[music]

Judge: Mr. Mayor, would you please raise your right hand and repeat after me? I, Eric Adams,

Male Speaker: I, Eric Adams--

Eric Adams: I, Eric Adams,

Judge: do solemnly swear

Eric Adams: do solemnly swear

Judge: that I will support the constitution

Eric Adams: that I will support the constitution

Judge: of the United States,

Eric Adams: of the United States,

Judge: the constitution of the state of New York,

Eric Adams: the constitution of the state of New York,

Judge: and the charter of the city

Eric Adams: and the charter of the city

Judge: of New York.

Eric Adams: of New York.

Judge: And I will faithfully

Eric Adams: And I will faithfully

Judge: discharge the duties

Eric Adams: discharge the duties

Judge: of the office

Eric Adams: of the office

Judge: of the mayor of the city of New York

Eric Adams: of the mayor of the city of New York

Judge: according to the best of my ability.

Eric Adams: to the best of my ability.

Judge: So help me God.

Eric Adams: So help me God.

Judge: Congratulations.

[applause]

Brian Lehrer: Congratulations Eric Adams, and folks, if that's not how you spent the first minutes of 2022, watching Eric Adams on TV gets sworn in as mayor, there it is. There it was, right up there on the top of the world at Times Square around 12:01 AM. Congratulations, Mr. Mayor. Here's what you've won: The Omicron variant, schools that may or may not have reopened today with enough staff, the rise in crime compared to before the pandemic, a vastly unequal city, and critics who will take aim at you from all sides from day one.

On MSNBC this morning the new mayor said he is ready. Then he was asked how he'll be different from Bill de Blasio, and Eric Adams said this:.

Eric Adams: "This city was missing our oomph. We were missing our excitement. People need to see and feel what this city is all about. This is the place to be, and the mayor should personify that. Everything about the mayor should show the energy, the excitement, and why you want to be in New York. It is a privilege to live in New York City, and I know that. And those who don't understand it, they're going to watch a mayor for four years that is going to show the entire globe why you should want to be here in New York. New York is the best place to live on the globe."

Brian: Best place to live on the globe despite the challenges he faces. Now, before we bring in our first guest, here's one more clip of Adams on Morning Joe there on MSNBC about one of the first things he did as mayor. It was on Saturday, New Year's Day. Apparently, he was taking the subway to his first day of his new job reportedly with no security detail, just another commuter on the elevated J train, when he saw a fight in progress on the street below and he called 911.

Eric Adams: "I took the subway as a police officer, state senator, borough president, so it was nothing to wake up and take the J train. If I see something, I say something, I do something."

Brian: See something, say something, do something. The reporting I've seen says when police arrived the fight had broken up and they didn't actually need to do anything. With us now, WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim, whose beat for 2022 is mayoral power, and Christina Greer, Fordham University professor and co-host of the New York Politics podcast FAQ NYC. Kim and Christina, happy New Year.

Elizabeth Kim: Happy New Year, Brian.

Christina Greer: Happy New Year, Brian.

Brian: Christina, before we talk about Adams calling the cops on some guys as one of his first acts in office, can we step back and acknowledge the sort of ginormousness of this moment and the transfer of power from some parts of New York to other parts of New York that it represents, if you see it that way?

Christina Greer: Yes. I mean, [inaudible 00:04:13]. Eric Adams as the second African American mayor in the city of New York, the 110th mayor, is going to govern very differently than David Dinkins. We also know that we have a very Brooklyn-centric power base with the top three leaders all from, I would say, the outer borough if you will. Eric Adams has also prided himself on being the first working-class, modern-day New York City president. Sorry, I live in New York City-

Brian: Mayor.

Christina Greer: -so you hear the sirens in the background. The first working-class mayor of New York City in a way that's very different, especially when we think about African American mayors of cities in the United States. They oftentimes look a lot more like Cory Booker and David Dinkins as far as their background, and less like Eric Adams. We're in for a different series of conversations about race and class and governance as well.

