Video Transcript: On My Resolution to Remove the Mayor

Only by defunding the NYPD and reinvesting that money back into our communities will we achieve a fair and just people’s budget, and ensure a just and equitable recovery from COVID-19.

Yet right now, Mayor de Blasio is standing in the way, which is why New Yorkers are calling for his resignation, and I am calling on this body to express a loss of confidence in the Mayor and for the Governor to remove him from office.

For decades, we have falsely assumed that more cops mean more public safety, when in reality, true public safety does not come from more cops, more jails, or more punishment, but from investing in critical resources that address the root causes of trauma, displacement, and poverty.

The safest communities in America do not have more police, but more resources. Just compare whiter, more affluent areas of the City with less white and less affluent areas. Better schools, better services, and better investment means less police and less reliance on the criminal justice system.

That reality should extend to all, yet the COVID-19 pandemic has destroyed any semblance that our City’s approach is working. Even if Black, brown, Latinx, or immigrant New Yorkers survive COVID-19, they could still die at the hands of a militarized and unaccountable carceral system. We are failing our most fundamental function: to protect the most vulnerable.

Recognizing this, these same New Yorkers are demanding nothing short of a complete re-imagining of public safety to ensure a just and equitable recovery. A vision to end our reliance on policing and incarceration and instead prioritize community needs with community-led solutions.

But the Mayor’s response to these demands was to send more police, who then brutalized peaceful protesters and the press, and whose actions the Mayor denied or downplayed.

Watching in horror, New Yorkers have realized that the Mayor represents the single greatest obstacle to peace and justice in New York City, and to passing a fair and just people’s budget.

I believe it is our duty, as the people’s representatives, to elevate all demands for accountability, and to debate them openly so that New Yorkers can discuss them clearly and publicly.

We should not be afraid to debate the people’s demands and to bring New Yorkers into conversation with us.

I look forward to having that conversation, and for exercising our democratic mandate to check the Mayor when he loses the confidence of the people, especially when he fails to protect the rights of every New Yorker, and fails to negotiate a budget in good faith with this Council.