there's a whole screening process that takes place. Because I want to address your concern that we just recklessly allowing people to come in without a screening. So can we go through what that screening process is? What happens during that screening process at, who runs the Roosevelt? We want to know what the screening process is. Do we have the exact screening process that takes place at the Roosevelt? Well, Health and Hospitals runs the process that the executive director is not here. But yes, as upon arrival, asylum seekers are checked in, whether they arrived here at Port Authority or other means, they get a comprehensive screening there. When did they arrive in a country who put them on a bus here and what are their needs? We asked screening questions to know exactly whether they need shelter, whether they need other services. And there is where we identify any medical needs. Early on you may have noticed a lot of people came in with medical conditions that needed to be addressed because they had just either crossed the border and been put in a bus for three days without any type of support. And so our teams in Health and Hospitals and other agencies responded to support those asylum seekers. But know that the Arrival Center has a tremendous system in place to make sure people's needs are addressed, but also to make sure that everyone in New York is safe. I'm sorry? To help to bid that question? Yes. 86, 92, and 96. Who's 96? Love it, love it, love it. Next table. My name is Maxine and I have a tough question here for you. Not a tough question. Okay, this is a tough question. Southeast Queens, we wanna talk about flooding. Mental health services that's gonna increase in availability and homelessness for the people who already live here in Southeast Queens. The DEP, who's DEP? Best Deputy Commissioner DeFalco. How are you? Talked about flooding and then we'll talk about the shelters and the third thing was mental health. Mental health, okay. Hi, how you doing? What specific area are you thinking about in general? I can tell you that overall in Southeast Queens and all in Jamaica? Hallis, Jamaica, and around the JFK area. Okay, terrific. After this, I'll actually come and sit with you and I've got a whole project list of everything that we're doing here in Jamaica because we're spending over the next 10 years, we're spending about $221 billion in Jamaica and in Southeast Queens to install up-sized sewers. We've got a lot of issues of flooding in Southeast Queens, got a lot of groundwater, coastal and tidal flooding, so we literally are getting it from every direction, but there's also a lot of work and a lot of money that we're spending to try and improve the situation, not just waiting for the Army Corps to build the wall, but doing what we can in the meantime to move as aggressively as we can. I'll sit and take a look at Hallis Avenue. This table is very interesting. Table four. Telling that dollar amount again? $221 billion in the next 10 years. $221 billion, you know? As long as I can remember, and I'm pretty sure you know at the same time, as long as I can remember, Springfield was dealing with flooding, you know? And other parts, this whomever believes that climate change is not real, they need to come out here when you see these floods take place. So there's a great deal of investment. Some of it is going to take a while. We got to re-retrofit our sewer system. It's not made to handle this level of rainwater. We're gonna use other ways of how to mitigate it, but there's things we can do as a community, such as the gutter cleaning the gutters, making sure they're not clogged. So there's some small things we're doing, but you know, with the help of the speaker, the senator, that's a lot of money that's going to be invested in this community to try to mitigate this real flooding issue that we have. There was a mental health, Department of Mental Health and Hygiene. Deputy Commissioner Vula. Thank you for the question. Mental health is a big part of our entire system of what we're trying to do here, and as articulated, the mayor's community care and action plan. One of the things we're also really trying to do is address the intersection between mental health and homelessness. One of the ways in which we're doing this is increasing supportive housing slots. So not only are we housing individuals who are un-stably housed, but also addressing serious mental illness. We know that serious mental illness really contributes to people living on the street, people living without stable housing. So we want to take these two issues and try to address them together. We have a commitment to increase supportive housing slots by over 1,000 by the end of this year. We are on our way to meeting that commitment. We've invested a lot of significant dollars, over $60 million to increase the supportive housing rates to ensure that those services are of high quality too. And lastly, DSS, let's talk about, the question was on housing people from the community. What are we doing, housing people from the community that are homeless, correct? Yeah, absolutely. So for non-asylum seekers who are experiencing homelessness, DHS is still maintaining all of our intake sites for people to come into shelter. We have beds available. We are keeping people in shelter. We have our street outreach teams that are out. To encourage those who are unsheltered on the street to come into the DHS shelter system. And the minute you come into the shelter system, we are actively working with every homeless person to encourage them and help them in their journey to find permanent housing. And that's one of the first things that we heard back last year. People were saying, okay, you are giving more to the asylum seekers than long-term New Yorkers. That is just not true. When we built the first tent on Randall's Island, I went over, because I was visiting shelters where long-term New Yorkers were. And I went over there and some of the brothers stepped in me and said, listen, you are giving them the tents, you're giving them everything over there. I said, listen, you can go live in a tent if you want to. You have the right to do so. They said, wait a minute, we don't want to do that. We want to say where we are. No one is getting anything more than anyone else. Everyone that comes through the system, they're getting the same thing. We're not elevating anyone over anyone. I'm consistent about, we're not going to treat people differently if they're within our care. So there was a lot of rumors going out there, but that is not the reality. Hello, Mr. Mayor. How are you? Good seeing you. I'm fine. Rosalind Stigner, District Leader, representing Table 5. I have four really quick quality of life questions. First, lack of affordable housing, the dumping of illegal cars, which have fake plates beyond seven days or more, excessive loud noise from parties till over 5 a.m., and speeding in the need for speed bumps and stop sign traffic lights. I love when I come to community meetings and every day New Yorkers raise these quality of life issues, because whenever I'm cracking down on them, everyone says, okay, they go Mayor Popo again, trying to be heavy handed on everyone. You don't want music playing all times at night in your community. You don't want people speeding through your community. You don't want motorcycles doing spinning and wheelies. You don't want paper plates running in your community. People want to pitch it as, this is what I want. No, I'm hearing this all the time. So what have we done? When we got into office January 1st, 2022, no one was dealing with the paper plate issues. We drilled down on it, removed almost 11,000 illegal bikes off our streets. We took, we zoomed in on the paper plates. Some, and know what we found? We found that people who had the paper plate, the out of town plate, the forged plates, they had guns in their cars. They were doing stick ups. Many of them were just creating crimes. We, police commissioner Sewell at first, and now police commissioner Caban, chief of department of Madri, was zeroing in on those quality of life issues, particularly how vehicles are being used to commit