Ask the Bronx Borough President: June 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: June 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: May 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: April 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: March 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: March 2025

bronx

News 12 Staff

0610askyouradvocatebblock

Us here on, ask your advocate with New York City public advocate, Jumani Williams. Great to have you back with us. 7188616800. A reminder is the number to dial. If you have a question for the public advocate, I believe we have our first caller of the evening. Andrew from High Bridge on the line. Andrew. Thanks so much for calling. And what is your question tonight? So I'd like to say how you doing Mr Williams? Pleasure to be able to speak with you, please, please. Um question we've had in the Harvard section. Ogden University. We have been jumping through hoops trying to figure out who do we speak to about the zoning laws? We have a slew of pop up uh nightclubs and uh fake eateries that, you know, they, they pose themselves eateries and then they throw these big elaborate parties at night where the congestion is just atrocious and we've fought tooth and nail. We spoke to everyone and no one has been able to give us any insight, any direction on how to deal with it. It has been absolutely atrocious. You know, the businesses start off saying they're a pizza shop or they're a cafe and then they, you know, at night it's been an elaborate party where the buses can't even get through. We've got no, no, no concise information to point us in the right direction. We've reached out precinct Bron presidents, every council people and this problem has actually just perpetuated. It's, it's absolutely atrocious University Avenue, Ogden, Miriam Avenue. It's atrocious, we were just trying to get an answer and you know, we said we have to reach out to you and possibly get an answer for this if you can point us in the right direction. Andrew, thank you for the call, your thoughts on that situation, Andrew. I'm sorry you're going through that. It does sound like a really big nuisance as you're trying to just get through your day or, or this case, try to get through your night. It sounds like they've reached out to some of the key folks. So I wanna make sure it was the the right council members in particular. So if we can get his information, I'd love for my office to reach out. But I mean, just generally speaking, uh I'm trying to figure out if the question is, is it something that is illegal there based on the current zoning? And Andrew wants to try to change the zoning or is it something that is legally there that is doing uh something excessive uh more than uh what should be allowed in, in those hours. So it's interesting to try to get some more information to figure out what time this is happening, what it's zoned for. Sometimes things are zoned for uh certain kind of um functions that we just don't know until uh we get uh bumped up against it. So it'll be interesting to find out. But I'm sorry, Andrew, you're going through this. Please reach out to our officer so we can get the information. Uh The council member is and the borough president actually, but the the council member would have more grandly understanding. I think of what their zoning is and see if there's some changes that need to be made. We'll be sure to connect you with Andrew's information and try to get this sorted out on the back end of things. I wanna touch on their quality of life issue if you will. And that is street vending um across the city. We saw this video that went viral. Uh pretty hard to watch for some of this really young girl being put in handcuffs allegedly for selling food alongside her mother at a stand. Did you see that video? Your thoughts on what happened in that situation? I believe it unfolded in Battery Park. That's