On October 20, 2024, Mayor Eric Adams joined Dahved Levy on WBLS 107.5 FM’s “Caribbean Fever” for a candid interview addressing key topics affecting New York City. Adams highlighted his administration’s progress on crime reduction, noting a historic drop in shootings and subway robberies. He emphasized efforts to support small businesses and women- and minority-owned enterprises, with a goal of awarding $25 billion in contracts by 2026. The mayor also discussed affordable housing initiatives, the “City of Yes” zoning reform, and the ongoing war against rats, promising cleaner streets with expanded trash containerization. Adams concluded with words of resilience, encouraging New Yorkers to persevere through tough times.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls in for Live Interview on WBLS 107.5 FM’s “Caribbean Fever”
Mayor Eric Adams: I’m always on the line when there’s Caribbean Fever. Rocking you, rocking you.
Dahved Levy: Sir, thank you very much for coming on with us. I want to give you the floor, sir, that you can tackle whatever you want to tackle, however you want to tackle it. I want to give you the floor, whatever you want to get out there, I want to give you the opportunity to do.
Mayor Adams: And I appreciate that, because you see, there’s just so much going on with the investigation and what is happening that, you know, there’s a natural desire to defend yourself, a natural desire to respond, but when you are in a legal proceeding, you should listen to your attorney.
My attorney said, Eric, hold off your time, we’ll take this in the courtroom. I’m very clear, I have not done anything wrong, I follow the rules, people have followed me for so many years, know that, and I think it’s time to hear our side of the story. We heard one side of the story, New Yorkers are going to have an opportunity to hear both sides of the story.
One thing I’m happy about, Dahved, that I don’t live in those countries where you don’t have the opportunity to have due process. America is about the process, and that process is going to move forward, and my attorney is going to handle the proceedings. My job is to continue to do what we have been doing since I got elected, on my campaign promises, we have touched on each one of those campaign promises, and we’re moving the city forward, and I’m not going to be distracted in carrying out my role as the mayor.
Levy: Sir, let’s talk about business. How can a person go about securing city contracts?
Mayor Adams: Well, Small Business Services, SBS, is the leader in doing, what they have accomplished, first they started under Commissioner Kevin Kim, and now is continuing under the current leadership. We have more small businesses operated in our city, in the history of our city, but not only that, we went after the women and minority-owned businesses to make sure of their opportunity to look at the contracts and go into services procurement.
My goal, as I stated, was to reach $25 billion awarded to women and minority-owned businesses by 2026. We already are at 28 percent, during the last fiscal year, we had $6 billion in total to MWBEs, and so our Small Business Services, an amazing event is coming up and we really want everyone to come out and be a part of it. If you go into the website and look for Small Business Services, SBS, you’ll see an event that’s coming up, and it’s going to really walk people through how to get access to not only city contracts, but many of the contracts that are throughout this entire city.
Thus far, we have helped more than 50,000 small businesses in the city, over 36 million throughout, New York City Business Express Service Team, and we’re going to continue to make sure New York City is the best place to do business, because it’s the empire state.
Levy: Sir, a lot of people are concerned about the crime stats in New York City. Can you tell us, give us an update on how crime is doing within your city?
Mayor Adams: Well, you know, the success of the New York City Police Department, community organizations, crisis management team, all of those areas have been overshadowed, as I continue to say, three things.
Number one, random acts of violence. People with severe mental health illnesses, for the most part, carry those random acts of violence. And repeated offenders, people who are committing serious violent acts, they’re part of a revolving door criminal justice system. But when you look, do an analysis, we have been extremely successful in this beat. Nine straight months of decrease in crime in the city. September of 2024, we saw a decrease of 3.1 percent.
We witnessed a decrease in murder, robbery, burglary, grand larceny, and do you know August, which is normally, is always due at the biggest time for gun violence. Dahved, we had the lowest amount of shootings in our city during the month of August in the recorded history of this city. And our subway system, robberies are so low that we’ve never had, since the recorded history of the city, robberies at this level.
