Jamie Stelter: Mayor Mamdani's first month in office is a snowy one and he's been preparing the city as best [as] he can. Thousands of sanitation workers are ready to roll as early as tomorrow morning, getting the roads in good shape as the brunt of the storm gets going on Sunday morning. And the mayor is with me now. Good morning.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani: Good morning.
Stelter: So this is really your first big test. A lot of pressure. How are you feeling?
Mayor Mamdani: I'm feeling good and frankly I have to say it's because of the incredible men and women we have working for our city. We've already seen just starting at 6 a.m. today sanitation workers brining the highways and major roads of our city all preemptively to prepare for what we're going to see this weekend.
Stelter: And do you feel good about the work that they're doing? We have an interim commissioner on sanitation. We haven't had a lot of snow or big storms in the last few years. Are they out of practice? Are you confident?
Mayor Mamdani: I think they're completely in shape and ready for this and I think we're seeing it not only for today's activities but you know tomorrow we're gonna see 2,000 sanitation workers start on their 12-hour shifts and we're gonna be transforming what is our typical DSNY operation into the nation's largest snow fighting operation.
And that's going to be something we'll see with plows and chains. As soon as we hit about two inches of snow we're going to start to see salt being put across the city. We have 700 salt spreaders ready to do this work and we're prepared.
Stelter: If I was the mayor, this is the thing that would keep me up at night, is calling the snow day or not calling the snow day. We dug into the archives to get a tally of some recent mayors and how many snow days there have been under them. We should say that the Mayor Adams one has a bit of an asterisk because it wasn't an actual snow day. Those are remote learning days but you know apples, tomatoes, tomatoes. What is going to help you make that call and when will you make that call?
Mayor Mamdani: So what I can tell you is, I know to the disappointment of any student that's watching this right now, Monday's either going to be a remote learning day or it's going to be an in-person school day. It's not going to be a traditional snow day and that is a determination we've made.
We're going to clarify for parents by noon on Sunday as to which of these two things it is and we want to make sure that we give them as much time as possible to plan because while students love them, parents actually [have] a major impact on their schedules and so that's the determination we're gonna come to on Sunday.
Stelter: I have two little kids. It's impossible. You're trying to teach them. Maybe I mean, I don't work from home but if you're a parent that works from home you're trying to do all these things. So let's say that one more time for all the students that are watching. It is either going to be [a] regular school day or-
Mayor Mamdani: A remote learning day.
Stelter: A remote learning day.
Mayor Mamdani: And by 12 p.m. on Sunday we're gonna let parents, students and teachers know which of the two it's going to be and the reason that we're waiting until then is to see what is the extent of the snowfall we're talking about because you know as well as I do, the range is a pretty big range.
We could be talking about 8 inches of snow. We could be talking about 18 inches of snow and if it's on the lower end then we have full confidence that we can clean our streets such that students can get into school.
But we want to give our Sanitation Department these next few days to see what we are actually looking at and I do have to say this is not for a lack of trying from students. There's a student that somehow found my wife's email and made a case for why it should be a snow day. They apparently made some great points.
Stelter: Honestly, brilliant. Go for the wife because if anyone is gonna get to you it'll be your wife.
Mayor Mamdani: She's the best at it.
Stelter: And Rama didn't move on that at all.
Mayor Mamdani: She thought it was a very very good argument but this is where we've ended.
Stelter: Oh I love that for her. We have Alyssa Paolicelli this morning out at a hardware store in Astoria talking to people about getting shovels and all this. There is a salt shortage. What have you heard from your Sanitation Department about that?
Mayor Mamdani: Well we've already seen that we're starting to emergency procure additional salt to start to reckon with this mismatch and I think that's the part of this is that we want New Yorkers to be prepared. We want the City government to take every step to actually be stepping up to the plate and this is the other part that for any New Yorker that's looking to get anything this weekend, today's the day.
If you want to get your groceries, if you want to get that new winter coat, whatever it might be, I recommend you do it today because we're not just talking about snow, we're also talking about a cold front and that's why the city has activated Code Blue from yesterday and we're going to be intensifying our outreach to homeless New Yorkers across the city to connect them with shelter so that no one's sleeping outside.
Stelter: Yeah it's actually quite frightening, whatever falls on Sunday it's not going above freezing next week so it's all just gonna stay.
Mayor Mamdani: Yeah.
Stelter: Have you been in touch with Janno Lieber about the subways and buses?
Mayor Mamdani: We've been in touch. Whether it's with the MTA or all of our city departments, everyone is preparing for this and I think that's what gives me a real sense of confidence is we're not just putting this on one department. You know, we're talking about snow plowing, that's DSNY, but the Parks Department is actually also going to help them with that because everybody understands, like you heard from the New Yorkers on your own show, these are the moments that New Yorkers remember and this is the measure of an administration we're confident that we're going to be able to deliver.
