Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, Brooklyn! So, over these past weeks, countless Americans across all 50 states have participated in something larger than any single person, something transformative, something that has sent shock waves across our nation. We stood in lines that in some places circled the block. We waited early in the morning and long after the sun had set. And while we may have walked through the doors alone, we witnessed greatness together.
From Brownsville, Brooklyn, to Brownsville, Texas, Brunswick, Maine, to Talkeetna, Alaska, Americans set aside three hours to go to the movies and see Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's unparalleled new film, You Can See Everything.
And as we gather together today to sign the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act, or COPA, into law, I cannot help but feel like we are empowering tenants to do exactly what Elizabeth Holmes and Billy Evans claim to have devoted themselves to doing for one another: build monuments of love.
Now, I want to acknowledge we have a number of leaders both inside and outside of city government who are here with us today. We have our Deputy Mayor for Housing and Planning, Leila Bozorg, who is here. We have our Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants Director, Cea Weaver, who's here. Our HPD Commissioner, Dina Levy, who is here with us. Member of the Knicks starting five, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. State Senator Julia Salazar, welcoming us to her district. Assembly Member-elect Illapa Sairitupac. We want to acknowledge Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation for hosting us, Michael G. Johnson. We want to acknowledge the New York City Community Land Initiative, which has been led by Deyanira Del Río of the New Economy Project, with tireless advocates from more than 30 member organizations. And we also want to acknowledge Debra Ack, East New York Community Land Trust, for being here.
Now, while we acknowledge and appreciate all who are here, I especially want to thank Council Member Sandy Nurse. I want to thank Sandy for her leadership. I want to thank her for her tenacity, and I want to thank her for her commitment in shepherding this bill, because we would not be here today without you.
Now, across the five boroughs of our city, countless buildings have been allowed to become the opposites of monuments to love. They have become monuments to profit. New Yorkers reckon with the consequences when the buildings they call home are sold to for-profit buyers who are just looking to flip the properties or to extract as much rent as possible without making repairs.
While many buyers are decent, careful stewards of the properties they buy, too many others treat their new assets only as something from which value exists to be extracted, the well-being of their tenants simply a secondary concern. The repercussions of this have been stark. Tenants have been pushed out of affordable homes. Hazardous building conditions have piled up. Neglect and mistreatment have become all too common. And the affordability crisis, of which we know housing is the single largest driver, has only grown worse.
In May, when we announced our landmark housing plan, Block by Block, we made a promise to New Yorkers: that we would deliver some of the strongest and most expansive tenant protections anywhere in the United States, and that we would preserve 200,000 affordable homes over the next decade.
Within that promise was a commitment to expand opportunities to transfer ownership of many buildings to responsible stewards, like community land trusts, nonprofits and even the tenants themselves.
Now, unlike Theranos, City Hall believes in keeping the promises we make. That is why I am so proud today to sign COPA into law, a historic piece of legislation that will provide vetted community organizations with the right of first opportunity to make an offer on eligible buildings before they go to the open market.
And I am so grateful to Council Member Nurse, not only for her tireless work to bring us to this moment, but for crafting this bill by listening to the perspectives of New Yorkers who have had to endure year after year of neglect and of suffering.
This law will give New Yorkers a tool to keep their homes out of the hands of predatory investors seeking to make a quick and easy buck.
Here's how it will work: When the owner of an eligible building decides to put their building up for sale, qualified entities will be notified first. They will have 20 days to notify both the owner and HPD if they have an intent to purchase, and 70 days to make a competitive offer. If no qualified entity makes an offer within those 20 days, or if every offer is rejected by the end of that 70-day period, the property can be listed on the open market.
The buildings that will be eligible under COPA are not just any buildings. They are multifamily buildings that have long been victims of pernicious cycles of speculation, those which have been bought and resold by corporate owners to squeeze every dollar of value out of them.