crimes. And many of these folks have gotten so used to committing series of crimes and no one has been going after them to do so. That's all that pushback when you're hearing that, okay, why are y'all doing chases to go after people? We're having plates where people are doing six, seven robberies. We're not gonna let them get away anymore. You're not gonna just do whatever you want in the city anymore. Those days are over. It's a small number of people who have made up their mind that they're gonna do whatever they want in this city because no one was going after them and telling them that's not acceptable. Well, you know what? Now I'm telling them now it's not acceptable. We did a nice initiative. I just came down the block to do another check. All of these darn trucks that are parked over here on Springfield, we went and told a lot of them, we're gonna come back with DOT, we're gonna do another initiative. A lot of these guys are parking on the streets in the Bronx, they're parking over here. They should not be parking on your streets. If they know they can't park in front of Gracie Mansion, they should not be parked in front of your mansion. We're gonna come back out of here and we're gonna do another initiative to do towing to those trucks over there. We're gonna give them a warning. You can't park here, it's illegal and if they don't move, we're gonna tow those cars from over there. Quality of life is everything. You deserve the quality of life. The amount of taxes you pay, you need to get your quality of life. Okay, housing, housing. We need to do a housing 101 because a lot of people, when people think housing, they automatically think the mayor, they automatically think the speaker. You know, our numbers and I want us to give the numbers of how many housing, how many people we put in housing, who has that? You have, okay, okay. We have the amazing Deputy Mayor Maria Torres Springer. She's gonna give you our numbers and Dan, can you go over what our plan is for housing? But we're gonna go over the mission for housing. But housing is, you know, when you're the mayor, people blame you for everything. You get in an argument with your wife, that damn Eric Adams. You know, housing is a city and state. We put in place a plan, the governor and I put in place a plan of we need to build more housing. We have an inventory problem. That's what we have. There's not enough units of housing. So, if you don't have a lot of units of housing, then the demand allows people to raise the prices. We need to be building more. We're not building more. So we put a plan in place to renew 421A so we can incentivize housing. That did not pass. We put a plan in place so that we can turn office spaces that have about 138 million square feet of office spaces into housing. That did not pass. We put a plan in place to raise the FAR. That did not pass. We need the state to give us the help and build in more housing. But Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer will tell you what we have done and Dan, you can give us a quick overview what we're going to do. We want to partner with the Speaker and the Senator so we can build more. We're both in line with this. We got to build more housing. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, everyone. So I want to talk about the number of units that are in construction in this district right now and then highlight the initiatives that we're all working on together because as the Mayor mentioned, we need to do more for New Yorkers and for Jamaica residents to make sure that everyone has access to a safe, decent, and affordable home. So in this district, there are close to 7,000 units of housing that are under construction and another 600 or so that are in the pipeline. So that is a good start. But the Mayor charged us with doing more and doing it faster. And so in the last fiscal year, thanks to the great work of our Commissioner Adolfo Carrion and the entire team at HPD, the last fiscal year we've financed more than 24,000 units of affordable housing. And that's... Thank you, Mayor. This is... It's a good start given the challenges that many New Yorkers face. We had the second highest in history number of new construction units, the highest in history in terms of homes for the formerly homeless and supportive units. And we have to do more. So Chair Garodnik will tell everyone about the work that we're doing together with the Speaker, together with many leaders here on a neighborhood plan. And there is... I don't want to steal your thunder, but there is a community meeting and open house at the end of the month that we want to make sure everyone knows about. But the final thing that I'll say is, of course we are a city of renters, but in this district, there are many homeowners as well. And so I want to make sure that we are connecting all of you who are homeowners or aspiring homeowners to programs that we have for first time down payment assistance, programs that we have to help you make repairs in your homes. And so if anyone has questions about that, we have a lot of team members here, but we have to do more both for renters and for homeowners, and the mayor has charged us with doing just that. So, Chair Garodnik. So, I don't know if you heard those three areas. It's worth repeating again. History, first time in history, what are those three areas that we produce more? The new construction units, the second most in history. Second most in history, new construction, gotta build it. The largest in history of units for the formerly homeless into permanent housing. Largest in history for formerly homeless. And supportive units as well, supportive housing units. Thank you. In history. Thank you. So Dan, just a quick, what are we planning on doing in the future as we build faster partner with our city council members? Yes, thank you very much, Mayor. Dan Garodnik, director of the department of city planning. It is correct to note that we have a real inventory problem in the city and that we did not see any progress in the state of New York. We are taking action on our own here in New York City to be able to try to alleviate that burden and try to create more housing, more affordable housing here in Jamaica and also throughout the entire city. 50% of New Yorkers are rent burdened, which means that they pay more than 30% of their income on rent. That number is 61% in Jamaica. We know that there's real economic insecurity and the challenges of finding an affordable home in New York City is a real issue. So we have a proposal that we will be working on and announcing in this fall, which is animated by a desire to create more housing across all neighborhoods in New York City, more affordable housing, finding ways to prioritize housing over parking, finding ways to enable office conversions and much, much more. And here in Jamaica specifically, with the speaker of the city council, Adrienne Adams and council member Natasha Williams, the borough president, Donovan Richards, we are working on focusing on a real neighborhood plan for Jamaica itself, finding ways to enhance job opportunities, finding ways to lean into the real advantages that this neighborhood has as it relates to transit access should also mean real access to jobs and housing. And that is what we're looking to work on. The deputy mayor did not entirely steal my thunder, so I'm gonna give you the info. September 30th at York College at 10 o'clock in the morning, we're going to be having a community conversation to start our planning for Jamaica and to think about what this neighborhood needs, what we can do to activate housing, job creation right here. We're incredibly excited about it, particularly with our partnership with the city council. We look forward to working with all of you to make that come true. Thank you. So we with you, housing, housing, housing. We gotta build, build more housing. Hello, Lynette Townsley, Community Board 12 Youth Committee Chair. Welcome back. Thank you. And we are amongst family. So I will say humbly that I think there's a little bit of communication, miscommunication, because from what they said down there when it came to the homelessness and