Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Hello, everyone. Welcome back to "Talk With The People." Apologies for the slight delay in our beginning. Like any good millennial, I'm here to inform you that we are facing some tech difficulties. So, if you have any questions today, make sure to hit us up in the YouTube comments. We're still working on the Twitch of it all. But thank you for being here for our second-ever iteration of "Talk With The People." And as you heard from the intro music, what is top of mind for so many across the city is what I have right here as a pin. Shoutouts to the New York Knicks. Last night was incredible. Let us know in the chat where you were watching the game. I was uptown. I was having a great time with a number of friends as we watched the Knicks take game one. And as you all know, this is the first time that we've been in the finals since 1999.
That time, Rick Brunson, Jalen Brunson's father, was on the team, and we lost to the Spurs. This time we're running it back and we're starting a little bit differently. So, we're all incredibly hopeful and the city is alive with this moment. And if you haven't seen the subway station yet, [on] 34th Street, I do recommend you go and check it out. As you know, everybody of every age wants to be watching the Knicks. And so, this week, in advance of what was an incredible game one, we made what I would have to call one of our easiest decisions thus far in City Hall. We finally said no to the bedtime lobby, and we suspended bedtimes for children across our city. Now, to all of the parents, this is what I would call an unfunded mandate. I am sorry for the consequences of this decision, but to all of the kids who have reached out, you know we're looking out for you.
It's an incredible moment, and I want New Yorkers to be growing up in a city where they just think it's normal for the Knicks to be in the finals. They don't have to wait another 27 years for this to happen again, and we don't have to look back to 1973 as the last time we won a championship. So, we're going to keep our fingers crossed. We're ready for game two, and we're just going to see the New York Knicks go out there and do exactly what they've been doing through this run, 12 in a row. Now, elsewhere in the news this week, we also announced 2-K. Now, I'm not talking about NBA 2K; I am talking about free childcare for two-year-olds. Now, I know that is probably an audience that is not watching this stream. However, there may be some of you who know a two-year-old in your life or some of you who are thinking about having a child at some point, but you've been put off by the fact that in New York City, the cost of having a child and putting them into child care is $20,000 a year, and that's considered a good deal.
This is the first time New York City is ever offering free childcare for two-year-olds. 2,000 seats this year [and] 12,000 seats next year. If you are interested in this program and you want to see if you live in the right neighborhoods for where we are launching it, go to myschools.nyc. We had an awesome launch of this in the Rockaways earlier this week, and we're so excited to hear from all of the New Yorkers about what this program could do for all of you.
Now we also know today [is] June 4th, which means we are here in Pride. Happy Pride to everyone who is watching. We are so proud of our status as a city that is a haven for queer people from across the country and across the world, and we're so excited to be celebrating this month and celebrating it both in terms of its symbolism and in terms of its substance, and this is something that we're going to start by doing a city-wide campaign to highlight protections that we have for trans New Yorkers across the five boroughs because there are far too many trans New Yorkers who have been made to feel not only that they don't belong in the city but that they don't enjoy the full protections of the law in this city, and we want to make clear that's not the case under our administration.
In addition to that, this was also a week where we announced that we have collected $9 million in unpaid idling fees from Amazon. Now, in our city we're making it clear it doesn't matter how big of a company you are [or] how profitable you may be; everybody has to follow the law, and if you're going to idle in the city in violation of the law, we will hold you accountable. And if you're Amazon and that idling happens to be worth $9 million in fees that were otherwise unpaid, we will also collect that. So, that's just an example of how we are approaching the work of accountability, the work of governing and the work of ensuring that everyone understands that we're all playing by the same rules here in the city that we love.
Now, as you know, we are about a week, a little more than a week, away from the beginning of the World Cup, not just in general but also right here in New York City. And the last few days were the last times that New Yorkers could sign up for our program where we secured a thousand tickets to be sold at just $50 a pop, and we had 300,000 New Yorkers sign up for this raffle, and New Yorkers are going to find out by the end of this week whether or not they're going to be the lucky ones or if they're unlucky and weren't able to get their chance to win this. If you do get the chance, remember it means you can buy a $50 ticket for yourself [and] a $50 ticket for someone that you want to bring with you, [and] you get free round-trip transit with you, and you cannot resell these tickets; you cannot transfer them to someone else's ownership. These are for actual New Yorkers, not for bots. And we're so so excited to celebrate this World Cup by bringing more and more New Yorkers to the games that they were otherwise worried they wouldn't be able to afford.
