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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. On the morning after Mayor Adams gave his state of the city address, we'll place some excerpts and invite your reactions and get analysis from our mayoral power reporter, Elizabeth Kim. Here's what I think is the key minute and a half from the beginning of the speech that tells us how Adams is organizing the big policy areas that he's trying to address for the city.

Mayor Adams: Today I want to outline a working people's agenda based on the four pellets that uphold a strong and sustainable society. Jobs, safety, housing, and care, these are the things that our administration is working for every day. Every New Yorker needs a good-paying job, so we are investing in a new generation of apprenticeships, community hiring, and job training. Every New Yorker-

[applause]

-needs a safe and welcoming neighborhood so we are getting New York City's most wanted off our streets and invest in millions to make our city cleaner and greener.

[applause]

Every New Yorker needs an affordable place to live, so we are working to add 500,000 more homes across all five barrels.

[applause]

Every one of us needs care, not just in crisis but throughout our lives. That's why we are expanding the social safety net, making it easier to access public benefits in healthcare no matter who you are or where you live.

Brian Lehrer: There he is, mayor Adams from the State of the City speech yesterday. We'll hear more clips as we go with our guide WNYC mayoral power reporter covering the Adams administration, Elizabeth Kim. Hi Liz. Welcome back to the show. We don't have Liz? Okay, we'll have Liz in just a second. I know she's here. Listeners, your reaction to anything in the state of the city speech is also welcome here. What would you like to react to from the clip that we just heard, from the speech if you watched the speech or other clips that you've heard on the news? (212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer.

That was a very long speech. It was an hour and a half or so by my watch. I watched the whole thing and he really gave a stem-winder of a speech there. We've been doing this Clinton and Giuliani 1993 series on the show back when Bill Clinton was president, he would give these long State of the Union addresses. I don't know exactly how long, but I do remember that people reacted to them as very long State of the Union addresses and reporters rolled their eyes, "Oh God, he's going on and on."

Then they would see the ratings the next morning and they'd be great. [chuckles] People stayed with the speech. This isn't really the same thing. It was in the noon hour so it wasn't this primetime thing. It wasn't on many television stations. I was thinking about that Clinton analogy as I was watching Eric Adams give this long, long speech with a lot of applause lines and all that. I think we have Liz now. Hi, Liz. You there?

Elizabeth Kim: Hi, Brian. I'm here.

Brian Lehrer: You described things like that vision statement that I played there as a broad laundry list of promises that seemed designed to please a wide swath of New Yorkers. Do you think he was trying to shore up any parts of the electorate, most specifically?

Elizabeth Kim: He starts out by making it what I thought of as an ode to the working class, so certainly there. It is called the working class agenda. He is directly speaking to that particular part of his base. Yes, there's a laundry list that will please-- I think, it pleases a lot of people across different political spectrums, that's true, but I think he is, by framing it this way, directly talking to the working class.

That's important because that's how he campaigned. That's part of his identity as a New Yorker who was the son of a single mother and he himself rose up through the working class. In that respect, I thought that that was what he was trying to do in this second state of the city address, was re-affirm his connection to that very important part of his base and his identity.

Brian Lehrer: Here are a few words from the speech of how the mayor tried to do that.

Mayor Adams: Your early mornings, late nights,- Oh, I see some of you. -and double shifts keep us moving, keep us healthy, keep us safe, especially over the last few years. You have done everything for us and this city must do more for you.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, was that different to your ear than how Mayor de Blasio, who let's remember also fashioned himself the mayor of two New Yorks used that phrase in trying to help the less affluent New Yorkers rise up toward more equality? Was it different to your ear than how de Blasio tried to do maybe a similar thing?

Elizabeth Kim: That's a really great question, Brian. What I think-- This is not the first time that Mayor Adams has spoken of the working class in this way. How he frames this is like, "I see you." This idea that he sees them working on those late night shifts. I think in that respect, it's different from Mayor de Blasio who is more considered much of a policy wonk, although, not to question his commitment to working-class New Yorkers.

