 out tonight. This is our eighth community conversation on public safety. Tonight's focus is Brooklyn South. You'll see parts to this meeting. The first one were community conversations. If everyone can have their seats, please. We'll get started. There are three parts to tonight's conversation. The first one took place already. The first hour we had community conversations with community leaders sitting at the table with executives at NYPD, super tendons or principals from the school system. We have had agency facilitators helping carry the dialogue at the table. We have also had members of the mayor's office taking diligent notes to ensure we hear your ideas and pass it to the policymakers at City Hall. We are also fortunate to have violence interrupters at each table. We appreciate the work they do throughout the year to help. And we're going to start it with the second part just to know there are Q&A cards on every table. If your question is not asked to the dais, we'll make sure to log in all the questions and ensure that you get a call back and that your time is not wasted but coming coming out here. The third portion is asking your questions directly to the dais. One question per table if we have time we'll see how long we could go on. And the next portion is just to hear directly start off the run of shows hearing from the mayor and going straight to the Q&A. Thank you Fred and we normally do this at the end but why don't we do it up front. Why don't we go down the line. This is our teams that's here. Normally we have the DA and the board president but Somos is going on in Puerto Rico so I wanted to make sure I delayed my trip so I could hang out with you folks here and the police commissioner is also at Somos as well but I have the deputy commissioner here first deputy commissioner and I have the chief of department so why don't we just go on down the line and so you'll know what team is here representing the various agencies. Right good night everyone I'm Shade McIntosh representing New York City aging nice to see you all tonight. Good evening everyone see you Wadi ACS. Good evening everyone Jenna Mandel reach you with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene nice to see you all. Hi everyone Eric Way in New York City Health and Hospitals. Good evening everyone Keith Howard Department of Youth and Community Development. Good evening Brooklyn family Gary Jenkins commissioner for the Department of Social Services. David Banks New York City Schools Chancellor Fred Kreisman commissioner of the Mayor's Community Affairs Unit. Sheena Wright Deputy Mayor of Strategic Initiatives. First Deputy Commissioner. First Deputy Commissioner. Jeff Madger Chief of Patrol. Good evening Marvin Walton Deputy Chief Operation Officer for the New York City Housing Authority. Good evening Kevin Kim Commissioner Small Business Services. Good evening Joe Carina Duarte Chief of Staff New York City Emergency Management. Good evening Sharon Goodwin Deputy Commissioner for New York City Department of Probation. Good evening Anne Marie Santiago New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development Deputy Commissioner. Hi everyone Saloni Sethi Mayor's Office to End Domestic and Gender-Based Violence. Good evening James Magleno Brooklyn Southboro Chief Department of Sanitation. Great great thank you all our cities are made up of agencies and the relationship between taxpayers and government as you pay your taxes you're supposed to give back your goods and services through your agencies and if the agencies are not aligned and coordinated then it's a waste of your tax dollars and that is why as imperative under this administration our trademark and hallmark is going to be the coordination of agencies for far too long we've had the siloing of government and everyone is stating what's not their job and pointing fingers every issue that we have in this city it is all of our jobs we have one team and that's Team New York City we wear one jersey here but also want to say I say this over and over again that the person that sat down and get their portrait done and had a scar on their face they told the artist that I know you noticed my scar but remember I have a face and I'm saying that to New York City we have scars but we have a face every day on average we have six felonies on our subway system a day but we also have a face 3.5 million people use that subway every day and they get to and from their place of employment without any incident at all we started this year we wanted to go after the shootings and the gun violence and the homicides in this city we put in place a plan regardless of those who thought we should not have we put in place our anti-gun unit and they among other members of the law enforcement department removed close to 6,000 illegal guns off our street we have a double-digit increase in homicide double-digit increase in shootings of you're seeing it different in our subway system every day we started out dealing with encampments that were all throughout our subway system we have removed all of those encampments you don't see them on a subway system anymore 2,000 people we put in some form of either shelter or safe haven so they can get the assistance that they needed we zeroed in on those who was sleeping on our streets not because of any reason that we wanted to just remove people from sleeping on the streets but when I started in January I went out and visited those camps and those encampments and I saw inside there was inhumane human waste stale food dirty clothing drug paraphernalia some people were by folk bipolar schizophrenic that is inhumane to allow people to live that way and I said as the mayor of the city it's not happening under our watch we're number one in the hotel market on recovery in the top 25 major markets New York is leading the way 56 million tourists is coming to the city this year 65 million next year we just announced today operation get clean in the city where we are going to make New York City the cleanest city in America allocated millions of dollars of doing so you told us about dyslexia problems we were the first city of this size to have dyslexia screening for all of our children and we go into Rikers Island to also screen those young men and women who are there that are potentially dyslexic 30% to 40% of those inmates are dyslexic we were the first mayoral administration that had a hundred thousand summer youth jobs never never been done before and then you add that to the first time in history five women deputy mayors fought first woman police commissioner first commission woman fire fire commissioner a woman running department of sanitation a woman running department of probation this administration is reflective of the city first Korean to be the commission of small business services you see us breaking barriers we walk around this city with a glass hammer with a hammer in our hand to crash glass ceilings because that's what we're proposing to do New York is not coming back New York is back and we know it's back and if you allow people to emphasize our scar and not our face you're not going to realize how resilient this city is this administration lives under three words get stuff done and I only say the s part of stuff because I'm in the school building we have another word for it and so we want to hear from you we want to engage in the conversation we don't want someone else to tell our story we're going to do many of these town halls because you need to hear directly from these commissioners and you need to hear directly from your mayor I am comfortable on the ground I'm on the subways I talk to people I engage with people I want to know how we can run this city better if you have some better ideas we're willing to hear it and let me conclude with this I was on the train the other day I think it was the four train right in the