Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Thanks again for listening today, everybody. Now, for the second Wednesday in a row, our lead Mayor Adams reporter, Liz Kim, joins us with stories and excerpts from Mayor Adams' Tuesday news conference. By way of background, for those of you who don't know, Adams began the weekly Tuesday news conference just recently, establishing it as the only time all week when reporters can ask him questions on topics of their choosing.

Liz is usually the reporter for WNYC and Gothamist at these news conferences. We've decided that if Tuesday is the only day the mayor answers questions, we'll have Liz on here most Wednesdays now to discuss what the public might learn from those exchanges. Liz herself got in a very important question yesterday too, which we will play part of the answer to.

Yesterday's questions for the mayor cover topics including congestion pricing, which the MTA board will take another crucial vote on today as I understand it, year-end crime stats where they argued that gun crimes are way, way down and gun arrests are up, the mayor going to DC tomorrow to argue again for more financial help with settling 100,000-plus recent migrants, the investigation into his campaign finances that caused him to cancel his last trip to DC, and more, including the topic that Liz asked him about, reporting by WNYC and Gothamist, that indicates the mayor gave priority to some powerful big developers for fire safety inspections even when that meant canceling appointments scheduled months in advance for various schools and apartment buildings. Liz Kim joins us now along with our housing reporter, David Brand, who first reported the connected developer story. Hi, Liz. Hi, David. Welcome back to the show.

Liz Kim: Morning, Brian.

David Brand: Hi, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: Let's talk about your story first and then we'll get to other things from the mayor's news conference. David, why don't you go first since you reported the original story? Tell us what this is all about and then we'll play a clip of the mayor answering Liz's question.

David Brand: There's a few things going on here, but I think it's important to start with a problem. It can take months for a building to get inspected by the fire department. That means that a new business that's opening might have to wait. A new apartment complex might have to wait months before people could actually move in. That problem got worse during the pandemic. There's only so many fire inspectors. There's a big backlog.

These inspections can take a while to complete. At the tail end of the De Blasio administration, City Hall and FDNY created a list of projects to prioritize. People in city government then and now say that initiative was initially meant to speed up inspections for small businesses and for more public sector projects. I got a version of the list, for example, from October of 2021, last few months of the De Blasio administration.

That list included several public housing sites, schools, affordable housing projects. It was pretty explicitly said by people in FDNY and City Hall that those are the types of projects they want to prioritize. The function of the list came to change in the coming months under Mayor Adams according to these emails and three other versions of the list I have from 2022. It started to include projects from the wealthiest developers and corporations talking, The Related Companies, Facebook, Durst, Vornado.

These are companies with direct access to City Hall or who are paying tens of thousands of dollars to lobbyists to call up the deputy mayor, call up the chief of staff, and to try to advance these projects. This kind of thing has always happened to an extent, but people I've talked to working in the fire department and in city government then and now say this was more extreme. The most notable example so far is an office tower at 50 Hudson Yards. This was a project developed by The Related Companies. Some of these emails show City Hall ordering the fire department to fast-track these inspections.

The emails specifically say, "This is a top priority from City Hall." This order to expedite the inspections there forced fire inspectors to cancel appointments, as you mentioned, at schools, at apartment buildings, at stores that had been scheduled months in advance. After all that, the project failed its inspection. A month later, there was another order from high-ranking officials, speed up the project yet again. That inspired some complaints in these emails. If they had just kept their original schedule, we wouldn't have to cancel 25 to 30 inspections to make this happen.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Is there an implication in what you just said, that last part of what you just said, that not only are they prioritizing these developers' projects for inspections, but the mayor was pressuring the fire department to give them a pass if they weren't up to code? Because I find it interesting that they failed here. The mayor was trying to get them to give them these inspections in a hurry or somebody in the administration was. Then, sure enough, the fire department came back and failed the building. That's a good sign because, at least, the inspection was honest, but can you put that part in context?

David Brand: Yes, I wouldn't go that far. That's a pretty extreme claim, I think, to say that if not ready, pass it anyway. I don't think that was the case or there's nothing that I have seen that indicates that's the case with that project. That has come up with a separate project. That is how this list came to the public's attention and also to federal investigators' attention because that is the implication for what happened with a Turkish consulate building in 2021.