prostitution and things that's not supposed to be around our children and our parks over here with our community relations officer, he said that's not his job, that was DHS. So we're a little confused when it comes to, and I think our question is the reason why it's so important because we have challenges when it comes to, and this is before the immigrants, before all of these other issues, our community is dirty. We should not have to tell the city agency that it needs to be sweet. You know, when it comes to the tree trimming and stuff like that, we should not have to continuously tell the city agencies. So our question is what is the process to hold the city agencies accountable and also to see if they need some support for making sure that we have again, quality of life in all of our communities. First of all, thank you for that. And if ever, I'm sorry. Yes, no, if ever a community affairs officer tell you something's not his job, he's getting out of community affairs. And Mark, you need to find out who said that. We work as a team. Every job is my job. If you come to me and say, Eric, I'm having a homeless issue, am I gonna tell you it's not my job? That's not acceptable. It's not acceptable. And they will not be in community affairs. Their job is to make sure they connect you with the agency that could address them. They're on the front line. That's their responsibility. That's why they're out there. They should have access to every agency. If you have any problem at all, anyone that's on this table that works in city government should be able to help you find the agency that's going to help them. It's all our job. And what was said down on the other end of the table, if there's a condition that needs to be corrected, you should be given the information on how to correct that condition. If there's a homeless person, that homeless person should be given the services they need, pointing in the right direction. We have outreach workers that will come out. As you notice, you don't even see encampments all over your streets anymore because we coordinated with Deputy Mayor Williams Isom with police, sanitation of all the housing entities to rectify those situations. So I want them, Jessica, the Commissioner of Department of Sanitation, there's one thing she hates is somebody saying the streets are not clean and you may not know it, but I hate rats. And so I like to clean our streets and we have an ambitious plan to do so. Jessica, can we talk about the cleanliness of the community? Yeah, so a few things on it. First, I hear the feedback that this community is not as clean as you want it to be and it's not as clean as you deserve for it to be. And you do have my commitment that we will put the resources of the Department of Sanitation at your disposal to address the conditions that you are seeing. I also want to make clear though that this administration is spending an unprecedented amount of resources on cleaning citywide. So we are doing the most streets sweeping that New York City has ever done. We are doing the most litter basket service that New York City has ever done. We are doing the most highway cleaning that New York City has ever done. We are cleaning for the first time in 50 years underpasses, overpasses, greenways, parts of the city that had not been cleaned before. And if you are not seeing that, then that is my problem and it is something that I am committed to fixing because the mayor has put the resources that we need at our disposal to make you happy. Thank you. Highways under the commissioner, highways were not being cleaned regularly. Illegal dumping was not being addressed. We did the first round of all food service businesses now have to put their garbage in containers. We're seeing a decrease in rats reports. I think it was at 30, is all my rats all here? What are the numbers, a decrease in- Citywide, the rat complaints are down 20% since we changed the trash rules and in our rat mitigation zones, they're down 45%. And one thing to know here is rat numbers in New York City never go down. So the fact that they went down and went down so consistently and so universally is a really good indication that the policies that we're putting in place on containerizing our waste and collecting it earlier are really beginning to show some real results. So we're putting garbage, first time this city is going to be containerizing their garbage. Garbage are going to be in containers. We're putting it in for food service. We did it already. We're gonna be rolling out more announcements. If you wanna deal with a rotten and cleanliness issue, you can have those darn garbage bags all over the street. It is just not healthy to do so and we're cycling out of that. Make sure you see the commissioner, okay? Next table. Good afternoon. Hi, my name is. How are you? Hi, Mayor Adams. My name is Trisha Elliott. I am an active communities of this community. I currently live in 111 in Claudio Avenue right down the block from August morning. My main question is what are we doing to help this school be more funded so that we can help the kids and help the community be more active and more supportive as well as have more, like a soccer team, a football team, a track and field. All the good stuff we need to help this community as well as the kids. There are cutting schools and I see a lot more and more. I see them cutting schools, smoking, not going to school and they're not motivated. As a community, I wanna see more changes. I wanna see more academics. I wanna see more sports, more everything going on with this school. But we honestly need this funding for the high school because all of our students go here, all of our kids go here within community. Thank you, thank you. And so, you know, first of all, your question is an important question because when we start talking about where $5 billion is going to come from, this is what I'm talking about. All these investments we have made in our children, 100,000 summer youth jobs, 110,000 children going to summer rides in our school year-long. Open our schools after school hours for summer nights, a basketball, dyslexia screening, invest it in our foster care children. We now pay the college tuition to foster care children. We invest it in fair futures so our foster care children can have life coaches longer so they won't drop out and they get to support that they need. All of these programs we're talking about is now coming under real threats. But we have done, under this administration, more investment in our children than anyone else has ever done. We drop down childcare, will the childcare cost that we drop down? Give that microphone to the deputy mayor. Childcare. From about paying about $1,400 a year for families, significant. So we know if we don't invest in a child, they're going to be a broken child and they're going to turn into broken adults. We must invest in our children. That has been our North Star. And we want to list all the investments that we have done because you're right. Now with our investment, nothing stops us from starting a crochet club, a football club, a accounting club, a financial literacy club. We can open our churches, our schools, our basements. This is how we used to do it in Southeast Queens. We need to go back to doing that again. We can save these children together. Commissioner Howard. See? Love it, love it. Great Commissioner. This is Commissioner Howard from DYCD. How's everybody? Good, good, good. In this school alone, we have two magnificent programs. We have a Saturday Night Lights program and we have a career program with high school students alone. Queens is specifically this district area. We have over, we had over 4,000 young people involved in SYEP. In this district alone, we had over 4,000 slots for summarizing. Yeah, please, clap that up. That's the investment that the mayor's talking about. So, 28 of your schools have after-school programs in this district. And I can tell you, and I hope I'm getting it correct, but there is a football program called Rochedale Jets. Rozedale Jets. We fund Rozedale Jets, okay? So, they have an amazing program with young people playing football out there. I was out