Ask the Bronx Borough President: July 2024 

Ask Your Advocate: July 2024 Edition

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Ask the Bronx Borough President: May 2024 Edition

Ask the Bronx Borough President: April 2024 

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News 12 Staff

0318askyouradvocatebblock_2024-03-18-19-32-13

Welcome back to ask your advocate right here on news. 12 Public Advocate Monty Williams here with us for the hour. We've got a couple of callers already on the line to speak with you. And I want to remind our callers tonight before you come, uh before we bring you on to the line, make sure you turn your TV volume all the way down. So this way you can hear us a little bit of a delay on there. So we wanna make sure we get your entire question on. All right, so we go to the phones, let's do it. All right, let's go and we're gonna start in the Bronx. We've got Johnny joining us tonight. Johnny, thanks for calling in. Here's your chance to ask your advocate. So go right ahead and ask your question. Hey, good evening. Uh um good, good evening. Uh Mr Williams. Good evening. Good evening Johnny. Johnny, do we lose you? Yeah, I'm calling because I got assaulted in the Bronx. I called the police. I got assaulted coming out of the supermarket. I know the person that assault me. The officer, the officer would, would not go and knock on the person door or anything. This is what he told me. He said if I'm not bleeding or I don't have a mark on me. Uh, uh, it's not assault no more. It's, uh, a, uh, uh, harassment but I wind up in the hospital with a panic attack from that punch. The guy hit me in my chest. I'm 70 years old. This kid is 29 years old and the Pope, what they're telling me that it's ok for somebody to assault you to, to, to assault you and walk the street after it and they would not go knock on his door. He said we're not knocking on his door. We're not gonna ask him who he is. You here. Give your uh we'll give you a number and uh and that's it. Wow, Johnny, thank, thank you for telling us so sorry that happened to you. Um Yeah, John, I'm really sorry that you uh you experienced that. That sounds terrible right from start to finish, first of all the assault and not getting the response that you probably should have got from the officer. So I would love to get that information, Johnny and follow up with that precinct to figure out what exactly happened. That doesn't sound true at all if you're assaulted. Um It's, it's still a case. So uh particularly if you know the person, I'm not sure why there would not be a follow up. Uh So it's hard for me to comment based on what Johnny said, but that doesn't sound like the right procedure. So I'd love to follow up with that precinct and see what happened. Of course, of course. So Johnny, we will pass all your information along to the public advocate, make sure that you get uh some answer regarding what's going on there. We definitely wanna help you out. But thank you so much for calling in tonight and speaking with the public advocate on this. We're gonna head back to the phones right now. We've got more callers to speak with you. This is Darryl joining us from Midwood. Darryl. Thanks for calling in. If you turn that volume down on your TV, and, uh, ask your question right here. Public advocate, Janie Williams. Yeah. Well, I voted for him. I have a question. Why is it so difficult for me to get a senior assistant housing? And I am a senior citizen. I'm 70 years old. I, I'm a member of this. I was a member of the service for 32 years. NYPD School safety. And, uh, I sent them, I, I would fax over applications every month. They told me they don't need no more of my, uh, fax applications. They got too many of them. I mean, I'm, I pay taxes. This, this June will be four years that I'm retired. I'm living with a friend of mine. If it wasn't for my friend, I'd be homeless and I'm paying taxes, Darryl. Thank you there. We got a lot going on there and housing is always difficult to see. Housing is a big problem like Darryl did everything correct. He worked for 30 years and a job. Appreciate the service. He's a senior. We're on the backs of all of our seniors. That's why we're here and to hear him struggling after retirement is really tough. I appreciate your, your support, Darryl. I really do. Um I, the only thing I say we've been failing people for a very long time. We've been failing them uh on housing in particular. That's one of the reasons that our migrant crisis got so bad. That is because we failed in housing long before that including people like downtown. So the, the, the one of the two things I gotta ask the most is housing, that's the hardest thing to address. We have way more people applying uh than we do housing units at the rates that people need it. Uh And senior housing is no different. That's why you're having such a hard time and such a long wait to get into senior housing. The answer is we have to preserve the housing that we have and we have to build more. There's no way around it. We have to build more housing and that is seeming more difficult day by day. So I'm hoping we could break through that, but we also wanna make sure we're building units uh that are affordable to folks. If we wanna ask people to give us some density, we can't be building um luxury apartments. We gotta build um units that offer specific people for formerly homeless for uh people who are mental health and be supportive housing and for seniors uh who did what they were supposed to do and can't find housing and for low income and working New Yorkers who are really, really struggling. That's where we have the least amount of housing. Uh but we're doing the least to get housing for. And so, uh since I've been working on, since uh my first started in the nonprofit housing and, and organizing around housing in particular and we just, our leaders are just not getting it correct. All right. Well, Darryl, thank you for calling in with the question there and we will see what we can do to help you out there. We'll definitely connect you here with the public advocates. I, I wanna make sure at least he's on all the proper. Absolutely. We'll have to make sure that everybody follows up with you right there. And uh we're gonna go back to the phones right now. We got Demetria joining us from Brooklyn right now. Demetria, thanks for calling in tonight here on News 12. What's your question for the public advocate? Hello, Mr Williams. Thanks for taking my call. Uh So I was calling, um my issue is uh the flashing, the flashings that are taking place in the subways on the streets and on Rikers Island. Ok. I'm a former correction officer. I worked in, uh, corrections for 25.5 years. And I saw, I see, I saw a lot of violence in my career and not only are slashing, very traumatic, uh, a very traumatic experience for the victim. There is also many times of life threating as we have a lot of scalpels that have come in. So it's life threating and permanent injuries for the in for the uh victim. I just wanted to know, is there anything in place that you guys may be uh in uh talking about doing as far as making it more, um making the uh perpetrator more accountable for their actions because we know that um a lot of gang you uh uh uh black, I, I'm so sorry. I mean, we're gonna need to take a quick, we're gonna take a quick commercial break. We're gonna come right back and have the public advocate answer your question right here on news 12. Thanks for calling in. We'll be right back.

