In a lively October 12, 2024, interview on Caribbean Pepperpot Radio, Mayor Eric Adams discussed the challenges and progress of leading New York City. He highlighted his administration’s efforts to improve affordable housing through the “City of Yes” initiative, reform education under Chancellor David Banks, and enhance public safety by tackling crime and illegal cannabis shops. Adams reflected on personal obstacles, emphasizing resilience and the importance of pushing through adversity. He also addressed the complexities of managing immigration and the history of Black leadership in New York, drawing comparisons with former Mayor David Dinkins.
Transcript: Mayor Adams Calls in for Live Interview on Caribbean Pepperpot Radio
Neville Bushell: Mr. Mayor you are live.
Mayor Eric Adams: Hey how are you, you know, and I’m glad you said that about the city because this is the greatest city on the globe. There’s no other city like it and with all of the challenges of running [a] city of this magnitude, it is great being the mayor of it.
Bushell: And you are doing a fantastic job as far as we are concerned.
Sam Clarke: Yes, yes. Mr. Mayor.
Mayor Adams: You’re a smart man.
Bushell: And we’ve been following you from God knows how long. You know, so we know that you’re a good man and you love the city and you love your people. And we expect, despite the fact of the trials and tribulations, that you got to stand there and fight like hell to keep your job, because… Go ahead.
Mayor Adams: And you said something that’s so important, that I’m constantly reminding people of. As I stood at the African burial ground last week, trials and tribulation is really part of our narrative, and how we overcame trials and tribulations through our lives, really fortifies to be able to really function in trials and tribulations while they’re taking place.
Cause we’ve never been a people who threw up our hands and said, well, we just surrender. No, we’ve been just the opposite, and the triumph of the human spirit statue is a reflection of how we endure difficult times.
I mean, look at who I am, this ordinary working class blue collar person that had this real learning disability as a child and overcame those obstacles to become the mayor of the most important city on the globe.
I didn’t get here by throwing up my hands when I reached difficult times, just as the Caribbean mother who left loved ones at home and at home and came here and went to school at night to become a nurse, went to school at night to open a small business, had to withstand all sorts of obstacles navigating the immigration system. If they would have given up, we would not have who we have right now running this city. So you gotta push through this stuff and just believe in yourself, believe in God, and believe in your family.
Clarke: Yes, Mr. Mayor. This is Sam Clarke here. We are talking about your City of Yes and affordable housing. Can you tell us about it?
Mayor Adams: We had a racist housing policy in this city. We haven’t changed our zoning laws since the 60s. Our city is divided by what’s called community boards. We have 59 of them. them. Out of the 59 community boards, 10 of them have built more affordable housing than the other 49 combined, just think about that.
And so that’s why you see Crown Heights, Bedford-Stuyvesant, other parts of the city, where you’re getting gentrification and movement and changing communities. Because they’re communities that have good schools, good housing, good access to transportation, good hospital care. What I said, we don’t want to build the affordable housing in our area.
So City of Yes, under Commissioner Garodnick, is saying let’s build a little more housing in every community so that we all can be part of the affordable housing pursuit that we’re doing. This is something that must be done. Brothers, we have a 1.4 percent vacancy rate. Because we don’t have a lot of inventory, it drives the prices. You know, the whole basic supply and demand. If the supply is low, the demand is high, the cost is high. We got to build more housing in our city.
Clarke: Now, Mr. Mayor, with education policy, can you give us some highlights and stuff about the education policy?
Mayor Adams: They’re an amazing chancellor, Chancellor David Banks, that came in and revolutionized our educational system in a real way. A Bright Starts, Bold Futures. And this is what we did. Our educational system historically, it basically focused on, okay, are the children academically smart?
These children would leave school and say, why did I spend all of these years in this place? So what we said, we have to develop the full personhood of the child. What does that look like? We’re teaching them now mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises. How do they deal with the stresses of being a young person?
Listen, I look at young people now and I say, Good Lord. From everything from social media to some of the violence that they’re seeing around them, we got to give them the tools to deal with some of the mental stress that they’re dealing with. And that’s why we have something called TeenSpace, Dr. Vasan put in place where they can get 24 hours, seven day a week, mental health support using their phones to dial in to a mental health professional.