there at least two months ago watching that program. We have basketball programs in Roy Wilkins with SQPA. We have art programs with the Black Spectrum Theater. We have sports programs in the PAL over at Baseline. So, we have a significant amount of investment in young people and young people's growth and workforce development. In this school district and in the borough of Queens. And we don't do it alone. We don't do it alone. We can't do any of that without the speaker. She has made it clear her investment in young people and the support we get from the speaker, the other council members out here, and the senators and assembly person. We don't do it by ourselves. They are the partners in getting those resources here. Okay, I pulled a short step. Okay, I'm sorry, my name is Michelle Moseley. I am a member of Unka, which been in existence since 1954. And we cover this whole area. Okay, the question is enforcement. We have been asked to call 311 with our complaints about quality of life issues. And we've done that. And yet and still, the enforcement is not coming. Okay, we have abandoned vehicles in our neighborhood that's been there for months, even years. And yet and still when we get our 311 numbers back, it says condition corrected or whatever they say. Then we have an issue with loud parties where people are renting out their homes for a party. They're selling food, they're selling liquor, they have security guards and the music is loud. And yet and still when police are called or 311 is called about the loud music, it just never gets handled. So that was one of the questions. And I also have another question about abandoned homes in our community. How can city council or the mayor's office or the state try to get these homes and renovate them for people to move into them instead of keeping them abandoned? Because I'd rather have a person living in a house than a building and have a yard instead of a courtyard to play in. Thank you, we found out with the 311 system, we found the major glitch where the caller that calls in, the 311 operator, which believe it or not, they handle millions of calls, they're doing an unbelievable job. When they refer the call to an agency, they were marking it as closed, as it was resolved. We're gonna change that policy. The resolution is not when you refer it, the resolution is when that actual agency corrected the condition and it comes back as being corrected. Because when we looked at all those 311s and we, Deputy Mayor Banks, his team has been calling citizens and said was your issue corrected because we wanted to spot check. People were coming back saying it's not corrected but we were seeing it as condition corrected. So we dug in deeper just to learn that that's what the problem was. We're rectifying that policy. Now condition corrected is going to mean when that agency corrects that condition. We're now, I'm not 100%, 311 was a great invention by Mayor Bloomberg, but it's not where it ought to be. We want to do a better job. That could be a great tool for us and we want to focus on that. Someone talked to me about these abandoned vehicles. What street are we talking about? There's several abandoned vehicles on 130, between 137th Avenue and 134th Avenue. And they all parked in the street because there's somebody working on vehicles. So he switches them out. He puts paper plates. He's got Ohio. He's got Texas. He's got all of this. And then we have them on 132nd Avenue near the Northeast Towers where people even covered their car and it's been there for years. Got it, got it. And nothing's done. So I know you're doing something around there. Yeah. Right, okay, okay. So let's make sure we look at those spots. Can we share what we're doing? Yeah. So the reason that you never got a response to three on one calls about abandoned vehicles is because for far too long it was a game of finger pointing between two agencies. So historically there's two flavors of abandoned vehicles. There are derelict vehicles which are vehicles that are valueless and then there are abandoned vehicles which have more value. And sanitation historically has done one type of vehicle and the NYPD has done another. So when people enter a vehicle into three on one they don't think deeply about whether it's derelict or abandoned and oftentimes it got bounced back and forth between the agencies and no cars came off the street. We changed all of that. We have paired a team of NYPD officers with a team of sanitation supervisors and this group's only job is to go around the city and take abandoned vehicles, derelict vehicles, whatever vehicles shouldn't be on the streets to take them off the street. This team started two months ago. There was a tremendous backlog in three on one because vehicles hadn't come off the streets in so long and they're working their way through it. What I can promise you is that tomorrow that group will be here with you addressing the vehicles that you just outlined. Our question. We call it GSD, get stuff done. How are you? Good evening ma'ams, how are you? Good to see you. Good to see you. I'm Vera Anderson representing table number nine and we are still touching on quality of life. So with the quality of life has been going down over the years, derelict vehicles and legal dumping and legal weeds, shops, posters for parties, rats, showing up from construction sites and not enough workers in any agency to keep up. If you enter into other neighborhoods, it's like night and day. We pay our taxes. What will sanitation and NYPD do to address this as a priority? Yeah, so we touched on some of them. You know, commissioner Tish talked about the whole initiative around going after abandoned vehicles, that entire team. Now remember, these vehicles were on the street as it was just mentioned, for God knows how long. You're gonna see that backlog clean clear up and that task force that's working together was zeroing in on these cars. Kenoschi was having the same problem as well. Same thing with cleanliness. You know, the number of times we're doing street sweeping, we know we have to catch up to how dirty this city has been. And we basically, we have thrown up our hands historically. We don't believe that. And that is what the commissioner is really zeroing in on the cleanliness of the city, of the communities and of the neighborhoods. You're going to see a drastic increase in the cleanliness that this community expects and deserves. Are you surprised? Hi, Mr. Mayor, thank you so much. I'm a little bit nervous right now. My name is, I'm Dr. Natalie Ferguson, and I'm a nurse. And more importantly, I am the parent of a special needs child. My son is autistic with intellectual disability. And I'm here fighting for him for the rights of all mental health individuals and individuals with special needs. My life, my passion, everything is involved in fighting for my son and for all the other special needs individuals. My question to you is, are there any incentives or funding available for adults and children with special needs to get to the ground running? The only reason that my son, that I was able to get services for my son was because I had to work, go to school, get these degrees and move out from the poor neighborhood to come to Queens to find out about information that would help my son. It wasn't made available to me at all in the other neighborhoods. Why did I have to go through all of that to find help for my son? Why is it that you hear all about the funding and information, but people, they don't know about this services out there. There's no information. I have been reaching out, talking to anyone, knocking on doors because I am not too proud to beg for help for my child. Malcolm was, Mr. McDaniel was telling me some information about a registry and different things like that because the bottom line is working in the hospital. Parents are coming in with their special needs children and they have no clue. They have no idea. So you can have all the funding and the money but it's not getting down to the grassroots to the families that need this information and then if the parents don't know, they're not able to help their children. And then what