Maya Wiley's N.Y.C. Mayor Endorsement Interview

Maya Wiley is a civil rights lawyer who served as counsel to Mayor Bill de Blasio and oversaw the city’s Civilian Complaint Review Board.

This interview with Ms. Wiley was conducted by the editorial board of The New York Times on April 28.

Read the board’s endorsement for the Democratic primary here.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Thank you so much for joining us. I wanted to kick off by just asking you why you want this job and why you think you’re the best candidate for it. Because we only have 30 minutes together, and we have so much ground to cover, brevity would be really appreciated in all your answers.

You’re asking a lawyer for brevity, but I’ll work on that. Well, look, the short answer is, you know, as the child of civil rights activists, as someone who has spent my entire career working on racial justice and equity issues, as a litigator, as someone who lobbied Congress, founded a not-for-profit, worked in the foundation world, worked in government, and most importantly, as a mom — I’ve got two daughters born and raised here.

We’ve been watching the pandemic that is Covid rip the curtains back, deepen and worsen the pandemics that preceded it, which are the pandemics that were an affordability crisis, something we’ve been grappling with for a long time — in more than one mayoral administration, but not as successfully as we need it to be — and grappling with structural racism, which is what I call colorblind racism, and the policy decisions that continue to ensure that when a pandemic like Covid hits, 88 percent of the people who die are in communities of color. And that’s not a surprise. There’s not much that we saw in Covid, besides its devastation and the trauma of it, that should surprise us, in the inequities of it and in how that also devastated all of us.

[Data released by the city showed that in the early weeks of the pandemic in New York, Covid-19 was killing Black and Hispanic New Yorkers at twice the rate of white people.]

So from my vantage point, as someone who spent my entire life trying to make change and having some successes, but watching four years of Donald Trump rolling it back … and the necessity of cities to be much bolder, much more transformational, but lean hard into solving the pandemics once and for all. Because, you know, we always recover in New York City. We recover from every crisis. The question is, are we going to recover all of us?

And that’s why I’m running. That’s the incredible opportunity and possibility I see despite this devastating moment. And that’s actually what I’ve always done, including at the senior levels of city government. So that’s why I’m running.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Thank you. My colleagues, weigh in. Go ahead, Mara.

Mara Gay: Thanks. So as mayor, you would be running a city of more than 300,000 employees with a budget larger than that of many small nations. How does your substantial experience as a civil rights attorney, former counsel to the mayor and head of the Civilian Complaint Review Board prepare you for this role? And then how would you assess the mayor’s management style and what would you do differently if elected?

Thank you for that important question, because I think what we have to understand about what management looks like in this historic moment is it has to be change management. This isn’t “we want the trains to run on time.” We need the trains to run on time, and in fact, they should be 24/7. We want to make sure the trash is getting picked up and it’s getting picked up in every neighborhood. You know, these are deeply important quality-of-life issues.

There are also issues about opportunity and getting to where we need to go and all the other things we need to do as a city government. But it’s also about how we solve what has been broken in the city before Covid, what’s been fast tracked, as I said, deepened, in terms of the crisis we’re in.

And that means change management that understands, as I have, because I had the opportunity to do it in city government, of seeing just where the resources are — like I did when we were working on universal broadband and the mayor said, “That’s yours, Maya.” And I thought, great, because I’ve been working on it as a civil rights activist and racial justice advocate. I came into City Hall and I said, “You know what, I want to do it.” And I have no idea how, because if we’re really being honest with ourselves, if we’re being transformational, we don’t. There’s no such thing called the Universal Broadband Agency in government.

[The Times editorial board has written on the urgent need to expand access to broadband, noting that particularly in the context of the pandemic, access to broadband is a civil rights issue.]

So it’s about finding the resources that government has. That means looking at the budget, both the capital construction budget and the expense and revenue budget. It’s looking at where and how we’re spending and how we spend more wisely. That’s a big part of … looking at starting that budget process in January is not just looking at it as a straight “give me your budget and I’ll respond,” but actually looking at it strategically in terms of where and how to invest the resources we have.

I put a $70 million budget line in the capital construction budget. The city never had that before for broadband. I also pulled together agencies, four different agencies, to get them working together as partners in order to get every single unit in the Queensbridge Houses free broadband. Now, this was all before Covid. I did something similar with women and minority-owned business enterprise contracts, getting sanctuary city legislation, the first one, unstuck on the executive side of government — it was not stuck on the City Council side.