Brian: Yes. Meaning a little more elite, a little more educated perhaps, I guess is what you're referring to as the Dinkins-Cory Booker compared to the Eric Adams. Liz, want to weigh in on the same question? I mean, de Blasio's electoral base was also African Americans in Brooklyn and the Bronx, like it is now for Eric Adams. White New Yorkers consistently approved of de Blasio below 50%, Black New Yorkers well above, so what's shifting?

Elizabeth Kim: That's very true. Both de Blasio and Adams ran on a message around helping working-class New Yorkers, but I think as Christina said the major difference is that Adams can personally speak to having that lived experience of growing up in working-class New York City, and that was a big part of his campaign. I remember on the trail when I would interview supporters who were at his campaign events, a lot of them union workers, what they repeatedly said was, "He knows my experience. He knows me. He understands us." I think he's made that very clear.

He's no stranger to the struggle, whether it's being on the verge of homelessness, which is something he's talked about a lot as the son of a single mother, or attending the city school system and being diagnosed quite late with a learning disability. Also, I guess, what it feels like to be the target of police brutality. That was the major point he made on Saturday when he visited a police precinct in Queens where he was beaten by police officers as a teenager.

Brian: Now listeners, happy New Year. This will be a place to talk about how Eric Adams is doing as mayor, among the many other things we opened the phones on, of course. Does anyone have any first impressions? 212-433-WNYC. Not about his campaign, not about his past, but his first days on the job. Does anyone just want to wish him well and acknowledge the transfer of power to a new administration and perhaps to new parts of New York? Do you give him a grace period to start out? 212-433-WNYC.

You can also help us report the story, which we're going to get to in this segment, of the schools this morning. Parents, teachers, anyone else, is your school open? Does it have enough staff? What is happening? We know of at least one school where the principal unilaterally closed it without guidance that he said was unavailable from the central Department of Education Office, but he said, "I don't have enough staff. I'm closing my school." That's one principal we know of. What's happening and what do you want to happen at your school?

We definitely want to hear first day of school back amid the Omicron wave reporting from you. Help us report that story at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Also, of course, anything you want to ask Elizabeth Kim or Christina Greer.

Christina, that Adams clip and first-day act of calling the cops, never mind any concern that people have now toward not getting law enforcement involved because they could escalate the situation or worse, he made a show of calling the cops as almost the first thing he did. Do you think that was a political act, or was he just trying to be a Good Samaritan when he saw a fight in progress and people could get hurt?

Christina Greer: I think it's a bit of both end, Brian. Eric Adams is a complex figure in the sense that he is a brilliant politician. He fundamentally understands that you have a large segment of New Yorkers who want to defund the police. They think that the NYPD is one of the largest paramilitary organizations in the world, has way too much power, and could be reckless. He also understands that there's a significant segment of New Yorkers who want to see more police. More police on subways, more police in their communities to deal with petty crime as well as larger crime.

I'm highly optimistic about this new administration, sure, but I think my concern is that Eric Adams using his background as a police officer to excuse certain policy positions without full discussion is going to be something that I'm looking forward to, especially in the conversation of solitary confinement. Where when people raised concerns, he immediately said, "Well, I was a police officer and I wore a badge for 22 years." That to me is not a logical argument. How he views policing is actually something that I'll be looking at quite closely as the months and years come by.

Brian: We have a call on one of the things that you just mentioned so let's take it. Naveed in Crown Heights, you're on WNYC. Naveed, happy New Year. Thank you for calling us

Naveed: Happy New Year, everyone. I did hear that Eric Adams has vowed to bring back solitary confinement as the guests just mentioned. My question is really do we think that Eric Adams is going to get a pass for a lot of these regressive acts at Rikers such as solitary confinement? Because I really hope not.