middle of the car there was a bunch of garbage and trash woman came up to me yelling and screaming and she said look at this garbage you know on this train and I should yell this scream you know what I did I walked over and picked it up I put it in the garbage bag this is our city we can't simply sit on the sidelines and watch a city crumble apart and look for others to come up with the answers we need to do block cleanups we need to do block watches we need to volunteer in our schools we need to get engaged because this is our city this is my city and your city and together this city would be the city that we wanted to be that is our belief in this administration so I look forward to this conversation and thanks so much for allowing me to come here I spent many years here as the Brooklyn ball president coming to the graduation ceremony with this amazing principle that's here and I want to thank us for allowing us inside we're open the floor at this time we'll get started we'll go to table number one Patrick good evening mr. mayor the community members here say that they know and live many public safety issues that feel interconnected from homelessness gun violence mentally ill and also gang violence a question they have is what is your challenges to finding a comprehensive solutions to the public safety challenges and how they can get involved it's a combination when you look at the fact that we have a 27 year high and felony arrest these officers have removed 6000 guns off the street in the subway system they have conducted 750,000 subway inspections we have combined our patrol borough with transit boroughs so that we ensure that the stations inside the precinct that we conduct in inspections 19,000 ejections from our system for those who are violating the system we have crack down on only illegal plates all of those motorcycles that you see running around I don't know what your numbers are now chief you remove how many thousand 10,000 illegal dirt bikes and ATVs that all of you told us about but as fast as we arrest violent people you know what happens they're back on the street catch release repeat that's what we see over and over and over again we need your help just in a clear and loud message to Albany that we need to focus on innocent people of this city and the small number of repeated offenders should be held accountable we had great reforms in Albany but there's a small number of people who are repeated offenders and they're very violent very dangerous and they have no regard for every day New York is and we need your help to send a message to Albany that this is not acceptable. That's our next question. Hello Pastor Monroe's. Good evening to everyone our question what is your plan to create and support equitable community healing spaces that address mental physical social economic safety. We have do we have anyone here from DOHMH is here. Okay. Okay. So we're going to turn over to DOO DOO Department of Health and Mental Hygiene but mental health issues are real. It was really escalated after COVID the number of young people that contemplated suicide. The ages are so young. We were in the Bronx a few weeks ago and the number of young people and you know just people who are not receiving the care that they deserve and we can't continue to ignore it. So we're becoming very proactive in our approach. Dr. Fassan who came from a organization called Fountain House I met him when I was campaigning. They believe in the clubhouse model giving people wraparound services. It's about community support and the care that people deserve. Governor Huckle announced with me a couple of weeks ago that we opened up new psychiatric beds. A large number of psychiatric beds were closed because of COVID and we just really ignored the fact that people were walking the streets that can't take care of themselves. We need a stronger Kendra's law that will allow people to get the support they need. You cannot if a person is dealing with real mental health issues you cannot expect for them to get the assistance on their own and we want to zero in. We're gonna need help from Albany but we're gonna do our job also and we have the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene here to talk about some of the things that we would like to do. Technology. Hi everyone. Thank you Mayor and thank you for the question. So I'm here on behalf of the health department tonight and as the mayor mentioned Commissioner Vasan this is his number one issue. This is why he came to the health department and is working with this administration. There are three major we want to help everyone in the city heal and be as healthy as they can and there are three very specific populations that we're focused on. Those suffering from severe mental illness youth mental health which as the mayor mentioned is incredibly incredibly important. Our young people have been through so much over the last couple of years and even before and then of course managing and preventing additional overdose deaths and helping folks that are suffering and the commissioner says all the time all of this is comes from a place of suffering and so we really need to help people be as healthy and well as they can and specifically with youth mental health which the mayor talked about a little bit we're really looking at a comprehensive model where we can help children who are doing well remain well help children who are at risk get the help that they need and as the mayor also mentioned we're working with all of our city partners we're developing three comprehensive plans which we'll be releasing in the coming weeks but we need to work with just on both my sides administration for children services health and hospitals and all of the other hospitals and all of the other agencies that you see here in order to support all of these populations and all of us as New Yorkers so very excited and honored to be doing this work with this administration thank you. Next question we have Penny Ringel. Good evening mayor the question at this the concern at this table was about school safety for the staff and the students so the question is what is being done to get more permanent school safety agents into schools and what is the timeline of getting it done? Turn it over to the chancellor but I am extremely concerned I think this week how many guns we found in schools we found two guns today one in one in the Bronx and one in Brooklyn five year old child had a gun in their book bag five years old another 14 year old I think last week we found the gun in in in the classroom of this public safety for our children it's crucial and you know these children are getting guns from adults and we need to zero in on those adults who supply them with guns but I'll turn that question over to former school safety agent now chancellor David Bain. That's right I was a I was a school safety agent at Clair Barton high school many years ago yes yes so I have to I have the greatest respect and when I walk into any school the first thing that I do is to acknowledge the school safety agents they've gotten a bad rap over the last several years and but I would it's interesting I would always say that the people who knock school safety agents are the people who don't work in schools is anybody who works in schools knows how much value school safety agents bring to our children and to all the adults who work in the building and in any good school in any good school like you have here with with Jody Cohen they they recognize that school safety agents are part of the fabric of a great school and they are respected and they're valued members of the school community and so I want to acknowledge that we've been increasing the number of school safety agents since the mayor has come into office and we're going to continue to do that and so we're we're on the upswing we're bringing in more more