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Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: June 2025

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0715askyouradvocatebblock_2024-07-15-19-22-09

Thanks for staying with us here on Ask your Advocate on News 12 with public advocate Jumani Williams. Great to have you back with us as we answer your questions tonight, the number to dial right there at the bottom of your screen. 7188616800. And I believe we have our first caller of the evening on the line. Craig from East Flatbush, Craig. Thanks so much for calling in. And what's your question for the public advocate? My question is, how come these kids got so much access to marijuana? Simple question, but that's a good question. I would have stand and say, um why do kids have so much access devices? So cigarettes and alcohol? Um I think that's actually generational as well. I mean, I remember probably having access to things that I probably should not have had access to when I was younger. I think as we get older, we sometimes forget about what we did and what the adults were mad at us about. Uh I remember the smell of marijuana wafting with friends and so we actually just do have to do a better job of educating and trying to keep these things away from our young people. Uh I would say, I think some of the proliferation of illegal shops uh have made that harder. And so I'm glad to see some of the crackdown happening now. Uh A lot of it happening without mass arrest, which is what I was hoping would happen. But we have to do a better job. I think educating about what the marijuana laws are, what they are not, young people under age should not be smoking marijuana. And we have to do everything we can to educate them about the danger of smoking abu drinking alcohol, abusing those things uh completely, fully. Uh and that includes marijuana and those illegal shops. Uh I don't think are helpful and they have actually very specifically and intentionally advertised sometimes to young people and we have to hold people to account for them and sometimes all too often we find them operating within very close quarters of the school or church or areas where our kids would usually be found, as I said before, kids do what kids do. So we have to set up the guard rails when you talk about the vices that we're trying to keep our kids from. I think about offering programming and I feel like so often that is part of the conversation. Do you feel like there is enough programming or, or anything to explain? Perhaps maybe the gap between where our kids are and meeting them where they are. No, we absolutely do not have enough programming. Uh, we absolutely don't put enough funding into it. And when we do those are the first things that are cut and then we try to send in the law enforcement to do on the back end, what a lot of this could have been done on the front and then that's sometimes a frustration. This stuff doesn't work. So, like, what we often do is try to arrest the young people, the Children of the young people that we arrested 2030 years ago without changing how we're addressing it. And we actually do know what works because we have programming that we see the results and data from. And what I've always said, you know what, let's extend the programs that are working, closing ones that are not and let's pilot some other ones and this is, has, has been in the past 15 years since I've been in, in elected office. This has worked, we've seen it worked and we were hoping that this administration would be um a little more open to expanding some of those. And we found some difficulties in doing that and that's been frustrating as well. Uh The uh you know, I wanna shout out uh Kay Bain from my uh from uh uh 696 and, and uh uh the amazing work that, that he's been doing with me for such a long time. Uh And uh the Brooklyn D A who had a great program called uh Project Restore. Uh that unfortunately didn't get the funding that it needed to expand even though it showed a decrease in violence in Brooklyn and some of the areas that were dealing with the most violence. So what we have to do is have the courage of leaders to be able to say this is what we need, explain it to communities and say we're not just gonna do the knee jerk reaction anymore because it's not sustainable. That doesn't mean we don't need our law enforcement partners. That just means we have to stop trying to continue to solely rely on them and not put the other things into play uh That are needed. I think a study of what works. What doesn't is something that you would think everyone can find. Absolutely. I do think we have another caller on the line that I'd love to get to. Maria is joining us. Maria. What's your question this evening? Actually? Um It's not a question, a very good evening to you. Um It's not a question, it's a statement and I'm actually soliciting his um the um advocates Assistant. We are here in Kar and we're actually experiencing some difficulties. Uh Well, a whole lot of difficulties with the post office in Flatland and from January to now we've have been having all our legal documentations go missing. They're not delivered to us. We've been going to the respective offices going back and forth several times. And then when we did go to the post office, all we keep getting is that, oh, well, we don't know what happened. We don't know what happened. I'll have to speak to the courier and this is the supervisor, giving us this information. We have to speak to the supervisor, the courier and then they'll get back to us and they never do. Just seems like quite the run around for something that's clearly very important to Maria, but also her neighbors as well. Yeah, you should be able to count on the post office. And so I, I'm sorry to hear that Maria. Um that is a federal issue, but I, I hope we can get Maria's information. We can definitely connect Maria with the local congress member and we can reach out to the post office ourselves, try to figure out what's happening uh while we're getting her in touch with the congress member. And I'm, I'm very familiar with Kasi and that Flatland station. I, I'm sorry to uh I'm sorry you had to call in uh to try to get some assistance. I know it's happened. Whatever happened, happened for a while is pretty bad. I'm sorry that's happening. That's why we're here to be able to ask your advocate and hopefully get some assistance on that front as well. So frustrating when you have local post office issues and I find that somewhat often and what? Somewhat frequently we're, we're covering stories like that where, and they're about to hike up the cost of the stamp. So that's something else. See, Maria is getting bad service and she's about to pay more for a stamp. Yeah, absolutely. Hoping that we can connect Maria with some help. Like you said, it is a federal agency would hope that, you know, it is serving our local communities and putting her in touch with her Congress people will definitely help. There's a lot more conversation to come here on. Ask your Advocate 7188616800 is the number to die. If you have a question for public advocate, Jumani Williams already, we've touched on so much everything from the events, the serious events of what happened over the weekend to the state of housing in the city right now. And of course, this heat that we are all dealing with and are in the middle of right now. So keep the questions coming. You can call into that number also feel free to comment on the posts over on our Facebook and Instagram pages and ask your Advocate will continue right after this.