That is not a victimless process. The tenants are the ones squeezed. And too many New Yorkers have reckoned with that squeeze when their homes go unrepaired, when their requests for maintenance go unanswered month after month, when absentee landlords leave their properties in perpetual disrepair.
New Yorkers are tired of asking bad landlords why they own properties and abandon them. Tired of when they say that repairs are imminent and yet they never come. They are tired of seeing their lies to tenants again and again before hearing them have the gall to ask, "Why would I deceive you?"
Today, we take the power out of the hands of those who have abused it for far too long and place it in the responsible trust of those who care about their fellow New Yorkers because they are our fellow New Yorkers.
So, once again, I want to just thank every single elected official, organizer and advocate for making this day possible. Because progress, yes, it is something that we celebrate, and also we know that it is not inevitable. It has to be won. And were it not for the people here, led by this council member, this would not have been won. We would not have been able to celebrate, and New Yorkers would have been robbed of a tool to keep their affordable housing affordable.
And with that, I will pass it over to our Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants Director, Cea Weaver.
Cea Weaver, Director, Mayor's Office to Protect Tenants: Thank you, Mayor. And I also have heard that we have a few birthdays in the house. So happy birthday to Day, Will, Alexis, Jen and Brian. A lot of Scorpio COPA fans in the house. Happy birthday.
What a great way to celebrate. This event has really been a long time coming. And it's especially great to be here at Cypress Hills LDC's Chestnut Commons, which is showing just how beautiful affordable housing that is managed by community stewards can really be. It's very beautiful. It's beautiful to be here.
For six years, organizers with UHAB and so many others across the city have been fighting to pass COPA here in New York. You all have persevered through multiple mayors and even a veto to finally reach this day. Congratulations, and I'm so proud that it was never a question of whether our mayor, this mayor, would veto this bill, because in our administration, we're so proud to stand firmly with tenants who are fighting to preserve their homes.
Every day since we took office, you can see how we have stood on the side of organized tenants against negligent landlords. We have taken the historic step of intervening in court proceedings to support tenants facing bankruptcy. We have won HPD's largest-ever civil penalty in the Bronx at Robert Fulton Terrace and Fordham Towers. We are launching the Critical Repairs Initiative to address important repairs and speed up wait times for tenants who live in our public housing. And we have held NYCHA in Your Neighborhood events and Rental Ripoff hearings in each of New York City's five boroughs, not just to hear from New Yorkers about what's happening on the ground, but to turn their experiences into public policy, like we are doing with COPA today.
In our housing plan, Block by Block, we set ambitious goals: not just creating 200,000 new affordable homes over the next decade, but, as the mayor said, preserving 200,000 more.
We know that our already existing affordable housing is a precious resource, and it is at risk from rising costs and from landlords who are looking to extract profit, flip buildings and not put tenants first. COPA gives us a tool to intervene in that process.
And we're not going to stop with the bill signing. Our budget is dedicating more than $2 billion for affordable housing preservation over the two years, money that can be used to protect and improve upon our affordable housing stock. And we're going to be working hand in hand with our partners in the City Council, with the public advocate, with the State Legislature, and many of you here today to ensure that as we are protecting tenants and standing up to negligent landlords, we are creating a fairer New York City for all of us.
So thank you, and happy birthday. And it is my great pleasure to introduce our partner and the sponsor of COPA, Council Member Sandy Nurse.
Council Member Sandy Nurse: Good morning! We heard $2 billion. That's a big deal.
Six years, four introductions, four hearings, three mayors, two times it was passed, one time it was vetoed. That is the very short history of the Community Opportunity to Purchase Act. That's the shortest version. Which, after today, when our mayor signs it, will be the largest opportunity-to-purchase program in the country.
Just over a year ago, when I inherited the bill and when we made it really clear to the real estate industry that I was putting my entire office's capacity to passing COPA, a well-funded misinformation campaign began that was never, ever really grounded in any truth. And that was fine, because today shows that when tenants and neighbors and community organizations, and especially here in East New York, Black women and progressive legislators, work together, we can win. We can beat them.