happens when the parents are no longer there? What happens when I'm gone if I don't put stuff in place for my son? Homelessness with mental health is uses what happens. Incarceration is what happens because there's a high percentage of mental health black men incarcerated. That's why they need the screening. I will ready to roll up my sleeves and talk to every one of these people here if it will help to get the information out to the people for my son and for all the other children that need the support. Thank you. Thank you. There's a couple of layers to that. Number one, what we found is that in the New York City public schools of the services that our young people needed was not in our school system itself. Chancellor Banks has made a real commitment to bring those services within New York City public schools. And you're right, access to information is crucial because many people stay home and suffer without getting the access to information that they need. We've partnered with, we've had a summit at Gracie Mansion with Lucina Clark from My Time Inc. Incorporation, where she helps parents get that information. We want to continue to do so. If you have ideas on how we can better get that information out, we would love for you to partner with that. I don't know if Dan, if you'll do, who's the best to handle that? Go ahead. You're exactly right, Mr. Mayor, by the Department of Education. It gets worse. There's times where folks call us at ACS on the Commissioner for Children's Services because parents are really struggling. So we've created a special needs unit. Our job is to advocate for parents, not bring children into foster care, but to advocate for parents with state systems, the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities, the Office of Mental Health, to make sure that they are being responsive to your needs. So I can talk to you after about ways in which we can support more of that. We created this unit because parents were actually getting punished for trying to take care of their special needs kids, and we're trying to move upstream to take care of them. Most of those services are within the DOE, but we also have to push on our state partners who are responsible at the Office of People with Developmental Disabilities and the Office of Mental Health, and I can work with you on that. And we have Deputy Chancellor Danika Rux from DOE. Thank you. That is an issue that we're working really hard on, access for families with information. So every school has a parent coordinator, and their job really is to help parents to navigate the various systems. Additionally, every school they have a school-based support team, and there's someone on the school-based support team, the school psychologist who connects them with parent advocates. And not too many families take advantage of the advocate. So we have a great job in ensuring that families know who the advocates are, and that they're utilizing the advocates to help them to support, because it is a massive system, and our priority is always to ensure that families are being connected. Families and children are being connected to the right resources and the right support. So please see me. I will come find you, and we can talk because I hear that you have a lot more ideas, and I would love to hear what your thoughts are on this issue as well. And it's unbelievable how unfriendly government can be and navigating, and it's intimidated to get service. My mother used to dread going into a governmental agency. And so what we want to be, we want to be customer-sensitive and friendly in order for you to get access to the services that are available. Someone needs to be willing to take the time out and walk you through. Now we got a couple of initiatives we're doing. We did the, what is the computer program we did registering the children? My city, my city. We did the My city. We eventually will have a system called My city. We did it for childcare registration, which has been a home run. We're eventually going to build this out that every New Yorker is going to have a number so you will be told of all the services that are available for you based on your profile. Because you shouldn't have to guess if you are eligible for WIC, if you're eligible for SNAP, if you're eligible for DREA and SCREA. If we have your information, we should be able to tell you, Ms. Jones, this is your income, this is your status. Here are all the items that are available, and we want to evolve to the point of even signing you up for that. That is how we want to use technology to give resources to you. We leave too much on the table because people are not aware of what's available for them. Next table. Hello, I am Aliana Soto from South Jamaica Infinity Garden. Many of us are plant-based. We'd love to have you there. So this wasn't brought up. So we want to know if the Office of Cannabis Management, are they here? If the Office of Cannabis Management has come to a conclusion or any new regulations regarding the smoke shops, they did meet with us at the 113th Community Council and gave a wonderful presentation. And they talked about all the industries that would benefit from the dispensaries. But the smoke shops were not on that list, so now they're this unregulated thing. They are on every single corner, two or three on a block, more than bodegas. We know the issues that it caused. This is not whether you're pro or con. It's more about the type of traffic and the issues that they caused because we do know that there are issues. And one of the challenges that we were shared was that you have to catch them in action. You have to catch them. That's not gonna work. And so right around from the garden, there is a rehab center and there's a smoke shop right across the street. I mean, like this just, it's a mess. Additionally, the regulation and registration of motorized bikes and what's happening. And lastly, Mr. Howard from the DOICD, thank you. But we do have a transportation issue getting our young kids throughout Southeast Queens. So if you live on Rockaway and the Van Wick, you can't get to Roy Wilkins or Basley or Rosdale. So I would like to also see some transportation for our young kids to get to these programs safely. Thank you. Thank you. So let's deal with the smoke shops first. We can clean up all the illegal smoke shops in this city in three months. If I'm given the authority to do so. If the New York City Police Department and the Sheriff's Department, if we're given the authority to do the enforcement within three months, I guarantee you we won't have no more illegal smoke shops in the city. We don't have that power. The state has the power. I asked them last year in Albany, can you give us the power and let us local enforce the laws? Because it was a smart decision to do the financial benefits of cannabis and allow those legacy owners, allow those who are doing it legally. We're undermining the legal entity of cannabis because we're allowing all of these smoke shops to open. They're laughing at us. They are selling to our children. They're breaking all sorts of laws. I need the power. I want to be held responsible. I don't have that authority to close them down the way I want to close them down. I'm hoping this year in Albany that there will be the desire to say, let's give the local municipalities the authority to do so. And within three months of getting that power, we will have all these smoke shops closed down. Yeah, did I? Oh, illegal, illegal bikes. Illegal, yeah, illegal bikes. No matter where I go, people talk about these illegal scooters. You know, we learned at the town hall last week up in Manhattan that there's a law in the book where people are part of delivery workers, et cetera. They're supposed to wear vests with a number on the back of it. I spoke to the police commissioner. We are going to dig into that law to make sure that people got enforced the rules. Our streets have changed over the last few years. It's a different street. We must make sure that everyone is operating within the rules on that street. We've zeroed in on illegal mopeds. We're zeroed in on unlicensed ones. We have been doing real enforcement to make