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Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and its time now for our weekly Ask The Mayor call-in. My questions and yours for Mayor Bill de Blasio at (646) 435-7280. Ask the mayor anything. Well, give him some privacy, but mostly anything at (646) 435-7280 or you can tweet a question, just use the hashtag #AskTheMayor. Good morning, Mr. Mayor, welcome back to WNYC.

Mr. Mayor: Good morning, Brian. Thank you for putting a little bit of guard rail on that. Thank you. I appreciate that.

Brian: I see you gave your final State of the City speech last night. No guardrails on that. Eight out of eight before your term limited out. It was a prerecorded virtual address, for people who didn't see it, for these virtual times, and you announced some new and newsworthy things. Let me tick down some of those to begin today, and you can explain them to our listeners.

At this time when the virus is so prevalent and new more contagious strains are breaking out, you nonetheless announced a plan to bring the city workers back to their offices in person in May, which is really pretty soon, and this is something that I know the real estate industry has wanted you to do to model that it's okay to come back to all kinds of private companies offices. We've talked about this before, so for the city workers, is that a hope or an order, or how would you describe it for me?

Mr. Mayor: I really appreciate the question because this is one of the heart of the matter points that how we vaccinate enough people to bring back our economy fully, and obviously public sector needs to lead the way. Just a quick note for all of your listeners. The main message of the State of the City was a recovery for all of us. An inclusive risk recovery. A recovery that does not repeat the status quo of the past, that addresses the disparities that have come up in the COVID crisis. Anyone who wants to see both the video, which is really about the people of New York City and how we recover this year and beyond, and the policy papers that go with it, you go to recoveryforall.nyc.gov. But to your question, Brian, so 5 million New Yorkers will be vaccinated by June under this plan, which creates a pervasive reality.

That creates a dynamic of much greater community immunity and changes the whole possibility of comeback. We know we can do that so long as we have supply, and I'm seeing some good signs about vaccine supply, but we know we can do it because we've already proven that we have the capacity to get up to 500,000 vaccinations per week. The city workers about, you know, a very strong percentage of our workforce right now, between 70 and 80% of our workforce is at their work right now because of the nature of their work.

They're at the frontline serving the people of New York city. The folks who worked in offices, who could do the work virtually and anyone else doing remote work, they'll be coming back beginning in May because it's time. We know we can vaccinate. We'll do specific vaccination drives related to public workers and work sites, but we know by then we'll have the capacity to reach people, and also it's how you bring back any public or private work site and the schools are the great object lesson.

You put the right precautions in place. We saw more from the CDC about this just this week, further proof at how safe schools have been when the right precautions are taken. We're going to do that in our public workplaces as well.

Brian: On policing, you propose to give local neighborhoods some input, I see, into who gets hired as their local precinct commanders. Who in each community will get that input? I see the police commissioner will still have final discretion over the hire, it won't be by committee, so how meaningful is this community input, as opposed to just letting people talk?

Mr. Mayor: Look, I have talked to folks in the last few days as this plan was being perfected, who have been working on these issues for decades, and they were thrilled to hear this because this changes the whole reality. Commissioner has to provide to the Police Precinct Council, and that's a kind of neighborhood entity, it's been around for many years, neighborhood folks volunteer to be a part of it, has to provide three to five nominees. One of the things we believe in is of course nominees reflect the diversity of New York city.

For the first time in New York city history, that Police Precinct Council will interview everyone who is nominated to be a precinct commander. It's a chance for those police leaders to show their connection to the community, their understanding of the community, their vision, and for the community to put them through their paces, then they provide formal input back to the commissioner, and the commissioner makes the final decision. Then that police commander has to consistently stay connected to the Police Precinct Council and get formally evaluated after the first year and work with the commissioner on that as well.

I guarantee you that this changes the approach because it makes everyone mindful of the fact that you need leaders who fit the community, who understand the community, are listening to the community, ready to work with the community. We're making that a much greater priority by putting this in place than just the traditional model, which was rightfully about crime fighting, but we know that crime fighting and connection with the neighborhood have to go hand in hand.

Brian: You announced plans last night for a dedicated bike lane to replace one car lane on the Brooklyn bridge and the 59th Street Queensboro Bridge Ed Koch Bridge, the only bridge I know with three different names, and also several bicycle boulevards. Can you explain bicycle boulevards and say where they'll be?

Mr. Mayor: Yes. If you go on the website, you'll see a schematic of them actually. recoveryforall.nyc.gov. You'll see what a bicycle boulevard will look like.

We're going to start with one in each borough and then keep growing from there. They are very bike-friendly, bike-focused streets, with lots of measures to slow things down and favor bikes.