And the stakes could not be higher. We know that one in five New Yorkers has reported that they plan to leave the city because they can barely keep their head above water. Working families are leaving the city because the rent is too damn high.
And in communities - just like this one - we often see bad, rundown buildings pass from one bad landlord to another, all at the expense of the health and safety of tenants.
So, to fight this devastation and to fight this loss from our housing crisis, we need every single tool on the table. And COPA is the anti-displacement tool that we need to get some of our at-risk buildings into the hands of our trusted housing organizations who can work with these tenants, who can fix up these units and keep those same tenants in their units. That is what COPA does. That is what COPA is going to deliver.
Organizations like Cypress Hills LDC, which is an anchor neighborhood institution, or like the East New York Community Land Trust, which has already bought two buildings recently. Yes, these are the organizations that I trust. These are the organizations our community trusts to run these buildings and take care of our people. And, in fact, organizations like these are the ones that the city relies on every single day to deliver affordable housing, preserve affordable housing and keep New Yorkers in their homes.
So, I just want to thank Mayor Mamdani. Thank you for reaching out early to say, "What can you do to support?" I want to thank Tanaya, Cassie and Daniel at HPD, Speaker Menin, my speaker, all my colleagues in the Progressive Caucus, my team - Patricia's here - [and] especially Ryan Hickey, my chief. Y'all know him.
And I just want to end by expressing just my deep, deep respect and admiration for the coalition that is here in this room and also folks standing behind me. You all are so talented. You are so resourceful. You are relentless. I could not be prouder to be your champion in the council, and I'm so excited to see this get over the finish line. So, thank you.
Director Weaver: Thank you, council member. All right, next up, we're going to hear from longtime tenant organizer and now apparently a member of the Knicks, Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
[Crosstalk.]
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams: Peace and blessings, love and light to everybody. I'm excited to be here. As mentioned, 25 years ago, I was a tenant organizer. So anytime I'm a part of government - actually doing the things that I was fighting for - is an exciting, feed-your-soul moment. So, I'm excited to be there.
And how great is it to be a part of a mayoral administration who cares more about what's happening with tenants than the paychecks that landlords give to try to ignore them? So, thank you so much to the mayor's administration. Shout out to Sandy Nurse, man! And all the folks who helped organize. This is an amazing moment. It's a long time coming.
As mentioned, no thanks to the last mayor's veto on the way out the door. On the way out the door, all right. Credit to everyone and all the advocates who helped make this happen, who kept fighting to get COPA over the finish line. It was absolutely worth it.
As landlords and corporations continue to place profits over people, even their own properties, it is time to move to create alternatives to this model. While investing to reverse decades of decline - these things didn't happen overnight, its decades of decline in New York's public housing and housing that is affordable - the state and city need to be making every effort to acquire, preserve and develop properties that can be owned and managed through community land trusts, occupied by tenants across the income spectrum.
By removing the corporate profit motive and giving nonprofits and tenants themselves the chance to purchase their homes, we can maintain housing and build neighborhoods. Housing owned by communities of tenants rather than corporations is the path forward. The answers to New York's housing and homelessness crisis do not come in private fundraisers and are not fueled by big checks. They come from the tenants and would-be owners struggling to find and remain in their homes.
I want to thank the coalition and the council member again for listening to communities. I'm hoping that the media will make sure the truth is out there, particularly for Black and brown homeowners who are afraid. This is not going to take your home. This is not going to take generational wealth. You will be able to pass your home down. This is for a very specific type of property that has been intentionally divested in. It is not the Black and brown homeowners who have worked hard to get their one, two, three family homes.
So please, media, get this out there, because what we are doing is we want to keep Black and brown homeowners in their homes that they own and also in the homes that they rent. And that's what this is all about. Everybody deserves to be in a home and a house that they can afford. That is what COPA is about.