sure these streets are not dangerous. I hear it everywhere. It's a real issue that we have to combat. I'm going to sit down with the speaker and put our heads together. How do we do it in a humane way? But there's a real issue with illegal mopeds and scooters on our streets. We've done a great job on the dirt bikes and the three-wheel motorcycles. We took a ton off the streets, but we got a zero in, and I'm looking for a speaker you are not figuring out. How do we deal with these illegal mopeds and bikes on the streets? Over here, Mr. Mayor. How are you? Good evening. First, let me thank you. You came out for the street renaming for Bill McCrary. So thank you for coming out that day. My question is piggybacking on the young lady's question here. With regards to the illegal smoke shops. As far as my opinion is, we need NYPD has told us they can't go in. The sheriff has to go in. And from my numbers, what I've researched is only about 200 sheriffs in New York City. It may be less for the five boroughs. So we're like rats, but in the wheel. If you only have about 200 sheriffs for the five boroughs, this issue will not be addressed until you or the administration hires more sheriffs. That's the only way I can see it being solved. What's your answer to that, sir? See, that's why it's so important to be able to bring all this stuff back. We had to hire, we had to announce a hiring freeze. We have about 13,000 jobs that are open. We have to now tell New York City agencies that we have to have a hiring freeze. We can't hire anymore. Why can't we hire anymore? We're pulling $5 billion out of our budget. So now all of those jobs that we were feeling by doing the speaker and I were doing hiring halls all over the city, bringing in new employees, we have to now stop hiring. But in addition to that, I am willing to do the closing of these shops with what we have. I need the authority to do so. So if the police department walks in, they can't take the action without the sheriff. So we put task force together with police, department of builders and others to go in, but that manpower is stretched. I would rather say to my precinct commander that you tell your sector patrol, you identify a smoke shop, they're in there, they're possessing it, you go in there, you take action. We've confiscated a substantial number by using that task force model, but that's a lot of manpower as you just mentioned. We want to go in and do the enforcement ourselves. I need the state to give me that authority to do so. Thank you. But do you see the dots? You see the dots that I'm talking about? That we can't hire, we just announced this hiring freeze because we can't bring more people on because we gotta figure out in November where that $5 billion is going to come from. Good evening and thank you for the opportunity of your ear. Housing prices in our community have increased to over a million dollars, yet the boulevards, Sutford and Rockaway, reflect despondent poverty. What offices can work with our community to incentivize businesses to come to the community and work on the beautification and stabilization of our boulevards? For example, their uniform store awnings at the beginnings of Sutford Boulevard. Across from the courthouse, can that look come further down, Sutford? Who I have from SBS? We have Deputy Commissioner Calvin Brown. You got an amazing commission over there, Commissioner Kim, SBS is working hard as hell now. Yes, did you mention Sutford Boulevard? Yes. Sutford Boulevard is in one of our business improvement districts, and we support all of our business improvement districts. We have 70 plus throughout New York City. We have three that consolidated in downtown Jamaica, Queens, which was Suffin, 165th Street in downtown Jamaica. We've been supporting them with resources that we received from the city council. They just received one of our lighting grants, which is a new strategic impact grant that we are given to these commercial corridors to light them up so we can make sure that they're more secure, but also to bring foot traffic to those commercial corridors to support those small businesses. But if there's anything specific, please reach out to my division specifically. I'm in the Division of Neighborhood Development and we provide support to the business improvement districts throughout the city. Going to just overall, what you guys did with the partnership we did, was that JPMorgan Chase? What do we do with JPMorgan Chase? And was it 750 million? How much we did? The mayor is mentioning a fund that we put together with Goldman Sachs. $75 million, which is really the largest of its kind in the country. And this is a fund specifically to provide capital for small businesses, specifically small businesses and minority-owned businesses. And it was a big success. So many business over the course of a short period of time this year were able to apply and access awards. But it's the type of public-private partnership that is really needed, has always been critical, even more so now, given the budgetary constraints that the mayor mentioned. And so business improvement districts are, I agree, a really great opportunity to harness the energy and ideas of business owners, small business owners, government and civic associations. And so we are all ears in terms of ways we can take those partnerships further, whether it's on capital access or beautification, as you mentioned. And the deputy mayor did something else when she first came into office. Talk about what you did on how we were over penalizing businesses. That's right. So on day three of the administration, the mayor, small business commissioner, Kevin Kim and I, announced an executive order. And the executive order was focused on asking all of the major agencies that interact with small businesses, regulatory agents of the Department of Health, the fire department, DOT, DOB. I mean, it's a very, very long list. And for too long, and I think if you're a small business owner in this room, it probably felt like government wasn't there to help you, and it was there to issue violations. And so the mayor said, we have to end that. So we looked at the top 25 violations of every single agency, the top 25 they place on small businesses, and we said, how do we change the dynamic? Change it so that there are warnings, there are cure periods, the fines are more reasonable, and we ended up with over 100 different violations that we have reformed are in the process of reforming together with the speaker of the city council. So that's the start of the work. That was day three. Hopefully we have many, many more days to go to keep advancing the work to help small businesses across the five boroughs. I was very... Excuse me, mayor, I would just like to, hello. Yes. Thank you to the speaker. She clarified the question that was asked. And to extend the work beyond the bid, we do, in my division once again, we do have grants to support community-based groups that are doing commercial revitalization work so that they can support those small businesses, especially if they extend outside of the boundaries of the district. So I gave the speaker my card. We need to identify a community group that we can work with, that we can fund so they can do that work so that that beautification and that support those small businesses outside of the boundaries of the bid, we can support them. Okay, so you should connect. Make sure you connect. Our goal is to really... We have an amazing, amazing team over at SBS. Good evening, mayor. How are you? I'm okay. I'm Ms. Marion. I'm nice to see you again. My daughter, Claudia Court, was shot on May 10th. And after you were at her funeral, which I appreciate. After that, the DA's office, the DA's office sent me to a couple of places to help us with funeral expenses. I was sent to two different agencies. We were denied. Finally, I was told, okay, go to HRA. Maybe they can give you some help since I haven't been to work since May 10th. I went through that system. The HRA system, honestly, I'm from Ghana. I've been in this country since 83. I've been working since 91. I have not been in that agency ever. Those people make you feel like