Mayor-Elect Eric Adams Outlines Reforms For Public Safety, Criminal Justice, And More In Extensive Interview With CBS2's Marcia Kramer
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) - Mayor-elect Eric Adams is hitting the ground running.
Just hours after his sweeping victory, the city's new chief executive outlined detailed plans to keep the city safe.
Adams also wants to fix Rikers, clean house at the Board of Education, and a whole lot more.
He spoke with CBS2's political reporter Marcia Kramer.
When Kramer spoke with Adams, she reminded him of something Mario Cuomo once said: You campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. And since the campaign is over, it's time for New Yorkers to find out what he's actually going to do when he takes the oath of office on Jan. 1.
Watch: Full Interview With Eric Adams
Facing a huge budget gap, Adams wants to eliminate waste in government. Target one? The bloated Board of Education.
"We need to start asking a real question of 'what do you do? What do you do?'" Adams said. "Make a determination if we are using taxpayer dollars properly."
Adams is vowing to clean house at the Board of Education, take a real look at the top-heavy bureaucracy created by former Chancellor Richard Carranza in order to make that agency, and all the others he will soon be responsible for, as efficient as possible. He said the DOE doesn't do a good job of educating minority students.
"We're getting an inferior product. That just doesn't make sense. That's a height of dysfunctionality. And that's not going to continue under the administration with Eric Adams," he said.
And he's not going to wait the five years it's going to take to build community jails to fix Rikers.
"These are things we must do right now," he said. "The place is filthy. You don't need to build a new jail to clean the facility. There's no reason for that. It's dog dreary, it reeks of crime."
As for the traffic accidents, pedestrians and cyclists being killed on the streets, the answer he says may be reducing speed limits in some areas.
"Do you think you would further reduce the limits in some areas?" Kramer asked.
"If it's shown, based on DOT and other studies, that we can make the streets safer to prevent vehicle crahes? Yes. I will. I'm open to do what ever is possible to prevent the crashes we are seeing in the city," Adams said.
He has also vowed to restore public safety. Turns out, he has a five point plan:
- Bring back the anti-gun plain clothes unit in the NYPD
- Work with state and federal agencies to stop the flow of guns
- Send crisis management teams to gun hot spots
- Fix bail reform
- Get the DAs to demand that people arrested on gun charges can be incarcerated
"We have to be honest about people who discharge a weapon or carry a gun. They can't be back on the street the next day," Adams said. "Judges should have the discretion that this person is dangerous, that they're going to remain incarcerated until trial, or until they have a suitable bail to make sure they come back to court."
Adams also has a message for the gang members he's met with - gangs responsible for a lot of the street violence.
"January 1, the conversation is over," he said. "You're not going to shoot up my city, and I'm not going to tolerate all that."
What he is going to do for gang members is find a way to make them productive members of society and partner with the business community to create jobs. There will be a centralized job application and job centers to match people looking for work with the jobs that are available.