So please, our Black and brown homeowners, particularly our Black homeowners who are facing deed theft, they have a lot to be concerned about. They have a lot to be worried about. Don't let them think that COPA is one of them. We want to make sure we get the right information out there. I wouldn't be standing here if it was a bill that was going to take away homeownership from my mom and others like her who worked hard, who came over to this country to make a better life for themselves. And I'm thankful for the council member for listening to those things and making sure the bill really impacted them. So, thank you so much. Congratulations. This is tenant power. Awesome.
Director Weaver: Thank you, public advocate. Now it's my great pleasure to bring up the longtime leader of the New Economy Project, Dey Del Rio.
Deyanira Del Rio, Executive Director of New Economy Project: Thank you so much, and what an amazing birthday present for all of us Scorpio coalition members. New Economy Project is a proud member and coordinator of NYCCLI, the New York City Community Land Initiative, which is the community land trust coalition that led the fight for COPA, alongside more than 200 tenant, community and affordable housing groups.
But I really want to shout out New York City's community land trust movement, which has just grown by leaps and bounds over the past dozen years and gotten to the point of being able to win this transformative policy in a city like New York. That's huge.
You heard how long this victory was in the making. Not only were there multiple mayoral administrations and hearings, we also did dozens of town halls across the city. We did actions at different buildings led by tenant organizers. We did so much work over the past six years to get COPA over the finish line. And we just want to salute every single member of NYCCLI and of the broader COPA coalition for all of the work, and every single one of the thousands of New Yorkers who made phone calls, turned out at these actions and rallies and did what it took to get COPA over the finish line here in New York City.
We did all of this work because we know that addressing our city's deepening affordability crisis requires bold action. It requires taking on speculators that are buying up homes, neglecting them and pushing working-class New Yorkers out of their communities and out of our city. It requires giving tenants themselves, and community groups working with them, tools that can help them disrupt these cycles of neglect and displacement. And it means giving them a real chance to take and reclaim these homes from the speculative market and bring them into permanently affordable community ownership.
So, we did that. And this is just a really powerful, tremendous day. And we want to thank everyone again who made this happen. Again, huge thanks to our fearless champion, Sandy Nurse, who worked so hard with her team over two years. We thank the mayor and everyone in the administration for really putting their shoulders behind COPA and making this work.
And just want to say, this is what building community and tenant power looks like, on top of all the other great work that the city is doing.
Finally, we want to just say that we are going to bring the same tenacious energy that the coalition brought to winning COPA and continuing to fight for six years, now as we implement COPA, right? The next year is going to be about making sure that communities and tenants have the information and the tools to really put COPA to use in their communities, so that we can create and protect the deeply and permanently affordable, community-led housing that New Yorkers so urgently need. So, thank you, everybody.
Director Weaver: Okay, as anyone who's ever been a part of a large family or any large group knows, running housing collectively is not going to be easy. It requires a lot of creativity, patience, hard work, getting together with your neighbors, and nobody embodies that hard work more than our next speaker, Debra Ack from East New York CLT.
[Crosstalk.]
Debra Ack, Community Member Director: Wait, what time is it? Oh, good morning, East New York! That made me dizzy. Hi everyone, my name is Debra and I am a proud board member, and I'm also a founding member of the infamous East New York Community Land Trust.
[Crosstalk.]
Okay, as a tenant, I've lived in East New York for over 30 years. And as a tenant - a tenant, I don't want to own anything - as a tenant, I know firsthand how important it is that working-class New Yorkers get to stay in the communities that we build.
That's why we founded the East New York CLT back in 2020, to take the land and housing out of the speculative market. COPA will help us do just that: give tenant organizing, along with CLTs, a new tool to fight back against real estate speculators that have been devastating our community.