Brian: Let me ask you, Naveed, since you feel strongly about this issue enough to call in on it, and Christina, I'll ask you too since you brought it up. What I saw Adams say about that over the weekend is he wants to do solitary in a humane way; used the word humane, I think. Different than how it's been done sometimes in the past, but if there's an inmate who's being violent against other people, you can't just keep them in the group and let them continue to do that. You have to separate them for everybody's safety. Naveed, what are you thinking as you hear that explanation from Eric Adams?

Naveed: I'm honestly very skeptical, and I don't know of any version of solitary confinement that is considered humane by any experts.

Brian: Naveed, thank you very much for your call. Christina on that, and I realize you're a political science professor, you're not a law enforcement expert per se, but Eric Adams is making there what to many people will seem like a logical argument. You can't just keep an actively violent person in the group with others.

Christina Greer: Right, but what we know about Rikers, Brian, is that it is a system and an institution that has not worked at all. We know that historians, sociologists, psychologists, and political scientists have all said that locking an individual human being in a cage for 23 hours with no human contact is not good for anyone in society present or in the future. We also know that many cities, especially New York City and in Rikers Island, use solitary confinement as a cost-cutting measure. So no, of course not if there's someone who's extremely violent, they need to be removed.

I think the way Mayor Adams explained it was a little naive to be quite honest, and we know that solitary is oftentimes used as just more of a punitive tactic and a cost-saving tactic for some institutions. The data is clear that it does not work, and we've sadly had so many deaths at Rikers due to individuals who had been in solitary confinement. For that to be one of his initial out-the-gate policy proposals, unprovoked and unasked for, is something that should be of great concern for people who want to have a more progressive conversation about punitive measures about Rikers.

We also know that the history of solitary confinement realistically goes back to the Quakers and how we're supposed to have a reflective society. The way we do solitary confinement right now has nothing to do with the original origin of what it's supposed to do as rehabilitation and healing for individuals who have wronged their fellow men in society

Brian: Liz-- and my guests are Christina Greer, Fordham University political science professor, who's just speaking, and Elizabeth Kim, who covers mayoral power for WNYC and Gothamist. Adams, getting back to what he did on the subway platform on Saturday, was also showing something by - if the reporting I read is accurate - riding the train to work with no security detail and without his own gun. He has famously said he would carry a gun as mayor because he's a former cop, he's trained, and that's what you do, but he wasn't carrying it according to what I've read. Didn't even have a security detail.

Can you put that in the context of the messages he was trying to send? Was it a contrast with de Blasio, who got his knuckles rapped just recently by the Department of Investigation for allegedly overusing his security detail to do favors for his family?

Elizabeth Kim: I don't know that it was in direct response to de Blasio's troubles with being accused of taking advantage of his security detail, because this is something that actually goes way back. If you remember in 2018 there was a shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue, and Adams, who was Brooklyn borough president at the time, told reporters that he would bring a handgun every time he entered a church or synagogue. That was quite controversial at the time, and there were stories written about that and pushback.

Then during the campaign trail last year, very early on Adams again said he would carry a gun as mayor and he wouldn't need a security detail. If you remember the part about carrying a gun got him again into a lot of hot water, and it was the focus of one of the mayoral debates. Like you said, Adams did say on Saturday that he was not carrying a gun when he rode the subways this weekend, but with respect to his security detail, he's said that if he is told that there is a credible threat he would accept the protection. I think, once again, this is part of Adams' identity as a candidate, is that he was a former police officer.

He's promising to bring back public safety to the streets and he doesn't need this additional-- I think it's very much in keeping with, to some extent, a little bit of his macho image that he does not need this added security unless, like he said, there's some evidence of a credible threat.

Brian: Some of the tweets that are coming in, someone writes "I didn't vote for Mayor Adams but I'll certainly give him a grace period benefit of the doubt and see what he does." Someone else writes, "Not feeling great about this new mayor's first week in office." Someone else, "First few days I was happy to see him riding the subway and riding his bike to work." Someone else, "My nephew was in solitary confinement on Rikers for months and it destroyed his life." Laura on Staten Island, you're on WNYC. Hi, Laura.

