One of the things I’ve always found most admirable in Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams is his genuine humbleness. It’s far different from some of the other political leaders this reporter has interviewed including Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton (when she was the U.S. Senator from New York), and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Whereas the aforementioned interviewees often had drivers, SUVs and people catering to their every want and whim, Adams often goes to events driving himself in a compact car along with his constant companion, Communications Director Stefan Ringel, and has even give this reporter a lift on occasion to an event.
Indeed, Adams is the kind of person if he was leaving borough hall after a long day of work and saw the janitor looking tired with a mop in hand, he might just roll up his sleeves and help him. This reporter admires and likes these kinds of people – very salt of the earth.
But that’s not to mistake Adams’ genuine kindness and compassion as a weakness. He, along with Kings County Democratic Party Chair Frank Seddio, are easiest the two most powerful political figures in Brooklyn. Thus crossing either of them politically or journalistically is to do so at your own risk. For Brooklyn politics is often a mixture of hard-nosed wheeling and dealing as well as working intelligently and diligently for the better good of the borough. Adams is adept at both.
For the past three decades, Adams has served the residents of the city of his birth as a police officer, state senator, Brooklyn borough president and coalition builder. Born in Brownsville and educated in the City’s public school system, Adams is committed to ensuring Brooklyn’s bright future by helping each and every Brooklynite reach his or her full potential.
The following interview took place in the conference room at Brooklyn Borough Hall.
KCP: What’s the latest book you’ve been reading?
Eric Adams: A couple of books. One of them is Real Food, Fake Food. Like everyone think olive oil is good for you but that isn’t real olive oil you get in the stores. Your lucky if you get real olive oil. It’s mixed with all this other oil. The Department of Agriculture doesn’t have enough inspectors to go out and insure the laws are complied with so people laugh at the laws. The meat is injected with different substances . The hamburgers are 10 percent hamburger meat and 90 percent other stuff.
So would you say you’re mainly a fiction, non-fiction or how-to type book reader?
I’m a how-to book guy.
You’ve now been Borough President for two-and-a-half Years. What do you see as your major accomplishments? Things that you came in wanting to do and got done?
If one was to look at my inauguration speech and see the things I talked about they would see how much I remained focussed to them. Things like textbook free technology in schools. Students using iPads instead of books which is so antiquated. We rolled out two major initiatives using my capital dollars to give our schools great access to technology. We have spent millions of dollars giving schools greater access to the major technology that they needed so the children will be better prepared.
Everything from drawing tourism to the southern part of Brooklyn. Our New Year’s celebration drew thousands of people to Coney island to public safety. Being on the front lines on how to make Brooklyn safe. Health issues. Something as simple as having a lactation room in borough hall and getting legislation passed that would have a lactation room in all government agency buildings.
We’ve addressed important issues about financial literacy, showing Brooklynites how to get out of debt. We’ve opened up Borough Hall, making it the people’s house. Thousands of people have come through here, and one question I asked is how many people have been here for the first time. Now they use it to empower themselves dealing with everything from teen violence and domestic violence to SCORE, which advises people in small businesses.
In two and a half years we’ve built on what Howard Golden did as borough president and what Marty Markowitz accomplished, and now we are making our mark and continue to build on Brooklyn.
Brooklyn is very complicated now. with the diversity of new arrivals and ensuring new arrivals understand their exists residents that have been here, and finding ways groups can come together, and deal with difficult topics like naming streets after both new arrivals as well as after longtime residents, and being able to do it without fanning the flames, but actually calming the flames. And I think that’s what my reputation has been in the borough. A logical reasonable voice of bringing people together. A healer.
So what has been one of your frustrations of the office. Something you came in wishing you could do but it’s beyond your power?
The only frustration I have is to have a great impact in the housing situation. We have to continue to find ways create housing that’s affordable for low, middle and moderate income. Everyone should have the right to live in the borough. Outside of that no matter what job you have you wish you could have more power. Even Obama wishes he didn’t have to go through Congress and the Senate. The mayor has to go through the City Council and the governor through the assembly and state senate. So the question isn’t what you would do with more power? The question is what can you do with the power you have and I learned to use the power I have to do what I can in my part of the globe.
