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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, we continue our series, 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks in which we're touching every neighborhood of New York City this year by welcoming all 51 members of the City Council in a year when most of council is new because of term limits and its majority female for the first time ever. We move on to District 22 this week. Freshman member, Tiffany Cabán representing voters in Astoria, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, and Woodside.

Rikers Island is in the district too, which is otherwise in Queens. As some of you know, Tiffany Cabán was a candidate for Queen's DA as a progressive prosecutor candidate, losing to Melinda Katz, but then going on to win the city council seat last year. Her bio page says a Queen's native. Tiffany was born in Richmond Hill to Puerto Rican parents who grew up in Woodside houses. Before joining the New York City Council, Tiffany worked as a public defender representing people who did not have resources to defend themselves against the brutal system of mass incarceration.

In her years at New York County Defender Services and the Legal Aid Society's Criminal Defense Practice, Tiffany represented over a thousand indigent clients in cases ranging from turn-style jumping to homicide. Councilmember Caban, welcome to WNYC, and thanks for joining, 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks.

Tiffany Cabán: Good morning. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let me start with the question that I ask every council member in this series, and that is very simply, what's the most common reason that constituents contact your office this year since you got inaugurated in January?

Tiffany Cabán: Oh, it's overwhelmingly transportation and housing. Street safety, we have unfortunately had a number of vehicular deaths in the district from delivery workers to just community members that were out trying to get from point A to point B and it's been really horrific. That is a lot of what we get and then housing, folks dealing with landlord issues, and other things.

We actually did a tenant right training with an entire complex because of a lot of issues there, teamed up with Woodside on the Move and the Legal Aid Society to get some work done there. Those are definitely the two biggest.

Brian Lehrer: How do you find that you can help them? How do you find that you're frustrated in your inability through the system that exists to help them?

Tiffany Cabán: The frustrations are very real, but I think part of it is just understanding that there is an ecosystem of support. When folks come to us, it is our job in our council office to clearly articulate to people, these are the tools that we have in our toolbox. These are the things that we can do. Communicating that frustration, I think is really important and valuable to constituents that they understand that you care, that they understand where some of the roadblocks are.

Then just trying to make those connections passing off to whether it's community-based organizations or whether it's one of our partners at a different level of government, that's better situated to pull the right lever to get them the help that they need. I'm sure lots of folks talk about the frustration of the bureaucracy and some of the difficulties in the ways that agencies relate to one another or communication that exists, but my team is phenomenal.

I'm really, really glad that we have folks that have good government experience, but also are organizers at heart and do a lot to think outside of the box to make sure that we are supporting our constituents in any way that we can

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can take some phone calls, especially from the district for Tiffany Cabán. Many of you know the name, Tiffany Cabán is not just any freshman member of City Council. Not that every freshman member of City Council isn't special in their own right but Tiffany Cabán was a cause not that long ago to try to get a progressive prosecutor elected in Queens and didn't quite make it.

She's now in City Council, she's got a lot to say about the criminal justice system. She openly labels herself a police abolitionist, we'll get into that. We're talking about all kinds of things as a member of the City Council must deal with. Who, from Astoria, East Elmhurst, Jackson Heights, Woodside, anyone on Rikers Island? You know we get calls from Rikers Island on this show, councilmember.

Tiffany Cabán: We get a lot of calls from Rikers Island. We've done a lot of work to support. Those are my constituents, their families, and themselves.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, any calls from the district or a few from without would be okay. (212)-433-WNYC. (212)-433-9692, or tweet your question for Tiffany Cabán @BrianLehrer. Let me follow up on what you just said. How do you represent somebody who's incarcerated at Rikers?

Tiffany Cabán: I'll be really honest with you. It has been an incredible challenge. I think one thing that our team and we said this going in when I took office and our team came together, we had a little bit of like a retreat and talked about what are the things that we want to accomplish? What are some of the things that we want to do? For so long Rikers Island, the folks on Rikers have been disappeared a bit.