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0318askyouradvocatecblock_2024-03-18-19-32-17

Welcome back to ask your advocate here on News 12 before the B de uh break Demetria from Brooklyn called us up and gave us a question for you about regarding some slashings and holding people accountable for crime here in New York City. I wanna give you a chance to answer her. Yeah, first of all, thank you dimitri for that. Thank you for your service. Uh as a corrections officer, like I said, we've seen, we've seen violence and we talk about gun violence a lot, but we've seen violence rising across the country, particularly among our young people uh coming past the pandemic. Um And what I wanna always say is that uh people need to be held accountable. It's not always the same thing as preventing it from happening again. And so if you're a victim of this, we wanna make sure it's accountability and there is a kind of believe in slashing. There's actually people don't realize there's more people being held on Rikers Island now than before uh before the pandemic, particularly if that's how you're defining the accountability slashing is also available offense. So that has nothing to do uh with what's occurring we wanna figure out how to stop these things from occurring to begin with. And, you know, since 2012, I've been putting out plans on how we can prevent violence in our cities. Sometimes things are adopted and sometimes they're not. Um, but we have seen that they work and if we wanna be serious about safety, you ask New Yorkers, what can we do to stop some of the violence? And they will always tell you. First answer is usually mental health. Second answer is usually housing. They usually talk about poverty and services. But those are the things that we do the least. What we do the most is respond with law enforcement and respond with inc carceral solutions. Those solutions alone won't help. You have a AAA transit officer that was slashed in the neck, that was horrific. Who wants to see that my child is on the train almost every day. I'm concerned about these things. That's why I'm putting forward plans that I know work because we can't simply say we're gonna arrest the Children of the people we arrested in the nineties because it didn't work then. So what we're trying to say is that we have to have a multi pronged approach and we're not getting that and the more we're not getting that, we just say, ok, throw some more police on top of it. And so we understand what the job of our law enforcement is. We want them to do that job and our corrections officers, but I want Demetria to be safe on Rikers Island and I want the detained to be safe on Rikers Island. Neither of them are safe on Rikers Island right now. And so we've tried to make some changes on Rikers Island to make that safety real. Uh We just have to have leaders that have the courage to really push these things and move from the tough on crime to the series about safety and what that actually means. Absolutely. Erin Demetria. Thank you so much for the question there and I appreciate you waiting around for the answer for us. And we've got a lot, we want to get to right here on News 12. In fact, we want, we talk a lot about public safe here in the first half hour. I want to talk about fire safety and some other things that are going on with you. Plus we've got much more of your calls coming up right here on News 12. Still time to hop on the line too. So join us right here more. Ask your advocate on news 12 in just a bit.