Laura: Hello. Good morning.

Brian: Good morning. Hi there, you're on the air. Hi. Hi, hi, hi. Happy New Year.

Laura: Thank you. Hello, I'm Laura Cavalleri. I'd like to say "Welcome Mayor Eric Adams" because he's dyslexic and I am dyslexic. I hope that he sets a role model showing that dyslexics are wonderful leaders. I'm also a New York City employee. I hope to see more initiatives so that we can find other dyslexics on the job because we're a hidden disability. I'd like to be able to see other dyslexics on the job and show our strengths. Thank you and good luck to Eric, our dyslexic maverick.

Brian: Laura, thank you so much. Regina in Harlem, you're on WNYC. Happy New Year, Regina.

Regina: Hi, good morning. Thank you so much for taking my call. My issue is with the rhetoric of Eric Adams. I think that he's extremely bombastic. There's a cult of personality around him, and I think he gets drunk off his own hype; he gets drunk off of the words that he says. He said things like "Go back to Iowa" with regards to gentrification at Rev. Al Sharpton National Action Network and then had to walk those comments back when he wasn't only speaking to a Black audience but realized oops, he's running for mayor.

He also said, "I'm the sexiest man to ever run for mayor." Again, I think when you're dealing with an acute crisis, which New York City is plagued by multiple crises simultaneously, we have a man that in my opinion seems to be micromanaging people that he can control, that he can pick, and other aspects of society that he is not as confident about, but specifically for COVID. When you saw the COVID press conference, you saw him look very tense. You didn't see the grinning, you didn't see the bombastic. He didn't seem like, "I can conquer all." You didn't see that version of Eric Adams, so I think there's two Eric Adams.

There's the "I'm megalomaniac, I'm in control" Eric Adams, and then you see the hmmm, the pensive, quiet, and I think that that standard which is the happy, the smiling, the "I'm superman Eric Adams," what happens to Eric Adams when he doesn't feel like he's in control? How does that Eric Adams lead? How does that Eric Adams show up, and does that Eric Adams only like to be in the spotlight and everybody else languishing in the shadow?

That would be my critique of Eric, but again he's promising a lot. You're going to decrease crime but increase the notion of justice. It sounds just like when you think about war and it's like, "Oh we're going to do drones and no civilians are going to be killed." You're promising a lot. I want the controller to really be investigating everything. I also want Eric Adams to really think about arts funding in New York City, which is important. His response to what Broadway plays he's going to see was just The Lion King, which to me is not really showing the breadth of what the art industry has to offer, specifically Broadway, and also nonprofit theaters.

It just seems like a very commercial answer in terms of the arts sector. I also want to see him do a lot more in terms of regulating all of these buildings that go up, and these new leases and these new laws where buildings don't want to actually maintain amenities in the buildings, the water's being shut off. A lot of these buildings are like HPD is a joke. It is a total joke in terms of when you call 301 to make a complaint about a building, nothing is done. I want to see that Eric Adams. I don't need all of this tourism selling New York City to the world. I want him to fix all the issues in the society, and I don't need these one-liners. He's not a [crosstalk].

Brian: I hear you. Right. Now, of course, his fans of-- and you put so many things on the table. What a fascinating multilayered analysis of Adams and the state of the city, Regina, so thank you, but his fans-

Regina: Sure.

Brian: -would probably say that bombast, that "Come on tourists, come back to the city," that "We're the greatest city on the globe," like in the clip we played, that it's part of the package. That if he's just the serious furrowed brow, deal with the real problems that are so real kind of mayor, that that's not enough. That you want that rah-rah side of somebody who's going to be the chief executive. What do you think?

Regina: Oh, I agree. I agree that he should be trumpeting the beauty, the awe, the serendipity of all things in New York City. I don't want to discount that, but I'm also saying that he gets carried away with his words and the specter of the lights and the cameras, and he will say something like, "Go back to Iowa." That's also Eric Adams. What I'm saying is that there's a certain level of discipline and really having a level of tone-deafness at times that I think he really needs to think much more deeply about, because to a certain degree, to me, he was elected out of desperation.