I’ve always considered there are two parts to government – the politics of it and the governing aspect. Where do you see the two intersecting?
Governing is making sure the right project goes through and introducing the right legislation to make sure you make right the best governmental decision. Then you have the politics. Understanding how an action can be harmful to a community and how you make sure it doesn’t create a political negative.
A good example of this is the Bedford-Union Armory, which is a very emotional conversation. A lot went into (the redevelopment) it. People were attached to the issue and you had to make sure it wasn’t harmful and that people in the community had a voice. Some of the presentations and proposals didn’t fit into what the community wanted. What to do with the open space. How tall the building should be. Should there be a hotel? What kind of recreation space should there be? So there were a lot of political conversations how it should be used and we dealt with different personalities and opinions on how the armory should be redeveloped.
I’ve always felt like developers to New York City are akin to oil people in Texas. There’s only so much land in the city and therefore developers and development kind of drives both the economy and the politics. What’s your view generally on developers?
Many developers get a bum deal. People think all they want to do is get their project done. It’s amazing how many developer invest in schools and are concerned about public safety. How many of them are doing things outside their span because a lot of developers have done well in this city and they realize they want this city to prosper for their product to be a good product. They need to make sure not only does the brick and mortar go up, but we have to invest in people.
So many developers that I have nothing to do with their project will come to my fundraisers and say, ‘I like what you have done for this city. I like how you talk about calm in this city instead of rioting. I like how you talk about public safety and like what you’re saying about education. I want to contribute to your campaign because we like what you represent. Just like a small mom and pop will contribute to your campaign so will a big developer because they like what you’re doing, and a great many of my contributions come from small contributors just like they did for Bernie Sanders.
What do you think about all the investigations of Mayor Bill de Blasio and his administration concerning lifting of deed restrictions and other issues regarding his relationship with lobbyists representing developers?
I think it will work itself out. There’s so much we don’t know about that to make an intelligent conversation about that. I think the mayor has a good heart. He cares about the city. The city’s very complicated to run. You have to have the right people in place to ensure the proper decisions are made and time will tell.
If the mayor is indicted, several contenders, including you have been rumored to possibly jump into the Democratic Primary for mayor next year. Any thoughts about that?
Life is about being at the right place at the right time. My prayers are that nothing happens to the mayor. I think when you look at the box scores, we’re doing well as a city. The mayor has done a good job. Crime is low. His pre-k initiative and his initiatives around housing, and he’s willing to listen to the little guy. So I’m hoping he is able to finish what he started and that’s the only positive energy I’m putting into the universe. I don’t want a job bad enough that I have to step on the body of somebody else to get there.
Finally, the recent appointment of Carmen Martinez as District Manager of Community Board 9 has been controversial because of her closeness to both you and former Kings County Democratic Party Chair Clarence Norman. Can you comment on that?
CB 9 is not controversial at all. I don’t understand the logic of those who believe you don’t appoint people to boards that don’t share your vision. I’m not going to appoint Giuliani to a board. I’m going to appoint people to a board that share my vision, and once I do appoint them to a board I get out-of-the-way. In all the (community) boards I have 50 percent of the appointments and not one of them could say, ‘Eric interferes with our business.’ They will tell you Eric appoints us and lets us do our thing. Once I appoint them I don’t harass them. I allow them to be an independent thinker because they were appointed based on your life commitment to do what’s right.
That board made a decision who they wanted as district manager. No matter who they chose there would have been a percentage of people who wouldn’t like who was chose. That’s Brooklyn way. There’s 2.6 million people and nine mil opinions so don’t get caught up just because a body of people say she (Martinez) shouldn’t be there and why not? Because she was attached to Clarence Norman. What? I’m not one of those people who demonize someone because they may have made bad decision in their life…
I hear what you’re say on that one because I always thought that the felony conviction on corruption charges of Clarence Norman was a miscarry of justice, and more a measure of former District Attorney Charlie Hynes holding a grudge against him…
If Spitzer can come back after his actions in government and run for office, who am I to be someone to stop someone like Clarence Norman. And they don’t want to just stop Clarence Norman, they want to stop everyone around Clarence Norman. Carmen is smart. She understands government. She’s a good administrator. If people made the determination she should be district manager, hooray for that.