You could still have some traffic on them, but they're constructed in a way that's going to encourage bicycling and make anyone who's driving have to drive in a really slower, more mindful manner. I think that's good for everyone. We want to put them- we'll have more to say soon on exactly where they'll be, but we want to put them where the need is greatest in terms of places where major bike lanes are not connected and need a connecting route, where we think there will be a lot of ridership and where there's particular safety concerns.

Brian: Will they all be separated bike lanes?

Mr. Mayor: You'll see the visual. I urge everyone to go look at it. It's literally taking a whole street and changing the orientation of the streets, so the bikes are using the whole of the street. Again, when you see the visual of how the protections are put in place, how the traffic has [unintelligible 00:07:20] It's not like anything you have seen previously. It's a very different bike-friendly approach.

Brian: Let me do one more down this list of new initiatives you announced in the State of the City last night, then we'll go to calls. You propose to establish a charter revision commission to identify sources of structural racism in the city and recommend changes to the city's charter, which is like the city's constitution, that would root it out. Those would require the voters of the city to approve them, I presume, as charter changes do. Can you get specific about the kinds of changes to the city charter that you envision potentially being enacted by the voters to fight structural racism, that the City Council or the mayor can't just do already, if you have the political will?

Mr. Mayor: Yes. I'll give you some broad examples and again, this is going to be an effort that starts this year. I think given how important it is, it should continue into 2022. That's how I'm structuring it. Obviously, the next mayor can have their own judgment, but I think if people see this commission doing important structural work, there will be a lot of support to continue it.

Brian, its true to say some things can be done by an executive order, some things can be done by a vote of council. Sometimes the best thing to do is go to the people, both to ensure it happens and there's a full public debate, but also because of the impact of a popular vote, really deeply embedding something into how our city is run. What it means to me is looking at the various institutions of our society: City agencies, department of education, fire department, police department, health department.

You go down the whole list. Where are there structural issues that must be addressed? Looking at the business community, looking at cultural institutions, looking at non-profit. Where are the changes we have to make? Some of those are the kinds of things that might end up on the ballot. Some of those are examples of naming and formally acknowledging structural racism, and then identifying the changes that private entities will have to do as well.

I'll give you an example of something we did previously that at least started us down this road with the cultural sector. We came up with a New York city cultural plan to acknowledge that many, many cultural institutions had historically not had strong representation of people of color on their boards or among their staff, particularly their senior staff, or even among their audiences. We said that city funding in the future would be related to how well these institutions did at diversifying on all those fronts. It has led to major changes. Just formally saying that that is an area that needs to be addressed and linking it to outcomes like funding, has led to major changes in New York City cultural institutions. I want to apply that same prism to literally the whole of New York City society, and then decide in each case, do we need a charter change, do we need a law change, an executive order, or is it really about shining a light on a public or private institution, and the leaders of that institution agreeing to change their approach?

Brian: Kate in Queens, you're on WNYC with the mayor. Hi, Kate.

Kate: Hi. I have a question for the mayor and a comment about vaccines. Mr. Mayor, I'm curious whether or not you're open to flexible work schedules for city workers who have proven during COVID that they can successfully work from home responsibly. We didn't have a work-from-home policy prior to COVID. Then regarding vaccines, I'd like to encourage you to further restrict where vaccines are available for folks.

The way it currently works, or at least it seems to me, is that you're making vaccine appointments for folks with community centers for vulnerable populations, but then you're opening those appointments to the public at large. Then these vulnerable populations are competing with people like myself, trying to find an appointment for their mother-in-law. For me, the ethical choice has already been made by the city as to whether or not I can book that appointment for my mother-in-law, because it's an open appointment online. I'd like to encourage that you limit these appointments like happened at the armory. That's all.

Brian: Thank you.

Mr. Mayor: Thank you, Kate. I really appreciate the way you phrase that, and obviously I can tell that you care very deeply about addressing the disparities that we're out there trying to overcome. It's a really important question, one we're working through as we speak. Look, we want everyone to get vaccinated, let's be clear, we're not trying to create barriers, we're trying to create an open door to vaccination. We're trying to maximize vaccination in the places that suffered the most.

We see in many cases a trust problem, a hesitancy problem in those very same communities, that we have to address with local leaders, with voices that people trust, with lots of questions being answered, et cetera, and giving people comfort. There's a lot of moving parts here we have to try and make sense of in an equitable way. We'll certainly have a lot more to say on that as we give an update to the people of the city on the data that we're finding in the vaccine effort.

On the flexible work schedule, it's a good question. I think my opening position here is, we know that when people gather in a workplace, there are things that happen better than happen remotely. We've certainly seen that in the course of this year in government. I've had many, many instances where I saw a lot more effectiveness when people could get in the room and meet together, even though there have to be distance and wearing masks and be smart about it, it still made a huge difference.