the crap under your feet. Honestly, I do not want to go back to work because the type of work I do, I don't want to give anybody blood. I don't want to make any mistakes. So I've been in my own little shelter and I haven't been anywhere. But when I went to the HRA system, oh my goodness. It's, I can't even explain. I went through the interview, the lady was like, oh my goodness, this happened to you. I'm going to get you help right away. She said, okay, wait till Friday, go to the agency. This was a Tuesday. I went Friday. They were like, oh, you were told to come and get a card. Your case is not done yet. Okay, I waited Wednesday. I went back. They said, oh no, your case, you have to wait till you see something online. If you see something online, come and then you get a card. In two days, I saw something online. I went back. She was like, oh no, no, no, I can't give you a card. Now mind you, this is my third time going. Because your case, even though you see money, we still can't give you a card because Susu and so blah, blah, blah. I said, okay, I came back home. Another person on the phone is like, no, no, no, go back. They're supposed to give you a card. Now this is my fourth time going there. So I gave up. That was like two weeks ago. Monday somebody called me from the director. She said she was a director or something because the DA's office had told her my complaint of what I was going through. She said, oh my God, I don't know what's going on because I see in one end, you have money and they're supposed to help you out. But I see on the other hand, the case is closed. I said, yeah, the last person I spoke to told me the case is closed. So I haven't been there. I said, please do not send me back to that place to get the card. I am not, if it wasn't for this issue, trust me. Look and see if you see my name in your books. She said, oh, I'm so sorry. Apologize. Told me she'll call me back in one hour. Nothing. As far as your burial expenses go, how does that work? Because I've applied for everything and nothing. Claudia Quarte, I've been, Claudia was born here. We've lived in this community since 2011. Everyone in this community knows either one or two or three of my kids. Claudia is my only daughter. I have four boys. Everyone at Royal Workings knows my family. Senator, a couple of senators know my kids because we're very active in the community. My son is part of the 100 Black Men's Group. I honestly feel that the way my daughter was murdered and we're trying to be decent people, but I mean, where does the help come from? That HRA office needs to be Jesus. It's ridiculous. Yeah, listen, you know, first of all, I'm passing the rules, connect and navigate that, but it's not only about helping your case. I can't have a feeling that we're not responding. That's not acceptable. And we're gonna look into, use your case as a case study and find out where we could have done better. But we will, passing the rules will communicate with you. That was such a horrific, horrific shooting. I remember I'm being there with you and your family. We will look and to see exactly what happened. But you know, when people push back on me and getting guns off our streets, you know, this is what it's about. My first few days in office, I had two officers, shot officer Amora Rivera. I had others, a family. I went inside in the hospital with a mother of an 11 month old child that was shot and killed. You know, those first few months, we saw gun violence like you never witnessed. And more and more young people are possessing guns and using them. I mean, we're losing babies. And that is why this level of urgency you see when I talk about this gun violence that we're seeing. This is a real story. This is a mother who had lost her child due to senseless gun violence. This is a beautiful young lady who was volunteering, giving back. Now she's no longer here because someone decided to use a gun in our streets. That's why I'm so dogmatic on this gun violence because these are real stories that families are going through. But Passama Rose will coordinate with you. Let us see exactly what went wrong there. But we will also use it as a case study to make sure we communicate better. We have to have good customer service and through interactions. And with regards to funeral expenses, we'll follow up as well. Especially if it was a murderer, we'll help assist in that case. Good evening, everyone. How are you? And good evening, Mayor Adams. Thank you for coming. Welcome to my district. I'm Reverend Thorbs. I'm the Chairperson for Community Board 12. And I've lived here all my life. I think the first thing on our agenda would be, could you please work out getting air conditioned in this school? This is crazy. That's at the top of the list. Because our kids... You said list, list. You got a question. Yes, I do. Not even a question. Your agencies are here. And I'm glad to see them. But we have a number of issues in this community that we should not have. We have people that are coming into our community and not doing their work. Sanitation is deplorable. And my conversation has been with Sanitation, with the superintendent, has been that when your trucks are on the street and you see in their route that there's sanitation trash that's been left, pick it up. Pick it up. When you are picking up trash through our blocks, don't create more trash. Clean it up. Sanitation rolled out a system where they began to give out summonses. And right away, Southeast Queens was hit with summonses at 8 a.m. in the morning for trash outside of their homes. This is not fair. Every time something is rolled out, we're hit with it. I have a property, 164-13109th Avenue. This property is bank owned and this woman has called me. Ms. Rosa, they are squatting. The weeds, the rats. This lady's playing a mortgage. This should not be. Like the commissioner said here, the agencies do the pointing game and kicking in the can down the road. I worked out of the 113 precinct. I was trained there. And then I went to Brooklyn and now I'm retired and this is what I do. I love my community, but these agencies have to come up. They know who you are and they know what your love is for this community, then they need to act like it. Merrick Boulevard, we have a red lane that we told them we did not want. Jamaica Avenue, when MTA came to us, we said to them to put that red lane on Jamaica Avenue and Archer Avenue at the same time is a bad idea. Why don't you do Jamaica Avenue first or do Archer first and then let the community become accustomed to what they're dealing with? No, they thought it was a better idea to do it their way. And so what is happening, Jamaica Avenue is dying because people don't know how to drive on Jamaica Avenue. They can't get to the stores. It's insanity. The migrant situation, as it was already stated by my constituent and by my other board members and there are plenty of them still here in the room, we already had 29 shelters, 29 plus shelters. Where have all those people disappeared to? We had those children in our schools. Where have those families disappeared to? Because now, no one in the shelters look like them. They're not there any longer. I'm hearing about prostitution on Sutton Boulevard. I'm hearing about drug sales from the immigrant community. Tuskegee Airmen Way, I was just there on Saturday sitting with a community of people. It's just going back to the 80s. And I have to fight tooth and nail to find out who's going to clean the medians on Guy Brewer Boulevard and on Merrick Boulevard from Liberty to Farmers and Springfield. I have car dealerships that are parking their cars on the sidewalks during repairs and nobody can help us. Nobody can tell us what needs to be done. I understand DEP plays a part in that. Well, they need to step up and get something done for us. There's too many things that are going on in our community. We're talking about housing. Jamaica Avenue, and this is the last one because, again, I'm the chair, and all these agencies should have been talking to us. Jamaica Avenue with all the building of the apartments. The third party people are blocking people from getting in those apartments. People