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0715askyouradvocatecblock_2024-07-15-19-32-45

Thanks so much for being with us here on. Ask your advocate with public advocate Jumani Williams. Great to have you with us here once again. And I do want to turn our attention to things that have happened down in the Caribbean with local impact, specifically hurricane Beryl. We saw that make landfall as a category five storm down in the Caribbean. We were just talking, you have family down there that was directly impacted. Most importantly, how are they doing right now? You know, thankfully, um everybody, it is physically ok. Uh Grenada uh uh is a Tri Island state of Kako and Pitti Monique. The two small islands were probably hit the worst followed by the Union Island in Saint Vincent and also also touch in Jamaica and Texas. And so uh we keep all those in prayers, but uh Carou was really, really hard hit in Petit Monnik. Um There's only a few houses, my understanding uh a small percentage of houses actually left standing intact. And since then, and my uh unfortunately had cousins that lost their home as well. So we've been trying to coordinate relief efforts and I have colleagues who are actually going down, we've been talking to the mayor's office, see what we can do to make sure that these folks aren't forgotten. There's a lot of folks in our area that has uh family. So this is directly impacting folks. Um And it's been, it's been tough, but thankfully, um and I think actually I was at the S Plenty's paradise. It's uh DJ Rock, uh uh rocking J who was really coordinating a lot of the work being done in Carico. We just wanna make sure that folks who are collecting have a point to point so you can get the stuff there. But actually sometimes people don't have the ability to get it to the place uh that's needed, but he does and some other folks who have been collecting as well, great to see our community organization stepping out, uh stepping up in the face of tragedy as so often they do for anyone who's watching this who might want to get involved in one of those donation drives. Uh I know it's early on in the organizing of that, but any point of contact, they can reach out to here at home and they can reach out to our office because we haven't and they can look at my social media. We've put out places that we've vetted. That's actually plenty's paradise on Rogers is one of the places that we vetted that know that uh it is going to where it needs to go. They can reach out to the General Council of, of the country. Uh, but our office has been putting up, uh, places that we know are, uh, are vetted. Um, and, uh, they can reach out through us. Uh, they can look at the social media and we should be announcing some new ones soon in Brooklyn. I know that some member Jamie Williams, some of Monique Waterman, Senator Roxanne Prasad and some others will be going down as well. So they have, uh, they've been working with the Counsel General as well and real quick. Any items that people should have top. Well, people need generator is intense. Uh, but things like, um, uh, sanitary pads, sanitary napkins, um, uh, water. Uh, but really the best thing that folks can do is send money. And so we, we're gonna put up a place where people can actually send money, uh, to assist. It's really important that you send it only to a place that, you know, has been vetted and they can get to where it needs to go and we'll be sure to share that information once we get it more. Ask your advocate continues right after this.