agents but school safety agents themselves cannot solve the problems that we continue to to bear witness to they are part of the solution but they are not the entire solution and we should never put that much on each one of them as though all safety issues should be resolved by school safety agents no they're resolved by the culture of a school and of a school community it's part of what the mayor was talking about when he said getting on the train everybody's you know we can't always look to somebody else to do to do it and and it's a community issue that we've got to deal with that that kindergarten student who had a gun they didn't go out and buy a gun it was somebody in their family who had a gun in their book bag and and it was and and that that that kindergarten student went and told their teacher there's a gun in my book bag that's how they found it right and um but a but a lot of the students that we have found this increase in weapons um is because kids are still fearful in their coming and they're going to school and that's the broader community and and and NYPD has been working overtime to resolve those issues but even they can't solve all of it it's it's it's left to all of us to pay attention to stay focused to stay a vigilant about what's happening but we feel good about where we are mark rampascent is he is mark rampascent here somewhere in the room mark heads up our office of school safety want to and you know those of you who know mark does a great great job leading the entire division for us uh at at the do we and working closely with the NYPD so we're working hard and we're going to continue to work to get it done uh uh chancellor if you can could you just talk about the community doing uh doing it please talk about your project pivot yes yes so so one of the things that we um we launched is called project pivot which just started we identified about 138 schools around the city in every borough that have been experiencing the greatest level of challenge uh where young people either have the highest rates of chronic absenteeism or incidents that we've been seeing and um and in keeping what the mayor just said engaging those groups to and these are community groups these are folks from the community who we clearly identified introduced them to school leaders to say let community messages credible messages from the community be helpful and it's not just school safe it's not just safety but it's about relationships folks who are serving as mentors big brothers big sisters tutors some are providing safe passage to and from school it runs it runs the whole gamut um because if you really want to help school safety um it's about building the most program the the many programs that you can provide for kids after school ways to engage them the police commission and I visited Evander child's high school together in the Bronx and we were there to talk about safety issues and the kids wanted to talk to us about after school basketball and and additional tutoring programs and math and music and science and it was interesting to me that almost every question that they had was about how do we get additional resources for those programs because if the more programs we get the less engaged we are for all the other negativity that they might be involved in so again it shows you us it's all connected and if we work together across these agencies which we are doing um together with you as community we'll continue to work really hard to solve these problems next question the next table we have Lamona good evening everyone mayor Adams understanding that there are initiatives are being developed that will be of great benefit to the mentally ill population how can the community help push those initiatives no so important and there's probably three levels of number one of we we're going to need some real help in uh january from Albany there's something called the kindress law the kindress law allows the court to mandate someone get the necessary care that they deserve so they're not harmful to themselves and harmful to others we're going to need that law strengthened and you know your voices adding your voices to it is crucial the second is community participation we really want to encourage the community if you see someone walking up and down the block talking to themselves you see them acting violent you know we can't continue to walk past of these individuals until they harm themselves and harm someone else like we saw what happened to fdny a lieutenant russo you know stabbed in that manner and we send these cases over and over again it could be on the subway or it could be on the block of you know that see something say something do something it's not only the terrorism it's just really getting engaged and saying i'm not going to wait until this person harms someone and third is what the department of health and mental hygiene is doing we you know everything from the be heard initiative this is a new initiative that we are allowing a specialized group to respond to calls for a person that's dealing with the mental health illness instead of always having a police that can aggravate the situation we're finding that we get good results with that but applying those resources like i stated the falton house clubhouse model getting people with community of medical assistant and the mental health assistance that they need and we are just front and center of on that to make sure that people get the assistance they need but the community community can play a vital role in the clubhouse model by volunteering i'm going in once people have community they can identify someone before they reach the level of a crisis level so that is such an important role for all of us to engage in this mental health crisis that we're seeing thank you next question the next table we'll have Karen you know i'm in trouble right i good evening mr. mayor um see they looking at me you see how they're looking at me this was a very well diverse table we have the merchants association we have the violence interrupters educators and you know they talked about quality like i know i have one i'm i'm going in trouble so i'm trying to sum this up so they can all be happy because they couldn't get a question here and i had to write it up so they would like to know what kind of resources can be allowed to open up more community schools that will put i see his head shaking programs to address gang recruitment in middle and high schools and gun violence for instance like mentorship programs safe space for youths to hang out instead of being out on the street which affects the vendors and streets which makes quality of life an issue you okay y'all all right good job good job okay uh deputy mayor deputy mayor right and i met with a group of uh young men uh specifically today as city hall actually the deputy mayor met with them first a month or so previously and when they met with her and some of our other team members is called organizations called neon uh they told her we would like to meet with the mayor um at uh city hall and so i guess they thought that she wasn't going to say yes and she said well bring it on he will meet with you and so we met with them today and i was just really impressed with those young people and they said the same thing at this table is saying all of them are just as involved all of them were involved with the justice system and they said we would have had a better outcome if we would have had some alternatives and so uh the chancellor and i when i was brooklyn ball president we did something called extended use where we paid to use the school builders and kept the school builders open instead of the nonprofits having to pay for the school school safety agents the cleaning the insurance we said listen if the nonprofits are volunteering at a time we should be picking up the tabs we're now re-looking at that