So not only we’re dealing with the mental, we’re dealing with the physical, where we are changing the food that our children are eating and giving them healthier food choices so we don’t be the healthcare crisis that our children, children, childhood obesity, etc.
Almost 70 percent of 12 year olds have early signs of heart disease. I mean, that’s unimaginable. Heart disease is the number one killer in this country. And so we are now giving them better food choices while they are in school. And then last, the academics. We’ve changed the reading curriculum. We changed the math curriculum. We’re now doing the screening for dyslexia. So 30 percent of our inmates that are at Rikers Island are dyslexic, because they believe they can’t learn.
We are now focusing on children with disabilities to give them the support that they need. And we started earlier with our early childhood program, where we’re placing them on a pathway prior to coming to school to get those foundational tools that they need.
So I mean, we have just changed the educational game and because of that, we are outpacing the state in reading and math. We’re outpacing the state, we had an improvement in math this year, English, we took a slight downturn a little, but we’re still on course because we’re doing this new curriculum on both areas. So we’re educating our children, we’re doing internships, we’re introducing them to a corporation so that they can learn earlier about the professional development that they use.
We’re teaching them financial literacy so that they don’t get caught up. one of the most important things that can impact your life is not knowing how to budget your money. So we are developing the full personhood of children so they could be prepared for the future.
Bushell: And I also like to give you a lot of credit and I admire your Police Department under your tutelage that the crime has gone down tremendously and the subway crime and so on and when I hear somebody commit a murder or get away from this or that I come out and say I usually tell my friend, man, that person is going to be arrested within a month or so even if they have to go to Guyana and them is going to find these people and I got to give you a hell of a credit for that for sure man and this city is rough but you are not playing, you know what I mean your department is not playing with the crime at all and I gotta really thank you for really trying to bring that crime down as much as you have brought it down.
Mayor Adams: Yeah I inherited a city that had a 40 percent increase crime, January 1st, 2022. And we zeroed in on gun violence and other violent crimes. We call them predatory crimes, that are crimes against people that impacts them. And we zeroed in on it. And so you’re seeing over almost 9,000 illegal guns removed off our streets.
You’re seeing a decrease in homicide, decrease in shooting. Do you know July and August are unusually very challenging times for gun violence. August was the lowest gun violence in recorded history in this city.
On our subway system, January 2024, we had a slight uptick in subway violence. My partner with the governor, we deployed police officers there. We’ve had nine straight months of decrease in crime in the surface and below ground on our subway system.
Robberies in our subway system is the lowest robbery count in recording history in this city. So you’re seeing public safety. And not only that, we went after some of those feeders of crimes, like the ghost cars. There’s something in the city called ghost cars. No registration, no plate or paper plates. They’re not connected to our system, so you can never identify who the owners are. They were being used in robberies, shootings, and other terrible things.
We’re now driving around the city at night identifying these cars and removing them off our streets. Within two weeks, we took over 1,000 off our streets. And you add that to what we’ve done around cannabis, we closed over 1,100 illegal cannabis shops. So those who out there that like a little weed every once in a while, you gotta go to the legal places to get it so you know what you’re smoking and not smoking something that’s bad. So we are functioning on all cylinders to deal with the quality of life and public safety that goes together.
Bushell: Yes, I give you a little tell you a little about myself, but I happen to work at WLIB, WBLS for around 30 years and I know about from Mayor Dinkins all the way back here to with you and I tell you something I know the plight that he also went through as a Black mayor. Okay, it is not being easy being a Black mayor in this town.
And you and Mayor Dinkins, I don’t know after you when we will see another one. But I find that the Black mayors really, really go through a lot of changes. I remember the days when Rudy Giuliani used to be getting the Police Department to really disrespect Mayor Dinkins, you know, and I got to say this, he is one of the most racist mayors that I have ever seen since I’ve been in this town, and I’ve been, I’m an immigrant from Barbados.
I’ve been living here since 1964 and I’ve been working with [Percy Sutton.] I have become very politically conscious of what’s going on. And I also happen to know that Mayor Koch was the first person that hired the first Black Police Commissioner in this town and I mean I go way back so I know your history.