In 2024, East New York CLT worked with the tenant leaders of 248 Arlington, a 20-unit rent-stabilized building in East New York, to purchase their building. Now, we are doing a major renovation of the building and working with the city and the tenants on the rehab. Soon, the building will become a co-op, and the tenants will collectively own the building and run it together, while the CLT will continue to own the land under the building, providing the co-op with ongoing support and ensuring permanent affordability.
We were able to make 248 Arlington happen, but it wasn't easy. COPA will be a powerful tool to make these acquisitions more possible for tenants, CLTs and other nonprofit partners.
At East New York CLT, we believe who better to run a building than the people who live there? We thank our council member, Sandy Nurse, for the leadership and hard work to get this bill to the finish line. And we also thank Mayor Mamdani for signing this into law.
Yes, we advocate, we rally, we talk about what we want to do, and they'll say, "Ok go ahead, do it." And then the next year they'll say, "Oh no, you can't do it." But it is now, as of today, probably about 12 o'clock, it will be law. This is an important day for our movement, for community-controlled land and housing in New York City. Thank you all. Look forward to much more work to be done in the future. Ownership!
Director Weaver: Thank you, Debra. All right, and now we are going to hear last from Michael Johnson, our host today of Cypress Hills LDC. Thank you.
Michael Johnson, Executive Director of Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation: Now, I'm between the mayor signing this bill, so I'm going to be very, very brief. I'm Michael Johnson, Executive Director, Cypress Hills Local Development Corporation. Welcome to Chestnut Commons.
For years, organizations like ours have been fighting an uphill battle, competing on terms that were never in our favor. When the distressed building comes up for sale in East New York, or in any similar community across the five boroughs, we're up against well-funded investors who can make inflated offers we simply can't match. Too often, the result of that is a building goes from one bad landlord to another, and tenants pay the price.
The Community Opportunity to Purchase Act changes that. COPA gives community-based nonprofits like CHLCC and other organizations the first opportunity to buy properties that have community value, not just monetary value. In a fast-moving speculative market, COPA finally helps level the playing field.
Because of organizations like ours, tens of thousands of New Yorkers can afford to stay in their neighborhoods instead of being at the mercy of the speculative market. But opportunity alone isn't enough. Making preservation possible will take acquisition financing, preservation funding and technical assistance.
We look forward to working with the mayor and the council leaders and the others to make sure that we secure that funding so that we can protect more of our residents from displacement. Thank you so much Mayor Mamdani.
Question: I wanted to ask you if you view COPA as a steppingstone to building out other social housing models in the city. I realize COPA on its own is not in it of itself a social housing model, but it is a pathway to two different variations of it. And also, I wanted to ask: A number of the supporters of COPA are also folks who have opposed the lien sale in the past - what do you say to folks who are in the position of now facing a lien sale? We've talked a lot about speculative buyers today. What do you have to say to folks who are in opposition to the lien sale, given that?
Mayor Mamdani: First and foremost, I would say thank you to them for having put forward truly principled critique over many years. It is that critique that provided the basis with which the Council and Council Member Nurse instituted a number of important reforms. It's also that critique that was the driving force in us suspending the lien sale for six months to do a thorough investigation of it. And it's that critique that led us to not only chart a path toward setting up a New York City land bank but also ensuring that in the interim time period between now and that land bank being fully operational, that we would have a sale that is rooted in intensive outreach to protect homeowners, as well as multiple opportunities to avoid a lien being placed against the sale of the property.
And I say that not only as the mayor of our city, but also as someone who at one point was a foreclosure prevention housing counselor and would knock and made a list of potentially affected homeowners. And I knocked on the doors of those homeowners, and I will never forget speaking with a homeowner who had no idea that he was facing the prospect of this.
And so, the reforms that the Council has made, the reforms we have put in place, is to ensure that there is no New Yorker who, while we set up that land bank, will be taken by any of this by surprise, and that we have every program available to ensure that we steward them to a place where they're not facing the very things that led to this critique in the first place.