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0318askyouradvocatedblock_2024-03-18-19-42-02

Welcome back to ask your advocate right here on News 12, your opportunity to ask New York City public advocate, Janica Williams your questions and we've got many more of you on the line right now waiting to do so. So we're gonna hop back to the phones in just a minute. I do want to bring up something that you introduced uh recently to the City council and this was something involving asking the city to buy and distribute these fireproof storage cases for lithium ion batteries, which as we all know, and according to the FDNY is the leading cause of fires here in the city right now when we deal with these E bike and we do with that situation. So two questions for you. How would you address this issue? But also how do you make sure that people use these bags or in these cases once they become available? Believe it or not just a few years ago, we had zero deaths when it comes to lithium ion batteries and now those deaths have skyrocketed and we have to do something. We have to build some infrastructure out. We have to build uh some battery swap system like they do in, in South Asia, we have to build some charging systems because the best way to get this down is have people charging outside, but we're running into is people who don't want charging stations where they live and we have to get that. But until then we have to do something immediately. And so we did some research into fire retardant bags that you can put a battery in while it's charging. Um And you know, with the city's battery, with the city's buying power for about half a million dollars, uh you can probably get wholesale for all the delivery uh uh workers that we have 1.3 in the market, you market rate, you get the whole thing. We think that the power, the buying power would be even less. Um We give away smoke detectors, we give away carbon monoxide detectors, people are using them. We saw how dramatically we're able to uh save lives. And we think this is the same kind of thing, you know, the, the council had some of these bills that were very similar. So I do wanna shout out council member Keith Powers who had a similar bill. Councilman MG Brewer who was uh uh doing work on this as well. Uh We're trying to shift it from uh that the uh uh app based owners have to uh pay for this at least for right now. Um And let's just pay for it. Ourselves. It's relatively cheap amongst the size of this budget for half a million dollars. You can get almost the whole, the whole, uh, the whole universe. Why not just buy it, give it to them, uh, and, and show them how to use it. Now, we did bring this up at a hearing, uh, chaired by Councilor Mariola, uh, and the Commissioner Kavanaugh was there and I think they're starting to look into some of this as well. We do wanna make sure that we have bags that meet the fdny standards. Uh, so I think that's really important and we're gonna try to work with them to make that happen. And hopefully administration can find this relatively small amount of money that can have a, a tremendous impact. Like so many things we're talking about, basically something needs to be done because again, this is, as we mentioned, leading cause of fires right now, something that we're dealing with an awful lot here in the city. All right, we're dealing with that a lot, but we also have a lot of people want to talk to you right now. I wanna head back to the phone lines right now because we've got callers waiting to ask you questions and we're gonna start back up here with Courtney from Brooklyn. She's joining us tonight. Courtney, thanks so much for calling in here on News 12. What's your question for public advocate? Williams? Hi, public advocate. Uh, one of the biggest issues in the city is how affordable housing. And um I'm in a situation where I was being overcharged in my apartment for years and it's been in the court for years and I'm seeing all these people evicted, not knowing that they're in apartments where they were being overcharged in the first place. What is being done about stopping these landlords from illegally destabilizing apartments and also warehousing apartments. We could use the rent stabilized apartments for people that need affordable housing. All right, Courtney, thank you. Great question. Thank you so much for that question. Uh I really appreciate it and, and, and Courtney is um uh hopefully she wins the case and can get trouble damages so we can get the three times as much as uh as she lost. Hopefully, that happens, we do do see this happening in a lot of uh places. Um There was uh the, the state, the state uh uh tenant laws that passed, I think in 2019 as well that helped stop some of this. Uh but there's a lot more than needs to be done. It's also confusing because uh in order to fight some of the rent overcharges, you actually have to go to the state HCR and not uh city HPD. And so sometimes it's confusing who it is you have to go to even if you know, you have to go to someone. And so uh I think they may just announce a uh a tenant protection unit which hopefully uh would be more than just in name. Uh And there'll be some resources there to help tenants that are going through this. There's always this my office as well. Local electives are working through this and there's organizations that try to provide the information uh that's needed. But we try to take away the incentive that um landlords had uh to doing a lot of these illegal tactics. You have people who are harassing people uh by, by repairs, they were making construction to try to make it uncomfortable. They were doing unneeded construction in the, in the building to try to drive people out. And so some of that incentive is gone now, but unfortunately, some of it is still happening. Uh The bottom line is we need housing and we need housing at a price point that people can afford. And that is what's missing. And I always say if, if the things that people need like health care and housing, uh if we make it so that how much money you can make off of those things is the driving uh incentive we're gonna get here. But if we make it into providing a service that someone's need and sure you can make some money off of it, just maybe not all of the money off of the backs of the folks, then we have a different system. Uh So we've been trying to push for that different system with a lot of