Also went out to those custody of ghost cars and those scooters that have been used in robberies and other crimes, closed over 1,200 illegal smoke shops, so that we’re not selling the illegal items to our young people. You’re seeing the city move in the right direction and we’re gonna continue to be safer. We are the safest big city in America.
Some of the new initiatives we’re doing to go after those who need help that are causing some of the random acts of violence, not all people that are dealing with severe mental health illness. But many of those random acts of violence you’re seeing are coming from people with severe mental health illness. And we’re going after, giving the assistance they need through this program we call SCOUT, PATH in our subway system.
Levy: A lot of talk is being put out there about all the new sky rises that are being built. But a lot of people are not talking about affordable housing. How does affordable housing fit into the scheme of what you’re doing with all the building that’s going on in New York City?
Mayor Adams: Well if you do a real analysis, you’ll see, let’s look at the two fiscal years in office, year one and year two. We financed more affordable housing in year one, year two, in single years than the history of the city. We also moved more people of homeless shelters into permanent housing in that one year and two years in the history of the city.
But there’s something else. In this city, we have a program called FHEPS vouchers for subsidized apartments. We moved people to utilize those vouchers for permanent housing more than anyone in the history of the program. But here’s the problem we’re having Dahved, we don’t have enough inventory, we have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate. And so, you know, supply and demand, if there’s not enough inventory, it drives up the prices.
So that’s why we have an initiative that we’re putting in front of the City Council called City of Yes. We have to build a little more in every community. Our city is divided by community boards. We have 59 of them. Out of the 59, 10 of the community boards build more affordable housing than the other 49 combined. That’s why you see gentrification in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Flatbush, parts of Harlem. Because these community boards are carrying the weight of all affordable housing. Everyone should be part of the affordable housing initiative, access to transportation, access to healthy food, access to good schools, access to good health care. We need to make sure everyone can have their share of building affordable housing.
That’s why we need residents to call on the City Council to call for this major zoning change called City of Yes. It is a comprehensive zoning change since the 60s. It’s time for us to build more housing, senior housing. Young people should be able to have housing. We need more housing for middle income, working class people in this city. And that is why we’re moving forward with this initiative called City of Yes.
Levy: Sir, before we go, I want to touch on your pet peeve. How are the war on rats doing?
Mayor Adams: Not only my pet peeve, I have not come across anyone that enjoys seeing a rat coming out of their toilet bowl, running across their feet, putting out the garbage. All New Yorkers want to see a change in the rat issue.
With the decrease in complaints and rat mitigation areas citywide, the real victory will come with garbage containerization. You can’t beat rats by having plastic bags on the street. And so we’re moving. On November 12th our administration will have containerized 70 percent of our city’s 14 billion pounds of annual trash. The next one we’re doing, our buildings are one to nine units. We’re going to have all this garbage in containers. We were able to get rat proof containers that are below retail costs, going to be sold for $50 a piece.
This is going to change the entire city. And you’re going to see a cleaner and healthier city. Hats off to Commissioner Tisch and what shes doing about the trash revolution in this city. And Kathy Corradi, our first rat czar, really takes this on the front line. And the only thing, the only one that’s upset are those darn rats. Get it done.
Levy: Sir, I give you the last word, sir. You’ve got the last word.
Mayor Adams: Listen, your show is speaking directly to the people and I say this all the time. Hard times don’t break us. I’ve been here for many years and I remember September 11 and seeing our center of trade collapse, but you know what happened, we got up on September 12, 2001 and continued to move the city forward.
And everyday New Yorkers are going through hard times, and I say to those New Yorkers don’t ever give up, don’t ever give in. As long as you believe in yourself and believe in whatever your spiritual connection is, if that happens to be god, you believe you can achieve and let’s all believe in the success of the city. We’re going to continue to move forward, that’s my job as the mayor.
Levy: Sir, thank you very much. Have a great evening.
Mayor Adams: Thank you, brother. Rocking you, rocking you.
October 20, 2024 New York City Hall
Sources: NYC.gov, Midtown Tribune ,
Big New York news BigNY.com