To your first question, I think we are in appreciation and in awe of this coalition, which has ensured that no matter who is the mayor, no matter what politics looks like in this city, COPA is something that is being pushed and fought for, and now they have got it over the line. And as you've heard from this coalition, they will not rest until they deliver more stability to the lives of tenants across the city, and neither will we. And I'm just going to pass it over to our deputy mayor to add any additional details to that.
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: Yeah, I think, to your point, we see this as a new and hopefully really effective tool in the toolbox for a range of social housing programs. Social housing can take many forms in our city, things like the Public Housing Preservation Trust, a lot of our typical HPD projects where we're working with nonprofits or CLTs. So, there's a wide range of tools in the toolbox. This is a brand-new one, and we're really excited about it.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: But I wanted to ask you about, in the context of COPA passing, this morning we also saw Spatial Equity reportedly is not going to get the Emerald portfolio in East Harlem. The city sought to support that. How will city support differ in the context of COPA in terms of financials for making compelling offers to buildings that are up on the market? First dibs doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to win out. How is the city going to support that?
Mayor Mamdani: Well, I think in the immortal words of Wiz Khalifa, "time is money," and we need to ensure that the most responsible stewards of affordable housing are given that opportunity where their conversation is simply with the potential seller of the building. And we've heard from a number of nonprofits over the years that they would have been able to purchase a property were they able to have that kind of a window.
And so, we do not tell ourselves that this, in it of itself, will solve the housing crisis at its root, but it is an important tool in ensuring that we can start to incentivize responsible stewardship of buildings and start to reward those whose goal here is the stability of tenants and not the extraction of value no matter what the cost is. I don't know, DM, do you want to add anything [to that]?
Deputy Mayor Bozorg: I'll just say there are now mechanisms within COPA that would allow us to not just - there'll be a right of first refusal after a first deal after the first year. So, there will be another shot, actually, at intervening in a project like that. And with Emerald Equities, we're not at the end of the road. And that's what's key here. There will be, you know, we are on the side of supporting the East Harlem Tenants Union in their fight. And even if Spatial Equity's first offer was refused, the fight's not over, so we're excited to keep partaking in that.
Question: I wanted to follow up on the lien sale topic because the lien sales for property owners, and they've had their homes - Black and brown homeowners have their homes for many years. That's where all their wealth is. And they don't want to become tenants. They want to keep their properties. I mean, how do you square this idea of you're trying to make lives better for tenants, but then you have this lien sale coming up that people could potentially lose their property and all of their wealth with them?
And then you have these Black and brown families leaving the city for that reason. I wonder how you square those two ideas and the idea that you campaigned on keeping New Yorkers here in the city and not having this tax lien sale, and here we are next year, that is going to happen.
Mayor Mamdani: Yes, that is absolutely a campaign [promise] - and that continues to be a commitment - is everything in our power to keep New Yorkers in New York. We know that there are so many who have grown up in this city and would love nothing more than to stay in the city, and yet they currently call other states their home because they can't afford this city. And we also know it disproportionately impacts Black New Yorkers across the city, where we've seen 200,000 Black New Yorkers be pushed out of the city.
So, that is why we made the decision to suspend the tax lien sale for six months to do a thorough investigation into it, to ensure that every single step we would take as we set up a New York City land bank was one that would not be looking to penalize the very kinds of homeowners that were looking to stay in the city. One that could responsibly collect the tens of millions of dollars in revenue that are critical for supporting city operations while also providing homeowners every potential opportunity to ensure that they get into a zero-down-payment plan.
Because when I knocked on that homeowner's door, my message to him was not, "Did you know this is happening?" It was, "Did you know this was happening, and here's a Department of Finance payment plan that, if you know how to get into it, can ensure that you're not actually paying any additional money." And so, that's what these reforms are all about: How do we ensure that for those homeowners, they know every opportunity because the city is invested in their stability?