resistance and the people who are causing the pain to Courtney uh donate a lot of money uh during campaigns. Uh and they sometimes let folks that have bad policies that hurt us. And so we're trying the best we can to reverse that. But many of us knew we were coming here. We're now the most expensive uh rents I believe in the country and some studies may say even the world, um that means something. We had a reverse migration. Uh We've had uh 200,000 Black New Yorkers in the past two decades leave because they can't afford. They're not the only ones. So we have to do when people do surveys. I know crime is a, is a real issue and it's on people's minds. The number one thing though is affordability is the affordability of housing. But why don't we have the same fury and the same angst and the same energy to address the affordability crisis. Um That's what we have to do and a lot of times that we're, we're not. Uh but we take calls, I think every month regarding affordable housing and making sure and across, across all of news 12. And I think you're right. It's something that we need to get some attention to. We need to get some action on. Let's continue right now. And Courtney thank you so much for the call right there and of course for calling in, we want to keep it going with Priem right now. Joining us from East New York. Reem. Thanks so much for calling in here on News 12. What's your question for the public advocate? Hi, good evening public advocate. Um, ok. There's a serious situation that's going on in East New York, on the corner of Linden Boulevard in Ashford. We need some, some form of safety. Um, maybe a speed bump, maybe. Um, something because the accident that keep that keep happening, it's constantly, the last accident was today and it was fatal. Unfortunately, the person lost their lives. So something needs to be done at this corner of Lennon Boulevard and Ash at um, in Ashford. Pre. Thank you so much. Uh, we hear about this all too often now too, unfortunately. Yeah, I'm so sorry to hear someone lost their life that we're here and their families probably not, probably going through a tough time right now. So our prayers of peace and comfort go to them. Uh Thanks for pointing out the intersection. I'll have my folks, uh, take a look and see what's going on there and reach out to the council member as well. We do know that traffic fatalities and traffic accidents in general. I should say traffic crashes in general, uh, um, are something that is preventable. That's what makes it most frustrating. Um, we also know that when we try to make changes to intersections, we, there's a lot of pushback that comes as Well, so sometimes people want things to change, they just don't want it to change. Um, but we also, we have to push past that so that Priam can feel safe when she is trying to get home or going to work and that's not what's happening. Um The interesting thing about speed bumps. Uh people want speed bumps and then I remember as a councilman were trying to get it, everybody want a speed bump, just not right in front of their home because sometimes the rhythm of the night changes and you hit a bad, bad, but there are a lot of traffic safety, traffic calming things that can be done at intersections. Um, uh I do know that area. I'm trying to picture Ashville and, and Lyndon to see if I can remember what's there, but maybe we can get a study there and see what's going on. Sadly, at fatal brings attention, uh, we should not have to wait for a fatality to know that we have a dangerous intersection and I'm sorry that Priam had to be living with this for such a long time. But, um, cyclist fatality is up, I think, uh, pedestrian, uh, fatality is starting to creep up. Um, and we have to do a lot more of the vision zero was a good, I think plan and did some good work. Um, we have to move to another step. Now, more reactionary than preventative is kind of what you were getting at there where we talked about that. Priem. Thank you so much for the question there tonight and we will of course, continue to follow up with you there. We're gonna get to more of your calls in just a couple of minutes. I wanted to bring up something else that took place since we're talking about people being upset about something in their area. The homeless shelter in Bensonhurst that they're looking to build, there was a gigantic rally over the weekend for this. We're talking probably thousands of people here protesting this proposed homeless shelter for single men DS. S has said the district doesn't have one, so they need one, but they've got a petition with tens of thousands of signatures on it. What do we know about this? What do you think should happen here? It was painful to watch. You see these kind of rallies, uh a lot for different subsets of the population. And it's usually people saying we don't want them. And so, uh human nature is we wanna be a part of us, not a part of them. And we just have to be very careful because that goes in the wrong way. Um Too often. Um Shelters are things that we need. Uh frankly nobody wants in their neighborhood. Uh But it's a nesa if we were to build, get ready to build all the housing we need, we still would need additional shelter for long term New Yorkers as well as New New York and they have to go somewhere. So we should work with communities to figure out where the best place is to put it. But this kind of response uh isn't helpful when it comes to additional housing. What I found is interesting, no matter where I go, I ask three questions. Who thinks housing is an imperative right now? Yes. Who thinks we need housing and where people, more housing, people can afford it? Yes. Who wants a tall or denser building next to them? No, those three questions are usually answered the same regardless of race, uh, income, religion, anything. And so it's a hard way to path to go forward. And we have, have a city that has that discussion, uh, with the community and not to the community, but it was troublesome to see this. All right. Well, we'll keep an eye on what happens there going forward, obviously. And of course, we still have a couple of callers on the line that want to get their questions and we're gonna get to you right after the break. We have your questions coming up and a couple more things to discuss with you right here. Still on news. 12 more time for ask your advocate in just a couple of minutes. So stay with us.

