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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. I'm actually going to throw in one more thought about the membership drive that I meant to mention. One of the things we've been asking this drive is for our sustaining members, those of you who are already sustaining members, to up your memberships by $3 a month. When you do, you'll be eligible for that next level thank you gift as a token of our appreciation. These are very helpful little upgrades to us. That's like $36 more a year for you, $3 a month, but if 100 people do it, that'll be $3,600 to help run the radio station, which is really meaningful.

How this relates to The New Yorker is that if you're at $12 a month, which is a common membership level, and you up it by $3 to $15 a month, then you'll qualify for the full year New Yorker subscription that we were talking about. I think that's a good deal for everybody because it's another $36 a year for you, and you'll get the magazine subscription. Like I say, if 100 of you do it, that'll mean $3,600 to help run the station, and you get a thank you gift at a bargain level. Thank you for considering that. Just wanted to make sure I threw that in there about the plus $3 ask and how it relates to The New Yorker. Again, thank you, all, for considering it.

Now, WNYC is Liz Kim, who leads our coverage of the Adams administration here in the city. Her recent articles report on developments, including the mayor acquiescing to the remote work requests from city employees. He originally tried to force everyone back to the office five days a week, regardless of whether that mattered to their work. Also, his ongoing struggle to manage the asylum seeker influx into the city, one of his latest moves is to offer people, did you hear about this, people who recently arrived a free one-way ticket to anywhere else.

His response as mayor to the new Middle East crisis itself, which is drawing criticism from the city's Muslim leaders and more. Liz, thanks as always for your coverage. Always good to have you on the show to stretch out a little bit in our longer phone conversation format.

Liz Kim: Good morning, Brian. Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Let's start with the mayor's response to the war. I guess, it's nothing new that when you're the mayor of our global city, you don't just need an urban policy, you need a foreign policy too, right?

Liz Kim: I think that's true. The city is a global city, and there are people from parts of all around the world. If you think back just to last year, the mayor made a statement when Russia invaded Ukraine. I remember going with him to Veselka, the Ukrainian restaurant in the East Village, where he had a breakfast or a lunch with a bunch of people from the Ukrainian community to bone up on knowledge of that region.

When it comes to Israel, there are estimated 1.6 million Jews in New York City. That's an often cited demographic factoid that mayors will often use to explain why it matters. Israel matters to a lot of the constituents that the mayor represents. That 1.6 million, I should add, I should have said first, is the largest population of Jews outside of Israel.

Brian Lehrer: He's now facing criticism from Muslim advocates, and there are plenty of Muslims in New York as well, as well as Arab-Americans, however you want to multi-layer the categorizations here, so not as many as 1.6 million Jews, but there certainly are Arab-Americans.

Liz Kim: Close to a million.

Brian Lehrer: Close to a million what, Muslim population?

Liz Kim: Yes. I've seen different statistics over the years. A couple years ago, it was around 800,000, but I've heard elected officials often use close to 1 million.

Brian Lehrer: The mayor is facing criticism from some Muslim New Yorker advocates after muting Palestinian-American human rights lawyer, Lamis Deek, during a Zoom call earlier this month. What was on the agenda of that Zoom meeting, and how did it go south?

Liz Kim: The stated intent of that Zoom was to brief the Muslim community on public safety concerns. It was coming ahead of an anticipated protest, and the NYPD actually called that meeting. The participants I spoke to told me that they were not initially told that the mayor would be on the call, but that he was added later. That actually pleased them because they had a lot to say to the mayor. According to what multiple people told me, what they wanted to do was tell him that they were not happy with his rhetoric.

This was about one week or a week and a half after the attack by Hamas on Israelis. They felt that it was too one-sided. They wanted him to mention Palestinian deaths that were ensuing from the Israeli response, and they also wanted him to make a very clear distinction between Hamas and the people of Gaza. The mayor, he has a reputation of not responding too well to criticism. He didn't really seem to want to hear what they had to say.

What they told me was they felt that he would cut them off, he was very defensive, he was very patronizing. In this one moment, where Lamis was trying to make a point to the mayor, which was, basically, she told me in not so many words, she was saying to him, "You're essentially throwing us under the bus and that language matters in this moment, and that it can result in anti-Muslim violence." At that moment, she said that she was basically muted.

Brian Lehrer: Has the mayor responded to that? Has he apologized or done any kind of outreach to try to tell everybody in both communities that he feels their pain or anything since that moment?

Liz Kim: The mayor has not directly responded to that issue of why was this lawyer muted on the call. The explanation I got from his office was, "Listen, there are a lot of people who want to speak on a call like that." What I heard was that there were probably more than 80 people on that call, so "In order to get to everyone, we have to mute the caller so that the mayor can proceed."

Brian Lehrer: Let's go on now to Adams and remote work. He was originally reluctant to adopt a hybrid work model at all for city employees. What's the new policy, and tell us why?