a horrific situation. I believe it was uh park police. And so what I would say there are things when you use law enforcement to address everything particularly early on and that's the type of thing that we can see that I can't really think of a reason to be tackling it, uh, for different 12 or 14 year old for selling fruit. And we just gotta figure out how we don't get there. And I don't think we're doing the work to figure that out. Um There are questions of, you know, child labor and, and, and making sure that food is prepared properly. And so we do have to work out those conversations. Also. We know that people are trying to make a living. Um, and as New Yorkers, uh we'll sometimes complain one day, but we want the product the next day. And so New York is, you know, whether we admit it or not, we, we kinda live off street food. Um uh whether it's uh the, the so called street meat, uh or whether we wanna grab a, uh a quick uh drink or uh some fruit, it's something that we do. So we wanna make sure we're keeping that in mind as well. Uh But there's some questions that need to be answered when people also talk about get a vending license. You cannot get a vending license right now. So we have to be honest about that. We should stop telling people. Oh, just do it the right way. There is no right way. Right now, the vending license has been, uh, uh capped for many, many years. It's one of the things that we're actually trying to change so people can do it the right way. But while we're doing this and figuring out those questions, we know that we've made changes so that law enforcement, we're not the ones that are first coming in to deal with the situation right now. I believe uh vendors. Uh and we have to deal with two or three agencies now, not just one. So there's a lot of confusion that's happening in the city needs to take some time to unpack this so we can get those questions answered. Um, so that we don't have a 12 or 14 year old and woman tackled by law enforcement. I think everyone can agree. That's not where we should be with this when you see a video like that. And then we talk about the permit issue with all of this and the inability to issue more because of the caps that are placed on them right now. What do you think it takes to finally spark some action on this front? You know, it, it is, this is disingenuous when I hear people uh telling folks, uh just do it legally or just do this and there's absolutely no ability to do it. Uh And the difficulty we've had in trying to get these things changed, um, doesn't really make sense and this is the by product of that. If you don't have a way for people to do things and you want folks to, to, you want them to be selling fruit preferably than other things. Uh, because everybody's gonna try to feed their families. And so let's make an opportunity for them to do this legally. And while we're, we're doing all that, let's make sure that 14 year olds aren't being tackled. Let's figure out, uh, uh, and, you know, some of the street V the project that I worked with and others have a plan to figure out that folks will be able to figure out themselves like certain spaces that they can sell and maybe take turns within those spaces. And so they have some ideas. If the city is willing to listen, it's been very difficult to get them to listen, um, but not as difficult for them to send law enforcement. And so we, as I said, we've passed laws to try to take law enforcement out of the scenario and have sanitation and all the folks be the ones uh that really push um uh the enforcement, obviously that's not, that's not really working again. Law enforcement is needed in, in, in places, um as partners, but very often we, we're putting them on the front line of everything and they only handle things in certain ways. And this is of too often the result more to come here still tonight on, ask your advocate. We'll be right back after this.