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0318askyouradvocateeblock_2024-03-18-20-13-05

Welcome back to ask your advocate here on News 12. As public advocate Jamani Williams is here to take your questions tonight. We're gonna go back to the phones right now because we've got a couple of you waiting to get your questions in and I wanna make sure we get to you. We're gonna go to the Bronx right now. Micah is joining us right now. Micah, thanks for calling in here on News 12. What's your question for public advocate Williams? How you doing Mr Williams Peace? My name is Micah. I'm calling from 49 years old. I'm calling from the Sound of the Bronx. Now, my question is if there's any way that you can um information that you can give me about obtaining housing for a single disabled male. Um Oh, Well, thank you for that question one. If we can make sure we get it, we um connect you with our consistent services. Uh And as we mentioned before, you know, housing is probably the hardest thing to try to get folks in. Um And you would think they would have more senior housing and more housing for people who are disabled. Uh I need some assistance like Mica, the short answer is not what you would think. And that is a very harsh reality. And, and so I don't wanna, you know, give any false, false hope. I would like to make sure that, that Mica, you're on the, all the lists that you should be on and you've applied, uh, as properly to make sure your, your, uh, application is going in. But the fact is, it's just really hard for everyone and this is why it's hard. The nimbyism that goes, it doesn't just go believe it or not for shelters, it goes for housing as well. And people just don't want certain things where they live and that means they can't get built anyway. And so people like Mica suffer, people like uh the person who call from Midwood suffer, we just need housing and we have to build, there's just nowhere around it. We wanna make sure we preserve the units we have and we build more because we need more. And if you're gonna put tax subsidies and you're gonna ask people to give up uh density, then we have to build more affordable and we just weren't doing that. And I'm sorry, Micah is, is struggling and we do our best to make sure he's in all the lists he needs to have. Yeah, absolutely. Micah. We'll pass your information along to the public advocate, make sure that they have everything and they'll reach out to you. Thanks for calling in here tonight. Hopefully we can help you out. Uh Let's stay in the Bronx right now. Rivera is joining us, Rivera. Thanks for calling in. What's your question for public advocate Williams? Hi. Uh Good evening. I know I have so many, but I'm gonna put it uh briefly, I am a single mother of two, which I have two professional Children. Um One is in law enforcement IC. The other one is a, a wonderful nurse. I work for also the Board of Education and I am of concern about, um, the migrants that are coming in. It's not, I know we are all human and we all need to live and we all need to, to do several things. You know, I've been struggling for years. Luckily that I, that I kinda raised two wonderful kids. My question is, I know they're coming in and they're getting money monthly or they're getting everything I applied for everything in this, in this country. And I have never gotten anything. I work for what I have. I don't, I don't qualify for housing. I don't qualify for nothing and they are getting all these, they're getting money free. Yes, they are. They're getting all these things free. And then those who work here who are really working hard. I'm a little frustrated, you know, how, where is this money coming from for all these people that are coming into the United States, especially New York? City right now, Rivera. Thank you so much there, Ellie. You brought us a lot of good, a lot of points there for us. Thank you, Rivera and one I understand Rivera's anger. I understand particularly black and brown immigrant New Yorkers, New Yorkers have been here for a long time who