Question: Hi, Mr. Mayor. Thank you for taking my question. I'm going to dive just one level deeper into the nuts and bolts of who gets the final call. Where does the buck stop when the deliberations are happening? Because there's banks that are involved, there's the city that's involved. Can you just tell us a little bit about how that process works and who finally makes the final call?
Mayor Mamdani: When it comes to COPA and the operation of COPA, yeah. So, I think-
Question: [Inaudible] the land bank actually making a purchase.
Mayor Mamdani: So, I think, first, to just give an overall, what we are talking about here is a right of first opportunity, right? This is to ensure that there is a window where these kinds of organizations that have been shown to be the most responsible stewards of affordable housing, that are rooted oftentimes in the very communities that they are engaging in transactions with, are the ones who have that opportunity with potential sellers.
Now, a seller is not forced to sell simply by virtue of an entity like this putting forward an offer. But they have this opening of engagement. I'll pass it over to our deputy mayor and our executive director, as well as our commissioner, to add some additional details.
Commissioner Levy: Yeah, so the way this will work is that when an owner attempts to sell, or when the law is triggered, a not-for-profit or what we're calling a qualified entity will be able to make an offer within that 70-day period that the mayor referenced. If the owner chooses not to accept that, or is competing with a higher offer, then that nonprofit has an opportunity to match the highest and best offer. If the owner still chooses not to sell, they are fine to not sell their building. But if they attempt to sell again within the next 12-month period, it goes back to the beginning and it starts the process again.
Question: The paraprofessional who killed Katie Suarez had a history of alarming mental health episodes, none of which were apparently known to DOE before they hired him to work with small children. Given HIPAA protections, what can the city do to prevent this from happening again?
Mayor Mamdani: So, that is exactly why I had directed our New York City public schools, as well as our entire administration, to conduct a thorough investigation. What I can say at this time is, after conducting that review into the hiring process of this individual, they were terminated from their employment, and now they're continuing with a full review of the entire process of background and hiring at large. And that's something that's true for New York City public schools, as well as looking at the ways in which it intersects with other city agencies as well.
Question: [Inaudible.]
Mayor Mamdani: That's an urgent priority for us, and we will have - when we have more to share, we will share.
[Crosstalk.]
Question: So, I have two questions. Governor Hochul indicated she might be open to some sort of tax along the lines of the pied-à-terre to fund childcare. I'm wondering, do you think essentially a second pied-à-terre of some kind would be enough, or are you seeking more structural change along the lines of the 2 percent income tax that you campaigned upon?
Mayor Mamdani: I'm just thinking of Pied-à-Terre 2, in the Fast and Furious style, what the tagline would be.
Look, I think that it's critically important that we take whatever steps are necessary to deliver a dignified life for working-class people. And I have never been shy about the fact that, given that we are the wealthiest city in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, we know that there is enough wealth to deliver dignity. It's just a question of whether we want to take the steps necessary.
I think the pied-à-terre was incredibly important, not only because we continue to be confident in its ability to raise half a billion dollars per year, but also because it is money that is coming from a surcharge on secondary homes worth more than $5 million that will then be used to make our streets safer, to strengthen our schools, things of that nature.
And to the governor's point about childcare, childcare is critically important to both the present and the future of this city. We keep asking ourselves why are families not settling down, and then we have more than $20,000 as an annual cost of childcare. Doesn't make sense. So, we're proud of delivering free childcare for 2-year-olds for the first time in New York City history. We're proud of adding 10,000 more seats next year. We have more to do.
Question: And then my second question: With Stephen Miller elevated and with this ruling from SDNY ordering you to comply with the ICE subpoena, I'm wondering, do you think you can reasonably tell immigrant New Yorkers they're safe here? And do you feel like you're at, like, a weird place with your relationship with President Trump? Are you recalibrating?