Now, we've talked about a lot of things already, but one thing that I really wanted to focus on for this "Talk With The People" is something called COGE. Some of you may have heard about COGE; if not, I'm here to introduce it. COGE stands for government - Look at me. I'm so nervous to talk about COGE with all of you - It's [the] Commission on Government Efficiency, and this may sound familiar because you've heard of DOGE, which was an attempt at this at the national level. Now, let's just talk about government efficiency for one second. We know that working New Yorkers deserve a City government that is budgeting just as committedly as they are, and what that means is that the hard choices politics often push working people to make are, in fact, the hard choices that City government starts to make itself. Because too often a working New Yorker is trying to find any extra dollar they can to make ends meet, and then they look at City government, and they don't see the same application of effort.
So, what we're talking about right here in terms of a commission is a commission to evaluate the City Charter. Now, this, my friends, is the City Charter. This is, by my last count, close to 800 pages worth of a Charter that governs how the City operates. Now, these are the rules for City government. A Charter Revision Commission, which is what the commission on government efficiency is, is a review of the City Charter. It proposes amendments, then New Yorkers vote. Now, in these 779 pages, I'm sure that there are opportunities for government efficiency, but we need your help, your help to bring your struggles with inefficiency to the fore and your ideas for how we can deliver that efficiency to our focus.
So, we are going to be hosting 10 public hearings across the five boroughs to hear from you. Three of those hearings are starting next week. The first one is on Tuesday; the next one is on Wednesday [and] the one after that is on Thursday. [The] first one being in Manhattan, the next one in the Bronx and then Thursday in Brooklyn. You can find out all of the details of this at nyc.gov/COGE. COGE is C-O-G-E. As you may have seen, we have invited Wemby to come on Wednesday. We think this is the perfect way for him to prepare for game four. For everybody else, we would also like you to come on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday because we want this commission to be a reflection of your experiences, of your ideas. We want it to be much more than what commissions have been in the past.
And I thought, who better to talk about this with than someone who has been focused on the question of government efficiency at a national level and, frankly, government inefficiency, especially in the ways in which we found DOGE operating. So, I'm very excited to introduce Adam Mockler to join us.
Adam Mockler: Mayor, thank you for having me.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you for coming.
Mockler: I want to start off by saying congrats on the win last night.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you very much.
Mockler: You know it's been a few months since I've been to the city. I really like what you've done with the place. Do you think Wemby is going to show up next Wednesday?
Mayor Mamdani: You know, as we say, "Inshallah." We're hoping he can pull up in that Eid fit that he had [on]. It was a pretty good fit.
Mockler: But what you've done so far with this commission is really brilliant. I think that it's speaking to the apathy of a lot of young voters across not only New York but across the country - working New Yorkers, working Americans. By the way, if you're in chat right now, whether you're watching on YouTube or TikTok, let us know your thoughts.
Let us know ways that the government has been inefficient in your day-to-day life, the tiny, minute frictions that you feel when you're trying to operate on a day-to-day basis. The mayor and I are going to read off your thoughts and concerns in a real-time manner. So, it's great.
Mayor Mamdani: No, absolutely. And I think to your point, it's an opportunity for the very people who have lost faith in government to help us chart a course where we can win that faith back. And we've been focused on the question of inefficiency over the course of our first six months. We had chief savings officers in every single city agency. Even in just that interim period of time, they found more than $94 million in just pursuing either better contract rates or coming to the realization that there were instances where City government could do a better job than those that we were contracting with.
In one instance, we found that we were paying McKinsey $9 million for work that we could be doing with the staff we already had. And to me, this is an example of what you can find when you're willing to actually look for that inefficiency if your directive isn't using this as a smokescreen for cuts that hurt working people, but actually for delivering the best possible government for work.
Mockler: You know, it's a perfect example of the stark contrast between what DOGE tried and failed to do versus what you guys have already successfully done and will continue to do. When Elon Musk got into power, they immediately fired a bunch of inspectors general, the people who are responsible for finding waste, fraud and abuse, the people who likely would have been skeptical of a lot of these contracts being kicked back to Elon Musk and Peter Thiel at this very moment. What you guys did, as you said, was appoint chief savings officers, and you gave them 45 days to go through and come back with real ways to make the government more efficient, and that is exactly what we need to be doing. The government needs to be working for the people. The government needs to be helping out people, not only in New York, but across the country, and I really appreciate you leading the way on this.
Mayor Mamdani: You're very, very kind, and I think we just want to have a New Yorker be able to look at their City government and see something that's trying as hard as they are.
Mockler: We have some really good news. Twitch is now live.
Mayor Mamdani: God bless.
Mockler: If you guys are in Twitch chat, we had a little bit of technical difficulties, but if you guys are in Twitch chat, we have now made everything more efficient. We have now cleaned everything up. I want you to drop your concerns about the government. Let us know in the comments ways that the government can be made more efficient in your daily life. Let us know -
Mayor Mamdani: I was just going to say, I feel like I've reached the point in my life where now I'm [like] my parents asking for help on how to use the remote, but here we are with Twitch live. YouTube is live. Comments, chat [and] all the vocabulary of streaming are also active.