been struggling trying to get things that they deserve and should be getting and then to see migrants coming and seemingly getting, a bunch of things can be aggravated and angering. And so Vera, I want you to hold on to that anger and don't lose it to be quite honest. Um Hold on to it, just don't direct it at the migrants here. You need to direct it at the government who has failed you and so many others, the fact of the matter is we have always had the money to provide the services that we need. If we think it's a priority, we just didn't prioritize Rivera. We just didn't prioritize long term New Yorkers who've been here struggling and folks like me and others have been trying desperately to get government to prioritize them and they did not. The other thing is um I I don't want people to think migrants are getting things that they're not. And if you see the conditions that most of them are sleeping in, if you see them outside on the street, if you see them uh trying to get food, it's not peachy, peachy out there. So we have a tendency to think they're getting things that they're just not, they're not getting the whole set of housing, uh, that people think they are and they are struggling. It's also unsustainable for New York City, but we do have to be humane. We can't be in this, uh, race of how uncomfortable can anybody in this country make it for a human being? We just can't do that. Um, we just have to remember that before the first bus came here, there was 50,000 people in a shelter, the long term New Yorkers. And so we don't wanna pick people who have very little or are struggling versus people who have nothing. We also wanna do it in a way, understanding that uh we have a co uh you know, there is uh a limited amount of funds but also to Rivera him, the type of cuts that were said were needed were not, it was just not true. And now we're reversing those because we actually didn't have to make those cuts. And so we wanna be very careful because when we pit people against each other, uh sometimes people get hurt. I know that's not Rivera is pointing to, but she's pointing to a real thing is we should have prioritized long term New Yorkers at a long, long time ago. And we still have the money to actually do that if leaders want to. All right. Well, Rivera, thank you so much for calling in and bringing that to the public advocate's attention and great question I wanted to ask you real quick before we move on. Uh crisis going on in Haiti right now has a lot of people concerned, especially people with family members there. What do you wanna tell people and what are your thoughts on what's going on there right now? I mean, it's so tough. We hear about a lot of things that are going on around the globe. Uh The things happened in the Sudan and Congo and Haiti. And I believe honestly they're not getting uh the attention they deserve because they're black countries. Haiti had a president assassinated a few months ago. They are now devolving into a place uh where uh people are now being uh are escaping from. Um and we were deporting people back to Haiti by the way. And so we need to get attention, all the world's attention on what's happening in Haiti and get the assistance they need and help them lead themselves. We don't need more people coming in trying to lead it for them, but we can help them build capacity that we just have been unable to assist them with. And I wanna remind people that Haiti was forced to repay France and Citibank for their own freedom for the loss of property which was themselves and that helped lead into destruction. And that yes, there have been some corruption and we wanna be honest about that. But I want people to remember where it started, how it started. France City back, had to be paid large sums and that was a harmful thing to Haiti. And we owe them a debt of gratitude and some assistance. All right. Well, we'll continue to keep everybody apprised of what's going on there and we'll keep everybody going on what's happening right here. More. Ask your advocate when we come back.

