On a lively appearance on Jonesy in the Morning on 94.7 The Block, Mayor Eric Adams addressed a range of hot-button issues affecting New Yorkers. He pledged to investigate complaints about congestion pricing near the 59th Street Bridge, clarified that congestion toll policies fall under state control, and highlighted ongoing efforts to fight deed theft in Brooklyn, emphasizing education and new legislation to prevent fraud. Adams also responded to concerns about back pay for workers fired over COVID vaccine mandates, stating that while jobs were reinstated, back pay would not be issued due to the precedent it could set. He also shared updates on tech initiatives for underserved students, including distributing 350,000 Chromebooks with internet access.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls In for Interview on 94.7 the Block’s “Jonesy in the Morning”
Tarsha Jones: Good morning, Mayor Eric Adams.
Mayor Eric Adams: Hey, how are you doing?
Jones: Can I have the key to the city, seriously?
Mayor Adams: You have already unlocked the hearts of everyone.
Wayne Mayo: Good answer.
Jones: Yes, this is why. We’ll get back to that. How are you? I have people that have been calling about the same congestion pricing surrounding the 59th Street Bridge. How [can] you avoid a toll simply trying to get from– Wayne, was it from Brooklyn to Manhattan? Or what is it?
Mayo: Yeah, it’s like a double fare. It’s a little confusing, but yeah, you end up getting charged when maybe you shouldn’t be, but there’s some type of loophole. We recorded the listener last time he called in. Here’s what he had to say.
Question: We have to go all the way to Brooklyn to take the Williamsburg Bridge to come back to Queens and Long Island. If you get off at 62nd Street, you have to pay for congestion pricing, and you’re not going into Manhattan. And it’s a serious thing.
Mayor Adams: Let me look into that. The congestion pricing is controlled by the state lawmakers, the governor and the MTA. But if there’s a problem that’s impacting, you know, everyday New Yorkers, I’ll look into it. I’m going to look into it today. I’m going to have my deputy mayor of Operations take a look at what’s going on there.
Jones: Okay, thank you for that. I also would like to know, since we’re talking about the state lawmakers, Governor Hochul just endorsed Mamdani. Any feelings on that?
Mayor Adams: No, not at all. Endorsements come and go and change. [Inaudible] endorsements were made during the primary. And it comes down to the 8.5 million New Yorkers. She’s one vote. The goal is to really get the endorsement from everyday New Yorkers. That’s the focus. During these elections, you will see all sorts of distractions and ups and downs and rumors. And if you allow yourself to be distracted, you won’t stay focused on your mission. I am completely focused on the mission.
Jones: I can imagine, though, that makes it awkward for you and her to come together on the issues that are intertwined, no?
Mayor Adams: We work well together. We’ve done some great stuff together. You have to really have a level of maturity in politics to really understand that one has nothing to do with the other. You know, there are those who endorse me or endorse other candidates, and you still have to come together to solve the problems the city is facing. That’s just how this game of politics operates.
For example, Zohran did not endorse V.P. Harris when she ran for president. And, you know, a lot of people are understanding that and saying, you know, it’s almost hypocritical that he’s asking for the endorsement of other Democrats when, in fact, he did not endorse the first African-American woman to have a real viable shot to be president.
Jones: That was a nice little jab. I appreciate that. Because the people of New York may not have known that. Black women unite. You heard what he said?
Mayo: Mr. Mayor definitely has a way of saying things.
Jones: Speaking of Brooklyn, I saw a post somewhere about the deed theft. And that there are a group of developers that are paying money for people to go into homes that have outstanding bills. It could be as little as a thousand dollars and as high as a hundred thousand dollars.
But what they’re doing is they’re going in, they’re orchestrating this, they’re sending the notices of overdue payment to the wrong addresses deliberately. So the homeowners lose their homes because they never get notice and by the time they find out the house has already been stolen and this is happening a lot over and over in Brooklyn.
Mayor Adams: The deed theft is real and it’s a real problem on both the Attorney General Tish James and DA Eric Gonzalez have been both addressing this issue and we have been really educating our voters and homeowners, I should say, on what to look out for, how to protect yourself from it, because it is a problem, and we need to make sure that homeowners in Brooklyn and throughout the city are not duped into losing their home, because that’s what Black and brown wealth is, it’s in your home and when you lose that you’re losing your entire wealth and really a generational wealth because these homes are handed down to family members.
Jones: They need to go to jail like these are like serious organizations like they are– their purpose is to set out to fraud homeowners and once the homes are gone they’re gone like you can’t uno reverse that. We need action. What can you do now, please?