He's a former cop, New York City polled over the summer. They were more concerned about crime than they were about COVID. He's viewing his candidacy and now his mayorship as a mandate. It's not due, it's just because crime overtook all these other issues, and-- [crosstalk].

Brian: At the moment that the election was taking place. Regina, thank you so much for all that. Please keep calling us.

Regina: Thank you.

Brian: Liz Kim, so much on the table from that caller from Harlem. Comment on anything you want, but one of the things certainly is that Eric Adams is maybe one of the more unpredictable people who's been in office as mayor for a while because you don't know what he'll come out with compared to a lot of folks.

Elizabeth Kim: Yes. I think Regina hit on something that was really smart. It's that when Eric Adams is in his wheelhouse, when he's talking about things like public safety, he can be very brash and he's very blunt. What she says is that it's true. When the time comes, and it will come very soon, we're already in the midst of a crisis, he's going to be tested. There's a risk he takes with being so blunt and brash, but like you said, it also can be a political asset. How that plays out I think is going to unfold, and that's going to be a very interesting part of his mayoralty.

Brian: Before we go to a break and then pivot to the school situation today, with schools back in session now, and questions about staffing shortages or staffing availability, I mentioned early in the segment at least one principal who closed his school unilaterally based on a perceived staffing shortage, today said he wasn't getting guidance from the Department of Education. I want to take one of the calls that's coming in because there's a group of them on this same thing. I think Jeff in Brooklyn is going to say what I think he's going to say. Jeff, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Jeff: Hi. Yes, I haven't been on in a long time. I'm willing to give Adams a little slack, a little time to see what he does, but it was refreshing - I was struck on New Year's Eve and again listening to the clip today - after 20 years of mayors who grew up in Boston and even rooted for the Boston Red Sox, to have a mayor who sounds like a New Yorker.

Brian: There you go. Very clear when you listen to Eric Adams. Definitely sounds like a New Yorker and that's true. The last two mayors, let's see. That would make 20 years of mayors between Bloomberg and de Blasio did come from Boston, and de Blasio certainly out about rooting for the Red Sox. All right, we'll continue in a minute with Elizabeth Kim from WNYC and Gothamist, Christina Greer from Fordham's political science department and the FAQ NYC podcast, and more of your calls and tweets. Stay with us.

[music]

Brian: Brian Lehrer on WNYC on this first weekday of the Eric Adams mayoralty, with Christina Greer, political scientist at Fordham, and WNYC and Gothamist reporter Elizabeth Kim, who has a piece on Gothamist that you can read on the four big immediate challenges for Mayor Eric Adams. Liz, one of those big four is resuming schools after the holidays. Let me play something that he said about the staffing shortage that some schools might be facing. I mentioned that school where the principal closed it unilaterally today and said he couldn't get any guidance from the Education Department at City Hall.

Here's another one; this is a tweet. I'm going to pull this back up from a listener who just wrote in. "My wife is a New York City teacher. It is an untenable situation in her school right now. 27 staff members out and almost half the children. No testing, no vaccination proof, situation room inoperable. They are literally trying to make teachers and children sick." Well, of course we don't think that they're purposely trying to make anybody sick, but you hear that description of the situation from that one person. Despite all this, here is Adams on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning.

Eric Adams: "We're going to adjust and pivot based on the numbers. We're going to have a real-time update, creating our own command center where it'd be a incident command center. When you see a drop in staffing, we're going to draw from our pool of employees who are waiting, and we're going to do an all-out. Everyone in Tweed and all over the city that are doing non-classroom assignment? No, all hands on decks. If you're a superintendent, if you're an administrator, if you have a teaching license, we want you in that classroom, in that school building.

We're going to shift and adjust in real-time the information that comes from our principals. We're going to deploy the personnel where it's needed."