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0318askyouradvocatefblock_2024-03-18-20-13-02

Welcome back to ask your advocate here on news 12. I wanna thank all the callers for some really great questions tonight. You really delivered big time. And we also, every week, every month I ask you to put those questions on social media for us. We got a really good one for you tonight. I don't want to bring it up for you. Somebody. Uh Right here, Brian wants to know a public advocate what's in the backpack. If anybody knows, you know, you always travel around with that backpack wherever you go. He wants to know what do you got? I mean, it depends, there's a lot of stuff. Uh my family calls it my, my purse. I got keys in there. I got some stuff for my hair. Um maybe some books, some lotion got my headset in there, just everything you might need during the day. Uh I put it in there and just keep, I tried carrying a briefcase at one point. It just wasn't me. I just went back to the backpack and that was it. The, the backpack clearly stands out if people are noticing it and they realize what's going on and they wanna know what's in it, Brian. I hope that answers your question. I hope now you feel better knowing what in the public advocates backpack. And, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe it's one of those things you make a social media video about this later on again. I think you got to do another one to make that happen here. Of course, as we do end almost every time people wonder what we're talking about in these commercial breaks. It's almost always the Knicks. That's almost always what we're talking about. And there is no different right now. They are playing very well out in the west coast, which means you can catch the game, uh, later tonight. I know you're gonna be watching and staying up, uh, thoughts on what's been going on with them right now as we make our way to, it's a playoff push something real serious real quick. I just wanna make sure people remember how close they are to being homeless. You're one paycheck away. Uh, you one fire away, you're one illness away. I just want folks to remember that now, back to the Knicks, which is so fun. Uh, uh, you know, ana nobody's out today, so I'm a little concerned. Uh, but, you know, I'm very excited about our Knicks. I hope that they don't do this trade they're talking about for some superstar. Like I'm really excited about this team last time we did that, we kind of messed it up a little, let this team gel. They do really well. You know, Bronson is a star himself. Uh, and a no, we're 15 and two. when he's in the lineup, Robinson is not back yet. Randall's not back back yet. We can make a real run for this thing. Everybody just relax a little bit. Uh, and I just, I just actually wanted to make out of the first round. I feel like we win a championship. If we make it to the second round, will we see another one man parade if that happens? I, I have a feeling it won't be to one man this time. Ok. Yeah, I think it's gonna be some other folks, but definitely 100%. I'll be back there even if it's just myself on Broadway and Chambers, uh, with my own tape, throwing it up and I cleaned it up last time and I didn't block any traffic. Thank you. And I'll be there. I'm a Knicks fan for life. This city lights up in such a way when the Knicks are relevant. The Ks are playing well and it's just something to behold. I hope they get to do it this year. It'll be really great public advocate. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate the time with you as always and I appreciate the time with all of you. Thank you so much for great questions tonight. We'll see you next month right here. On, ask your advocate on news 12.

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News 12's Kurt Semder sits down with public advocate Jumaane Williams to answer YOUR questions for this month's edition of Ask Your Advocate.

Ask Your Advocate: March 2024 Edition

News 12's Kurt Semder sits down with public advocate Jumaane Williams to answer YOUR questions for this month's edition of Ask Your Advocate.

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