[A sanctuary city refers to one that limits the role of local law enforcement agencies and officers in enforcing federal immigration laws. New York City, which already had strong sanctuary city policies, expanded them in October 2017, further limiting the city’s cooperation with federal immigration enforcement efforts.]

But you know, so much of it is about recognizing the amazing and tremendous resources we have to bring to bear as a city government, but looking differently about how we deploy it and how we get agencies partnering with each other to do it more effectively because they can’t do transformation in silos. And understanding that those partnerships also include partnerships outside of city government. And that’s both understanding our communities, the innovations that are happening at community levels that need to be built upon, which is why we had folks like Red Hook Initiative and Girls Who Code at the table with venture capitalists and real estate when I was looking at broadband. And it’s also about how we understand where and how we need legislation because ——

Mara Gay: Sorry to interrupt. We have to keep it moving. Can you just assess the mayor’s management style. How do you think he was as a manager?

Well, you know what I focused on, particularly when we’re thinking about management now, is what works so well. You know, I was grateful to be the first Black woman to be counsel to New York City’s mayor, because of the ability to make real structural change. And we did that with universal prekindergarten, when there was a clear vision, a clear mandate, a mayor who was actively moving barriers out of the way and calling it as an all-hands-on-deck moment. We needed multiple agencies. We needed multiple partners from the senior table within City Hall, which I was able to participate in and help universal pre-K get done. That also happened with IDNYC, with paid leave expansion. These were incredibly important things in making a difference in people’s lives.

Mara Gay: Well, are you a delegator or are you somebody who would be a kind of detail-oriented manager?

You have to be a visionary who understands how government works, but hires and empowers the best people to get the job done, making sure they stay on mission, holding them accountable, but actually being the person who supports their ability to be effective in their jobs. You can’t micromanage them. But you do have to track and keep them accountable for working together and on mission.

Brent Staples: I’m unclear on one point here. From what you just said — and if you can keep your answers brief, that would be helpful — from what you just said, you think the mayor was a great manager?

No, that’s not what I said.

Brent Staples: Well I can’t hear what you’re saying is what I’m after. I can’t hear what you’re saying.

I see. OK, I apologize. Let me try to clarify. What I’m saying is, I saw examples where we got big transformational things done. And the way they happened was when there was a clear vision and when there was a call to partnership across government and an accountability to getting it done. And it worked. But I left and voted with my feet in 2016, because it was getting harder and harder to see that happening. But it is the way I manage and it is what I love to do. And it’s why I enjoyed the job when I was able to do it that way.

Kathleen Kingsbury: This leads me to ask about police commissioner. But go ahead, Jesse. We’re talking over each other now. I apologize. You’re muted, Jesse.

[Using Google Hangouts, speakers unmute themselves by clicking the red microphone icon.]

Jesse Wegman: Sorry, I’m happy to go with the police direction, but I can also ask the question I was going to ask. So whichever you prefer.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Oh, thank you. If we could, let’s talk about the police commissioner, how you think about what kind of commissioner you would choose. But also we’ve seen the police force essentially, and the unions especially, essentially railroad both of the past two mayors, who had very different styles. So maybe you can talk a little bit about how you see the police force going forward from here.

Brent Staples: It looks like they were running the city, excuse me, but go on.

Well, we have to move from a model that says anything the police say goes to a model where we’re, what I call, putting the public back in public safety. And that means having strong mayoral control of the police department. There’s nothing that prevents it, frankly, but politics. One of the things that called me into the race is, you know, I’m only running to make a difference in the work that I have been doing for decades, from creating a criminal justice initiative in post-apartheid South Africa to chairing the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board.

[During Ms. Wiley’s tenure at the Civilian Complaint Review Board, critics said that the agency became more secretive in its disciplinary process and that public trust in the review board declined. Read more in The Times.]

And what I see — and I called for it over the summer when I was marching alongside everyone else after George Floyd’s murder — which was, one, that [Police Commissioner Dermot] Shea should be fired because he is not a senior manager on mission. And that is not something I will have.