Like I said, with Adams, there's a sense that it's personal because his mother was a working-class New Yorker. She was a house cleaner. He frequently will nod to them and the work that they do and the hours that they endure and the lower wages that they're paid and the vulnerability of housing insecurity and being uninsured. I think a lot of it leans on his personal experience that makes it feel-- I think it strikes more of an emotional cord than de Blasio did.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're in, what you would define as the working class, does Mayor Eric Adams seem like the mayor you want? (212)-433-WNYC, (212)-433-9692 or Tweet @BrianLehrer. If Adams is usually thought of first as a law enforcement mayor, Liz, you note in your Gothamist article that he has taken pains to highlight his efforts to help the poorest New Yorkers such as with making job development central this year and by his noting by name the high rate of black unemployment. Is it clear how he'll try to go about that beyond just saying it?

Elizabeth Kim: What he said, which I think will make a lot of policy experts very happy, is that he is going to launch a program of apprenticeship and job training. We are yet to see the details and more importantly the cost of that plan, but that's a good start. The other thing he did was he said he is going to expand the summer youth employment program. He already expanded it last year and that was very popular. Immediately advocates said, "We want to see that expanded even further." They believe that it won't take that much money for the city to do so. I think with those two ideas, he's off to a good start. Now it's about implementation and will he pay for it.

Brian Lehrer: Now, in the vision statement clip that we played at the beginning, he mentioned four policy areas, jobs, safety, housing, and care. Care meaning healthcare. Esteban in Sunset Park is calling, I think, to say he wishes there was a fifth one. Esteban, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in today.

Esteban: Oh, how are you doing Brian? Thanks for taking my call. One thing I didn't hear about was his education policy. This year he had already cut $450 million from the budget of education. My own school, my son's school was cut by a quarter. He has a much larger classroom now. Next year the mayor is proposing a $250 million budget cut for the school. This is in the light of this new law that the New York State law to reduce classes. I just want to know if he-- Sorry, I'm walking. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Yes, that's okay, we got you. If that's a central part of his plan for 2023. Liz, he certainly mentioned education in the speech. I know he referred to something that he talked about on the campaign trail when he was running for mayor, which is that he was dyslexic as a kid or is a dyslexic person and that was not identified and diagnosed when he was a kid and he thinks that really hurt him in school, and so there's a program to identify kids with dyslexia. What else did he talk about education-wise?

Elizabeth Kim: He talked about the city school system has already begun implementing this way, it's actually going back to the old way of teaching children how to read which is phonics based. That was to bring home his point that he really wants to emphasize reading skills for all public school students. I think Esteban is right and this has been said before of the mayor, and I think part of it is the contrast with de Blasio who sought to become this "education mayor" with the rollout of universal pre-k is, what is the broad-based policy here that would appeal to every single public school parent.

Of course, it's very laudable to have dyslexia training, he announced that there's going to be a school for children who have dyslexia, but is there another type of program that will impact every single public school family and child? That's less clear. What does impact a lot of them is when you say you're cutting the budget. That's how a lot of public schools families have experienced or are viewing the mayor is through this lens of, "Oh, all of a sudden my child does not have a music teacher. All of a sudden we're getting cut a social worker in our school."

One of the reasons, in fact, I thought that it was smart of him to at least frame it as this working-class agenda is he got a lot of criticism after last year's budget for the cuts to schools and other places like libraries and social programs that affect the working class.

Brian Lehrer: John in Hell's Kitchen wants to point out another thing that the mayor did not emphasize in the speech. In fact, I think John is saying he was at a protest outside the speech site in Queens. John, you're on WNYC, thank you for calling in.

John: Thank you so much for having me, John, from Hell's Kitchen. I was not there but representatives from a group riser resist that I work with were there. There were about 100 protesters, if not more, outside the speech. They've been working hard for a long time. This is the CLOSErikers activist group, and it's a coalition of a lot of different groups. As mayor Adams talked about people without means, poor people and people left behind, the other end of the spectrum of that are people that end up in Rikers, and people are dying in Rikers, officers and inmates are in dire peril there. The infrastructure there is just absolutely missing.

Listeners have to remember that a lot of people in Rikers are there because they don't have means, they don't have money, they can't get bail, they can't get a lawyer, and that's why some of them are committing suicide because it's so horrendous there. I didn't hear anything in the speech about what's going on with his plan for Rikers. Did you guys hear anything or is there anything there that you expand-- [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: I don't remember hearing anything. Liz, did you?