I still prefer to get the city workforce fully back in-person, but there will be a clear evaluation of where flexibility might make sense in the short-term and the long-term, because we have learned a lot in this experience. I would just start with saying, I think it's actually going to be everything from a morale boost to an efficiency boost to a creativity boost, to get people back together, but we will think very carefully about how we want to deal with flexibility in the future based on what we've learned here.

Brian: A couple of follow-ups on that. Will you require city workers to be vaccinated or disclose whether they've been vaccinated, if they have to come back in-person?

Mr. Mayor: Well, a couple of things real quick, Brian. This is a policy we've announced and we're going to be fleshing out the details between now and May obviously. I said very clearly I want to get city workers vaccinated. There will be lots of ways to do that between now and then. I also want to be clear, we're working in a context where the very precautions we've put in place, and I'm going to use the school as an example.

Clearly until recently, we didn't have a vaccine, and yet the schools were amongst the safest places in New York City because of all the other precautions. This is something, Dr. Jay Varma, who's my senior advisor on the COVID crisis, he's really been clear about this from the international research. If you require people to wear masks all the time, if you clean all the time, and you ventilate all the time, and you do social-distancing, it really limits the ability of disease to spread and that's without even having vaccine. We want [crosstalk] [inaudible 00:15:01]

Brian: You can't bring city workers back to the offices as they have existed in the past, in the density with which people worked in those offices, even with masking--

Mr. Mayor: No, and that's my point.

Brian: Yes.

Mr. Mayor: No, no, wait, wait, wait. Again, that's why I said very clearly, with all the precautions appropriate to the moment. At some point, this coronavirus moment is going to pass and we'll keep adjusting as we get more and more information. Let's say it was today. Of course you're going to have all of those precautions that we're using in the schools and we use right now in city government offices for the folks who are back. You would use all the above.

What we don't foresee at this moment, Brian, is a mandate that folks must be vaccinated or somehow they are not allowed to do their work. That has not been where we've been. I haven't felt that's the right thing to do. I know a lot of unions representing city workers have not favored that approach. I think when you combine a increasing level of vaccination with stringent precautions, that's what's going to make us able to handle this very smoothly, and then every day we get closer to that kind of critical mass point of community immunity, that solves a lot of the bigger problem.

Brian: To the caller's concern and everybody's concern about disparities, my understanding is the city has data on the disparities by race, but has not released it. Is that still the case, and if so, why?

Mr. Mayor: I've answered this numerous times, including this morning. We're releasing it in this week. We still have some more work to do to perfect it. There's a lot of information, including the challenge of folks who chose not to provide their demographic information. We're really trying to make sure we get this exactly right and with specific ideas to how we're going to follow up on it. That's coming out as I said this morning, give or take the next 48 hours.

Brian: One more from my station's health editor, who just slipped me a question based on this news story this morning about the Johnson & Johnson vaccine phase-three data. The company's vaccine can't establish herd immunity is what I'm seeing. Its efficacy appears to be too low for that. You voiced excitement over this vaccine in the past, but seeing what you're seeing this morning, if you've gotten to it yet, is it worth the investment in the long term?

Mr. Mayor: From our health team, I don't have a definitive report suggesting anything but that it will be a major contributor to what we have to do. I want to look carefully. I want my health team to evaluate that information but I don't want to jump the gun on that. So far, the notion of a single-dose vaccine, and this is what-- Two things separate Johnson & Johnson: One, single dose not double. Two, much easier refrigeration methodology, which means much more flexible use.

For example, we've had vaccination sites at public housing developments in the last week. They've been really successful. I want to do that all over. If you don't need a stringent refrigeration regime, that makes it a lot easier to be out there longer hours, et cetera. I'm very hopeful about Johnson & Johnson. We'll get a full evaluation. I'll be able to speak about that next week.

Brian: Clinton, Hamilton Heights, you're on WNYC with the mayor. Hi, Clint.

Clinton: Hi, thanks for taking my question, Brian. Mr. Mayor, in December and on January 15th during this segment, you were asked why the NYPD had failed to serve the CCRB charges on Officer Wayne Isaacs for the 2016 killing of Delrawn Small, despite the CCRB sending charges to the NYPD in October. You said that you would talk to the CCRB and have a formal answer, which seemed like a misleading deflection since the NYPD is delaying, not the CCRB.

Then on January 19th last Tuesday, NYPD leaked news to the media and the Police Benevolent Association that they would stop blocking the CCRB prosecution of Isaacs, but they didn't bother to inform Delrawn's family, and at that point, they still hadn't served the charges. Given the terrible way this case has been handled and the disrespect to Delrawn's siblings, will you commit to ensuring that the disciplinary trial is scheduled for this spring, so that this can be resolved before the five-year mark since Delrawn Small was killed? Will you support the demand that Isaacs be fired and not be allowed to retire with benefits?

