Clinton to Adams: You're a man after my own heart

From: POLITICO New York Playbook PM - Tuesday Mar 15,2022 08:06 pm

Mar 15, 2022

Presented by CWA District 1

Mayor Eric Adams joined Hillary Clinton on the latest episode of her podcast, “You and Me Both with Hillary Clinton,” during which they discussed public safety, eating fish and bubble baths.

Adams ran on a near-singular platform of public safety and it has been his number one priority since taking office. He told Clinton that he’s going to give police officers moral support and resources — detractors be damned. “I am not going to allow the numerical minority that are the loudest to dictate how we’re going to keep my city safe now and what we’re going to do in the long term,” Adams said. “I tell people all the time, ‘It is not what happens in tweets, it’s what happens on our streets.’”

“Amen! Preach, mayor,” Clinton said. Adams has eagerly presented himself as a national model for other Democrats, especially when it comes to crime and his insistence that safety and justice go hand-in-hand. Clinton happily boosted the new mayor, whom she’s known since he was a state senator and she was a U.S. senator.

Clinton also allied with Adams on his recent fishgate scandal, which she dubbed a “silly kerfuffle.” She defended the mayor for eating fish while touting a strictly plant-based diet, saying that her husband, former president Bill Clinton, was vegan for a few years because of a heart condition. Eventually his doctor told to add more protein to his diet — resulting in him occasionally eating salmon, white fish and tuna. “So I’m coming to tell you, living with a vegan man, I get it,” Clinton quipped.

Adams blamed the media for creating a controversy, even though he and his team continued to deny evidence that he ate fish. The press, he said, plays a game of “gotcha” instead of playing “we got you.”

Clinton asked the mayor what he does for downtime. He encouraged people to indulge in self-care and discussed his well-known habit of soaking in bath tubs to relax. “I’ll put some bubble bath and rose petals and incense and sit in a hot tub in a minute,” Adams chuckled.

“You’re a man after my own heart, mayor,” Clinton laughed back. “I can’t believe I’m talking to Eric Adams, mayor of New York City, about bath practices!”

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IT'S TUESDAY: Welcome to New York Playbook PM. We're here with the latest political news and observations as state budget talks unfold in Albany and a new administration takes shape in New York's City Hall.

From the Capitol

370,000 MILES AND RUNNING: Gov. Kathy Hochul took a conciliatory approach late Monday in a speech at the annual conference of the state Association of Counties, an event that governors historically attended but which former Gov. Andrew Cuomo generally missed.

Hochul, a former Hamburg town board member and Erie County clerk, has made it a point to note her local government roots and stress that she wants to work with municipalities, rather than have the oft-fraught relationship that Cuomo fostered by his top-down governing approach.

“And not only have I been to every one of your counties many times every single year — I just want to point out that [it] was all by car. I drove to all your counties. Some people fly to the counties, I just want to say I drove — 370,000 miles,” Hochul told them.

She vowed to forge a closer relationship going forward, noting that local health departments were “not utilized” the way they should have been during the Covid-19 pandemic and vowing to bolster their local aid and money for infrastructure in the budget.

“I just want you to leave here tonight and know that yes, you have a true friend in the governor's office. I've lived, I've walked in your shoes. I've lived your lives.” — Joseph Spector

RAISE THE AGE COALITION PRAISES ONE-HOUSE BUDGETS: The Raise the Age coalition praised the state Senate and the state Assembly’s one-house budget resolutions for making investments to boost incomes, advance housing security and expand access to community-based violence prevention and alternatives to incarceration. The coalition also said the Senate’s one-house budget resolution guarantees that New York City can access state Raise the Age resources. The Raise the Age law raised the age of criminal responsibility to 18 years old.

“As the budget negotiation process moves forward, the Governor and Legislature must endorse and build on these proposals by adopting language in the final budget that streamlines the process for implementation, making certain resources reach counties quickly to support direct service organizations led by and serving youth that are rooted in the community,” the coalition said in a statement.

The coalition called for continuing to fully fund Raise the Age implementation statewide as well as a public health response to gun violence. They also urged state lawmakers and Hochul to further investments in youth programming, including county-level internships and after-school programming, and broaden access to peer-supported behavioral health services. — Madina Touré

From City Hall

BY THE NUMBERS: New Yorkers are riding high on their new mayor. A new Marist Poll of 891 city adults, conducted March 1 through 8 and released Monday, found a cross-section of support for Mayor Eric Adams.

Overall, he received a 61 percent approval rating, with one-quarter of respondents reporting not to like the job he has done so far, and 15 percent saying they know too little to judge. Adams — a moderate Democrat who has railed against far-left progressives for misunderstanding the electorate’s concerns about public safety — won the support of 67 percent of Democrats polled, compared to 55 percent of Republicans. He is slightly more popular among people without college degrees and those who earn less than $50,000 per year than higher-income residents.