to see if we can identify certain schools where we could have the extended use so this beautiful gym could be used classrooms could be used shops could be used we could do HVAC training so we want to use this resource as the building as a school building not from seven to three but to use it as a full focal point to the community and so we see eye to eye we need to have more spaces to have our young people to be in a safe space and get the skills they need so they are employable and they could feel as though this community is really behind them so we agree 100% and that's what the chancellor is attempting to do to identify how to expand the extended use project thank you next question Angelica hi sir what are you doing to push interagency efforts to address public safety food insecurity and quality of life issues it's all about that and i i think the best words is chief madri to talk about what they did around juve and what they're doing continuously chief good evening and thank you for your question um one of the first things when i took over as a chief patrol the mayor told me he said he wanted more collaboration so through this this throughout the summer we worked closely with the sheriff's department DEP department of environmental protection state liquor authority NYCHA MTA DOH you name the city agency we working closely with them um and throughout the summer a lot of challenges that oftentimes we couldn't deal with as an agency by ourselves we were able to you know get past those challenges because we had different levels of expertise along with us now for instance and i'll talk about juve because we are here in brooklyn south chief kimper who did an incredible job with his team making sure we had one of the safest juve's ever um a lot of times we would go to locations we have certain you know barriers where we can't just go into buildings and stuff like that but with the department of buildings and with the sheriff's office what they're allowed to do gave us access to these buildings we're able to close down potentially dangerous parties we were able to issue summons is you know DEP was out there with the sound meter and we weren't out there just to do enforcement we would go to people's homes and put the sound meter on and say listen you're about four decibels too high and so many people complied so it allowed people to have a great labor day weekend and throughout the summer people were able to enjoy their homes without us being heavy-handed with enforcement through this collaboration with the sheriff's office the things that we did with the sheriff's office uh state uh office of cannabis we took so many weed trucks that were out there throughout the city working with uh DWCP we were able to take counterfeit goods throughout the summer we did so many different initiatives the bikes the ATV ATVs close to 10,000 ATVs the paper plates almost 4,000 cars seized this wasn't the NYPD doing it alone this was us working closely with other city agencies to help increase public safety to help reduce traffic violence and to help get closer with the communities and work closer with the communities we work close with the mayor's office of community affairs with Mach J to do community events as well so this is how we're working closely with other city agencies to help increase public safety commissioner Jenkins can you talk about um our food insecurity good evening so we again you know the mayor directed us not to work in silos and that's not something that we are doing we are working with the mayor's office of food policy we're working with HRA we are working with the pantries across the city in soup kitchens really understanding what are they needs we have a new contract with a provider that is folks will say what they need for the community in the past administrations folks we would tell them what they can order right that didn't work you know what's needed so it's really going to the community's understanding what are the needs what are what what type of foods are being requested by the folks that come visit so they can place that order as far as what they need fresh fruits and vegetables right because our communities deserve it and now they're ordering those fresh fruits and vegetables in quantities that's that's applicable to the the need within those communities so that's what we're doing that front and we're going to continue to meet with communities meet with the providers understand what the needs are and and and and do our damnedest to meet those um demands thank you and and the collaboration is just so important on the table who mentioned that uh today we did an announcement about uh get stuff clean uh we had uh Sue Donahue the commission of parks was there we had the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene was there we had DOT of the Donas Rodriguez the commissioner was there we had Department of Sanitation uh was was there uh we had DEP was there because if we we're going to clean the city what has happened previously is that there were pockets in this city that no one knew who was supposed to clean them up you know everyone was saying well it's not parks it's not Department of Sanitation it's not this so we are alleviating that and saying the whole team is going to clean up the problem and this rodent issue everyone who knows me knows I hate rats you know and we will get rid of them we're zeroing in on the rodents and but this was a whole team effort on how we're going to solve these problems in the city you want to ask something Sue no um I just wanted to add because I think it's relevant to both of the questions that were just asked in terms of youth and public safety we have a wonderful collaboration with PD on our Saturday night lights program that happens in our rec centers across the city and this administration has made a terrific investment in those rec centers we are now able to open our rec centers we have extended hours at our rec centers recognizing that they are places in communities where youth can come and in fact our rec centers are free for youth anyone 24 and under so that kind of programming like the Saturday night lights program with NYPD providing facilities in communities across the city and our rec centers are wonderful centers for people to come together especially youth and have an alternative and a place to go so it's just an important part of how we are enhancing public safety in communities throughout the city as chief madry also mentioned that working in not working in silos our community affairs unit works closely with all the agencies to ensure the concerns of civic groups community boards and all the various leaders in the community's address the issues across the all agencies but again nothing's in silos these community conversations and quality of life work throughout the year with working with the bids to ensure this dialogue chief madry's personally on those phone calls together as leadership from all the city agencies so this way it's a team effort and it's not one silo one agency doesn't know who reports to who it's a community it's a conversation with everyone on the phone in the leadership positions under this administration in order to get stuff done the next question we have is uh next table ed jackson good evening sir illegal vending has become a major issue since it was taken away from the NYPD the illegal vendors have become more brazen with large carts open flames and poor health standards they are fighting with each other and the legal business owners the agency response has been poor at best how can we work with your office to more effectively respond to this to these issues and to neighborhood response not lark yeah no i agree if i had to give us a grade uh it won't be a good one um and i think it has a lot to do with the mixed messaging that we're getting around vendoring you know there's a whole push of not