Elizabeth Kim: No, he did not mention Rikers and I think John is right to point it out. There was an obvious contrast to what was going on inside the theatre where there's like a lot of applause, but right outside, you had protesters who were calling on the mayor to hold him accountable to the city's promise to close Rikers by 2027. The mayor was on our air earlier this morning and he was asked that question whether or not he wants to close Rikers. He says the answer is yes, but we really haven't gotten a pledge on how he plans to do that and whether he's going to reach that 2027 goal.

Brian Lehrer: On public safety generally, as police commissioner, Keechant Sewell got big cheers from the Adams faithful in the crowd, that counterpoint that you were just referring to of what was going on inside and what was going outside, big cheers when the mayor said this.

Mayor Adams: I always say this as [unintelligible 00:14:55] but I was already hitting home runs when I picked police commissioner Keechant Sewell to lead the police department.

Brian Lehrer: What else did Adam say about crime and policing which has been so central to his administration?

Elizabeth Kim: Basically with crime, he's done what he has been doing towards the latter half of last year, which is, he's trying to argue that the city is moving in the right direction when it comes to crime. He's doing that in the face of statistics that really show a mixed picture. We have murders and shootings are down, which is a very good thing, but other major crimes like burglaries, assaults, robberies are up. I think it's difficult, those statistics make it difficult for the mayor to spell out a clear-cut when, but I think he is suggesting that things are gradually improving.

Today, he's actually holding a press conference with Governor Kathy Hochul, and both of them are planning to announce some new data that shows that crime on the subways has gone down and that subway riders say they do feel safer. He's trying to take a victory lap in the sense by saying that not only are things moving in the right direction, particularly with homicides but the perception is improving too. He's going to point hold up that subway survey and he has been in the lead-up to today's announcement as proof of that.

Brian Lehrer: By the way on today's news, he did not comment on the five Memphis police officers who allegedly murdered a FedEx employee and father of a four-year-old, Tyree Nichols, after a traffic stop. Do you know if he or Commissioner Sewell have said anything since the speech?

Elizabeth Kim: I'm not sure if he said anything publicly yet. I'm sure he'll be asked at this morning's press conference about it. I did see one reporter tweet out that the mayor's spokesperson said that the mayor acknowledges that there will likely be protests today and that he's instructed the NYPD to allow for that and allow people to have an opportunity to voice their outrage.

Brian Lehrer: We're listening to [unintelligible 00:17:27] and getting your reactions too, Mayor Adams' state of the city speech delivered yesterday. If you're just joining us, that's what we're doing in this first half hour of the show with your calls and our mayor Adams reporter, Elizabeth Kim, from WNYC and Gothamist, (212)-433-WNYC, though all our lines are full right now, or you can tweet a question or a comment @BrianLehrer. Steven in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Hi, Steven.

Steven: Hi, how are you?

Brian Lehrer: All right. What you got?

Steven: Great. I'm an early supporter of the mayor. I've been in support of Michael Henry with a positive message, which we all need. I think he's got a very tough job but I just like to bring back what it was like a generation ago in the '80s, in the '90s, decline of crime. Even with what we've seen, I don't think it's anywhere near, I think this hysteria has gone on. He has a tough job, he spent a lot of time in hospitals and funerals. I'm not saying-- We have a tremendous amount of problems like any tremendous huge city is going to have. Just the numbers alone, you put so many million people together, you're going to have people that are just out of their minds. He's trying is what I'm saying. It was a positive message and I appreciated it like I appreciate his attempts to run this crazy town we call the greatest city in the world.

Brian Lehrer: Steven, thank you very much. One aspect of law enforcement that the mayor singled out was the illegal shops selling cannabis that could threaten the viability of the new legal cannabis dispensaries. Here's a little of that.

Mayor Adams: Let me be clear to those who think you're going to come into our communities without a license, put our kids at risk, steal jobs away from people who try to do it the right way. Let's be clear, man, you must be smoking something because that's not going to happen.

Brian Lehrer: We got a laugh there. Also on law enforcement, the mayor wants harsher penalties for reckless driving. He sounded like he still wants changes to the bail reform law and other aspects of the criminal justice system. What was at the heart of that part of the speech Liz? Are we headed for conflict with the state legislature?

Elizabeth Kim: Good question. The mayor argues that there are roughly 1700 people who are committing violent crimes, and he wants to focus on recidivism or repeat offenders. He thinks he can do that by getting more funding for the five district attorneys and also helping the discovery process. Basically, that's where prosecutors are required to share evidence with defense lawyers. Critics of the reform of that rule is that, in doing so, that it really drags out cases and the time that people spend in court.