We all had the same desire to say, "Hey, we are going to help these folks." I was very familiar with what folks were experiencing from my days as a public defender. It's been interesting because our constituent services director, for example, can take a similar problem and go to a relevant agency to move things forward. There are limited people that you can talk to when it comes to our constituents on Rikers Island.

There are a lot of really frustrating roadblocks to getting information and really getting that back to families. We've been exploring lots of different ways to do that. Then also understanding that constituent services tie directly into legislative priorities ties directly into budget priorities and saying one of the biggest ways that we can help folks on Rikers Island is to push forward to build out a public health infrastructure that keeps people from cycling into Rikers in the first place.

Then just amplifying and uplifting so that people are constantly aware of what's happening. That's a little bit of inside/outside game. Working with directly impacted folks and advocates to continue to sound the alarm so that people cannot look away.

Brian Lehrer: Are you in favor of the federal takeover of Rikers Island that's being considered, as you know, the Adams administration has filed a plan to try to state that off. I wonder what your position is on that as to whether the city government under de Blasio, under Adams maybe going back much further has proved itself incapable of keeping people safe at Rikers Island?

Tiffany Cabán: You hit the last point on the head. The city has absolutely proved itself incapable of that. While I answer, I'm going to get my dog to--

Brian Lehrer: That's okay. Now, you have to tell us your dog's name?

Tiffany Cabán: My dog's name is Natalie. She is an 11-year-old beagle pitbull mix. She knows just when to be disruptive where she can get a treat or a bone.

Brian Lehrer: You've learned from her to adapt that strategy politically. Hello, Natalie. Good dog, Natalie. Be quiet, Natalie. Anyway, go ahead.

Tiffany Cabán: To answer your question, it's complicated. I don't think that a federal receivership by any means solves our problems, but something has to give. In the federal monitor report, they said, very clearly they said, these high rates are not typical. They're not expected and they are not normal. People need to understand that throughout our correctional facilities across the country, this is a particularly acute crisis right here in our city, on Rikers Island and it's a failure.

It is a failure of management. It is a failure of transparency and accountability. I think something had to happen. It certainly has gotten the mayor's attention in bringing up that option. Then we also have to hold at the same time that that is not the only answer. We cannot ramp up the solitary confinement torture program. We have to decarcerate. We have to close Rikers Island, and we have to invest in proven community-based public safety strategies and public health infrastructure.

These are things that have to happen at the same time because Rikers Island is not just a physical place. It is a culture. It is a way and a strategy of doing things to presumably achieve some level of safety and health. It has failed abysmally.

Brian Lehrer: Has the Adams administration succeeded at all in your view? We had the tragedy upon tragedy of the fifth death already this year at Rikers Island just the other day. We had, I think an image of Adams correction Commissioner, Molina as somebody who was more hardcore pro-correction officers union and not the reformer that Mayor de Blasio's last correction commissioner was.

Yet the Mayor argues look, the absenteeism rate against absenteeism rate among correction officers, which is one of the biggest problems has gone down under Molina. They're making progress. Do you have an opinion about that?

Tiffany Cabán: First of all, I want to debunk the second point. This is something I have brought up in two council hearings at this point. I think one in a criminal justice committee hearing. Actually no, I think there were both criminal justice committee hearings. This contention that more officers have come back is actually a little bit of a red herring. They're going off of numbers based on January numbers and saying, "Oh, 1,200, 1,300 officers came back in mid-January, late January." The reality is that those 1,200, 1,300 officers that they're talking about, those are the folks that took off over the holidays over the Christmas and New Year's break.

There actually hasn't been much progress on that front. There are things with this administration that I agree with and I hope that we lean into and that when they get said that it's not just rhetoric. We are seeing them reflected in actual line items in our budget but one area of clear failure is Rikers Island without a doubt. Every single person deserves to be safe there, whether you are an incarcerated person, whether you are a civilian employee, whether you are a corrections officer, and how things are functioning right now makes nobody safe.