https://vod.chdrstatic.com/transcode/f1c5082e-0430-4a55-8c26-5162bf4fe657/f1c5082e-0430-4a55-8c26-5162bf4fe657.transcribe

0610askyouradvocatecblock_2024-06-10-19-36-13

Thanks so much for staying with us here on. Ask your advocate with public advocate Jumani Williams. We've already had such great conversation on such uh diverse topics. Uh And I wanna get your take on something that I know that you're personally passionate about and that is improving maternal health. The governor was in the Bronx today to announce an expansion to access to doula services across the state. What is your thoughts on that approach and how you hope to it play out here in the city? Yeah, you know, uh kudos to her on that, I think it's something that's really important and needed, particularly black maternal health. Uh Black women are four times across the country are likely to die in New York. It's actually 8 to 9 times more likely to die. And it's something that uh my wife and I shared on her personal journey uh with my uh a newborn baby, uh man who's doing great. My wife is a cancer free, a 16 year old sister doing great as well. Emily. Um So our story ended, ended well, praise God for that. Um A lot of folks did not and one of the things that we do know is access to doulas and birthing centers. Uh What can help change some of that outcome. Um It's so sad that it's taken so long, but kudos to the governor for doing that. Kudos to the legislature, there's a lot of legislators um who have really uh pushed this and got us to this point. Uh I know the bar president of the Bronx Vanessa Gibson has been one of those. Shout out to bar president of Brooklyn and Tony Reynoso has dedicated his money uh to opening birthing centers. And so hopefully, this begins to change uh the direction of those statistics. Yeah, really hoping we feel the impacts of that here at home and sooner rather than later, speaking of expanding access, the main, with an interesting announcement last week that we're getting 46 new public bathrooms across the city. Uh your thoughts on uh this initiative. And I think we were joking a little in the commercial break about the name and the creativity that went into that. The name is awesome. You're in luck is fantastic, you know, and a hat tip to the mayor here as well. I think this is the right thing. This is one of those things that everybody has struggled with at some point in time. Uh And I sympathize with the mayor when he was saying, you know, sometimes look, I'll just buy something real quick, whatever I just need to use the bathroom. I know the bathroom's working, dude, even if it says do not enter it's working, you gotta go to the bathroom so it's so difficult. Um Something that every body has to do, we just all have to use the bathroom and the difficulty of finding bathrooms in the city is ridiculous. Um There are some laws that people violate, which is a whole another thing. Um But I'm glad to see the, the mayor taking some initiative here, open up some public arrests and I hope it all gives us all a sigh of relief. Uh, well played, I think there's also a Google map so that we'll be able to find them as well. So that's a really cool interactive feature too and we probably still need more. The Google Maps is really good. I've looked at it. Uh, but I'm very thankful the mayor has taken this one. Good to hear it more to come here on. Ask your advocate. Don't go anywhere.