Mockler: We have a really good question right here already from Sam Blyberg, and we'll get back into the DOGE of it all. It's a really important comparison to make, but this is a really good question. Mayor, what are your plans for improving the protected bike infrastructure? Sam says, for example, multiple cyclists have been killed on Union Avenue in Williamsburg with no improvements to the bike lane. Great question, Sam.
Mayor Mamdani: Thank you so much for your question, Sam. That is something that means a lot to me, not just as the mayor of our city but also as a cyclist myself, and when I lived in Astoria before I moved to Gracie Mansion, there were certain streets that I wouldn't bike on because I didn't feel as safe on them. I was looking for a protected bike lane. And frankly, that's too often the case where New Yorkers do not feel that they have the same level of safety. It's all dependent on their mode of transit. It should not be that way in our city.
Now, a lot of this has to do with political will. Are we willing to build out the bike infrastructure that our city needs? That is something that we're already providing. Whether you're looking at McGuinness Boulevard or you're looking even at 31st Street in Astoria, we are pursuing a more ambitious vision within our Department of Transportation. But to the conversation we were having around COGE, one of the things that we're hopeful that the Charter Revision Commission can also look at is, how can we expedite the construction of bike lanes? Because committing to something is one thing, but then actually being able to deliver it - that's also incredibly important.
I can tell you as somebody who was waiting for years for the Queensboro Bridge South Outer Roadway to be open to cyclists, we were told again and again and again over many, many years, and that wait was one that came as a direct consequence to New Yorkers who would have otherwise had a safer experience biking.
Mockler: Look what happens when we actually take direct feedback from people's personal experiences rather than being like Elon Musk, who got into power and immediately used that power to enrich himself. It's very, very important to be, you know, hearing from people in particular. Can I ask you really quickly -
Mayor Mamdani: Hit me.
Mockler: How jealous do you think billionaire Elon Musk is that he failed at making the government more efficient, and the democratic socialist mayor of New York actually succeeded at doing this?
Mayor Mamdani: You know, I think we will have our revenge in the actual outcomes that we deliver.
Mockler: That's the best way to do it.
Mayor Mamdani: And I think that, you know, for a long time these things have been relegated to becoming debates. There was even a moment where it felt as if the words of "efficiency" and "fraud" and "abuse," these were concerns only of the right wing. We want to be clear and direct. If you care about the public sector, if you care about public service, you have to also care about public excellence. We want to deliver that here in New York City.
Mockler: A big problem was their weaponization of this apathy that exists across a lot of young Americans, Americans of all ages. This apathy has developed from seeing people get richer and richer and richer while the average Americans don't feel like the system is working for them. So, people like Elon Musk weaponized that in order to gain power and enrich himself. We have another really great question right here from Exploder11.
Mayor Mamdani: Shoutouts!
Mockler: The Department of Buildings is costly, opaque and ever-changing, leading to frequent confusion. Will you be looking into ways to speed up its processes and ensure consistency?
Mayor Mamdani: To Exploder11, 100 percent yes. This is one of the many things that we'll be looking at. So on the first day that we came into office, one of the executive orders that I signed was to create a SPEED Task Force, which was to look at the entirety of the building landscape within City government and see all of the different permits and processes required. What we found over the course of that was that, on average, there was a seven-month delay between the end of construction and a time that a tenant would actually move in. We found that there were gaps of up to two years in affordable housing construction, as well as even eight months in just the actual permitting of some of these things that we could cut out entirely if we were willing to hire appropriately and change some of these processes.
That's exactly what we're going to be doing. And when it comes to the Department of Buildings specifically, beyond hiring so that we can expedite some of these permit approvals, we've also seen the fact that currently, before any of those changes happen, there are only six people at DOB, which is short form for Department of Buildings, who are allowed to approve permits for building housing. That is ridiculous. That is not a recipe for being able to build enough housing to keep up with our ambitions for this city. And so, one of the things that we want COGE to take a look at is how can we change that structure? How can we change that set of responsibilities? How can we actually build for excellence, both in a literal way, but also in a procedural way?
Mockler: By the way, if you're just joining the stream on Twitch or YouTube, you should know that if you're a New Yorker, next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, you'll be able to go to hearings live, and you'll be able to voice your concerns. You'll be able to talk about the ways the government hasn't been efficient for you, and your personal experiences will be used to inform policy decisions, which is beautiful. But let's prove the haters wrong very quickly, mayor. Dema says, "We need him to cover housing, but I'm sure he's going to dodge questions about that." What do you have to say?
Mayor Mamdani: Here I am, Dema. I'm trying to dodge, but I'm going to actually answer this directly. First and foremost, you know that I'm focused on the cost-of-living crisis. This is the most expensive city in the United States of America. [The] number one driver of that crisis is housing. We have to talk about it every single day. We recently released a plan called Block by Block. I encourage everybody to check it out. It is a plan that commits our administration to the most ambitious vision of affordable housing in this city's history. We are going to be building 200,000 homes that will not only be permanently rent stabilized, but also actually affordable.