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0715askyouradvocateeblock_2024-07-15-19-52-11

Thanks so much for being with us here for ask your advocate with public advocate Jumani Williams. We've already covered so many topics. Uh, so much conversation on housing, getting our kids involved with the right influences. I do want to touch on an announcement that the mayor made last week. That has been getting a lot of reaction online from a lot of New Yorkers about the expansion of trash containerization. He wants residential buildings with 1 to 9 units to now have to put the trash in a trash bin. He also unveiled these new New York City official trash bins to go with it. What was your take on that announcement? You know, I got to get some credit where credit is due. I give some pretty high marks in the mayor for going after the rat situation to where we are. Shout out to Commissioner Tis. She's been doing a great job when it uh when it comes to this. I know other places are actually looking at us like you're actually celebrating where you should have been 10 years ago, but at least we're doing it and you know, if you wanna change things, we have to change things and that sometimes is difficult for folks. But I think this is the right way to go. There's some more things that we have to do but, you know, putting all your bags of garbage on the street every day and then complaining about the rats, it's probably nonsensical like rats are gonna come to that. So finding ways to get that trash off. I like the way we started with the businesses, try to get them acclimated, then give people time to get acclimated. This is, it's the right way to go. There's some other things that we probably can be doing. It's gonna take some time for folks to get adjusted. So hopefully we'll go easy on the fines as we're educating folks. But it's absolutely the way we have to go. You gotta get this trash off the street, you gotta put it in some place where the rats cannot go. This is, you know, I, you know, this is like a pothole issue. This is, this is the bread and butter. So, you know, I wanna give them some, some credit here really going after this and, and dealing with the rats that none of us wanna see. Yeah, the rats. And then also when you think about the summer heat, the smell, right? No one wants to have to deal with that as well. Garbage juice in a sweltering heat wave. Never anything that anyone wants to deal with. I mentioned earlier that this plan has been getting some feedback. I say that because I know we've gotten some social media questions for you tonight on this topic, if we can turn to that question now and pull it up. Um, we received a comment online about this issue and, um, I think the, uh, the viewer was asking something along the lines of why are homeowners being forced to buy new garbage pails? And we have ones that work. Where was the bidding process and the transparency for the company? I think that Rosie here is referencing those trash bins that I was talking about. What the mayor called, the city official trash bins. I think they retail for just under 50 bucks for a smaller size and a little bit over for a larger one. You know, I, what I think it's a good question about transparency and so that's something to look into. I just don't know the answer to that. Um, I do wonder if there's a way if we have, um, owners that have their own self containing lids if they can get pass. So we should look into that. Um, that is a valid point. I just want people to have, um, containers that are closed. One of the problems is sometimes people will have a lid or a container. They say it is closed, but the lid is never there. Or the lid pops up. If you go down homeowners blocks, you see a lot of garbage, uh, in bins, but they usually not covered or if they're covered is half covered, it pops off. And so we do wanna make sure that people are using bins that we know will, will be cure. And I think this is where the direction like this, we know there's been work, we know it's a cure, but hopefully there may, there may be a way to look into if owners have ones that do the same things. Perhaps they can, um, get a pass for a little while, uh while we're trying to figure this out. Yeah, I believe it doesn't go into effect until mid November. So a few months to perhaps work out those details on the topic of trash. I believe we have Michelle from Melrose joining us on the line with a question this evening, Michelle. Thanks so much for calling in and feel free to ask your question to the public advocate. Sure. Hi. Good evening. So every day when I walk to the 25 subway line on 1 49th and third Ave in the Bronx, there are always individuals struggling with addiction, ordering with needles and syringes all over access to care services in this neighborhood does not seem like an issue because there is a rehabilitation clinic within walking distance. It just seems like no one cares and just and just accepts it. And I fear that one day a kid may pick up a needle there are several schools nearby. I and others have called three and one when we witnessed it, but cases are often closed without intervention or areas just being out of a jurisdiction. My question is, how do we keep health and safety hazards at bay and get these individuals help so that this area is secure and does not seem like an episode from the wire, an important question because it is a very multi issue here and who wants to be walking by people either shooting up or zombied out. Uh Unfortunately, and I'm thankful uh for the caller talking about care and compassion. Sometimes that gets left out. I remember going to junior high school and telling my teachers about needles that I was seeing on the street. I remember very vividly talking about what we're seeing and how we can address it. So these are long standing issues. I think the pandemic uh has exacerbated some of them. We unfortunately do see push back when we try to do harm reduction uh like safe uh safe injection sites like needle exchanges. Those are the type of things that we have to have so we can get people inside uh getting the care that they need and not doing this stuff outside. So we do wanna make sure that we're having people not fighting on that the way we uh have, we also wanna make sure that these things are as concentrated in certain communities as they are. So this is a conversation that has to happen. We can't ignore what's happening. It's 100% true. And hopefully we can get the information about where exactly by the 25 train. And we have mentioned Third Avenue in the Bronx specifically. And we have organizations sometimes uh that if we can get the funding, they will go out there. They will actually, particularly if they have safe injection sites or have somebody sent to, they will actually go and pick up the syringes themselves because it's a community effort that we have to do and they know that people, uh we wanna do harm reduction. So these things are not things people are seeing and people actually don't die and don't overdose. And so we have programs again that can address this in a compassionate way if we can get the funding there and the structure there and we can work with the community on a better way. And I'm I'm really sorry that, that she has to walk by this, particularly if she's walking by with kids going to school. Uh This is something that we, we just can't ignore. We have, we have to address and, and just great to see that community organizations are taking it to themselves to get this done. But if that funding isn't there, is it something that the sanitation department should re evaluate and perhaps respond a little bit more frequently? I mean, uh yes, and there's probably certain, some trainings that have. You wanna make sure that people are handling this with the care that is needed. So you don't wanna do it, Willy nilly, but it might be something that we could look into as well. Um But quite frankly, hopefully we can get the funding to these community groups uh that do it best. That is always so important public advocate, Jumani Williams. The conversation continues here right after this. Don't go anywhere.