https://vod.chdrstatic.com/transcode/359217bd-c5bd-4abe-ac9f-f636fb9415dc/359217bd-c5bd-4abe-ac9f-f636fb9415dc.transcribe

0610askyouradvocatedblock_2024-06-10-19-47-46

Thanks so much for sticking with us here on. Ask your advocate with J Williams. 7188616800. Is the number to dial this evening. If you have a question that you'd like to ask the public advocate, I believe we have a caller on the line right now. We saw from Crown Heights joining us, Louis said, thanks so much for the call. And what's your question for the public advocate? Hi, good evening, Mr Williams. How are you? Good evening, peace and blessings to you. Good, same to you and congratulations on the baby. Oh, thank you so much. Yeah, I'm calling you because I have this question. I live in Crown Heights and I live in Eastern Parkway. I want to know what can be done about these bicycles and motor bikes and delivery bikes to ride up and down Eastern Parkway. It's so dangerous, especially near Kingston Avenue because the synagogue is there. So there's a lot of Children, a lot of activity going on and you know, you're scared to walk on the sidewalk because of these bikes, you know, driving fast and everything. Is there bike lanes there already. They're all over the place. There's a bike lane there, but there, there's a bike lane, there's like a dividing line, one side of the dividing line is for pedestrians. The other side is for the bikes, but the bikes go in the pedestrian line. So we have to walk in the bike line and then sometimes they're in the bike line. It's just crazy up there. So what can be done about that? You know, th th thank you, Louisa. I know that and I know the area pretty well. I mean, this is one of those things I always start off with, depending where I am, that's who I'm mad at. And so when I'm driving, I'm really mad at the cyclists and the pedestrians when I'm a pedestrian, I'm really mad at the cars and the cyclists when I'm on my bike, which is pretty frequent. I'm actually really mad at the cars and the pedestrians. And so, uh I kinda try to take that view of it. I do know that when I'm driving, I'm probably in the most protected space and can do the most damage. And so we should look at that as well. We've also been encouraging people to get out of their cars and ride bikes more. So one we just, we just need more bicycle infrastructure, people ride bikes all across the city and we need more protected bike infrastructure. We wanna make sure that people are respective of each other or cause bicycles and pedestrians. And it's a tough thing when you have a limited amount of, um, space to work with on the, the area you're talking about, I believe bike lanes, probably not on the street but on the sidewalk. And we want everybody to follow the rules. We want our cyclists to follow the rules and if we admit sometimes they don't, uh, we want the pedestrians to follow the rules and the cars to follow the rules. And, uh, I think there's a lot more education that has to go on and in certain places you do have to just do a little bit more enforcement. Uh, you can't just let everybody do whatever they, they, they wanna do. Um, so it's unfortunate, I think there's, there's culpability all over the place and I think cyclists need to pay attention to p pedestrians because in that scenario, they can do the most damage as well. Um, but we, and we often, what we're doing now is lumping everything together. Uh, cyclists, e bikes, mopeds, they're not all the same thing. Mopeds, uh, with a license period is illegal, just should not be there and it's very, uh, frustrating to see those things happen. Um, but we see, uh, uh, Rabbi Michael Miller who actually from Brooklyn just broke his leg and, you know, people think it was a E bike. It wasn't, it was just a regular bike, uh, that wasn't paying attention and So there's a lot of things that happened. Unfortunately. Um, we're in a time now where we have a record setting amount of, uh, deaths, fatalities, uh, in our, in our system, which means what we're doing is not working. Uh, and the people who have at least protections, uh, need more protection. In that case, that would be our pedestrians and our cyclists. You touched on the mopeds, which you said they're unregistered illegal, those motorized scooters we're seeing, what do you think the city can or should be doing or is doing to crack down and better regulate those types of vehicles, you know, II, I support the, the administration here when they're taking these mopeds off. Just, just take that we don't need them. Uh, I'm sorry, we don't, uh, we have uh, regulations for them and they're, they're being violated. That's different than E bikes. I think everybody's just kind of put them together, but I do also want to point out that we, as New Yorkers sometimes drive this. And so we want our services, particularly our food faster and faster. And so we have to ourselves, you know, if, if we want to see things, we also need to change behavior. And so, um, we need to put some more pressures, not, you know, on ourselves, just don't want us to be cognizant of it, but also of the apps, uh, that are taking what we're doing and really driving people to have to move faster and faster. And we, and it's time that we, I think put some, put some pressure on those apps to themselves, start changing how much they're putting pressure on delivery. Uh, people who are make, making deliveries to have to go faster and faster to get and do illegal things to go faster and faster because it's a dangerous space. Uh, we saw this before many years ago, uh, with pizza deliveries, there were, there were accidents and I'm sorry, crashes involving cars, people trying to get there fast and fast and we're seeing the same thing now, uh, in a different mode of transportation. And so, uh, we have to do more, more when it comes to that. Um, uh, but the mopeds themselves, I mean, if they, they need to be registered already and what, what is most Frush there? People are kind of into changing their mopeds and, um, e bikes