We're going to do this while preserving 200,000 existing affordable homes and ensuring that we have the strongest tenant protections in the United States of America. And this is critically important because it's not just a $22 billion investment over five years. It's not just something that will make it easier to stay in New York City or to get people to move to New York City. It's also critically important because it creates 30,000 jobs in a moment when so many New Yorkers are struggling to afford to live in the city. We want to build housing they could afford to live in and then also create jobs that could pay them enough for that housing that they're so desperately looking for.
Mockler: Mayor, I think we have our first repeat questioner, Exploder11.
Mayor Mamdani: Oh, he's back.
Mockler: Exploder.
Mayor Mamdani: Or they're back. Or she's back. Whoever it may be!
Mockler: Exploder, you better be at the hearings. You seem very passionate about this. Show up. Ask your questions. It says, "New York City tower crane operator training requirements are unique to NYC and prevent tower crane use in projects where they would increase safety, speed and decrease costs." Really quickly, this is exactly why it's so important to listen to people. These are some things that oftentimes can be overlooked that seem little, but they're not. This is very real to so many working New Yorkers. "Any chance of looking into the NYC tower crane operator training requirements?"
Mayor Mamdani: To Exploder11, this is exactly why I want you and every other New Yorker to come out to these hearings next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, because these are the kinds of ideas that we want the commission to be considering. We want the commission to actually explore. And I'll just make one addendum. This is an invitation to all New Yorkers and a very specific San Antonian as well. We'll just leave it at that.
Mockler: Next Wednesday, Wemby, you better show up. So, there's another question that we want the chat to ask us about. If anybody in chat has questions about COGE as an agency or the mechanisms by which COGE will be doing this, please ask your questions in chat. That's very important. Also, tell us more stories about the ways governments have failed you in your day-to-day life. We've already seen some really brilliant questions from people who very clearly feel like the government is not serving them, and the Democratic Party needs to be leading the way in rewiring that, rewiring the incentives of politicians to sometimes benefit themselves and do more of what you're doing, leading the way on making the government more efficient in a very real manner. "Shirley P. NYC," great name. "Mayor, what roads are being impacted during the World Cup? I work by Madison Avenue, so will it affect pedestrian routes?"
Mayor Mamdani: This is a great and very topical question. We just had a press conference this morning about the transit impacts from the World Cup. So, I'm going to go through a few things. The focus of the impacts will be around where you work in Midtown Manhattan. So on match days, of which there are eight games that we are going to be hosting in New York-New Jersey, on those eight games, we are going to see dedicated travel corridors that are going to operate along 42nd Street and portions of 5th and 6th Avenue, and on 40th and 41st Streets.
Now, this is going to begin six hours before kickoff. It's going to last about three hours after the final whistle, and the access for those areas will be limited to New York-New Jersey stadium shuttles, to MTA local buses, to official World Cup vehicles and to emergency response vehicles. So, with all of that in mind, your access as a pedestrian should not be impacted. However, if you are intending to drive into Midtown Manhattan on those eight match days, I would encourage you to either take public transit, to bike or to walk.
Mockler: Very, very good question. Is Wemby also invited to the World Cup or no? Just Jalen Brunson?
Mayor Mamdani: Just Jalen Brunson.
Mockler: Okay, okay, continue. Cambonius says -
Mayor Mamdani: Great name.
Mockler: "Was the name COGE, sounding similar to the other organization that will not be named, designed to be a subtle jab?" I mean, it would be a crazy coincidence if not.
Mayor Mamdani: So to Cambonius, yes, this is a desire to show that in fact, the conversation on government efficiency cannot be monopolized by Elon Musk's entity that was set up as a smokescreen to cut as much funding as possible to working people, both across this country and across the world. We want to show that government efficiency isn't just something that can be manipulated and used as a justification in that manner, but something that we can sincerely deliver on.
Because the reason that Americans were hopeful about it speaks to the fact that many Americans are not seeing the level of efficiency they need to in their local, state and federal government. And a lot of that also comes from an opacity as to what government is actually doing. And so, so much of our mission is to also pull the curtain back and show you exactly what City government does, why it does it, and how we can do it better.
Mockler: Elon Musk immediately began to cut lifesaving cancer research, cut funding for the VA and cut funding for working Americans who genuinely needed it. He then rewired that and made sure that you know him and Peter Thiel got contracts from the administration. So actually, seeing a commission on government efficiency with, you know, chief savings officers and with real-time feedback from people's experiences, is beautiful.
I think this is our final question right here. We're running low on time. We have from User 100, a pretty basic name right there, "Will COGE be publishing open data to allow the public to help identify areas for improvement?"