Brian: Liz, do you have any reports from the schools yet today about how it's going, or is it too early?

Elizabeth Kim: It's still a little early in terms of hearing reports from schools, but Adams this morning said that he spoke to Michael Mulgrew, the head of the teachers union, and that staffing was under control. He was asked if there are enough substitute teachers and, like you heard in that clip, he said yes, and that this is an all-hands-on-deck situation. I would remind listeners though that the last time that there was a similar need for substitutes there was a lot of complaints from schools and families that the teachers that were being asked to sub were not the appropriate teachers.

I don't know that it's something where you can just pull an administrator from Tweed who happens to have a teaching license and ask them to fill in for the math teacher, for example. I think that this will definitely be a challenge this week because we are expecting to see staff shortages, not just in schools, but across city agencies because COVID has become so prevalent.

Brian: We know that a number of subway lines were temporarily shut down over the weekend for not having enough staffing. Of course we know what's going on with the airlines but there are municipal versions of this. Christina, the clip we played is specifically about staffing. Adams also said this conceptually about reopening schools in person today, which we should say is something that most school districts are doing, but some others in our area including Newark, Yonkers, Mount Vernon, and Jersey City are not. They are starting remote for at least a week waiting for Omicron to calm down, but here's Eric Adams again on MSNBC today.

Eric Adams: "Our schools will open. The safest place for our children. We all know a child must be in school for so many reasons, not only the socialization. Not only when children went home we saw increase in attempted suicides. We saw a large number of sexual assaults, harassment, in harm's way. When a child is not in school, you can't say that that child is going to stay inside of a house. No. Children were missing meals. They were not receiving the academics they deserve.

When we have our children in school they're safe, and I've been very clear on this. My children are going to be in school. I am keeping my schools open and we're going to make sure that they're going to be in a safe place. That includes doubling the amount of testing that we're looking at. The science is showing us that because a child is exposed in a classroom, that entire classroom is not exposed."

Brian: Christina, besides definitely not sounding like he's from Boston like our past couple of mayors, as the previous caller was pointing out, is it interesting to you that he framed that in terms of the safest place for kids to be despite Omicron?

Christina Greer: Yes. This is why I'm fascinated with the man that is Eric Adams. There are still many parents in New York City who do agree with Eric Adams on that. They do need a place for their children to be. These are the arguments about extending the school year, extending the school day. There is literature that says that the school is the safest place for a lot of children, especially those who are food insecure. Especially those who are in homes and neighborhoods that aren't the safest.

Yet again, this is a mayor who has his finger on a segment of the pulse of a population that has oftentimes been ignored. We saw this with rat eradication, we saw this with policing. You can go down all the policy proposals. I think this is a little difficult because it's day three on the job and he and his school chancellor are still trying to figure out the largest school district in the United States with a growing pandemic.

I think that what we will see from an Adams administration that we didn't necessarily see from the de Blasio administration is a level of clear communication as to the thought process behind certain decisions. I don't know if Adams will necessarily be open to negotiation once he's made a decision but it does seem as though, at least for now, he's willing to lay out why it is he's making a decision, and we go from there.

Brian: Let me take a call from a teacher and then a parent calling in. Angela in Brooklyn says she's a New York City teacher. Hi, Angela, thanks for calling. Happy New Year.

Angela: Happy New Year. Good morning. I'm all for giving Eric Adams a chance to see what he can do but it's very frustrating as a teacher 30 years plus when people make decisions without being in the building; they just have meetings with people who aren't even in the building. In terms of the school being a safe place, you have to define what is safe. You have the young substitute teachers, but how qualified are they? What is happening, parents want their children in the building because they want them to learn.