We cannot double down on these strategies that have created a breeding ground for violence. Our first move being to fire the oversight officer, a big mistake and a huge red flag. What we're seeing again is really gross mismanagement from the top down that is resulting in really unsafe conditions. We have to pivot to different strategies.

Brian Lehrer: You just mentioned that there are a number of things you agree with Mayor Adams on that you hope he follows through on. What's an example or two of those?

Tiffany Cabán: Overdose prevention centers. They're the most beautiful example of public health infrastructure that can be really transformative and have this really large ripple effect. For folks who don't know what overdose prevention centers are, they're also known as safe injection facilities but they're really holistic care centers. They save lives, they have serviced thousands of people at this point. They have reversed hundreds of overdoses, not a single death on site.

We have known year over year, over year that criminalizing substance use, drug use, is not the answer. We have to be outcome-driven and if it saves lives, it's worth doing.

We reckon there's really a paradigm shift around the criminalization mentality around drug use and understanding that it's actually a health issue that what we need to be doing is treating the underlying trauma that leads to substance use disorder and all these different things. We're talking about also particularly, a vulnerable population that is not getting a lot of other needs met.

These OPCs and we have two of the first in the country right here in our city doing great work. In addition to keeping people alive, they're creating OnRamps to regular physical and mental health care to populations that really struggle. That usually their primary care, if they get any is walking into an emergency room. By getting folks connected with a primary care provider, getting access to therapy and mental health services.

They function as a safe space. Places where you can come and shower and sit and rest, to be in community and that humanizing dignifying experience and connections to people really make all the difference in the world to individual's journey to being healthier and whole human beings. Then they're there ready on the spot in the second. When somebody says, "Hey, I'm ready to stop using, or I'm ready to do X, Y or Z."

OnPoint is the organization that's really running it. Shout out to Sam Rivera who's been doing incredible work out there, and all the entire team. The mayor recently came out and said, "Hey, I support having these open 24 hours a day because they're currently not and having them in every borough." Absolutely agree with that.

Brian Lehrer: We're in our series, folks, 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks in which we're touching every neighborhood of New York City this year by welcoming all 51 members of City Council in a year when most of council is new because of term limits and its majority female for the first time. We're in District 22 this week with freshman member, Tiffany Cabán the district being largely Northwest Queens plus Rikers Island. Let's take a call from the district. Jorge in Astoria, you're on WNYC with Tiffany Cabán. Hello, Jorge.

Jorge: Good morning. Hi, Tiffany. How are you?

Tiffany Cabán: I'm doing all right. How are you doing

Jorge: Good. I actually live two blocks away from your office. I was curious on your opinion and strategy with the rising of crimes that's been going on in the neighborhood. There's been a shooting over by the CVS on [unintelligible 00:15:05] on Cinco de Mayo and just like the random things. I support you in terms of the abolishing police. What's the relationship you have with the local department, the 114? Is there something moving? Even myself going to the community fair meetings, I haven't seen much movement. I just wanted to get from your standpoint, your opinion of what's happening?

Tiffany Cabán: Thank you. First of all, that is a really important question and such a valid concern in this moment. To place it into context, we in this time are experiencing crime and harm at lower levels than we've seen in past decades. That does not change the fact that one incident of harm is one too many. One incidence of gun violence is one too many. We have a lot of work to do.

This goes back to a common theme that I will say over and over again, it saves lives, it's worth doing. We have to go and do the hard work to dig deep into root causes of violence. Because we have invested time over time, doubling, tripling down on policing strategies that have not gotten us the results that we want, need, and deserve, and really understanding to advance public safety, you have to divorce it from being synonymous with policing.

New Yorkers actually know that. An impressive thing about the recent survey that was done, the New York City Speak Survey, it was something over 62,000 New Yorkers responded, the largest in our city's history. When asked about public safety and how we achieve and what they would like to see, the first things that people said were housing. Getting people housing, investing in homeless services. Then the second thing was mental health responders for folks who are in mental health crisis that were not police officers. There's a real understanding around how we have to take these different approaches.