I’m well aware where you came from the police force and all of that and I’m very proud to see where you have reached and you’re really juggling not a easy city at all especially with the immigrants that coming into town, that you have to pay a bond [inaudible] or where to put all of these immigrants. That is not an easy task at all.
Mayor Adams: No, well said, well said. I love when I speak with folks like you who have been present in this city, because when you talk about WLIB, you talk about those years. Many people who cover me in me and journalism of, they are new to knowing my history in the city. One reporter asked me when I was telling about the days of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement, he said, what is that? Who is that? And how do you cover a mayor without knowing the history of that mayor or the history of that figure?
And those of you who have been around and have covered or have done their research, you realize that I’m not new to fighting on behalf of working class people. I’ve been doing this for so many years. And the consistency of doing it, and you’re right, what David Dinkins went through. And when you look at what I did, I’m building on with David Dinkins.
David Dinkins introduced a real initiative around women and minority-owned business to get from the city, I’m building on that. We put over $2 billion into women and minority-owned business getting contracts in the city. And a lot of people are not pleased with that, but we knew that women and minority-owned businesses were being denied.
And we said we want to change that. And so the percentage we’re getting ready to roll out is going to show you the major impact we have made. And our overall plan of how do you employ locally. Because our employment is four times, when we came into office, brothers, Black unemployment was four times the rate of white unemployment.
We’ve now witnessed a 30 percent decrease in Black and Hispanic unemployment, because we put money into MWBEs who have hired locally. And then we went out and communicated to the communities what jobs are available in city government and private sectors. So we have really zeroed in on those communities that have historically been denied in this city.
Clarke Mr. Mayor, can you talk to us about your health care and the rat mitigation process? I hate rats, man.
Bushell: I know you have a rat czar. Tell us about the rats, man. Tell us about the rats, man, they’re really, really something else, eh?
Mayor Adams: Yeah, you know what, because I don’t think anything can impact the quality of life of a person than if they are dealing with the rat issue in their home, on their block, in their community. You know, I remember in my early days of policing, people used to alter the time and day that they will go outdoors because of violence, and they want their children to be safe.
So when I hear people say in the communities when I visit them, that nighttime they don’t want to be outside because there are rodents running around, our quality of life should not be impacted based on our failure to address the rodent problem in this city. And so we hired a rat czar, did a real analysis of what produces the problems of rodents in our city. And we found three basic things.
One, the plastic bags, real issue, real problem. Rats go in and out of them. And so we put in place a very aggressive initiative to containerize our garbage. Come the middle of November, 70 percent of our garbage is going to be in containers. The last line of it is in one to nine unit housing where we’re giving people, people are purchasing these rat-proof containers to put their garbage in.
Second, it’s what we do around our own space. People are becoming more and more knowledgeable about what burrows, what rat droppings, all of these things that add to rat infestation and how to really secure your home.
And third, which is very important, is our Rat Pack. This is a real system of educating of educating everyday New Yorkers to be part of rat-proofing their communities, it has been really successful. And our rat czar has been at the forefront of moving this initiative, we’re seeing a decrease in rat sightings, decrease in rat complaints, particularly in rat mitigation areas.
So we’re really excited about what we are seeing. And we’re moving the city towards being a rat-proof city and the quality of life of it. You don’t want a rat running your foot when you go put out your garbage. You don’t want to see one popping out of your toilet or when you go use the restroom. So we want to make sure we do our job and New York are joining us on this.
Bushell: That’s why I keep my toilet seats down just in case. The funny thing is that a guy showed me, sent me a video where I have this big rat running down a cat, and the cat is hauling his behind, the cat is hauling his ass down the street. Well, the rat is so big, you know what I mean?
Clarke: Mr. Mayor, your administration had a lot of achievements. Can you tell us, this community, about your achievements during your three years so far?
Mayor Adams: Oh man, and you’re right, so many. And no, it’s interesting, when I share those achievements with people, people often say, wow, I didn’t know that. And it’s unfortunate, because in the journalism business, they say if it bleeds, it leads. And having a successful achievement, they don’t bleed.