Liz Kim: The mayor announced that all managers, non-union employees will now be able to take part in remote work. What I should say first is during the summer, he reached a deal with the city's biggest municipal union, it's called DC 37, that would allow them to have a pilot program for remote work. He had already, in a sense, concaved on remote work to a significant part of the municipal workforce. The question that remained was, "Well, what about non-union workers?" That covers actually a significant chunk. That's still many, many thousands of workers who fall under a managerial category.

They had been waiting with bated breath to see, "Well, are we going to get this benefit as well?" The answer came recently this month. The mayor did say that he would extend that benefit to them, but he really kept them waiting quite long. People were very happy that the mayor decided to adopt remote work, but they've criticized him too because they felt that he was a little late on embracing what the private sector had already done. From what I'm hearing, is the pilot program has taken some time to implement.

They're doing it, basically, not all at once, but they're going through a bunch of agencies and working it out from employee to employee. You have to have a good review from your manager, and it has to be work that can be done remotely, I should emphasize. The policy is two days a week can be done from home, but again, it's basically done according to your manager and what your manager feels is appropriate for you.

Brian Lehrer: I'm curious how much of this has to do with the power of labor in the current economic environment. We all know about the Great Resignation, so-called, that period is technically over, I think, in the US economy. People aren't putting up with what they used to put up with in a lot of places, and there's competition for workers of all kinds of skill levels. I wonder if the city was having trouble keeping or filling important positions with the mayor's original hardcore position against any remote work.

Liz Kim: Absolutely, Brian. That was one of the criticisms that was made against the mayor in taking so long to adopt a remote work policy for city workers was we have been seeing a large amount, an unusually high amount of attrition ever since the pandemic in the city workforce. There were many agencies that expressed concern that they were losing big talent in their agency pool. Think about people who have other opportunities in the private sector like lawyers, or engineers, or planners, you name it. They were all talking about we're losing these workers, and one of the reasons is because there's no workplace flexibility and there is in the private sector. They're being lured by other jobs that likely offer more pay and can let them work from home. This was, in many ways, it was about the mayor recognizing a reality that critics said he was very much too late to recognize.

Brian Lehrer: All right. Last story for today. Listeners, if you're just joining us, we're spending time with our Elizabeth Kim who reports for WNYC and Gothamist, leads our reporting on the Adams administration. Obviously, you're following the mayor's management of the influx of asylum seekers and two new developments. One, according to reporting, the city and the state have agreed to secret mediation in order to limit the strain on city resources caused by the right to shelter law. The fact that there's this law that forces the city taxpayers to fund shelter for however many tens of thousands of migrants come all at once. What's the secret mediation?

Liz Kim: This was all the parties in the room. Aside from the Adams administration, it's also the state. It's also Kathy Hochul, and it's also the advocates for the homeless, which in this case, is being represented by the Legal Aid Society. They basically came to court before a judge, they agreed that they would be willing to enter a mediation. I should say that the process is by definition, confidential or secret. It means that they will sit down. I should say that, they had been doing this. They had been negotiating for several weeks prior to this. In many ways, I think this is a little bit of a more formal process.

The judge has himself agreed to be the mediator in this dispute. Basically, the city decided not to proceed with its motion to try to undo the right to shelter. I don't know if it's fair to say, but it's just yet another effort to see if all the parties can sit at the table and come to some kind of compromise. In many ways this is good for homeless advocates because it means that instead of having to do this out in court in which they might lose, they're instead sitting at the table and it prolongs the process.

You could think of it also as good for the Adams administration as well. Many people have been opposed to the city undoing the right to shelter. The political fallback of that would be unclear in this moment. He's sitting at the table and seeing what can they do in this moment without having to basically go to battle in court.

Brian Lehrer: Democracy, if I dare say so. What's this about a free one-way ticket to anywhere else?

Liz Kim: This is something that the city has offered pretty much since the inception. It recognizes that it costs so much for the city to shelter and provide food and schooling to the migrants. That it is far cheaper for them to pay for a one-way plane, or train, or bus ticket to anywhere in the world. The city has been doing that from the beginning, but what this now is, is they're really doubling down on this policy by creating an office that migrants can go to.

Basically, like you said, you can sit down. This is basically migrants who have stayed in the shelter for 30, 60 days. The city has now imposed limits on how long they can stay, forcing them to reapply for shelter. Instead, they're saying, "Well, why don't you go to this office and think about other places you can go?"

Brian Lehrer: Is that just public relations for everyone else's benefit because so many New Yorkers feel like we're being overwhelmed, but it's not fair to New York, or is it any kind of meaningful offer that asylum seekers are actually taking?

Liz Kim: I don't know the total number of people who have taken the city up on this offer, but they do. The idea is let's think about your future, is how they say. It's a kind of where might you have a community? Do you have any relatives or friends in Miami or another city? It's an offer, I should say. They're not forcing migrants onto a bus the way Governor Abbott is. It's giving them the option to think about where else do they think they can make a life for themselves other than New York City.

Brian Lehrer: Elizabeth Kim leads our reporting on the Adams administration here at WNYC and our local news website, Gothamist. Thanks as always, Liz.

Liz Kim: Thanks, Brian.

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