and, and we really shouldn't do that. There's the two different things that we need, uh, for both of those gotta know the difference between the different modes of transportation. I believe we have another caller on the line. Tisha from East New York who's dialed in. Tisha. Thanks so much for taking the time to tune in. What is your question tonight? Hello? Hi. Good evening. My question is, I would like to know, do, um, y'all visit like the New York Health and City hospitals because I just got out the hospital from overnight at Kans, uh, at Brookdale and it's so overcrowded in there. The service is horrible in there. Um, I had asked to be discharged because they couldn't even service me the way that I should have been serviced of me coming in there. Um, they couldn't rule it out whether I was having a stroke or a seizure. So they kept me down in the emergency room. Um, you have the patients screaming, yelling. So it was unbearable. So when I got my discharge papers tonight, I asked the doctor, you know, I didn't get no seizure medication for today and I'm supposed to take seizure meds twice a day. He tells me, oh, you got it last night and you discharged and you get ready to go home, you could take it tonight. And this is not the first experience that I had with Brookdale because when I have seizures, they have to rush me to that hospital because that's the closest hospital near my home. Yeah. Yeah, frustrating situation. It sounds more frustrating. Your health is, is really important. I'm sorry to that you have to deal with that. We do look into um, health and hospitals which, uh, Brookdale is a part of, uh, you know, my dad Mary rest in peace had uh privileges there when he was a, a physician many, many, many years ago. So I'm very familiar with Brookdale. Um, and that sounds scary, you know, as a patient, I'm sure that's something that you don't want to, uh, be having to deal with. And so again, I, I'd love to get, uh, Tisha's information. I'm not a physician. Can't provide medical ser uh, advice. I don't know what happened there. So that's something we'd like to look into because people, uh, deserve and should be getting a top quality service from our, uh, from our institutions, including our health and hospitals in Brookdale. I know some, some people who do a lot of good work there actually. And so, um, uh, this is not something that you wanna hear and so we wanna reach out to them, um, just to see what's going on when you hear stories like that about overcrowding inside of the emergency rooms. And then we think back to where we were in Brooklyn a few months ago with the proposed of Sunni Downstate. I don't know that we've talked about it since that decision to at least keep it open for the next year has been made. What conversations do you think need to be key to this process moving forward? Yeah, there was some reckless things that were going on whether it was, uh, Mats in, uh, Suny Downstate in, in Brooklyn. Um, people would just decided they were gonna shut down hospitals as if it wouldn't have any effect. Um, and quite frankly, uh, they were in places that serve primarily Black and Brown New Yorkers, immigrant, New Yorkers, New Yorkers who didn't have other access. And so we at some point have to figure out how um profitability is not the only thing we're looking at. Uh and we have to have more conversations with communities to figure out how we can get uh these services that everyone needs. And what was presented with Suny downstate, I don't think was uh was something that was gonna be helpful to the, the community. Now, we do have to change the modality because um the inpatient service system probably is a little different than it was years ago. There's a lot of outpatient work that's going on in some of the beds you don't need as much, but that would mean you shut down a hospital that means you work with stakeholders to figure out how to keep the hospital would open and provide the, the health care that's needed for that community. Um And thankful that the, the, the governor finally said we'll, we'll figure out how to keep this open. Um But we shouldn't have been there in the first place and that the governor came and made promises uh to communities and with the, and the communities had expectations that would be kept and it was a struggle, scary struggle uh to do that. So hopefully those conversations will happen before any more decisions to shut down. But, you know, to this call and again, I know, bro, I know a lot of the folks Brookdale administrators trying to do a lot of good work. So we want to reach out and figure out what happened. And as we head into the summer months and we talk about some of those who are at the most vulnerable state in our communities. How can we best support them and remind them maybe of some of the resources to kind of weather through the storm. So you shall I speak. Um you know, warmer weather, it gets hot, it gets expensive to heat the house. What reminders can we put out there for our viewers about how best to protect others and keep safe? Well, when we have uh we have a lot of services in the city and you can always reach out to 301 and get a very good um idea of what those services are. There's lot of services that we need more of when it comes to the heat, you know, shout out to, to the administration uh previous and this one for the cooling centers that are gonna be there and you can call 31 to find the nearest cooling center near you. Um heat kills people. And so we have seen that happen. We don't wanna uh take it for granted. Uh but everybody has access to a place to keep cool, particularly in the hottest parts of the day. And so every borough has cooling centers and so we want people to look up uh 301 to go to the city uh website nyc.gov and find where your nearest cooling center is so you can take advantage of that. And this again shows the importance of uh making sure our housing stock is up, kept from Nitra to uh private ones to have the access to cooling that we need during the summer months.