He has called for reform on that issue. He says he's going to ask Governor Kathy Hochul to also provide more funding for city courts. A lot of this depends on what you said, "How will this be received in the legislature?" As we saw last year there was a lot of resistance to the mayor's call to reform the bail laws. People noted that Carl Hasty was not at the event, something that the speaker Carl Hasty, I should say, was not at the event. That was actually something that the mayor himself noted at the beginning of the speech where he was calling out all the elected officials who were there. [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: He was celebrating thanking Carl Hasty for his good work and Andrea Stewart-Cousins, the head of the State Senate, to my ear and notable to a lot of people has been the fact that Governor Hochul was there and people are calling that unusual and significant. Why is that?

Elizabeth Kim: It's unusual because of the relationship between Governor Andrew Cuomo and Mayor Bill de Blasio, which was frosty at best and acrimonious at worst. That was a sharp change but then yes, the governor was there, and she is a critical ally. I think I saw the post had counted the number of times that the mayor called out her name, and it was 14 so that says a lot. Not only was she there, but the mayor mentioned her 14 times. He knows that she's critical to getting some of these changes that he wants on criminal justice, but at the same time, yes. If Hasty, and Andrea Stewart-Cousins, both of whom were not there.

Brian Lehrer: I mentioned his celebrating of the legal marijuana dispensaries, and that he wants to try to get close down the illegal dispensaries that are competing with them. I think George in Manhattan has another legal we referenced that he wants us to talk about. George, you're on WNYC. Hello.

George: Yes. Good morning, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Good morning George.

George: Good morning. Happy New Year. I'm 85 years old and this is something that bothered me. I did not hear the mayor spoke about it. Now, this Monday, there was something on the radio where was a gentleman asking this guy a question in the park, and said something about marijuana. He was saying, "Why are you in the park smoking marijuana?" Do you know what he said to the gentleman? He said, "Why is it they legalize marijuana and they cannot smoke it everywhere."

Now, this is something very important that the mayor and the governor were supposed to talk about because you cannot allow no one in public transport to smoke marijuana in the supermarket or in the church, or in the school. One night I was in the bus and two guys were at the back of the bus smoking marijuana. [unintelligible 00:24:02] look at that. If I report to [unintelligible 00:24:05] what do the mayor say about the marijuana you legalize it? Yes. There must be a place that these guys are supposed to smoke it. Whether in the basement or the back of their house or somewhere. You can't smell it--

Brian Lehrer: George, I hear you let me get a response from Liz on what policy is here. I believe that the law is you can now smoke marijuana anywhere where you can smoke tobacco. It's the laws that govern the smoke. Indoors, certainly, it's not legal in the bus. The story George was just telling us is not legal in any public places where you can't smoke tobacco other than that legal where you can smoke tobacco. Am I getting that right?

Elizabeth Kim: Yes, that's correct, Brian. You shouldn't be smoking anything on public transit for certain. I'm sure that that's the same in a lot of businesses too, that they do not prohibit smoking for their customers.

Brian Lehrer: It is a kind of call that we get from time-to-time where even in those places where it's legal to smoke, some people object to how pervasive it's become in public. Either they just don't like the smell, or they find it seedy that they have to walk by people smoking marijuana, whatever it is. Has the mayor ever talked about that, how common in so many places the smell of pot is now and whether that's a problem?

Elizabeth Kim: I think that the way the mayor has handled that is he's talked about it as being this period of adjustment. I think the mayor himself is a-- He's a little bit more conservative on an issue like that. I just remember one press conference he held outside where someone was smoking marijuana and we could all smell it, and he just made a joke, like, "Wow, it's here." I think that's the way he's handled it. I think he's defended the legalization, but I think he's acknowledged this for a segment of the public it will take some time to get used to this idea that weed is now legal.

Brian Lehrer: That line that Adam spoke to the illegal pot shop owners, you must be smoking something, meaning if you think we're not going to go after you and shut you down, that was a catchy line. Here's one more after talking about his plan to fight trash and rats, the mayor said this, about making the city cleaner and greener and refer to recent dolphin sightings in local waters.

Mayor Adams: Including our wildlife and marine life, like the dolphins, we recently visited us in the Bronx River, that's the future of our city more dolphins, fewer rats.