That's during the De Blasio administration. According to reporting by The New York Times, the mayor, who was then borough president at the time, contacted the fire commissioner, who was then Daniel Nigro, and pressed him to try to speed up inspections there. That is the implication. In that case, I wouldn't go that far in some of these other projects.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting that it was about a Turkish consulate building because that, of course, is related to the basic reason for this investigation of the mayor's campaign, the possibility that money representing the Turkish government was being funneled through a construction company in illegal ways to the mayor's campaign and who's carrying water for who there. Liz, the mayor and deputy mayor spent a long time answering your question on this. From the portions of the news conference I've seen, maybe the longest compared to any other question yesterday. You've done your due diligence as a radio reporter and pulled out the most salient 20 seconds of the mayor's response. Set this up for us.

Liz Kim: I should say that this is not the first time that the mayor has been asked about this. As David pointed out, one of the reasons that this has become an important issue is because it's said to be part of a federal investigation. Now, let's be clear. The mayor has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but there's been great attention paid on this probe. What are the different threads that investigators are looking into? Yesterday, my question to the mayor was basically to get him-- and also the deputy mayor, Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer, she was among the people.

She was someone in City Hall whose name was attached to the office building at Hudson Yards. She was described as a source, meaning that she was the source for basically trying to get the project expedited. That was not only reported by David and Gothamist, but it was also reported by The City. I wanted to get them on the record to respond to that, the idea that a deputy mayor had her name attached to this list, which they actually denied actually even exists, and also to ask them, "What is the criteria in which a project would be fast-tracked?" This is what the mayor told me.

Mayor Eric Adams: It is a constant navigation of the landscape to move the pieces so that we could effectively have what is our holistic approach to recovering our economy. We're dealing with a real crisis in office spaces. How do we get people back into our office spaces? There's a whole list of things that come into making a smart decision.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, did you feel like he answered your question at least?

Liz Kim: Somewhat. I think a perfectly logical response is that here is an office building and they have some big-name tenants that David reported, the investment giant BlackRock, also the Facebook parent company Meta. That's thousands of employees. It's thousands of jobs, right? The mayor speaks to that. It's helping the recovery of our economy. It's also helping the office market, which has been in a crisis since the pandemic because so many people have not been coming to the office. That is a valid reason.

I think the question, though, that is still unanswered is, how does he balance an interest like that, particularly when it's a project by a very big name, influential developer with deep pockets, The Related Companies? How does he balance that interest against maybe another project that is not as high profile but is certainly important to the community like schools, like affordable housing? That was where the mayor says it's a complicated process, but he doesn't specifically answer that. I tried to actually get them both to say, "What was it about this related project in particular that made it shoot to the top of the list and hold back others?"

Brian Lehrer: Well, David, I read through the entire lengthy exchange between Liz and the mayor and deputy mayor on this. It seems to me that they were saying, "Yes, we do prioritize new housing and office building construction," and that the mayor said he came into office with that explicit intention because these things are so important to moving the city forward, especially on the housing shortage, and now on getting the kinds of modern office buildings constructed that businesses still want to rent in with the crash and older buildings their market value taking place post-pandemic and threatening the city's finances. Did you hear it that way, that it's not a corruption scandal, it's a policy decision that you can debate if you want, but it's a policy decision?

David Brand: The messaging has changed a lot on this over the past few weeks. It went from like, "There is no list. We treat everyone who comes to us the same regardless of who they are," and that was something the mayor said pretty explicitly last week. This week, it has changed a little bit to like, "Yes, we do want to prioritize these office projects." I think that would make a lot of sense if they had just come out and said, "Yes, this is an economic driver," or given some justification, they didn't really do that until yesterday more opaquely. To your question, he did come into office with this prerogative or this plan to speed up these types of bureaucratic obstacles. He called it his blast report.