to stop people from vendoring uh there is a clear concern around those business corridors where they have an illegal vendors are taking place almost selling the same goods that people have inside stores that are paying taxes uh and we have to refocus our attention and find of the right balance there's an organization called the street vendors project of i think that we can coexist in a way that's not going to take away from those businesses that have uh brick and mortar businesses that are being you know hit with high rent prices high-cost paying taxes they have been uh regulated to make sure they food and everything else is is served appropriately uh we need a better response and we have to figure that out it's going to be a combination of the nypd of the workers protection that used to be consumer affairs as well as bringing folks from the street vendors projects at the table and come up with a real solution we don't want to criminalize people but we also don't want total disorder in some locations that i have i have driven around to it's not acceptable it's not acceptable and we are not at the level that we ought to be we got to do a better job and we're going to do a better job excellent next table mohammed good evening mr mayor how can the nypd increase the attendance for the monthly council nco build the block meetings for instance many officers use their own funds to provide refreshments to the attendees to try and increase those numbers yeah no thank you thank you for that and and also the just the vendor problem there's a particular location that you identify please share with us and let us know there's a particular location just let um chief madry know that's here of first a couple of things we should identify where they're using their own funds and of the food because we have something called the the the mayor's fund and the police foundation those officers should not be using their own money and so we should coordinate with the precinct's chief we should coordinate and deputy commissioner and we should come up with some type of allotment where we we are picking up the tab we could give some of the non-profits to pick up the funds so they're not doing that and i'll make sure they have some good healthy vegan meal there at the meetings thank you next question malcolm good evening mayor um first i want to thank the the participants at this table we had great police officer we got a district uh district manager uh educators stopped care violence people uh food and security people and a constituent like to call this team power right um one one question i have to but uh when you mention the repeated offenders plague in our communities and the need for albany electives to get stuff done is revisiting bail reform part of the solution because certain crimes uh and and and level of crime and left and the level of crimes shouldn't have bail reform applicability right that's one and also we have a constituent here and let's do one question per table and then this way we'll see how many tables as possible i know we have i'm gonna be real quick i have a constituent sure okay i'll sit down i have a constituent that that needed to talk to i'm sorry the constituent why sure sure sure um i'll be real quick seriously um i have a constituent who has been working at doe foods food service for 16 years um and she was involved in an investigation that uh okay well hold on i don't want to go into a private situation when she finishes she could come up sure okay gotcha i don't want to go into a private conversation that someone has particularly with them of the bail reform yeah so you know people use this term bail reform because it's a it's a uh an attractive term there are many rivers that feed the dysfunctionality of our criminal justice system we have to damn each one of those rivers bail reform is just one of those rivers you know you should not have someone sitting on rikers for three years waiting to go to trial you know you should not be bringing someone to court having them sit there with a defense attorney waiting for four hours just to see the judge for 30 30 seconds you know the system is broken and so i know it's attractive just to talk about bail reform and i do believe we need to give judges the dangerousness standard to make a determination if someone will do imminent threat to a community we should do that but that is only small part of it we had a meeting at Gracie mansion with defense attorney judges lawmakers everyone that's involved in the criminal justice system and you know what we discovered there are 10 items maybe on the list that we're concerned about eight of those 10 we all agreed on we were so busy highlighting the two things we disagree on all of us wanted safe streets and justice for people in expeditious fashion so we need to deal with the eight things that we agree on and then let's come back to the two things that we disagree on that is where i want to go i want to see where do we agree people deserve to have justice if you're a victim justice if you're a person that's accused for a crime and right now neither side is getting the justice that they deserve and we need to make sure that they do that by ensuring those who commit crimes are held accountable and those who are accused that did not commit a crime are not sitting on rikers island for years before justice prevails thank you and we want to be mindful just to be considered to everyone at every table we want to get as many questions so we'll keep it short to the point and one question please next table rodney good evening mayor adams and his team members of the dais in brook and south there's many commercial vehicles that are double parked illegally what is the city doing to provide heavy-duty toe operations and residential areas turn it over to uh chief madry but that's going back to his coordination i know he has been really coordinated with uh do t but uh chief madry yes absolutely um we started a program and it started out in queens queen south where we started towing commercial vehicles away and it's a very lengthy process um first one of the main things we need is space because we don't tow the cars all the way down to the pound if we did that if the trucks if we did that we'd only tow one or two a night so we have to have some space so this is something that we'll work on for brooklyn south but we work closely with dot our traffic department and nypd it's been a huge success in queens i think we already started in the Bronx as well and we're going to be moving to all the burrows it's a it's a it's a big task but i know uh chief kimp over here and his team will definitely uh find the space where we can store the uh large commercial vehicles temporarily until we're able to take them to the pound so there's something that we'll start looking at mike we'll start taking a look at that and then we'll start bringing it we'll bring it to brooklyn south and if there's a location that's particularly uh troublesome troublesome please let us know chief kimp is here let us know if there's a particular location you're talking about but we have been really zero zeroing in on those illegal trucks we were in the springfield area went up to the Bronx uh because uh community should not have to deal with that but if there's a particular area that you identified as troublesome please let the chief know let's zero in on it next question uh kevin good evening sir right so we had a substantive conversation here about crime in the city and lack of services in certain communities so the question which was asked is how does the administration expect to bring the necessary resources such as mental health violence interrupters after school programs job creation and adult education into communities that need them the most first of all i see a lot of the guys and ladies here from the crisis management team really want to applaud