Brian Lehrer: As a segue from that, Liz, tell us about the new citywide composting program that he announced. It's city-wide, but it's not mandatory, correct?

Elizabeth Kim: That's correct. I think the way city officials feel is that it would be counterproductive to make it mandatory, they'd like to see get more buy-in by expanding it city-wide first, and then we'll see what happens in the future, but yes. Basically, what the mayor recently did was that last year they launched a pilot initiative in Queens. That proved in the beginning there were some people who said, "Why do we just in Queens, why not just build on a program that already exists and just make that one bigger."

In the end, there was a lot of positive reaction to the composting program in Queens so much so that when it went on pause recently that a lot of people were really puzzled, and they complained, it's supposed to resume at the end of March. Now, under this new plan, every borough is going to get composting over 20 months. It's going to start first in Brooklyn, then it's going to go to the Bronx and Staten Island and then Manhattan will be the last borough to receive service and that won't happen until October 2024.

Brian Lehrer: Last clip, we're going to play he didn't talk about the influx of migrants. He did stay away from some tough stuff we already established that he didn't talk about the problems of Rikers Island and he didn't talk about the influx of migrants or that he said previously, that they're not included in the city's rights to shelter law. He hadn't exchanged about that with our Michael Hill on Morning Edition today. Here's a little bit of that.

Michael Hill: You say that you don't think the right to shelter law applies to asylum seekers, is that right?

Mayor Adams: Yes, it is and that-- [crosstalk]

Michael Hill: What's the basis of that argument?

Mayor Adams: Because we're dealing with a humanitarian crisis and we're saying that in the humanitarian crises of this proportion, that it is solely the responsibility of New Yorkers, I challenge that.

Michael Hill: The law doesn't differentiate, does it? Between citizen and non-citizen is that right?

Mayor Adams: Currently, no it does not and we're not talking about-- Non-citizens come here and they have the right to shelter, let's be clear on that. If someone comes here, and they're non-citizens, they have a right to shelter and we comply with that. Right now we're dealing with the humanitarian crises and so although we have housed everyone the same in this city, which we need to understand, no New Yorker is sleeping on our streets, no migrant asylum seeker is sleeping on our street if they need housing.

We believe when you look at the number of hours that someone must be in when you receive 800 people in one day, and 3,000 in one week, the number of hours that they must comply with that rule and right to shelter falls in a different category when you're dealing with a humanitarian crisis.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Good job Michael Hill on Morning Edition with the mayor. Why did he make that distinction in theory, Liz, if you even understand it because I don't understand it? Why did he make that distinction in theory if he's not denying or trying to deny shelter to the migrants in practice?

Elizabeth Kim: This has been a very confusing issue, and even the way the mayor explained it, it's still not very clear, but what he's talking about is he's talking about the intake process. Now under the city's right-to-shelter law, people who come and seek housing need to be given that housing within a certain period of time. Early on, there were examples where the city was not doing that.

We had examples of people actually sleeping in intake centers, long after they had already applied, and they should have been given housing under the law. When he says that they're not included in the right-to-shelter law, he's saying that the city should be given some more leeway because when you have 800 people, like he said coming in one day, they may not be able to give them housing under that required period of time.

Brian Lehrer: Last question. How's the reaction to the speech been from different political quarters?

Elizabeth Kim: City council Speaker Adrian Adams immediately after the speech, she tweeted something that was interesting, but also to be expected, which is they want to hold the mayor accountable on the budget because while he's announced all of these plans, some of them very ambitious, the council isn't seeing the numbers in the budget that would support these plans. That's been one reaction.

Another reaction I saw public advocate, Jumaane Williams say that he wished the mayor had said more about not just housing, but affordable housing. Again, as one of the callers pointed out, a lot of people wished that the mayor would say something more about Rikers, 19 deaths last year. That is becoming an increasingly dangerous and urgent crisis for the city.

Brian Lehrer: Another pattern on the phones and on Twitter, we had one caller like this, but I'm just acknowledging that there are a number that's a little bit of a breakout topic among our listeners apparently, is that he didn't say enough to some people's ear about education, but we leave it there. Mayor Adams, state of the city speech yesterday, excerpts from, and your reactions too. Thank you callers, thank you tweeters. Thank you WNYC's, Elizabeth Kim. You can read her full report about the state of the city at gothamist.com. Liz, always great to have you on the show. Thanks a lot. Keep it up.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

 

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