We know that good stable housing reduces violence. We know that economic security, which means access to good-paying jobs, fair wages, things like that, reduce violence. Taking this holistic approach to building out that infrastructure and then investing and expanding the crisis management system. Violence interrupters, we know that they can reduce gun violence by upwards to 60%, 70% in ways that the police department has not been successful.

Leaning into these different strategies that work is just so, so important. Then to be entirely candid with you, you asked about, what is my relationship to the 114 policing, we communicate. When there is an act of violence in the community, we have a conversation about it. For me, on the other side of anything like that is that I want to make sure that my office and myself is there to support survivors and victims of harm saying, "Hey, here's what our office can connect you with."

Whether it is services whether it's organizations that can provide material resources as your family tries to heal and recover. Again, this is really focused on what kind of communities and what kind of city we are trying to build. I think that the city's job is to create a workforce that meets the needs of everyday people in New York, especially the folks who have been marginalized and exploited the most. Right now our workforce does not reflect that. Making sure that we are building out that caring workforce that can execute really good public health and public safety strategies.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC, FMHD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1, Trenton, WNJP 88.5, Sussex, WNJY 89.3, Netcong, and WNJO 90.3, Toms River. We are on New York and New Jersey public radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. It's eleven o'clock, a few more minutes with Council Member, Tiffany Cabán. To follow up on the answer that you were giving. You ran as a police abolitionist, and you reaffirmed that in an interview with Gotham Gazette among other things. What do you mean by that term?

When we're at a time where every day there's another horrific violent crime in the news, the shooting on the Q Train, I think the Q Train used to go to a story. Now it's the second avenue subway if I'm not mistaken, the 11-year-old, all these things while the city is doing, hopefully, all the root cause work that you talk about. I think a lot of people would say but you're out of touch if you say at the same time, just disband the NYPD I think you've used those words.

Tiffany Cabán: For clarity, I am not just a policing abolitionist, but I'm a prison industrial complex abolitionist. What that means is that I believe in a long term vision, nobody is saying that police, prosecutors and jails, and prisons are going to disappear tomorrow, but believe and have a hope that we can build out a community in a world where we don't need these things anymore and that we are not answering violence with violence systems.

This is again, really outcome driven and it is a very long-term project to say that accountability and punishment are not synonymous. Justice and incarceration are not synonymous and at the core of an abolitionist framework is a desire for abundance. It means having that robust health infrastructure that people have access to what they need not to thrive. When you talk to and I have had lots of it's-- first of all, being a directly impacted person growing up in a family with that experienced a lot of economic insecurity that was exposed to violence, to mental health issues, to substance use issues this is deeply, deeply personal to me.

Looking at and saying that policing and incarceration and punishment go hand in hand with austerity, and we need to be providing people with opportunities to heal, in my work as a public defender. When I talk to-- and in my work as an organizer and advocate when you talk to survivors, first and foremost, before anything else, what they will tell you that they want is an opportunity to heal, to be made whole, to never be hurt the way that they were hurt again.

To make sure that nobody else was hurt in the same way. Everything else is secondary and our current system creates this false dichotomy around that, that doesn't really allow for that. You can physically remove somebody from our community, but 98% of the time they're going to be back in our community worse than when they went in.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one more call for you. I told you we sometimes get calls from people on Rikers Island, which is in your district and we're getting one right now. Let's take the call from Ansumana on Rikers. Hello, Ansumana you're on WNYC with your Councilmember, Tiffany Cabán.

Speaker: Hello, Tiffany Cabán?

Tiffany Cabán: Hi.

Speaker: Nice to meet you.

Tiffany: You as well.

Speaker: Hi. My question here is about incarceration because we have few problems here, but sometimes we do things because of situation outside. I was addicted to crack cocaine and it make me do a lot of crazy things. When the day they arrested me, they saw a lot of crack cocaine on me and lot of materials, paraphernalia so I'm telling them to give me program. It's better for me than incarceration because I'm here, my life is not safe.