When I am mayor, I am going to have a police commissioner on mission. It’s going to be a very different model and type of police commissioner. Because I’m going to have someone who does not come up from the rank-and-file of the New York City Police Department, and who’s a civilian, because we have to understand that the police department, like every single other agency of government, are public servants. They serve the public. And that means we have to clarify the Patrol Guide, but with strong civilian oversight of that clarification.

Because right now we have an excessive-force policy that’s roughly four pages. Right? Camden, N.J., virtually eliminated police violence — not all misconduct, but significantly reduced police violence — by creating an 18-page Patrol Guide with an excessive-force policy. It was very clear about what you can and cannot do, made it black-and-white, did not allow — because the police union was disbanded in that instance — didn’t allow for debate on broad swaths of discretion. This is a public process of rule-making. The only thing that prevents that is politics and it’s fear of the police department.

But I’m not going to be that mayor. I’m not afraid of the Police Department. And I’m going to make sure we’re pulling out from the Police Department what are not policing functions, like mental health crisis response, like traffic and like school safety. And I’m going to make sure that we’re focusing police on the model of policing that sees itself in partnership, and holds it accountable to that. But the rules of the road being clear means when you off-road, it is fast, clear discipline. And clear discipline just like we have in our criminal codes. And transparency and data, because I’m not going to let a police commissioner make us fearful of bail reform, which I think has been a significant move forward. And it’s halting the criminalization of poverty. But that was just a police commissioner running roughshod over the public.

Nick Fox: Can I ask you, as head of the C.C.R.B., what you did to increase accountability and discipline of the police?

Yes you may, and I thank you for that question. When I walked into the Civilian Complaint Review Board in 2016, one, it was an agency at war with itself. I think you may remember there were many lawsuits internally, including against the previous chair, but a big part of it was looking at, first of all, the power of the agency. We did not have, really, an independent agency that makes policy recommendations. It does two primary things. Obviously, it looks and investigates and makes recommendations on police misconduct. And it also tracks data and establishes policy.

[Ms. Wiley’s predecessor at the C.C.R.B., Richard Emery, resigned in 2016 amid accusations he had engaged in gender discrimination.]

So I actually created a new senior position for advocacy in the organization in order to not just do public education — as in, here’s how you file a complaint, although that’s important — but actually what laid the framework and groundwork for the capacity of the agency to push for the ballot initiative we just saw. And ballot initiative two, that was calling for our ability to actually charge police officers with lying. So that was actually an important reform on powers in the agency.

But what I am most … it was a shattering experience, I won’t lie … but getting Daniel Pantaleo’s case over the New York City Police Department with recommendations of charges, and protecting — and I had to fight for it — protecting the civilian prosecution of that case. Because there is a memorandum of understanding that gives the police commissioner power to remove that authority from the C.C.R.B. if he so chooses — I say “he” because that’s what we’ve had. But that’s an important part of the C.C.R.B. that’s unique to the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, compared to most others in the country. And it was a critical part of what ultimately got Daniel Pantaleo off the force.

[Daniel Pantaleo is the former New York City police officer who put Eric Garner in a chokehold, as Mr. Garner uttered his dying words, “I can’t breathe.” Mr. Pantaleo was fired and stripped of pension benefits in 2019.]

Jesse Wegman: Thank you. Can I ask you about your role in the de Blasio administration, an aspect of that? You’re credited with creating this “agents of the city” classification that, at least for a while, allowed Mayor de Blasio to keep his conversations with outside advisers from being disclosed to the public. Can you tell us what was the purpose of that designation? And what do you say to that criticism that it served to effectively protect the mayor from scrutiny over fund-raising practices for the Campaign for One New York, which, as you know, prosecutors said were unsavory at best?

[New York’s “agents of the city” classification attracted scrutiny. The classification allowed certain people’s communications with the mayor to be kept from the public.]

You know, first of all, let me say that obviously because of some privileges there are certain things I can’t say, although I wish I could. But I will say, if you look at the role of a counsel to a New York City mayor, but also a lawyer to a client, you make clear to the client what the law says, what is clearly unlawful, where if the client wants to do something, what your best advice is if it’s not clearly unlawful. And it’s the client that makes the decision.