who do qualify. People who have done their paperwork. People are trying to apply for jobs for crossing guards because we need over 200 cars crossing guards. Their paperwork is done and they're being ignored because they're place-holding for another group of people. We see what's going on, but we have to have somebody fighting for us, and I thank you all the person to do that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You know, I know it is extremely challenging for people to really understand I've been mayor for 20 months. And I know it's hard to absorb that because it seems like I'm everywhere all the time, but I've been mayor for 20 months. And that list that sister just gave, that list didn't start January 1st, 2022. Let's be very clear. What did I say when I started out? I inherited a city that was a mess, a mess. And now we're put in place real systems to turn around that mess. And if we believe in 20 months, systems that have failed for so long, we've had the greatest civil service in the city, but we have bad systems. So I'm saying to you, don't get consumed by the enormity of the problem. I'm saying, let's break them down, identify what they are, hear my agency people here and sit down and let's come to real solutions and timetable how to get it done. We have never had a commissioner in Department of Sanitation like we do with Jessica Tish. That is just never before. What she has done in the small period of time is remarkable. We've never had a commissioner like commissioner Adam of Kim and SBS. I have a team of committed people to work to get this city from where it was to where it ought to be. You remember what we were doing January 1st, 2022? Did everybody forget COVID? Do you remember what the beginning of my administration was like and what I was under? And in spite of that, we're walking away with success after success after success. We've never threw up our hand and said because the city was going through a difficult time that we're not gonna move the city forward. We did so. Even in the face of all of this migrant crisis, we're still moving the city forward. We're not gonna give you an excuses why we can't move the city forward. But what I am saying, give us a chance to do it. Give us a chance to do it. And that's what we're doing. And so you have a good list here. Each item on your list, you need to go up to that table and speak to each commissioner and have them be part of your plan of moving it forward. Those items that you have on your list. The last table. Hi, good evening. This is the last table? I want more. Yes, we are the last, but we are certainly not least. So on behalf of my table, the very first question we wanted to pose was, when do you think that Far Rockaway might get a public level one trauma center? So my formation age, where are we with that? Staten Island, Staten Island is also a problem. Staten Island also doesn't even have an age and age. What's the whole concept of a level one trauma center on Rockaway? What's the dual ability of it? If we can't do it, I want to be honest and say we can't. Like what is that whole mindset of a level one trauma center? Good evening once again. Our healthcare system, New York City Health and Hospital Queens is actually working with the borough president, John Van Richers, to explore the possibility of a community health center. And also there is a blue ribbon panel right now that exploring whether or not we can have such a facility within the Rockaways. So that is being looked at right now. Now I know Savina Brooke Powers, right? I know Savina did something. It was what? You want to give it to Mike? She is leading a task force on this issue. It does need some state approval, but it would go a long way if the city agreed that there was a need for a trauma center in the Rockaway. I absolutely agree that there is. So what's the process? Cause I've heard this before. I know the council women, Brooks Powers has been really on it. Like what are the steps to do something like that? She has started out by doing a survey, working with the local community. Ultimately the state board of health is going to have to say yes, we agree to and help pay for it. Paying for it is the difficulty. It's most, it's around 70% a state issue, but 30% would move it far if the city said we need a trauma center here. The Rockways had none. If you get a police who was shot in the Rockways is taken to Jamaica Hospital. Drownings are taken to Jamaica Hospital. It's ridiculous. You'll never make it. We don't even have a helicopter pad to take them. We need it desperately. So is it, can the process take place at the same time? Like the state application process and the city application process? We have to wait until this task force is done. You don't have to wait. If the city would say that this is something that we would like or need or adjust, better yet, it is justified. It would go a long way to in the hour and hour battle. Okay, so listen, we got, we have, we have, listen, you have a senator that I don't know who fight harder in Albany than a senator. We're gonna get, oh my brother, let me, let me, let me, let me get her, let me, let me speak with her. Let me speak with her. I don't know if you over there rapping or what, but let me. So listen, I'm gonna, I'm going to sit down with the senator. I'm going to sit down with the council woman because she raised this and that was part of what she wanted to put this task force in place. I'm going to sit down with them and I'm going to sit down with H and H, Dr. Katz. We're going to, we're going to see what our part is. You should partner with your state law makers. As a senator just said, 70% of this is going to come from the state. We're going to do our part, you know, because it deserved far rock away. They don't call it far rock away for no reason. It is far and they should get the service that they deserve. I knew COVID, I went out there because there was one of the hospitals that was giving out PPEs and other items. So let us dig into this and then we'll circle back. Let's get the contact information. Let me speak to our team and find out what the steps that are needed. Okay? Sure, thank you. One more question for you, Mr. Mayor. And it's actually totally unrelated to healthcare. It's in reference to, you know, job readiness programs, et cetera, for the youth. Maybe kids who dropped out of high school or otherwise are unemployed, but they're sort of just, you know, loafing about and we want to find out what types of programs can the city offer? What kind of support services can they offer to this particular population? Yes, Ashina, you or DOE, who wants to touch that? Okay. Workforce development, that whole initiative. Yes, so we do have, Mr. Mayor, we have our precision employment initiative program that also deals with out of school, out of work youth. We also have had an increase this year in the budget to also expand our advance and earn that also deals with out of school, out of work youth in a training program. But I can so happy to meet with you afterwards and we can exchange your information and I can tell you exactly the provider that actually provides services for those programs. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of, that's the population that we're concerned about. You know, 18, 24, not in school, not working, may have a previous interaction, negative interaction with law enforcement. And so what we want to hear from organizations that are here, I have, what's the better way that we could, we could show the product that we have so that you can reach out to those young people, those seniors, those communities. A lot of things stay on the table because people are not aware of them and we want to continue to force a better communication and do it and do it so. So again, listen, thank you, thank you for coming out. Thank you for being here tonight. We need, we need your voices as we go through these troubled times, but we want your partnership. We wanna make sure we work together. Thank you, appreciate you all. We just ask your old staff to collect all the cards on your table, all mayor's office staff, please pick up the cards on your table.