https://vod.chdrstatic.com/transcode/59b8d2b9-4383-44e5-bead-031ea8bbea6e/59b8d2b9-4383-44e5-bead-031ea8bbea6e.transcribe

0610askyouradvocateeblock_2024-06-10-19-55-17

Thanks so much for being with us here on. Ask your advocate with public advocate Jumani Williams. So many good calls that we've already gotten through tonight and we've got some more callers on the line. So let's get right to it. We have Denise from Crown Heights called in Denise. Thanks so much for the question tonight. Go ahead and ask it to the public advocate. Yes. Hi. How are you, please? And blessings. How are you? Great, great. Congratulations on the baby. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Yes. Um I was calling because um I'm inquiring about where I live at. They're building these new buildings um blocking people's views, but the buildings, the apartments we are not gonna be able to afford. So what are we doing about the zoning and um gentrification? Great question and one that hits close to home for so many people right now. I mean, every time we do this, we get two or three calls on housing. It's, well, I know there's a lot of focus on crime and there should be the number one issue. Why people are leaving this city is affordability, period. And I just wish we had the same amount of energy as we do to some of the salacious headlines as we do to make sure people can live affordably and people have a right to be angry. They see these buildings going up and the apartments that they call affordable, they are affordable to somebody but not to Denise and many of the people who are there. And it's something that I've been fighting against even uh as a council member, I actually started doing organizing work with housing uh and tenants and, and particularly uh tenant housing. And so this is something that's really um deep to me, it is really personal and because it impacts all of us, nothing else can work unless we have the house. And so uh there was uh some zoning changes that uh recently passed that I hope are gonna help really get to the housing that we need. And if we're gonna ask people to give up density, uh we should build building affordable housing that people can afford like Denise. Um But really also, there's no housing plan that's real unless there's preservation. And so that's why something like good cause eviction, which we couldn't get the mayor to support or the governor to support, uh really helps preserve people in the housing that they have. Um And which is why we wanna make sure if we're giving subsidies to developers that are building these buildings that are blocking views, at least Denise can afford it. And so I'm sorry that we're having this problem and more than likely there's not much we can do with that particular building. But we hope that folks like Denise folks in can also pay attention to elected officials when they're talking about the project that they support, don't support. And the bills and zoning laws that are trying to get passed and subsidies are trying to get the developers housing, like you said, a number one issue on the minds of voters, the wor the highest housing market in the state in the country and possibly in the world. That's how bad it is. And that was vacancy rates that are just so, so low right now, talk about that means everything is occupied and it's 1% as a whole, which means the lower you go into the rent, there's virtually nothing uh paints a very clear picture of where we're at right now. I wanna get to another caller that we have on the line this evening, Lisa from Karsi joining us, Lisa, thanks so much for calling in and what is your question for the public advocate? Hi, first of all, I wanna say News Club is the best. I go to sleep with it and I wake up with it and Jamani Williams, you are doing such an awesome job. So before I Lisa, thank you for the love due respect. Give y'all your pops because y'all are all that to me. I appreciate you guys and you're doing a great job every day. But my, my concern was basically like one of the other ladies, um, with the scooters. Oh my God. I think we all could talk about this and it's, it's bad because the drivers like myself, we are liable when they get hit by a car. You know, we're liable. Our insurance goes up and it's a lot of times it's their fault. It's not always the driver's fault. They come down one way streets, the wrong way, they're in, uh, on the sidewalk, we can't walk, one went by me and almost knocked me down, you know, and it's, it's just, it's just something they need to be registered like car drivers, they need to be insured, like car drivers, they need to, you know, have licenses. I think they need to send them for some type of documentation for licenses, even if it's a permit to be able to be permitted to be on New York Street road and, and just have a better, you know, vision of what they're doing. And then I think the, the actual accidents will become lower because when you hold somebody liable and responsible for their wrongdoing, they tend to change. So I just wanna, you know, just hopefully and pray that we all can fix this situation and sorry Lisa to cut you off. But we want to be able to answer the question with the time that we have we talked about the sweeps that the city has been doing. Do you think there's more action that could be taken on that? And thank Lisa for bringing that up? And I think I said Denise is a canal. So she's in Crown Heights. Uh, but you know, uh, one if you have a school in the moped, Lisa is correct, you should be licensed, you should be insurance. So that is already the law. Um, and we sometimes get confuse that with the E bike. But the, those mopeds and the scooters are illegal just by being present and being driven on the road. So I do support the city on these enforcement acts. I don't support as I've seen an NYPD officer tackling someone on the scooter that's both dangerous for the person driving and the officer themselves. So we sometimes get so caught up in how angry we are about this. We get overly aggressive and we cause harm. Uh, but we do need to have enforcement to get these mopeds and these scooters that are unlicensed, uninsured off of the road. That is just a clear thing and it's causing a lot of, um, um, uh, aggravation agitation for people on the road. And so I understand where Lisa is coming from. I would remind folks that, you know, as, as drivers, we are a little bit more protected, so we wanna be careful, but that doesn't mean, um, that we should not be enforcing the legality of, of the moped and of that scooter and not confusing with other modes of transportation. So I support the, the, the administration here just not, you know, tackling people while they're speeding away on a moped. It's just probably not the best thing to be doing. Maybe, perhaps consider a different approach in your opinion real quick. Any concern for you. About, at least on our end of things, how often we're seeing these types of vehicles connected to crimes that are happening across the city? Yes, we, it, it's a big concern. I think crime is a concern. Um, I think we should try to crack down again on the, these illegal mope and scooters. My guess however, is if we didn't have that some of the crime might still be occurring. And so I don't, we, we sometimes make some connections that are a little simplistic, but I do think it's something we have to be dealing with regardless. All right. More. Ask your advocate right after this. Stay with us.