them for what they have done and how they have responded on the on the front line for many years this is a program that i've i've really believe in and we want to continue i know deputy mayor writers doing a lot with mock j to expedite payment to make sure that we give you the financial support that you need and the infrastructure because it's difficult when you're out trying to address gun violence and then you have to make sure your books are in order and all those other things so we're coming up with real good ways to give you that infrastructure that you that you deserve one thing that um that the chancellor is doing which is very interesting that he brought it to my attention if you do an analysis to the schools that are struggling academically you're also finding that those are same schools that are dealing with violence the same schools that are dealing with large number of homelessness the same schools that's dealing with food insecurity that's dealing with health issues and so we're pinpointing those schools in those areas and those precincts and we're applying additional resources because of that because we have to go where the problems are and that is something that the chancellor is doing that is something that the police commissioner identifying those 30 precincts that they have the highest level of violence and we need to pinpoint all of our resources in those locations so that question is dead on we need to make sure the resources are going where the problems are thank you next question ito good evening mr mayor uh we wanted to ask you how do you ensure greater accountability for those who commit the more egregious crimes in our city and ensure more uh accessible mental health services for our younger people thank you i know that that was the question that we dealt with uh mental health is is is is huge uh that we need to deal with and that's why the uh department of health and mental hygiene was talking about some of the things that Dr Fassar who's really um extremely proficient in this area of we intentionally recruited him to come into the agency uh because we knew he was going to bring that level of concern and we're going to be rolling out some of the things we we're looking to do in Albany and in in the in the city uh and and it's it's about creating and building those partnerships there's no getting around that we're going to continue to build the partnership those advocates who have been in this place for a long space for a long time uh we are going to same thing we did with the criminal justice issue we're going to do with the mental health issue we're going to get everyone at Gracie mansion sit down identify those areas we agree on and those small areas where we disagree on we will work through them but we agree on more than we think and we want to make sure that we collaborate together to come up with these real real solutions around the mental health crises that we're facing in our city next question Jerry hello good good evening honorable mayor and panel here at this table we'd like to know how can you ensure that kids and families can fully and safely take advantage of opportunities at schools when there is a lack of crossing guards school safety agents after school programs and safe public transportation so a couple of things and the chancellor can talk about the what's happening in the school this is what i learned of there are a lot of programs that no one is taking advantage of because no one know of them uh that was part of the conversation we had with neon today we must make it user friendly to know what resources are available you know it it is unbelievable how many people uh don't take advantage of all of these resources that are in this city we we send back billions of dollars in resources dy cd has a host of programs that no one is taking advantage of we have so many job training program etc we have failed to communicate properly what resources are available and we don't have a school crossing guard shortage you know our school crossing guards are there they're signed we make sure of their school crossing guards at every crossing location that's that's needed and as i stated our subway system we got to get better with those six felonies we have today there's no getting around it i don't want any felony on my on my train but these babies go back and forth to school as i said 3.5 million people use our subway system our goal is not to have one felony on our system but we do a darn good job with the new york city with the transit police personnel of making sure children and families are safely using our our system we want it to be perfect and that's what we're pursuing to make sure that you don't have to feel uncomfortable as you use the system as we make sure it's a safe space and that's why we put those lousy new offices down in the system that's why we have them doing patrol going to the conductor letting them know to notify the attestation and be visibly present in the system and engage with the public walk through the train talk to people let them know that they're there and so we have a job to continue to do and we're gonna we're gonna do that and it's a real job and we're proud of doing that let me uh let me also just piggyback off the mayor's comments as well because the mayor and i talk about this quite a bit there is um i'd love to see when we get to the point when we've been doing these forums all over the city and it's not just these forums but it's any general community forums we we are we're almost um we're always very focused on just what's not working um but there's a lot of things that are working and working well the mayor visits schools you know on his own i'm not even with him and he'll contact me and say i saw the school and they got this phenomenal program where they've got washes and dryers in the schools and taking care of the kids but nobody talks about that i would love to see us when we have these forums really talk tell me something that's working even as you talk about the stuff that needs fixing there's a lot that needs fixing but but but i think if we always focus on the negative we don't we miss the larger narrative around the stuff that works there's a lot of great things that work in the city and and people need to be inspired to do better by just by hearing more about those things that work as well i wanted to just acknowledge an estimate stan robert quinlan's the principal of midwood high school john bank's principal of origin high school's prince a superintendent's prayer chang esperance and principal decastro if you would all just stand because these are leaders in our new york city schools and superintendent preto i missed absolutely and some others and the principles that across across i mean i call some names some i missed but if you were here the the reason i wanted to do that is simply to say this i salute you and i know the great work that you're doing and you need continued help and support and that's why the mayor's office and the chancellor and the deputy mayor but we're working hard every day to support the great work but don't believe the hype that there's only craziness going on out here there's amazing wonderful leadership inspired leadership great things that are happening in our neighborhoods and our communities and we want to acknowledge that as quickly as we acknowledge the things that are not working so well next table next question we have tony good evening mr mayor i got to say the chancellor always sets it up for me the right way mr mayor what can the community do along with the administration to collectively address the mental health crisis in our schools and can a hotline be established to assist in this manner to link community with solutions department of health and mental hygiene can you talk about i'm almost sure we have a hotline so thank you so much for the question i just