You know, as someone who believes deeply that one of our biggest challenges in government — and not just in New York City, in New York state, federally — is restoring trust in government. And as someone who cares deeply about ethics, I put out an ethics plan that made clear that in addition to strongly enforcing the existing ethics laws that we have, beefing up the budget of C.O.I.B. (the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board), which is an incredibly important independent entity for ensuring and policing that we’re not violating our ethics code. It’s one that I worked directly with when I was the counsel to the mayor, and well with. I would also make sure we didn’t have a revolving door on lobbying, because I actually think that no one should get to lobby my administration who’s worked for my administration as long as I am mayor.

Jesse Wegman: So speaking of that kind of thing, can you tell us — I mean, increasing trust in government is great, and a stronger ethics code is great, but what are you going to do as mayor? What would you do as mayor to make New Yorkers trust that your administration is transparent?

By being transparent. I think that’s a really important question. You can’t do it without transparency. And there are a couple of different aspects to transparency, right. I mean, one is exactly what you’re asking for in this question, right. Which is that no one’s going to have to sue me for emails that I have with folks who had business with the city who are asking or having a conversation about city business. That’s just not going to happen. Because all it does is engender distrust.

But the second is about the partnership aspect of transparency. You know, one of the things I did when I was counsel to the mayor … I had people call me — folks I had worked with in the advocacy, racial justice community before I worked in City Hall — one instance on a school to prison pipeline, called me up and said — I won’t use the exact language because there were some expletives in it — called me and said, “Y’all are messing up.” And it was not something I was working on or assigned to. And in that moment I had to make a choice. And the choice is do you say, you know, “That’s not my job,” or do you actually recognize it should be everybody’s job?

So I said, “Look, tell me what we’re doing wrong and come in.” And after that conversation, it’s, “OK, come in and bring all the people you think you need to bring to the table.” And then I will bring the people who are actually working on this to the table, use my position in senior cabinet and create a transparent dialogue about what’s happening. And then what emerged from that was there was an internal process happening on a memorandum of understanding between the Police Department and the Department of Education on these disciplinary issues and on the relationship. And I said, you know what, what the advocates are calling for is right — a seat at the table discussing what that memorandum of understanding should be and what should change.

So what we essentially did is create a partnership, because there became a leadership table working on it collectively with folks outside of government, not just in. And that is a critical part of establishing trust, but also making smarter policy and program decisions.

Nick Fox: Can I get back for a minute to what Jesse was asking? I mean, I can understand how in 2014 de Blasio’s ethical blindness may not yet have been fully apparent. But it seems clear now that the advice you gave on ethical guidelines back then was actually advice taken to avoid ethical guidelines, and I don’t know if that’s all on your client.

I hear you, but I don’t think that’s factually accurate. In fact, if you look at the Department of Investigation memo, it says in that memo, and I can quote that because it’s a public document, that it appears that he did not take the advice and direction that he was given.

And all I can say — again it’s an extremely uncomfortable position to be put in not to be able to say all the things I wish I could say — but at the end of the day, I think the question is, you know, what I will do as mayor and what I have done in city government and on these issues that I’m actually very proud of, including the way in which I gave guidance around doing what we should do as a city to be very transparent. And it was not always possible to get done the things that I thought should be done. But I certainly appreciate your question because I think it’s extremely important and it matters deeply to me. And look, I voted with my feet in 2016. I was out of that administration for five years, and I left during that time period, and there’s a reason I left.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Brent, maybe we can move on to schools.

Brent Staples: One of the things that happens in New York — it happened with Bloomberg, and it happened with this administration — is that the administration becomes captive to the union, to the teachers’ union, which is very powerful in New York and a few other places. There are instances of that. And just as a note, people are projecting that when school starts this fall, as many as 30 percent of the teachers will opt not to return to school and we’ll end up with a kind of Zoom classroom situation. Are you comfortable with that, number one? And number two, we have a long history of discrimination in terms of access to high-quality schools in New York and a deepening problem of segregation. I mean, what concretely, if anything, would you do about those things?

[Across the country, teachers’ unions played a role in delaying in-person school reopenings. Critics say Mayor de Blasio frequently cowed to the demands of the city’s teachers’ union.]

So are you satisfied with this teacher’s union arrangement, and that maybe two-thirds of teachers may not come back to school, and what are you doing about access to high-quality education for poor people?