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0715askyouradvocatefblock_2024-07-15-20-12-49

Thanks so much for staying with us here for another edition of Ask Your Advocate, Public Advocate. We started with national politics. I'll end with national politics in, in light of everything that's happened this weekend, the Republican national Convention now under way, we have a Republican P nominee JD Vance, a senator from Ohio. Your thoughts on that choice. You know, it's interesting. We obviously wanna, we still wanna be careful about the rhetoric and how we talk about this thing, but we also wanna be honest about it. And so Senator Vance, I think it was just 48 years ago. He himself described, described Trump as possibly America's Hitler. This is his own words. This is Senator Vance's word to see where he was, where he is now is just, uh a part of the problem I see in the Republican Party and he's probably the most extreme of the candidates. So he believes no exception for abortion, including rape and incest. He himself said that he would not have certified the election. So there's a clear direction uh, that the former president Trump has decided he wants to go and I don't think it's the a good one for the, the, the, the, the infrastructure of this nation. Um And we should just be honest about that and what it means, you know, as a Democrat, it's been hard to watch myself. I think our party needs to be honest about all missed opportunities. There was a clear voice of change when people voted for Barack Obama. Some people who may have never even voted for a person of more color in their life because they wanted something different. Then a few years later, they voted for somebody saying wildly crazy things because they had a populist message. We had some populist messengers as well. Our party decided to push them aside and I think that was the wrong decision to make. And so now we're here and I think the party needs to acknowledge that to get folks like me and others who may be disillusioned to say, listen, we hear you. Uh and we're, we're not gonna understate what occurred. But after December, let's have this conversation and sometimes, unfortunately, it's still sticking to the wrong decisions that were made. And that's unfortunate, but I think we should all be concerned about the direction we're going in right now. Do you think President Biden should step aside for another democratic nominee? I think we should be honest about where we are. I was a Bernie, uh a Bernie delegate and I think we have to be honest about what's happening now, but also how we got there. I also know we should be clear that uh the only way for it to even have these kind of discussions is to make sure that there is not another Trump presidency. Public advocate Jumani Williams, a pleasure to have you with us here and cover so much ground on. Ask your Advocate looking forward to next month already. And thank you all for tuning in. Have a great evening.

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News 12's Amanda Bossard sits down with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to answer YOUR pressing questions in this month's edition of Ask Your Advocate. 

Ask Your Advocate: July 2024 Edition

News 12's Amanda Bossard sits down with Public Advocate Jumaane Williams to answer YOUR pressing questions in this month's edition of Ask Your Advocate.

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