Mr. Mayor: Look, I'm going to keep this very simple. The concern raised was that this trial wasn't moving and it needed to move. It's now moving. I want to see it happen as quickly as possible. There are many other disciplinary matters that have been waiting because of COVID obviously, many important ones. There's going to be due process here and then we'll judge accordingly based on what comes from that due process, as we would with anyone.

Brian: You're not committing to a timeline for that trial, to when it would start?

Mr. Mayor: No. Again, the bottom line is, it's moving. It's important it's moving. There's also a lot of other important trials that have to happen. I just want to say the important point is it's moving forward.

Brian: The last time you were on, you hadn't seen the video of that incident that appeared to contradict the NYPD's version of events. Have you seen it yet?

Mr. Mayor: No. Brian, again, there's going to be an entire trial here. It's not for me to-- I'm just not going to get involved in opining when there's about to be a formal trial led by the CCRB. That's what that process will achieve.

Brian: Teresa in the Bronx. You're on WNYC with the mayor. Hi Teresa.

Teresa: Hello. Good morning. Thank you, Brian. Good morning, Mr. Mayor. I'm calling because--

Mr. Mayor: Good morning Teresa. How are you doing?

Teresa: Hello, Mr. Mayor. Hello Brian. Thank you, Mr. Mayor for all you do and all you're trying to do. I'm calling you this morning on behalf of a friend of mine. She lives in NYCHA housing in Brooklyn, and she's been having an ongoing problem with heat and repairs in her apartment. She's not getting any heat at all and she said there are holes in the walls, leaky pipes that leaks water, and it could be a fire hazard. I bought her a heater to try to help her out and yesterday she called me, she was in such distress.

She said the heater had blown out the lights and thank goodness she did get somebody to come over to turn the lights on, but they told her don't use the heater, don't use the stove, but in the meanwhile there's no heat. I was just wondering if somehow, because I don't know what to tell her, because she calls me every day with the same complaint. She said she's been asking for help, no one has been helping her. I was going to ask you if we could try to help her in some way to get these repairs done in her apartment.

Mr. Mayor: Teresa, thank you so much for looking out for your friend. Would you please give your information to WNYC right after we finish. I'm going to have the general manager of the housing authority, Vito Mustaciuolo, reach out to you or to your friend directly, and make sure the repairs are moving. We're going to have the top guy talk to you directly to get this working. It sounds like a situation we do not want to leave the way it is. We got to get help for your friend and let's get it going today.

Brian: Good. Teresa, hang on. We're going to get that contact information. Sounds like they're going to get serious about helping your friend on this. Mr. Mayor, in our last couple of minutes, since this was your last State of the City address last night, you're obviously thinking about New York after you. Now that you're in your 8th year of one of the most difficult jobs in the world, what kind of advice would you begin to give your successor, whichever one of the 33 mayoral candidates it turns out to be? Not so much about policy, but about something that you've learned that you never thought about before taking this office, that turns out to be important to not being overwhelmed by it.

Mr. Mayor: Okay. Well that's interesting. Your last words change the question a little bit.

Brian: You can go wherever you were going to go.

Mr. Mayor: Well, I'll do both really quick. This is not to flatter you or your colleagues at WNYC Brian, but one thing I learned, because when we started out, we didn't want to use the same approach as Bloomberg and Giuliani had used to a weekly call-in program, and made a decision, later than we should have honestly, to do the call-in with you, with WNYC, which I think has been a really healthy thing. I think this is one of the things I'd say to any of the candidates, you've got to keep perspective, you've got to constantly hear the voices of people.

This is one good way to do it and so I'll pre-endorse the notion that whoever becomes mayor should stay with this format on WNYC every Friday. I think the other thing is the power of town hall meetings, which I learned really, really intensely. Again, something we didn't emphasize in the beginning while we were trying to build up the team and get key policies in place, but the town hall meetings are so powerfully instructive. They're humbling on one level, in a good way, they get you outside the bubble, but they also are very life-affirming. I think that's the bigger point I would make.

When you're fighting the daily battles against whatever crisis, against the other levels of government, which is inevitable, there's going to be challenges with the federal and state government, against those who might not be doing the right thing in the private sector, whatever that may be, or snowstorm or anything else. The best thing is to go back to the people.

The best thing is to hear the voice of the people, even the critical voices, and to just see how much people care, to see how much they actually very, very powerfully. You go to a town hall meeting. I did 70 of them, typically 200, 300 New Yorkers. You would get not just emotion and specific problem. You would get solutions. The people often offer the best solutions.

Brian: Thank you for that answer. We'll do more big picture as this year goes on. Mr. Mayor thanks as always. Talk to you next week.

Mr. Mayor: Thanks Brian. Take care.

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