The short answer to the first question is that I think it’s critically important that we lead with the advice and guidance of public health experts who have been explicit about our ability to come back to school with certain social distancing, three feet. And that it’s incumbent upon us to make sure every single kid can get a high-quality education, get back into the classroom. I’m someone who called for that early, that we had to get our kids back to school and be very transparent about how we’re doing it to be safe and follow public health protocols.

And some of this also relates to the other part of your question, Brent — or Mr. Staples, apologies for the informality — but that we actually have to end all discriminatory admissions practices, period. I was very, very grateful for the opportunity to co-chair the School Diversity Advisory Group process with Hazel Dukes from the N.A.A.C.P. and José Calderón from Hispanic Federation. And the work we did over almost two years, which was not just an inclusive process in terms of the 40-plus people who were at the table as a formal part of that group, from students to parents to educators and academics and advocates, but also the over 800 people we met with in every single borough in meetings about what they wanted to see and what they were seeing and experiencing. So it’s very clear I’m standing by those recommendations. I’m going to implement them.

But the other part of this is we have to recognize so much of what we were hearing, of course, from our parents and students who were in segregated schools, is that, “we’re not getting the resources.” This is the first year we’re going to have Fair Student Funding, fully funded. I’m going to hire 2,500 more teachers to bring down class sizes because that will improve educational quality. I’m going to make sure that’s also the opportunity we need to diversify the teaching force, which we know also increases the academic performance of Black and Latino students.

And I’m also going to put trauma-informed care in the schools, starting with the schools that are in communities with the highest rates of gun violence, because we know cognitive behavioral therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy … If someone is a trauma survivor, which I am, I know the value of how trauma care matters. But when we’ve seen what we’ve seen in Covid, and we know what’s happening in our communities that are experiencing high rates of gun violence, we should not ignore the fact that these services and supports of treating the whole child actually sends violence down and graduation rates up. So I’m going to make sure we’re using our resources in order to also improve the quality of our educational experience.

Brent Staples: Can I go back to a simple yes or no on this question of are you content with the fact that 30 percent of the teachers may opt not to come back in the fall?

I am not.

Mara Gay: Thanks. Let’s move on to housing. How — briefly, please — are you going to build more housing for low- and middle-income New Yorkers in a bigger way than the de Blasio administration was able to do?

I’ve got a $10 billion plan called New Deal New York, and I’m increasing the capital construction budget, which is a part of the budget where we build affordable housing as government. Part of what I want to do with that budget is build more affordable housing, deeply affordable. I would be buying up vacant hotels right now, if I was mayor, to use that vacancy to create permanently affordable housing particularly focused on the homeless. And I would take 1,000 acres of city-owned land, partnering with not-for-profit housing developers, to make sure that we’re building permanently affordable housing with the land we own.

[Ms. Wiley’s “New Deal New York” plan aims to create 100,000 jobs, fund public works projects, spend $3 billion on climate-related projects, spend $2 billion on housing, create more protected bike lanes and more.]

Binyamin Appelbaum: $10 billion isn’t enough to increase the housing supply in the city significantly. How many new units of housing do you think New York needs?

Well, we need both to preserve existing affordability — obviously, that’s a big part of the equation. And we’re looking at the numbers, but it’s a fair question. We’re talking about what those numbers are and what we think we could do. I think it’s going to be around 10,000 units that we think we should be creating. The reality is, do we need more? Yes. And one of the things we’re hoping that’s going to be useful is this infrastructure bill that the federal government is proposing is that we’re going to be able to do more.

[As The Times reports: “Since city and state lawmakers started gutting the rent laws in 1993, the city has lost over 152,000 regulated apartments because landlords have pushed the rent too high. At least 130,000 more have disappeared because of co-op and condo conversions, expiring tax breaks and other factors. And while government officials say the losses have slowed, even regulated apartments are becoming increasingly unaffordable.”]

Brent Staples: There’s a federal lawsuit called Noel vs. New York making its way through federal court right now, I don’t know if you’re familiar with it. Civil rights groups are suing the city for the set-aside program that they have for affordable housing. The set-aside program, simply put, is: If I’m building this in your area, 50 percent of this goes to your area. But how that works out is that roughly in majority white areas, maybe 3 percent of people are eligible for this affordable housing, but they get a lot of 50 percent of the housing and people from all the other areas can’t come there. This affirmatively advances segregation. What’s your position on that lawsuit? What would you do about it?