wanted to use this opportunity to talk a little bit more about youth mental health and as i mentioned earlier we're going to be putting out a comprehensive plan talking about what the city can do holistically to address youth mental health and again it's about recognizing kids that are doing great and thinking about the supports that they need kids that may be at risk and then kids that are suffering and need help and we're really thinking about this holistically again thinking about desiloing thinking about the role of the community community-based organizations faith-based organizations the health care system my good friend dr way right here from health and hospitals and thinking about developing a youth mental health safety net and really training and working with all of the people in young people's lives that have the opportunity to help them to recognize signs of distress get them the help they need help them have good strong relationships so we're very excited about this work again taking a page from from chancellor banks there's a lot of amazing things that are already happening finding those things growing them expanding them and connecting them and getting everyone rowing in the same direction with clear goals that's what we want to do so we can make sure that all our youth have the supports that they need to thrive thank you thank you next question tiffany good evening mayor how is the city planning to support teachers who work with youth who have been traumatized exposed to violence in the community domestic violence in the home and living with parents who cannot address their needs i think you know we're gonna let the chancellor touch that but i think that's right you're right all city workers have been traumatized uh in general specifically our teachers covid covid knock this down you know and city workers were not able to just close up our ta workers lost a lot of um their colleagues our police officers firefighters eat them emt's our teachers watch these babies come in this was this was a hard one for us and when you are there for the city you know you need the city to be there for you and vicarious trauma is real like no one caused the cop to invite them to a party they call them when the party was shot up right right you if you in the er you're not there because you know someone is saying hey i feel healthy you're there because they're in a crisis and these teachers were bringing these children just you know having these children come to school day after day after day there was a level of uncertainty is the school open is the school closed and that's why when i came into office i said we're going to have clarity our schools are staying open they're gonna stay open that's right so parents had clarity teachers had clarity but you know 320 000 city employees weather us through this crisis and i i don't know if people realize it you notice you're not talking about covid anymore because we weathered the storm and we got it us through you're not talking about monkey pox anymore because we weather us through this you're not talking about asylum seekers anymore we weather us through this this has been a steady hand at the ship during storms in the city and we've normalized the storms and did such a darn good job that you're not even hearing about the crisis anymore because of this team that's up here and it's hard it's hard on your families it's hard on your interactions but we continue to do the job and yes we have to be there for those teachers in and and give them the emotional and mental support that they need to do their job we were on the phone last week uh chancellor or two i think was two weeks ago these these educators had to bring in um a substantial number of children who are asylum seekers these principles were amazing you know and you maybe want to share what they did but talk about also what we're doing to give that support that they need that's why i said it's it's important to lift up the voices of our of our educators and all those folks who work in our schools from school safety agents to the folks who work in the kitchen and the folks who keep our buildings clean i mean these are these are amazing amazing people they really are and i'm telling you i have the great fortune as chancellor as i move around the city this the stories that i hear the best the best decision the man made was to keep our schools open because what that did was that gave us a path to normalcy and that's what everybody who works in the school needs and and and you're right you know a lot of times we talk about our kids and all the issues and that they've gone through but i the adults in those buildings have gone through trauma themselves but they also needed a return to normalcy some degree of just being back connected it gives them a joy to be around the kids to be around their other colleagues it's important um and for those who do suffer from some extreme levels of trauma that need to be dealt with the city has a has a whole host of of supports through the department of health and mental hygiene um but sometimes the the great supports are just folks being with each other and not being home in isolation and suffering uh we are human beings we're not meant to be in isolation we're meant to be with our brothers and our sisters and our people in your tribe and in your schools that's your tribe and and that means a lot to people it means more than than some folks even fully appreciate and that's why i i salute the mayor because he's the one who made the hard call and said for better or worse we're gonna keep these schools open and there's gonna be a path directing people back to a sense of normalcy we are still in that journey we're not all the way back but the love and the support that teachers and educators and principals have in their schools there's nothing quite like that and it's really necessary for the wholeness of everybody next table can we go to Valerie good evening mayor this table would like to know what is the city's strategic approach to enhance shelters for a better quality of life by addressing mental health safety and a connection with schools we we need to get out of the shelter business you know we need to get into affordable housing and it's low income and middle income a lot of time people forget middle income but you know middle income folks are struggling and our goal is first we had to deal with 22 20 i think we up to 24th 23 24 000 uh asylum seekers and migrants uh we were very clear that we had to get the federal government to do something at the border we were successful in doing so and it just really we have the highest number of people in our care in the history and the homelessness is a 40-year problem that has never been really dealt with face on so we have to build more affordable housing how do we do it gotta get those who are saying build more houses to stop saying don't build in my district that's one way to do it you know every time we come up with a good project and could build thousands of units of affordable housing you have those who say yes we need affordable housing rah rah rah but wait we're not in my district no we all have to deal with the housing crisis so we have a bunch of projects in the pipeline we're going to fast track some of the projects the method was just too antiquated you have thousands of units of housing that people can't move in because the bureaucracy is in a way we're looking at how to rethink this entire bureaucracy so we could get people in housing that we build but we also need those local elected to embrace the housing that they're all calling for I can't tell you how many calls I get from elected officials that on Monday they're rallying for more housing on Tuesday they said I'm building in my district can't happen can't happen housing is a problem that the entire city must address and every neighborhood should be