Speak to Speaker Menin

**Brian Lehrer** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Happy Monday morning, everyone, and we will begin the week by allowing you to speak with the speaker. It's my questions and yours for New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin. You know, we've started our Ask the Mayor series with Mayor Mamdani, right? Well, today, you can speak with the speaker about anything you would like City Council to address in your neighborhood or citywide, and of course, ask any questions. I've got some of my own lined up. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692.
Call or text for Speaker Julie Menin, and Speaker Menin, we really appreciate that you're doing this with us today. Welcome back to WNYC.

**Julie Menin** (0:54)
Thanks, Brian. It's so great to be with you today.

**Brian Lehrer** (0:57)
I'd like to start with the Legionnaires' Disease Outbreak on the Upper East Side, and now a cooling tower has tested positive at the Ardsley on Central Park West, 91st Street, 92nd Street. You started out critical of the Health Department for some of its early response. Are they getting it right yet according to you?

**Julie Menin** (1:15)
I'm still extremely concerned, Brian. The issue is that with Legionnaires, it can be obviously fatal in approximately 10 percent of the cases. As of yesterday, there were 46 positive cases. What I have asked the Health Department to do from the beginning was rather than wait for test results to come back, proactively disinfect the towers, order the building owners to disinfect the towers, rather than continue to wait for this information to come back, because every single day that they wait, more and more people become sick. We have to remember that this outbreak is on the East Side of Manhattan, and on the East Side of Manhattan is actually one of the densest districts in the City of New York with a very large senior population. Who are incredibly susceptible to legionnaires. So my criticism of the health department is first of all, that they did not proactively disinfect these buildings, that they actually are continuing to wait for test results. So they still have buildings back where there are no test results, and so those towers have still not been disinfected.
In addition, they only over the weekend released what buildings there were positive cases on. So everything from certain residential buildings, Asphalt Green, where you've got many kids play on Asphalt Green, the Guggenheim Museum, a lot of different facilities throughout the East Side. Why not release those buildings as soon as there are positive cases? And then my third criticism is they know where the epicenter is. Why not release that data as soon as they know that? These are all proactive steps that were not taken, and that is my concern.

**Brian Lehrer** (2:56)
Just to be clear, I see that the health department, and correct me if this new story that I saw is wrong, but I see the health department ordered 31 buildings that tested positive for Legionella to disinfect their buildings by Saturday, two days ago. Those are mostly residential buildings, but also I read the Guggenheim Museum.
Do you know if they have all complied with the Saturday deadline?

**Julie Menin** (3:21)
Well, this is the issue, Brian. It's not only those 31 buildings. My concern with what the health department is not doing is what about all the buildings where we don't have the test results back yet? We have hundreds of buildings in these three zip codes, and we don't have test results back for many, many buildings. So there we have a big question mark. We don't know if they're positive or not. So instead of waiting the days on end for the test results to come back, just proactively order the buildings to disinfect. It's not a complicated or expensive process to do so. You basically use bleach and other materials.
So of the 31 buildings that they have ordered, we do not yet have that information. Tonight there will be another town hall and we expect to hear the information as to whether or not those 31 buildings comply. But what about all the other buildings where we don't know what the test results are? So every single hour and every single day that those buildings are not disinfected, more and more residents become infected and can potentially die as a result of this.

**Brian Lehrer** (4:26)
I read that the Artsley on Central Park West between 91st and 92nd streets tested on their own and found the problem. Do you want more buildings to do that in a certain geographical area?

**Julie Menin** (4:37)
Well, absolutely. So last year, the City Council passed a bill sponsored by Council Member Schulman, the Health Committee Chair, that basically ordered buildings to test once a month for Legionnaires in the summer months.