I would end it. I would end the set-asides. Look, I’m a civil rights lawyer. I raised concerns about this when I was in the administration. And I do not believe in segregating housing.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Eleanor, you want to jump in now?

Eleanor Randolph: So let’s get back to a management question. You know, there are 50 departments, they cover so many parts of the city. I’d just like to zero in on one part, and that is the streets of the city. There are 8,000 miles of streets. And we are all fighting for access — you know, pedestrians, bicycles. And now we have restaurants adding houses, really, in the streets. How do you look at the public access to these? I mean, it’s almost a quarter of the land population of the city. How do you see the mayor dealing with that?

[After an especially deadly few years for the city’s cyclists, many people have called for more protected bike lanes and for a broader effort to make the city’s streets safer for cyclists. The Times columnist Farhad Manjoo recently envisioned what a carless New York might look like.]

I think the mayor has to deal with this head-on by making government work together more effectively. I’ve been talking to restaurant owners, small businesses that are not restaurants, obviously, folks that rightly want more bike lanes, protected bike lanes. So I’ve said in my climate action plan that we need to double the amount of green and open space. Some of that means continuing Open Streets initiatives, creating more Open Streets initiatives, creating more protected bike lanes. But part of what we have to do to accomplish that as a management issue in city government is again pulling together that vision and calling the agencies together.

So I would create the Office of Open Space Management as a mayoral office, in which we take all of the major agencies engaged in these issues of open spaces — Parks Department, that’s Department of Transportation, that’s the Department of Small Business Services because of the small business issues, and others — and where it becomes a space in which we de-silo the way those agencies are working and making decisions. Because it’s not effective if they’re all in these individual lanes, not looking at and seeing how they’re impacting the community by not working together.

Eleanor Randolph: You know, listening to you, you want to add 2,500 teachers. You want to add lots of people to your budget. This year the city’s going to be OK because we’ve got help from D.C. What are you going to do going forward, when you’re going to have to probably cut something somewhere? How are you going to deal with that?

I’ve worked very hard to make sure we are all looking at the budget implications. Because it’s an economic crisis. We have to be honest about it. And part of it is by recognizing there are efficiencies we have to gain in government, and examples of where we just have to lean in hard and do it, and also make cuts. But I’m going to do it in a way that’s on mission and that creates a moral budget. And the way I’m going to do it, and it’s going to start with — in addition to some of the places we know we have to go inside and transform how we’re spending money, pulling it out of management, for instance in the Department of Education and making sure more money is going into the classrooms. But each agency, I am going to ask for 3 to 5 percent pay from each agency.

But rather than just accepting the peg at face value and just saying, “OK, here are your cuts,” I’m going to actually look more deeply and question and ask where and how those cuts are coming and what it impacts. Because we want to cut fat and not bone. And so much of what happens in a peg process, if you’re not examining that, is that managers — there’s a tendency to avoid the management cuts and therefore the cuts come farther down where it impacts people more directly. And I’m not going to let that happen.

[A peg procedure is a “program to eliminate the gap,” a budgeting exercise used by many New York mayors to find savings across city agencies.]

Eleanor Randolph: And how about the Police Department? What kind of cuts are you going to do there?

Well, I’ve already collectively — if you look at my plans and where and how I start paying for them — collectively I already have about a billion dollars I’m taking out of the New York Police Department’s budget to accomplish trauma-informed care, what I call the Participatory Justice Fund, to make sure the communities with high rates of gun violence have money — it’s like participatory budgeting — that they can deploy on the projects that actually help them invest in communities and opportunities. Our Universal Care plan, where I’m going to put $5,000 in the pockets of — starting with 100,000 of the neediest families in the city. I’m creating community care centers, drop-off centers for care that create jobs and help families with caring for children and the elderly.

But I’m taking that out of the police budget, both in eliminating the next two police cadet classes as well as some other things. But I think we have to acknowledge the Police Department budget is deeply bloated, that it has basically escaped real scrutiny on effectiveness and efficiency. And I’m not going to keep doing that.

Greg Bensinger: Did you did you say a 3 to 5 percent payroll cut across the board?

No, I said pegs. I’m going to ask agencies to give me their 3 to 5 percent pegs and then scrutinize it in terms of what they’re proposing. And then we’re going to go back and look at it from the perspective of the mission of the administration and what’s most strategic to do, and then what they might be avoiding cutting that really should be cut.