So they normally don’t lead, and oftentimes, you don’t even read about them. But we want to continue to do what we’re doing now by speaking with grassroots communications like this important station. Because people need to know the achievements we’ve had. Everything from, when I was borough president, I acknowledged that many of the NYCHA residents, those in public housing, did not have access to high-speed broadband, did not have access to the children, were not able to go and do remote learning. family members were not able to do telemedicine.
So we used our ability to do Big Apple Connect. Now, every NYCHA resident has access to high speed broadband for free. We are excusing medical debt. You know, medical debt is one of the number one causes of bankruptcy in our city. We are going to excuse billions of dollars medical debt for everyday New Yorkers, so they don’t have to live in fear. If they have a major medical issue, they [won’t] have to worry about it bankrupting them. We’re paying the college tuitions of foster care children and giving them life coaches until they’re 21, and giving them a stipend, because historically 6,700 foster care children aged out every year, and they did not, they were not getting the support that they needed.
We’re seeing a substantial increase to those who are enrolling in schools right now. We dropped the cost of child care from $55 a week to less than $5 a week, can you imagine that? That is an additional $200 that’s going back into the pockets of everyday New Yorkers. We call it Money in Your Pocket, $30 billion, we’ll put it back in the pockets of New Yorkers.
We can’t bring down the cost of bread, but we can give you some bread to put in your pocket. And that includes, we do spare MetroCards for low-income New Yorkers, and dealing with housing. Brothers, do you know in year one and year two, we financed more affordable housing in those two individual years in the history of the city in a one year period?
We moved more people out, right? We financed more affordable housing in year one and year two, in single year periods, in the history of the city. We moved more people out of shelters into permanent housing in one and two year in the history of the city. And we have a voucher program where people use vouchers for subsidizing housing. More people use those vouchers to find housing in the history of the city in year one and year two.
And then look at the economic. Do you know we have small businesses operating in this administration in the history of New York City? More small businesses are up and operating in the history of the city, and that impacts the Caribbean community. Because our brothers and sisters from the Caribbean, they believe in opening their small businesses. We’ve given them pathways and support to open those small businesses.
And you’re judged by what’s called bond ratings. They look at how well you’re financing the city, and they determine if they’re going to increase your bond rating that makes you an attractive city. They increased our bond ratings. And every year, they double down on saying, we still believe this administration should have an increase in bond rating because of the way this mayor has managed this city.
And then look at the decrease in crime that we’ve done. Tourism is the fourth largest in the history of the city. You start looking at what we’re doing around things like the containerization that I talked to you about, what we’re doing around education and how we’re improving our students. I mean, there’s just so many lists and areas of what we’ve accomplished. And you know what we’ve done that’s more significant than others?
We’ve done it with a diverse administration, first Trinidadian deputy mayor, first Filipino deputy mayor, first East Indian deputy mayor, first African American first deputy mayor in the history of this city, first woman police commissioner, first Spanish-speaking police commissioner. I mean, you can go down the list, first Korean to have small business services. You go down the list and you see the diversity of the city. This administration looks like the people that we are providing goods and services for, and it sends the right message that we can manage the most important city on the globe.
Clarke: Mr. Mayor, man, thank you very much for giving us the time of your day. We know you’re a busy man. We really appreciate it because oftentimes we don’t get this narrative. You hear all kinds of stuff, but we want to hear the successes and telling the real New Yorkers what it’s like over here.
Bushell: And we really would like to thank you tremendously, Mr. Mayor, for finding some time out for us here, carbinepepperpotradio.com and 106.3 FM. I would also like to know that we are 110 percent behind you.
Mayor Adams: Thank you very much, brother. It’s so important to communicate using a platform like yours, because without your platform, people would never know the facts, they would know the fantasy. We wanna make sure they know the facts. All right.
Bushell: Right on.
Clarke: Getting stuff done.
Bushell: Right on. And the reason for that is because we do respect you, and like I said before, I know your history from the time you were a policeman or right up to you being a mayor of this fine city, and you have played a big big role and you are going down in history as the second Black mayor of New York City.
Mayor Adams: Thank you, brother. Good to speak with you.
October 12, 2024 Manhattan, New York
Sources: NYC.gov, Midtown Tribune
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