https://vod.chdrstatic.com/transcode/d1fd8c33-c64c-4822-ae29-80c27b267a03/d1fd8c33-c64c-4822-ae29-80c27b267a03.transcribe

0610askyouradvocatefblock_2024-06-10-20-11-58

Thanks so much to all of you who have tuned in tonight for, ask your advocate with public advocate Jumani Williams for our June episode. And with June, that means pride celebrations, a number of which have already been kicked off. Have you attended any pride celebrations that, uh, especially impactful for you? We've had a number, we got some more to do. I love all of the pride. I can't, well, I can't say which is more fun, but they did. I won't put you on the spot. Yeah, they're, they're pretty vibrant, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a Brooklyn boy. So I got to give a little love to Brooklyn and, you know, Queens Staten Island and the big ones coming to Manhattan is gonna be one in Harlem. We're looking forward to it. Uh, it's a great, particularly where we are in this country. It's great to have spaces for people just come out, be themselves, just have some fun. They, they're like, everyone is full of love, joy and fun, uh, on those grades. And, um, it's a, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's fun and pleasant to be there. Yeah, it's all high energy and love is love. What is your message to the LGBT Qi a community right now and to allies on how best to support, you know, our message is more to uh not the LGBT Q community. It's more to folks like me. I'm a uh cisgender, straight black male uh of faith uh from the Caribbean community. And those communities have been um been tough when it comes to, to LGBT Q I plus. So I think my message is really to folks who are trying to figure stuff out. You know, everyone should be on the freedom train, everybody should be on the equity equality train and we shouldn't use excuses to not do so. Um People have a right to be who they are, love, who they wanna love and have a human experience and our job is to make sure that that happens. Uh So I just try to make sure I can make get everyone to come on that train. Uh whatever their where their bar is, we got to get on that train, an important message this month and every month I want to talk real quick about some fun. You're looking forward to with a pretty funny and famous face later on this week break. This down for me. I'm dying to hear all about this. Acting is my first love, the plan. You know, I have Tourette's Syndrome when I'm acting, my ticks go away and I do some work with the organization called Theater of War. Shout out to Brian Dorries. This week we're gonna be doing a, a reading of Enemy of the People. They do these readings and then have the audience discuss mental health, gun violence or even climate change. And we have some great actors. Uh This week, one of them is Bill Murray. That's gonna be on the 12th. I'm really looking forward to it. Always get excited when I get that call and it's a lot of success. Then after that, we'll be actually participating in uh some uh award ceremonies for Black Music Month uh with the City Council. So we're very excited. Oh, I can't wait to check in with you about all of that next month here on Ask your advocate. Thank you so much for being with us here this evening. A great edition of Ask Your Advocate here. Thank you all for all your calls. We'll see you next month.

https://vod.chdrstatic.com/transcode/2ca1b399-77ad-494d-82c8-749a61e6c171/2ca1b399-77ad-494d-82c8-749a61e6c171.transcribe

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

Ask Your Advocate: June 2024 Edition

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

More Stories

Ask the Bronx Borough President: June 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: June 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: May 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: April 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: March 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: March 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: June 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: June 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: May 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: April 2025

Ask Your Advocate Jumaane D. Williams: March 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: March 2025

More from News 12

Mobile Command deployed to the Hub; Roberto Clemente Plaza closed off

Seasonable and sticky pattern continues into the weekend with chances of rain for The Bronx

69-year-old robbed at gunpoint by 2 men in Mount Eden

The East End: Montauk Yacht Club

NYPD: 17-year-old shot twice in Tremont

Community members say new Cross Bronx Expressway expansion could do more harm than good

Privacy Policy

Terms of Service

Ad Choices

Privacy Manager