There's like 100-some recommendations for how to make things go faster. I think that was well-received by a lot of people. Most of those haven't actually been adapted yet. What we're left with is this type of decision-making that seems relatively ad hoc and gives the appearance of cronyism or of favors to people who are well-connected or plugged into city government or who can make a phone call or make even a campaign contribution. That's at least the appearance here. I don't think there has been a real cogent explanation in the example of 50 Hudsons Yards, why that rose to the level where it needed to be prioritized and displace schools, apartment buildings, and then prioritized again and appearing on a list that also includes homeless shelters and affordable housing projects.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, anyone out there want to help report this story? I have a feeling it may not be the last word that David Brand has written about it on Gothamist. Do you have a building or a school waiting for a fire code inspection and feeling shunted aside while well-connected developers get theirs? 212-433-WNYC, or on the other side, anyone trying to build new housing who thinks the red tape around that is the bigger problem? 212-433-WNYC.

If you happen to have something relevant on this, 212-433-9692. Before we move on to other things from the mayor's Tuesday news conference, Liz, they attributed this whole topic in part to disgruntled fire officials. Can you say how factual that is or is not and what that dispute is between the administration and some in the department who are unhappy about something?

Liz Kim: Right. I'll give you the basic outline. I think David can speak to the validity of the mayor's assertion about them being disgruntled. There are seven senior fire officials who have filed a lawsuit against the fire department and also the fire commissioner, Laura Kavanagh. They have a host of claims, but one of their claims which speaks directly to this issue is they were demoted.

Oh, I should say that the reason they're filing the lawsuit is because they were demoted and they're charging that they were demoted in part because they tried to raise safety concerns. That's why there are now these emails and this issue of a list that is now coming out, but David can probably say something more about how factual that is.

Brian Lehrer: David?

David Brand: Right, yes, and that's how this list emerged. It was mentioned by one of these former fire chiefs who was demoted still working for the department, saying that this list was created to help small businesses and morphed into a mechanism for helping "friends of City Hall" and specifically mega developers. They were interviewed by federal investigators according to their attorney. The federal investigators asked about the list. That's how the list emerged.

Then in the past few weeks, a couple of other reporters have gotten similar documents of the lists and of these emails showing the opposition from fire officials saying, "This is terrible for customer service. We are canceling on people who have been waiting their turn. What does this say about how we do business basically?" The lawsuit is how the list came to public consciousness. Some of these emails and the list themselves seem to back up the assertions from that lawsuit.

Brian Lehrer: WNYC and Gothamist housing reporter David Brand. Thanks for your great reporting always. Liz will stay with us and we'll play other clips from the mayor's news conference. He made news on congestion pricing, which may move forward in an MTA vote today. Some notable crime stats compared to perception and more. Stay with us.

[MUSIC - Marden Hill: Hijack]

Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Before we go on with Liz Kim, two other mayoral issues. We called David Brand our housing reporter back in here. We rescinded his dismissal, you might say, because we are having a call. We are getting a call from at least one person who thinks he's got some experience relevant to the story of the alleged fire safety inspection's favoritism that was indicated in some documents that came to light. Here's Sumel in Brooklyn. Sumel, you're on WNYC. Thank you for calling in.

Sumel: Not a problem. Thank you for having me. My name's Sumel and we basically do many fire department inspections, including FDNY for fire alarm systems and ARC systems. One thing I did want to say is I can't speak to the legality of what's going on with this case, but there are inter-agency forms that's made available to contractors like us from HPD for affordable housing, which does help expedite the request for inspections because inspections tend to be six to eight weeks out.

Sometimes when they're needed sooner, city agencies do work together to expedite the inspections. The other thing is when inspections fail or when inspections are expedited, but they fail regardless. This is actually a pretty standard norm in the industry. Very rarely do fire inspections pass on the first try, but you're given a letter of defect. As long as it's not a complete fail and it's a letter of defect for certain items that might not be working, you are allowed to occupy the building under what's called a TCO, a temporary certificate of occupancy.

Brian Lehrer: David, any follow-up question for Sumel?

David Brand: Sumel, do you only do affordable housing and, in your experience, is that being effectively prioritized and expedited?

Sumel: Yes. Well, I guess I have to do a shameless plug here. For the contracting company we're with, Reliant Electrical. We mostly do affordable housing and there are forms that are made available to us to expedite these inspections. It's called the HPD interagency form.

Brian Lehrer: For you, Sumel, having heard what we were talking about before, do you feel like since there aren't enough inspectors to go around for everything every day that these are being prioritized in the public interest?