This place is tough right now and it's fighting every day. People are aggravated, I'm with people that are facing more time than me, sometimes they don't really care. I fear for my life here so what do we do about that?

Tiffany Cabán: First of all, I just want to thank you for reaching out and for asking your question. Please don't hesitate to reach out or have a family member reach out to our office if you want additional support. I know that where you are is not safe right now and that you shouldn't be there. I absolutely agree with you and thank you for sharing that you struggle with substance use issues. I certainly support access to programming over-incarceration.

That's what I'm going to continue to push for. To your point where at least to expand on something that you said is that it shouldn't take being arrested and thrown on Rikers to then try to be in that environment and then a position to advocate to try to get treatment and programming. This is my point, never goes back to talking about being an abolitionist. It's like creating access points before you were ever approached by a police officer, ever incarcerated in the first place to say, why can't you get that of support on the front end.

That is what I will continue to fight to do from OPCs to making sure that every single person has access to both physical and mental healthcare and things like that. It's so important

Brian Lehrer: Ansumana, if you want to leave your contact information with our producer on hold for yourself directly or someone you trust for the council member's office to get in touch with you, we can do that. Or you heard her invitation to contact her or have someone contact her office directly to follow up on your call. There you go, your choice, you can leave contact info with us if you want and we'll pass it along.

We're almost out of time, Councilmember I want to do two more quick things. One, I just want to acknowledge to finish the conversation we were having about long-term reduction in the need for the criminal justice system, as it exists. I noticed that the pinned tweet on your Twitter feed is a list of all these root causes programs that the Adams administration is proposing to cut in the current budget negotiation. That's an ongoing negotiation between now and the end of June. The new fiscal year starts July 1st we don't have much time, but what would you put at the top of your list for things that you want to see more funded in this budget before council says yes to the mayor?

Tiffany Cabán: Ooh, yes. Really quickly the proposed executive budget defunds housing, it defunds the Department of Homeless Services. It defunds our public schools, it defunds sanitation, it defunds our public hospitals, parks, small business services. I want to see those cuts restored at bare minimum and then making added investments to that is really important. The mayor had put out the blueprint of public safety and talked about strategies outside of just policing, but they have not been reflected in any line item budgets. Without hard numbers, that's just rhetoric.

I want to see deeper investment in mental health response, violence interrupters. Then if I just say this one quick thing too is today we just launched care for all families, which is a very tiny ask. It's a 10 million ask 0.01% of the overall budget to fill the gap that the state left to make sure that undocumented children get access to the same publicly subsidized childcare vouchers that everybody else are. To hammer this home, our immigrant and undocumented friends, families, and neighbors were so essential continue to be essential throughout the pandemic.

It is imperative they deserve this support. They help our city keep going so that's another ask.

Brian Lehrer: That's great. By the way, we got Ansumana's fiance's phone number that my office is going to share with your office to follow up on that call from Rikers. Last question, as I think we're inviting every Councilmember in this series to bring a show and tell item from your district. You got one.

Tiffany Cabán: Yes, absolutely. I know a lot of people really, really love Astoria Park and I do too, but just north of Astoria Park and it's going to be a place that I offer y'all is Ralph Demarco Park. I love it so much because yes it is right on the water. You can see my favorite bridge, the Hellgate bridge. It's a beautiful view, but a lot of people think of when they think of Astoria, they think of it being a Greek neighborhood.

We actually have a very large and growing Arabic, North African community and at this park in the summertime in the evenings it's just beautiful. The music that's playing folks bring out hookah and it's just a very good communal chill vibe and it's just one of my favorite things about my neighborhood.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it for this week's 51 Council Members in 52 Weeks, District 22 with Tiffany Cabán. Thank you so much. We look forward to continuing to speak as you serve your term.

Tiffany Cabán: Thank you. Appreciate you. Take care.

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