NEWYORK: New York city Mayor Eric Adams said that their focus is to be on the ground and finding ways that we remove those historical barriers that have been in place that prevented people from being gainfully employed and receiving the support that they deserve.
Responding to queries in media briefing, Mayor Adams said that we have to remove the barriers that are preventing people from number one, employment, number two, enrolling into college, and number three, believing that because they made mistakes in their lives that they don’t have opportunities in the future. And that is our focus.
He said that cities should look towards New York and what we are doing, leaning into. We want this to be the A.I. capital of the country.
“The governor agrees, Chancellor Banks, in what we’re doing. Instead of being fearful of the future, we should be prepared for the future. And we also realize that there are many jobs that are available that should not require a college degree. DCAS looked at some of those jobs and we removed the college requirement from them. And we are getting ready to take some new bold steps that I think is going to be the first time in the country,” he said.
Regarding action against cannabis shops, Mayor Adams said that we’re really proud Sheriff Miranda and his team to close a thousand illegal cannabis shops and being able to burn four tons of the illegal product really shows that we started out when we got the authority from the state, the expanded authority, we’re zeroing in on this problem. It’s so important.
He said that they had inspected 100 percent of illegal cannabis shops known to them but every day, they were continually being out there and they are going to make sure that it’s going to reach the goal that we want with $64 million worth of illegal products removed off our streets.
“ It is so important. There’s still more work to do, 800 pounds of illegal products with an estimated value of more than $1 million on Friday night, we were able to seize. So Sheriff Miranda and his team is really out there doing the job that we’re looking forward for them to continue to do,” he said.
Regarding early childhood education seats, Mayor said that for the first time ever in New York city early childhood education seats were extended to 100 percent of families who applied to 3K on time.
“100 percent of the families who applied to 3K on time received seats, and that is exactly what we stated. And we went beyond that, thousands of families who did not apply on time, we continued to find seats for them, and we found seats for many. And it’s a moving target, because people sign up every day, so you continue to make sure it’s done correctly,” he said.
He said that despite that the applications tripled from five years ago, from 14,000 in 2019 to more than 45,000 during this school calendar year, our administration, we met the demand, and with 9,600 additional children who did not apply on time, we’re also giving seats with a total of 52,600 seats, just a real awesome task to have accomplished as we continue to move forward.
“When we were at 94 percent, people kept asking, when are you going to get to 100 percent, 100 percent, we said we’re going to get there, and we knew we were going to get there, hats off to you, D.M., for making it happen. And it’s because we put the money in, $100 million, additional dollars, and we added over 1,500 seats when we identified areas where seats were not located, and the 450 seats for special education,” he said.
To a question regarding wheelchairs accessible to taxis, Deputy Mayor Operations Meera Joshi said that order that came out recently was in relation to a settlement that was reached over a decade ago at the end of the Bloomberg administration, where the Taxi and Limousine Commission agreed to ensure that half of the yellow medallion taxi fleet would be wheelchair accessible.
“A lot has changed since then. Number one, one of the biggest changes has been during the interim period we have extended wheelchair accessible requirements to the entire industry so that’s over 80,000 to 100,000 vehicles, that’s Uber and Lyft, and they’re required now to pick up people that ask for a wheelchair accessible vehicle within a period of time. Usually that’s less than ten minutes. There’s nowhere else in the country that you will get on demand wheelchair accessible service at those levels, and that’s a level that we’re constantly working to improve. So it’s been an absolute life-changing policy change for people that use wheelchairs to get to where they need to go, work, class, social commitments, and not have to be at the mercy all the time of Access-A-Ride.”
“On the taxi side, we’ve worked very well to ensure that we meet the 50 percent accessibility requirement. TLC is a regulator of a private industry, the medallion industry. There’s been a lot of changes there, and the accessible vehicles are much more expensive than standard vehicles, so the TLC has set up reimbursement programs where sometimes up to $30,000 is given to the medallion owner to help them purchase the vehicle, and additional money is paid to everyone who drives an accessible vehicle, as well as extending the retirement dates of those accessible vehicles.”