Sumel: I cannot speak to if they are being prioritized in the public interest. One thing that I have been hearing in this industry, especially with FDNY, is they have been asking the mayor's office for more funding, for more inspectors. This has been an ongoing battle since the De Blasio administration.

Brian Lehrer: Sumel, thank you very much for your call and your perspective. David, learn anything there really briefly?

David Brand: I think that was great perspective. I'd love to talk with Sumel. If you're still listening, send me an email, Sumel. Let's connect. I think just hearing these requests to expedite is not uncommon and sounds pretty common and then it becomes who gets that priority treatment. That's what we're trying to learn more about.

Brian Lehrer: Sumel, hang on. We'll take your contact info off the air if you're interested. Again, David Brand, thanks for your reporting on this. Hopefully, we helped you advance it a little bit.

David Brand: Thanks a lot, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org. More now with WNYC and Gothamist lead Mayor Adams reporter Elizabeth Kim, bringing clips and thoughts from the mayor's new tradition of a weekly Tuesday news conference. The only time all week now when reporters can ask a question on a topic of their choosing instead of topics the administration dictates.

Liz, let's talk about crime. It's the biggest thing Adam's campaigned on as everybody probably knows and, arguably, the biggest reason he got elected. The mayor brought the NYPD's crime control strategies chief, Michael LiPetri, with him. One thing that jumped out at me is that it looks like shootings are way down and gun arrests are way off. What were they saying about that?

Liz Kim: That's right, Brian. That has been a continuing good trend for the mayor, who, like you said, campaigned on public safety. That is one of his major policy priorities. I would say that what's interesting when we hear about crime is to hear what they're comparing it with. They will say things are trending downward compared to last year. They will also go as far lately to say that they're trending downward compared to two years ago.

What experts on crime and people who are keyed into this, what we're looking to hear is, how does crime compare to pre-pandemic times? Because that's when we know where cities, not just New York but cities across the country, experienced a sharp rise in crime, particularly violent crime and shootings. It's very good. It's not to say that it's not good progress to hear that shootings are down compared to last year and the year before that. I think what we really want to see is, can we approach pre-pandemic levels of crime, which were historically low, and how long is it going to take the mayor to get us there?

Brian Lehrer: Well, if I read the transcript right-- Let's see. Maybe I'll do a little word search within the transcript again because I didn't see that part of the news conference. I saw some other parts. If I read the transcript right, they were saying shootings this year are at the fourth-lowest pace of any year since the Comstat system, keeping crime statistics, was implemented in the 1990s. Did you hear it that way and is that a supportable study?

Liz Kim: Right, that's correct. He said fourth and that's, I think, a span of 30 years. He did mention that. Again, crime was at a historic low before the pandemic towards the tail end of Mayor de Blasio's tenure. I think the question still remains is, can we return to that period?

Brian Lehrer: One other thing. Since there's been so much fear of people on the street committing violence while experiencing serious mental health episodes and the mayor just released stats last week, we did a segment on this, on how many involuntary hospital admissions there have been in the first year of doing that more aggressively, can they point, did they point to any specific reduction in, let's say, crimes against other people committed by those having mental crises on the subways or on the streets?

Liz Kim: I don't know that that is a category. I'll be honest. I'm not sure. I'm not sure whether that's a category that the police department maintains, but it's not something that they spoke about at yesterday's press conference. Prior to that, like you mentioned, the mayor did give us an update on his mental health plan. He said that it resulted in 54 people being taken involuntarily off the streets. Presumably, these are people with mental illness.

Now, the number within the span of a year, it seems relatively small, but the mayor has also argued that it's a very small number of people who need to be taken involuntarily off the streets. Again, I should preface. That's not to say that these people are violent or could commit or have any kind of potential to commit crime. In fact, most mentally ill people are not violent.

I think in answer to crimes that we've seen, high-profile violent crimes like Michelle Go, who was fatally pushed in front of a car by a man with a history of mental illness. That was in Times Square at the beginning of the mayor's term. In response to that, the mayor has sought to implement this plan where he does forcibly remove people who are perceived to be mentally ill.