Mara Gay: Thanks. I have a bit of a pop quiz for you. Just some rapid-fire quick questions. Just answer to the best that you can. Thank you. What percentage of New York City school children are homeless or living in temporary shelter?

About 111,000.

[In the 2019-20 school year, that figure was just under 10 percent, with about 111,600 homeless students attending district and charter schools in New York.]

Mara Gay: That’s right, about 10 percent. What is the median sales price for a home or apartment — same thing — in Brooklyn?

Oh gosh, I actually know rentals better than home sales. But I’m going to say it’s about $1.8 million.

Mara Gay: It’s $900,000.

In some neighborhoods it’s a lot higher.

Mara Gay: Fair enough. What about the median rent in Manhattan?

For what size apartments? Because I know it varies.

Mara Gay: This is combined.

I’m not sure I know the combined number, but I’m going to say $3,000.

Mara Gay: That’s spot on. Where were you in the pandemic? Were you in New York or did you get out of town?

I was in Brooklyn with my family the entire time.

Mara Gay: OK and who is number two on your ballot right now?

Dianne Morales.

Mara Gay: OK. And I actually just briefly — have you thought at all about what a Covid memorial might look like for New York?

You know, it’s a really, really great question. I think it’s critically important. You know, I think Eddie Glaude Jr. has been talking about this for a long time, about how we have to recognize what we’ve lost and the trauma of that. But I also do think we have to have a public process to elicit ideas and what people want to see and how it should feel for them.

[Some of the 32,000 New Yorkers who died of Covid-19 were memorialized in images projected on the Brooklyn Bridge in March.]

Mara Gay: That’s fair. So I just want to talk for a moment about your path to victory. Can you tell us about what that is, what your strategy is, and also how many boots you have on the ground and what that operation looks like in central Brooklyn?

Yeah, great question. So first of all, the path for me is a coalitional path. It’s Black, it’s Latino, it’s progressive and it’s white women. And as we know, in a Democratic primary, in citywide elections, 61 percent of voters are generally women.

That geography obviously has an assembly district geography for that demography, and having the endorsements that really reflect that has been very important. Like 1199S.E.I.U., like NYPAN, like Congresswoman Nydia Velázquez and others. I know you have the list.

[1199S.E.I.U. — a health care workers’ union — and the New York Progressive Action Network are among the major groups that have given Ms. Wiley their endorsements.]

But in terms of — we’ve got a $4 million budget, not including what we expect to get in the next public filing. That has been extremely valuable and important, obviously, in order to make sure we have boots on the ground. But that includes our volunteers. We have over 2,400 volunteers for this campaign. And central Brooklyn is a critical part of our strategy to win. I can’t give you the exact numbers off the top of my head since my staff is managing that. But we’re happy to get you those numbers if you want.

Mara Gay: Yeah, I’m just curious about how many doors have been knocked in central Brooklyn so far, or when that operation begins. Because from what I’m hearing, it’s only Ray McGuire and Andrew Yang that have boots on the ground in significant numbers right now in central Brooklyn.

Well, we’ve got boots on the ground. You are correct, we haven’t started door knocking. And some of that — we have been actively out in public, in streets, and some of it’s about people’s comfort levels and developing a sense of that. We certainly expect to door knock and we’re going to lean into that hard very soon. But we can get you the actual numbers.

Mara Gay: Thank you.

Kathleen Kingsbury: Alex, you want to close us out? We can’t hear you, Alex. I’m going to ask Alex’s question for him which is, what do you think the toughest part of being mayor of New York is going to be?

You know, it’s always been a tough job. But I will say that I think the toughest part of the job — while most people will say economy, and obviously that’s critically important in terms of recovery — is getting folks to work together. You know, the deep, deep divides of this city, not just in terms of trust for government, although that’s part of it, but also the deep divides in the city that we’ve seen across race lines, across class lines, across ideology.

This is a moment where it’s all hands on deck. And one of the things that’s great about New York is that New Yorkers are fantastic about coming together in a crisis. And it’s so inspiring to see what people do and have done in this pandemic and for each other. And so there’s so much to tap and pull forward. But I do think that part of the job that’s got to be —— that one is calling us together, creating more relationships and more trust.