Meet the Manhattan Borough President

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
Brian Lehrer on WNYC.
With us now is Manhattan borough president, Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who took office in January after more than a decade representing the West Side in the state senate. Six months into the job, his borough is at the center of some of the biggest stories in the city right now. The Legionnaires' outbreak on the Upper East Side that has now killed four people. A federal overhaul of Penn Station, which he convened a town hall on last week. We'll talk about that. A city council fight over the future of the horse carriages in Central Park. We'll get his take on that. Plus his plan to organize a borough-wide tenants union. A borough-wide tenants union. He's also got $50 million in city capital money because borough presidents get some discretionary money to spend as they choose. And he's putting $50 million toward arts and culture. Also, he's got a new neighborhood report card for the Borough of Manhattan, neighborhood by neighborhood on dog waste. Borough president Hoylman-Sigal. Oh, do we have him yet?
Welcome back to WNYC. Hi there. I wasn't sure if we were hooked up. I knew we were having a little telephone problem there. Hi, welcome back to WNYC.

**Brad Hoylman-Sigal** (1:24)
Good to be back. How are you?

**Brian Lehrer** (1:26)
Good. And belated congratulations on your election as borough president. Let's start with the Legionnaires Outbreak. Public health isn't necessarily a borough president office lane, but this is happening in your borough. What are you hearing from residents in Carnegie Hill and Yorkville? Is this over as far as new cases?

**Brad Hoylman-Sigal** (1:46)
Well, I think the health department's done a really good job, Brian, in communicating with local elected officials and the community board in particular.
And we haven't seen any new cases for almost a week now. So that's very good news. Obviously, the four deaths are very distressing. But we've been in constant contact with the health department. They've had multiple outreaches to the local community. And I hope we're on a pathway toward resolution and good health for that neighborhood and the entirety of the borough.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:19)
City Council Speaker Julie Menon, who lives in the affected area, has been critical of the city's handling of this. You just said the health department's been doing a good job, but she called on them to proactively disinfect every cooling tower in the area. Do you agree with her?

**Brad Hoylman-Sigal** (2:36)
I do, and obviously, this is a procedure that this administration inherited, including the fact that there's a deficit of water ecologists in the order of like 20 So we need to get on the case and hire more of those professionals to ensure that these cooling towers are, in fact, clean and safe.

**Brian Lehrer** (3:01)
And listeners, we can take your calls for Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal, your calls and texts, especially if you live in the borough but you don't have to, 212-433-WNYC-212-433-9692, call or text on any of the topics that I laid out in the intro or anything else that you think is relevant.
I want to go right on to this idea of yours for a borough-wide tenants union. I see you've hired a long-time tenant organizer, Alejandro Corriott, to build a Manhattan-wide tenants union. That was a campaign promise of yours. What does a borough-wide tenants union actually do?

**Brad Hoylman-Sigal** (3:51)
Well, what it does, Brian, it connects tenants who may not know that they share the same landlord. We've seen this before when I represented the Lower East Side of Manhattan. There were tenant organizations that found out that they shared the same landlord, in many cases, a bad landlord. We were able to work with them. It just goes to the whole point of strength in numbers. When you share information, when you have a coalition that's built boroughwide.
Look, there's a problem with a lot of tenants even knowing who their landlord is in the first place. An issue I tried to address when I was a state senator in Albany. So many tenants send their rent checks on a monthly basis to an anonymous LLC. We tried to unmask some of those landlords, but it's a process. And I think a tenants union is going to build on that effort to connect tenants. And of course, we know that this is a citywide effort on the part of the Mondani administration. So we think this coalition could reverberate throughout the entire city, not just Manhattan.

**Brian Lehrer** (5:09)
Right. Last week, Mayor Mondani announced the city will legally recognize tenant unions.
But I'm not sure what that means, because as I understand it, a landlord could still refuse to negotiate with one. So what does recognition actually change?