And he has won over people of all demographics, but maintains his highest popularity among Black New Yorkers — 68 percent of whom approve of his job performance so far. — Sally Goldenberg

BOOKWORM: April is approaching, and that means another installment of Frank Carone’s Municipal Book Club (we made up that name). This time, Adams' chief of staff is recommending “A Message to Garcia” by Elbert Hubbard, according to a message sent out to staffers Monday. — Joe Anuta

DOI BUDGET: The city’s Department of Investigation, which looks into municipal corruption, wants to beef up its staff in the upcoming budget — an ask that was received favorably by the City Council today but would would require Adams to agree to cough up money for a more thorough vetting of his administration. Newly appointed Commissioner Jocelyn Strauber wants to hire a total of 18 new investigators at an annual cost of $1.3 million. Of those, 12 would be entry-level hires who would then be trained as a cohort and help the department conduct wide-ranging probes of the administration. The remaining six would work on auditing city agencies that do capital construction.

Over the past two years, the agency has had to scrap plans to fill roughly 50 vacancies, instead permanently wiping those positions off their budget to fulfill mandates for spending cuts. It has also been hampered by a citywide hiring freeze. The department’s staffing issues are particularly acute at the NYPD’s Office of the Inspector General, which is housed within DOI. Not only is the office without a leader, but out of 39 staff positions only 19 are filled, according to Council Member Gale Brewer, who conducted the hearing. — Joe Anuta

The Campaign Trail

TIME FOR FRACKING IN NY?: New York banned hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in 2014, making it the largest state in the nation to do so and drawing praise from Cuomo from environmentalists.

Now, with gas prices topping $4 a gallon, Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin toured upstate New York in recent days to call on Hochul and the state Legislature “to allow the safe extraction of natural resources in the Southern Tier and some other New York locations,” which was not specified.

Even if Zeldin is elected in November, it would be difficult to achieve that goal. The Democratic-controlled Legislature would surely reject it. Still, Zeldin said New York needs to do more to address rising energy prices as he seeks to win a Republican primary in June, including approving new pipeline construction and suspending the state gas tax.

“These are no-brainer, common sense initiatives that would create jobs, generate revenue, revitalize communities and reduce energy costs,” Zeldin said on Facebook.

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ON THE BEATS

CANNABIS: New York hemp farmers can now apply for conditional cultivator licenses to grow adult-use cannabis for the state’s forthcoming legal market. The state officially opened its web-based application portal today — just days after the Cannabis Control Board approved a new application form for conditional adult-use cultivator licenses and set the application period for March 15 through June 30.

Hochul signed legislation late last month to allow certain eligible New Yorkers to get temporary and conditional licenses to cultivate and process adult-use cannabis as the state sets up its recreational market. She urged all eligible New York farmers “to participate in the farm-to-sale pipeline that will create jobs and opportunity throughout the Empire State.” — Shannon Young

ARREST MADE: The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Tuesday apprehended the person suspected of shooting five men experiencing homelessness this month. The suspect killed two of his victims, including shooting and stabbing one person in Washington, D.C., in attacks there and in New York City starting on March 3. He was arrested in Washington. — Amanda Eisenberg

ENVIRONMENT: Last year was a mixed bag for the environment. On one hand, the New York City Council passed several bills that were top priorities for environmental advocates — from phasing out the use of gas in new construction to electrifying school buses by 2035. But it fell short on several other priorities, particularly efforts to improve composting and reduce plastic waste in New York City. The results were captured in the New York League of Conservation Voters’ 2021 scorecard, which tracks the Council’s voting record on top environmental priorities.

“We’ve been doing a lot to deal with buildings and transportation,” said Julie Tighe, president of the League, in an interview. “We need to turn next to dealing with waste. We did not move a whole lot of waste bills.”

The scorecard, first reported by POLITICO, shows that the environmental voting record in the Bronx, Staten Island and Queens improved from the year before. But Manhattan saw a decline, even though it remains the highest scorer of the boroughs. Overall, the Council passed 62 percent of the bills that were deemed a priority from the organization.

“We want to see continued leadership. We want to see this next Council continue this work and build upon it,” Tighe said. — Danielle Muoio Dunn

HOUSING: New York will get roughly $119 million in additional rent relief funds from the federal government, significantly less than the sum Hochul requested earlier this year. Hochul asked the Treasury Department for $1.6 billion in additional rental aid in January, stressing the continued need for assistance among “those still reeling from the financial impact of the pandemic.” “We need to ensure that all eligible tenants and landlords are able to tap into this critical assistance,” the governor said in a statement at the time. The $1.6 billion sum would assist 174,000 tenants, she said. The state exhausted the $2.4 billion originally allocated to the effort.

New York first requested $996 million in additional relief from the federal government last November, but received just $27 million in an earlier reallocation in January. The Treasury Department said it will soon provide information on the process for how to apply for the next round of rental aid. Both landlord and tenant advocates raised concerns with the $119 million sum, and called on the governor and state Legislature to set aside rent relief funds in this year’s state budget. — Janaki Chadha

AROUND NEW YORK

— The suspect for the city’s Museum of Modern Art stabbing was arrested in Philadelphia.

— The number of homeless people being killed on the subway in New York City continues to increase, Gothamist reports.

— New York lawmakers are pushing to increase funding for housing and home care in this year’s budget.

— A small earthquake with a magnitude of 2.6 hit Wyoming County Tuesday morning.

— New York City Comptroller Brad Lander says adding health-care coverage for undocumented residents would help boost New York’s economy.

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