Brian Lehrer: The mayor did acknowledge that there are two categories out of the seven major crime categories that are stubborn and aren't coming down. I guess they were car theft like with the Kia Boys TikTok videos that they cited in the news conference, showing people how to hijack a Kia and shoplifting, which, of course, everybody's talked about a lot, but that's on crime. Another clip. The mayor is going back to DC tomorrow to ask for more help with funding asylum-seeker resettlement. Here's the mayor yesterday on that.

Mayor Eric Adams: I have not communicated with the President since, I think, earlier this year. The last time I communicated with him, either earlier this year or late last year, around the same time.

Brian Lehrer: That was in response to a reporter's question about whether he had had direct contact recently with President Biden. Liz, is the lack of direct contact between the mayor and President an indication of anything or can this lobbying be done effectively through other officials?

Liz Kim: Well, it certainly doesn't help. That's the reason why the mayor is often asked that question, "When was the last time you spoke to President Biden?" because he has been lobbying for over a year now for more, not just funding, but also more federal intervention into the migrant crisis. He's not the only official who has been doing this. Governor Kathy Hochul has also met with the President. Senator Chuck Schumer has also been doing some of this.

There were other officials too. Most recently, we saw the city comptroller, Brad Lander, also himself go to Washington, DC, to talk about this issue. It's not that he's the only one who can have this kind of conversation with the White House, but the fact that his relationship with the President is now so frayed that it's been nearly a year since he's been able to get on a phone with him, it's not a good sign for New Yorkers.

Brian Lehrer: I guess part of the context there is that Biden dropped Adams as a Biden surrogate that is speaking in support of administration policies because Adams has become so critical of the immigration policies and the lack of help critical of the President out loud, right?

Liz Kim: That's correct. I think everybody, the governor, and other local elected officials have said that New York City needs more federal help, but the mayor's complaints have really reached a more pitched tone by saying that the crisis is destroying New York City. Also, he has said that the President has essentially abandoned the city and taxpayers. That kind of rhetoric has garnered criticism from people around the White House who feel that the mayor should not be speaking this way about the leader of his own party.

Brian Lehrer: What I hear anyway from congressional reporters, from DC reporters, is that Biden can't wave a magic wand and give New York City a lot more money. Congress has to pass that appropriation. This trip comes as Congress is embroiled in a debate over new border control policies that Republicans want tied to any new aid to Israel or Ukraine. I wonder if they would consider New York's plea for more federal funding help with what the Republicans would probably argue is being caused by federal policy.

I don't know if you heard, Liz. I asked congressional reporter Jake Sherman from Punchbowl News earlier in the show if Republicans blaming the border on the federal government would therefore be sympathetic to Adams' request. They said, "No, probably not, because they would see it as a Band-Aid that enables the bad border policies to continue." Any indication that the mayor has Republicans' ears on this and could get more help through Congress?

Liz Kim: The mayor wants not just Republican ears or Democratic ears. He wants everybody's ears on this issue. That's basically the message that he's tried to convey with the current budget crisis. He has said that he needs to make very sharp cuts that will affect almost every New Yorker because the city is, in part, not getting enough funding to address thousands of new arrivals a week.

Now, I think that the chances of Congress approving more aid for New York seems very slim, but the mayor has talked about intervention that the government could do. In particular, specifically, he has spoken about the possibility of initiating a resettlement program that begins at the border where the federal government tries to distribute migrants across different parts of the country that may be in need of migrant labor, for example. That's something that he's talked about early on in the crisis and something that I expect that he would also revisit as he goes to Washington, DC, this week.

Brian Lehrer: All right. We'll see if members of Congress are, at all, open to what the mayor has called a decompression strategy, which is that sort of distribution of asylum seekers to different places by force or by incentive. All right. One more topic from the mayor's Tuesday news conference, congestion pricing. This is another day of another MTA board meeting. They may give some level of approval bringing a fee to drive into Manhattan below 60th Street. That much closer. Here's the Taxi and Limousine Commissioner Meera Joshi, who the mayor also brought to the news conference to argue for one exemption that they support

Meera Joshi: For the yellow taxis, we're asking for a full exemption. This is a fleet that has had a history of serving New York, especially Manhattan, for decades and has gone through incredible financial distress. I think we've all sadly witnessed some of the tragic results of that and the suicides that resulted from that.