I saw a parent on the news yesterday who said because some parents, English is not their first language, they can't really help their children with the remote learning. Well, you're sending them to the building with people who are substitute teachers, and there are some people who are substitute teachers are in that pool for a reason. What we are now being reduced to in terms of teaching a lot of us are just babysitters. Yes, your children are in the building, and it might be safer than them being home alone because some of the parents have to work. Where you have strong teachers, competent teachers, teachers who can maintain classroom structure and relay information, yes, that will be a learning situation, a positive situation for the children. But there are many situations, many classrooms, where the type of learning that should be going on is not going on. Not because the teacher doesn't want to but they cannot. It's just a babysitting service.

The other thing that I question is now all of a sudden they have all of this money to provide this rapid testing, but we, after a month of school, was told no, the children cannot wipe off the desk after every class because there are not enough wipes. Instead of us getting a box of masks we were now given maybe 5 or 10 masks in a Ziploc bag. Let me tell you something. Jessica Gold, real quickly, did a story on the problems with discipline in the schools that we anticipated the deficit in learning. We anticipated that SEL, the social-emotional learning, but we had no idea how difficult the discipline is going to be.

You can't even get children to wear their mask properly, and they have been at home for a year and a half not listening to anyone in an unstructured environment. When we are now asking them "Please wear your mask, remain distanced," that is not happening. It is not happening. He needs to go into the building. Everyone who sits down and you're meeting that advisor, actually go into the school, have meetings with the principal, have meetings with the teachers, and my principal will not close the school. She does not do anything without a director from her board. [crosstalk]

Brian: Angela, I hear you. Thanks a lot. Angela, keep calling us. See you.

Angela: Thank you.

Brian: Thank you, thank you very much. All right. Angela is a teacher, you heard all that. Here's Christine in Manhattan, who says she sent her 9th grader to school today. Hi, Christine. Happy New Year.

Christine: Happy New Year, Brian, and thank you for your show. I'm grateful to have this platform to call in and discuss this. I'm really frustrated. I'm tired of it feeling like the Wild Wild West when I send my kid to school. He's fully vaccinated, we're vaccinated, but I have several friends now who've had breakthrough and have gotten really sick, even with the booster. I have no idea-- I mean, you're talking about mental health, but physical health. What if my son gets sick and he's one of those who gets really ill, or he brings it home, or his father gets it and his father's immune-compromised?

I've spoken with Eric Adams, I have high hopes for him, but our previous administration was very reactionary and not proactive. We've had this now for two years, this pandemic, and it really feels like people would have it far more organized. Not to mention the teachers. I feel like we're all sacrificing everything just so we can stay open, and I'm really not sure what the point is.

Brian: Christine, thank you very much. Liz Kim, nice to have the previous caller to shout out the work of our wonderful colleague on the education beat, Jessica Gold, on the discipline issues in schools right now, and then you heard Christine, the parent there. She is still not comfortable with the COVID risk per se. Liz, I don't know if you saw the story yet this morning, that the FDA has just approved or recommended CDC approval of the booster for 12 to 15-year-olds.

I don't know if that's going to resolve in middle school, high school mandate from Eric Adams. He seems to be interested in vaccinations for kids as a mandate more than Bill de Blasio was, but it's probably too early to know. Last thought, before we run out of time, about the situation in the schools today?

Elizabeth Kim: I would say that the one thing that I think is very interesting is that both de Blasio and Adams have never talked about how pivotal keeping schools open is to the city's economic recovery. I think they don't really say that explicitly enough, but that has to be one of the underlying reasons why the city wants to keep schools open because there are a lot of lower-income, middle income, and even upper-income families that rely on the city schools to be open in order for them to work, whether it's at home or going to the office. Going to the office and returning to the office is something that both Adams and Mayor de Blasio wanted to see happen.

Brian: Elizabeth Kim reports on mayoral power for WNYC and Gothamist. See her current article on Gothamist on the four big challenges facing Eric Adams right away. Christina Greer, political science professor at Fordham and co-host of the New York City politics podcast FAQ NYC. Thank you both so much for starting the first weekday of 2022 with us. Thanks. Thanks. Thanks.

Elizabeth Kim: Thanks, Brian.

Christina Greer: Thank you, Brian.

 

 

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