Mayor Adams: And that’s what I was saying, that both the attorney general and the DA– if they are found carrying out this action, they are arrested and they do go to jail. So it’s not about just looking the other way. And in those cases, those homes are reversed. They’re given back to the homeowners. So there is real action being taken when you identify someone that’s found guilty of doing this. Now the most important thing we can do is to educate people so they don’t go through this. That’s my job as the mayor. It’s the prosecutor’s job to prosecute, but my job as the mayor is to make sure that people are knowledgeable so they don’t lose their home.
Jones: All right, because this breaks my heart. These are a lot of our seniors that have given their lives to, you know, buying these homes and keeping these homes. And gentrification is real, but it doesn’t have to be fraudulent. We’re talking to Mayor Eric Adams, everybody, and we’ll be
back with more of him when we return.
[Commercial Break.]
Jones: We’re back with Mayor Eric Adams.
Mayor Adams: I want to just also go back to the deed theft question because there was a bill that was passed in the City Council by Nantasha Williams and it goes to homeowners with deed or mortgage filings to prevent property fraud. And the title changes. So what often happens, someone either files a change to the deed or the title, and homeowners are not notified of it. But if you’re notified, you can go and check right away. And there’s a bill that Nantasha Williams, Councilwoman Williams, she passed, or she introduced, which is very important, because notification and education is the best prevention to deed theft.
Jones: So tell us what good stuff you’ve been out there doing, because this race is heating up.
Mayor Adams: You know, so one of the exciting things we’re doing is around technology. You know, we handed out thousands of [Chromebooks] to our young people, particularly in underserved communities or communities that are dealing with real economic issues. This is so important because it’s coming. These Chromebooks are coming with internet access. It’s going to allow them to get online, to do their research, their studies, because this is an important tool that’s needed now in education. And so we’re gonna give out 350,000 of these Chromebooks. It’s so important to make sure that our young people have access.
Jones: Wow, that’s a lot of [Chromebooks]. Mayor, we had a candidate for councilwoman, Athena Clarke, on the show earlier this week, And she spoke about how she was terminated for not– she and several others, she was an educator and was terminated for not taking the COVID vaccine, but has not been refunded all the salary and all the money. And she pointed towards you. Can you explain why?
Mayor Adams: Yeah, and that’s interesting that she would point towards me. I think that she fully understands the decision on COVID vaccines happened before I became mayor. This was a policy that was put in place by the previous administration. It wasn’t put in place by me. And what we are looking at is, what can we do for those who were terminated? We’re having discussions with that right now. That is something we can talk to our Law Department to see if there’s something we can do.
But the termination of employees, that rule was put in place under the previous administration who didn’t take the vaccine.
Now, with that said, during COVID, that was a horrific period, a level of uncertainty. And we were being overrun in our hospitals, we were being overrun in the malls. There were so many deaths. The city was locked down. The previous mayor had to take some important action to prevent the city from really going to the state of chaos. And they put in place, both on the state level and on the city level, of the vaccine mandate. And the courts ruled.
There were some lawsuits around this. The courts ruled that the city has the power or the authority to actually put in mandates. And she knows that. These lawsuits were fought in court, the court ruled on behalf of the city, and that was the law of the land and everyone had to comply with it with the full understanding. If you did not, you risk being terminated and that’s what had happened so you know as mommy used to say there’s two sides to every story–
Jones: She said they were all offered their jobs back but they didn’t get their payback. That’s how it came up, and so we’re wondering now what can you do to push forward all those employees that were punished and penalized for them to get that back pay?
Mayor Adams: They’re not going to get back pay. You know, the mere fact they can get their job back is a huge step forward. So there’s not going to be any back pay. Think about this for a moment–
Jones: That’s not fair. That’s not fair. No, that’s not fair.
Mayor Adams: Okay, let’s think about this for a moment, okay? There were many city employees who did not want to take the vaccine, many. But if you put in place a policy that states that here are the repercussions for your actions. And then you turn against that policy later. Then later, when you’re dealing with an emergency like that, no one is going to take you seriously. When you put a policy in place, you have to ensure that you enforce it.
Or in the future emergencies, people are going to say, why am I listening because you’re not going to enforce it at all. What is not fair is for those other city employees who didn’t want to take the vaccine for many reasons and took it anyway because they knew the risk to the city and they knew the risk to their employment if they didn’t. You know, decisions have consequences. And as adults, we have to make decisions with a full understanding. Other administrations did not give them an opportunity to come back. We’re trying to find a win-win situation, and it’s not gonna come with back pay.
Jones: I tried, Athena. Well, there you have it. Mayor Eric Adams, it’s always a pleasure. We don’t always agree, but I appreciate you coming around.
Mayor Adams: Thank you. Take care.
September 16, 2025 New York City Hall
Sources: Midtown Tribune news , Big New York news