Mayor Mamdani: I think what I can tell immigrant New Yorkers is that we will do every single thing in our power to keep them safe in this city. And that is important not only because more than 3 million New Yorkers are immigrants, myself as one of them, but also because this city is precisely what it is - the greatest city in the world - in part because of the contributions of these very immigrants.
And we know that we will continue to have a sustained disagreement when it comes to federal policy. I have described ICE for what it is: a cruel agency that deserves to be abolished, that has no interest in delivering or maintaining public safety. I've said that to the president directly. I've said it in public. I'll continue to maintain that and do anything in my power to keep immigrants safe from ICE.
Question: Yeah, I've got two questions. First one is, there's been a raft of fires involving e-bike batteries. In 2024, the Department of Transportation ran a pilot for outdoor charging. It was successful. They laid out a plan to expand that to more places in the city - 25 sites. They're now planning to launch it in 2028. Your administration has run on cutting red tape, speeding projects along. Do you think that project deserves the level of urgency? I've been told Prop. 3 wouldn't apply to it, but former FDNY Commissioner Laura Kavanagh has said there's a few code switches, code fixes that you could do to speed this up. Is there something your administration would look at?
Mayor Mamdani: We are going to look at every single option we have, precisely because of what you underlined. This is of importance to the safety and well-being of New Yorkers. This year has seen more than 400 fires that were caused by lithium-ion batteries, and these are fires that can take New Yorkers' lives. And we also know that for many New Yorkers, this is how they earn a livelihood, and how to navigate those two things is of critical importance.
And so, we will absolutely look into what we can expedite that has already been proposed, as well as what additional opportunities our city has to ensure that we are making it as easy as possible to be in compliance with the law, incentivizing safety as opposed to just hoping for it.
Question: All right, second question, also having to do with a City Council bill. Council Member Julie Won introduced a bill about improving food quality in homeless shelters; one about raising the per diem that DHS will pay to operators to buy food for shelter residents to $15, and another, keeping a watch list of those who provide inadequate food. Do you support those bills, and what steps is your administration taking to improve the quality of food in our shelter system?
Mayor Mamdani: I'll have to get back to you on the specifics of both of those pieces of legislation. What I would say is that ensuring that we have a shelter system that is meeting the needs of New Yorkers is of critical importance to us. It's also a key part in ensuring that we can start to build a more sustainable approach to homelessness. Right now, we are looking to open additional shelters to ensure that we can wind down the use of hotels as emergency shelters for families with children.
Question: If your allies in Congress, speaking of, like, D.A.C. and Valdez-
[Crosstalk.]
Question: -decide not to support Jeffries for speaker, would you change your mind and back them?
Mayor Mamdani: I supported D.A.C. and Claire Valdez precisely because I knew that they would be partners to our administration's affordability agenda, and also because I trust them to make their own decisions. They are incredible champions of working people, not only in their districts but across our city, and I look forward to what they'll do in Congress.
Question: Would you change your mind based on their support? [I'm more] asking about you.
Mayor Mamdani: I'm excited to continue supporting them.
Question: I have two questions. Another one on Stephen Miller. Does your administration expect to continue engaging with Stephen Miller on immigration matters in the same way that your team did with Susie Wiles? Or are you concerned that speaking with Miller about individual immigrants could actually jeopardize their safety?
Mayor Mamdani: We are going to engage with anyone who has the power to deliver for this city. And I have said that time and time again, because my responsibility is to exhaust every option in the pursuit of dignity for New Yorkers. Our engagement with the Trump administration has not only yielded the release of a Columbia student who was detained by ICE, it's also secured a visa for the mother of Javits Frimpong so she wouldn't have to grieve him from thousands of miles away. And that will continue, because I never want to be a mayor who tells New Yorkers that there was more I could have done, but I was afraid of trying.
Question: And then just a second question: A tax on billionaires was recently shut down in California. Do you worry that might slow momentum behind your push to raise taxes on the rich in Albany?
Mayor Mamdani: No.