welcoming for housing for people and it shouldn't be destroying neighborhoods but we need to all know we need our share next question Helena hi good evening mr mayor what things are being put into place to provide a more positive perception of public safety as far as like social media and commercials I know chief madry is doing some real positive stuff that he's doing that he's putting out there and we we have been we have taken a different approach to all of our agencies agencies historically they have been very defensive they waited into someone criticizes them and then they try to find reason to respond to that criticism we're not doing that we are now we're proactive we want to we want people to see our product every week I put out my video of showing what I'm doing throughout the city the police commissioner is starting to do it the chancellor is starting to do it we got a good product we know we have a good product and we're not going to leave it up to the mass media to define our product for us and that's what the the commissioner is doing and every agency is starting to do not only law enforcement but every agency is starting to say here's what we're doing so we can sell our product but using social media something that the commissioner has really embraced and I know the chief of patrol has been embracing and doing the same thing so we are going to use social media and other forms of communication to let you know how good our product is thank you next question we'll go to anesthesia good evening Mr. Mayor our city is a very resource-rich city but there is a very poor access to those services what are you as our mayor doing to change that for example recidivists reentering the society need more wraparound services or those who are afflicted with homelessness and mental illness desperately need services as well we have to make the services availability user-friendly that's the bottom line you know like if I were to ask anyone in this room what do you go to get to give someone a job that should be universal we want to we're going to open a universal connectivity to any employee that's looking for an employee and anyone that's looking for a job you should be just as we all know if you want to see a video you go to youtube we should know one place if you want to get a job there's a place you can go to do so we need to simplify government and stop making government this closed door that we are talking to each other has to become user-friendly there are so many programs out there for mental health of training employment of pantries food pantries of childcare we just increase the money allocated for childcare but none of this is any good if everyday new yorkers don't know how to get access to those resources so we're going to create a user-friendly government so people can know how to get the resources they're looking for and that is not what has happened in the past and that's our goal last table we'll go to Andrew good evening sir how can we leverage existing school and social programs to increase internet interconnectivity between generations you sound like you're a radio host of something you know what i'm saying oh you you want to get that chancellor and the department agent you chancellor you and the department agent i'm sorry could could you repeat the question please we just we just want to hear your voice one more time i got distracted with your voice how can we leverage exactly you got a future in this man how can we leverage existing school and social programs to increase internet connectivity between generations thank you for your question so the department for the asian has several services that we administer through community-based organizations and so what you can do or the community can do to help leverage the resources is is to basically you know reach out to the older adult centers find out you can tell us specifically what resources you need and you know we can look into providing the services that these older adults need we also have programs that are such as the grant the foster grand parent resources program that we connect the youths to assist older adults who are in need we have various services that we provide where we allow the youths to basically you know give companionship to older adults i'm just the name of you yeah i didn't realize you said intergenerational and we we hire someone that we just went on board a sports and wellness director we we're going to elevate sports and wellness in the city and the goal is to do everything from pickleball to to gaming to you know and and we we are going to allow our teams to be intergenerational you know we're going to really encourage everything from video games to kickball to soccer to we're going to use sports and wellness to break down these walls and barrier anyone who has ever played on a sports team you know that's the best way to bring people together no matter what ethnicity you may be and so we are really going to lean into sports and wellness we're going to get all of our professional teams on board the nets the nicks the Mets the jets we we're going to really elevate sports and wellness in one way we believe that intergenerational collaboration is using sports and wellness uh to do so because there's a disconnect between our seniors and our young people and we both can learn so much from each other and sports and wellness is something that we're going to really lean into in the city want to thank everyone for coming together for these community conversations through our eight patrol boroughs at these community conversations through eight patrol boroughs we've had over 2 000 residents come and participate in these conversations over 500 question cards so far before this one the last seven were collected and intaked and got we got return phone calls we've had over 145 questions including tonight asked directly to the mayor at these community conversations but they're not over yet these might be the eight patrol borough community conversations on the public safety but we're going to continue these town hall type of conversations with our youth more specific in community specific neighborhoods and we want to thank everyone on this day is for participating because the silos are no silos through city agencies we work as a team to get this stuff done under this mayor's leadership and i just want to acknowledge our law enforcement personnel law enforcement can you stand up men and women law enforcement is here you know thanks for thanks for coming out and participating and and we're going to we are going to do this throughout my three years in two months that you know of this term we're going to do this we want to hear from you i think one of the greatest questions that that has ever been asked in this city came from mayor couch how am i doing you know we we want to constant feedback you know we did law enforcement now because this is an important issue but we want a constant feedback about how clean are your streets quality of life issues what's happening in the schools how do we do different things to bring the city together so this is not one and done you know you will trust me you're going to you're going to be tired of me by the time we keep coming back and hearing directly from you we learned a lot at these conversations on things that we need to be doing improving on and that's our goal and i want to thank all of my representative from all of my agencies because cities are made up of agencies and if agencies are doing their job the city will function as it's supposed to thank you for coming out appreciate all of you and i just want to thank anastasia yascova our brooklyn borough director for brooklyn south and tony herbert our other brooklyn director who covers the six seven seven one for their work and if you have any issues throughout the year there are main points of contact in the community affairs unit