Brian Lehrer: Liz, does the mayor and the TLC commissioner there want different exemptions for yellow cabs than for other vehicles taking people on paid trips like Uber and Lyft?

Liz Kim: Well, they're only asking for an exemption for yellow cabs. Currently, the plan would be that yellow cabs would be charged an additional $1.25 when they're in the zone per fair. Presumably, the taxi drivers could pass that on to the passengers, but the drivers have argued that what will result is that they're going to have fewer rides. They're actually going to lose thousands of dollars in income per year.

It's not surprising that the mayor has chosen this specific group to lobby for as the deputy mayor mentioned in that clip you played. The taxi drivers underwent this, what's known as the medallion scandal, in which they had to pay very inflated costs. The medallion is basically the right to drive a yellow taxi cab. It was found later that the city was complicit as a regulator in allowing them to pay those fees. They were also victims of predatory loans.

As the deputy mayor mentioned, there were suicides as a result of this from taxi drivers that found themselves underwater. This is a huge scar, I think, in the city's history and especially for yellow taxi cabs, which, I think, comparable to the subways, they're an iconic emblem of the city's transportation system. The mayor himself was among them, among many elected officials who lobbied for the taxi drivers to get a bailout. Him coming forth and advocating for this particular group makes a lot of political sense as well.

Brian Lehrer: Let me take one congestion pricing caller for you. Paul in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Paul.

Paul: Oh, thank you for taking my call, Brian. You wake me up with my clock radio every morning. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Oh, you're a late riser.

Paul: Anyway, I go to bed at three o'clock in the morning. I won't go into the reasons for that, but it's just what is. Anyway, listen, I drive a car. Since the parking was put back to twice a week in most areas of Manhattan instead of once a week, which was the pandemic dispensation that they made, I park my car in Queens. Now, my question is a pretty simple one. 61st Street is the line of demarcation, where they've already, by the way, installed the license plate readers to assess these tolls.

The only access onto the Queensboro Bridge is 59th Street and 57th Street. I really don't understand, especially considering that 57th Street is the main East-West arterial between the FDR and the West Side Highway, I'm not really willing to-- is it good? Is it bad congestion pricing? I don't know, but why in heaven's name don't they make it 57th Street instead of 61st so that we can-- right now, every single person that goes to--

Brian Lehrer: I see. Come over the 59th Street Bridge, yes. We're running out of time.

Paul: Right, you can't.

Brian Lehrer: Let me get you an answer. Liz, I don't know if we need to ask our transportation reporter, Stephen Nessen, this question. Is there any way you can answer Paul?

Liz Kim: I'm afraid I can't. [chuckles] I really don't know, but that's a good question. I don't have the expertise on that.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, it is a--

Paul: Even residents of Queens are going to be forced to pay to go back home-

Brian Lehrer: -or to get into Manhattan, but yes, no, that's an interesting--

Paul: No, Manhattan, because the bridge comes down at 60th Street or 61st Street, so that's okay. The problem is, in order to go back to Queens, there's no access to the bridge-

Brian Lehrer: Oh, I see.

Paul: -except for 57th and 59th.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, because they could park above 60th Street. In order to drive home, they have to cross 60th Street and pay the-- Oh, that's a really interesting, specific question. We're going to try to get you an answer in a coming show and put it on the air. Meanwhile, Paul--

Paul: Would you, please?

Brian Lehrer: Let me-- let's see. I'm trying to--

[ringtone]

Brian Lehrer: There's your wake-up ringtone, Paul. When ten o'clock comes around--

Paul: Oh, thank you.

Brian Lehrer: When ten o'clock comes around, we'll play that on the air. You know it's time to wake up and listen to the show.

Paul: Okay, yes. Well, I do appreciate a little homage. Thank you. [chuckles]

Brian Lehrer: Paul, thank-

Paul: There's many other--

Brian Lehrer: -you very much for your call and I'm going to leave it there. I apologize, but that is a very interesting question about driving back to Queens and if it really would kick in just for that. We will get an answer to that. We leave it there for today with our lead Mayor Adams reporter, Liz Kim, who will join us again next Wednesday, I presume, after next week's weekly mayoral news conference. A lot on the table between now and then as we've heard. Liz, thanks as always.

Liz Kim: Thanks, Brian.

 

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