Cuomo Addresses Congregants at Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn
Cuomo: ‘Corinthians tells us in 10:13, God will not allow us to be tested beyond what we can bear. We can bear these challenges and we have to start with getting the city's economy running, getting jobs, letting people know there's opportunity.’
Brooklyn, N.Y. – Andrew M. Cuomo, candidate for Mayor of New York City today joined Reverend Adolphus C. Lacey, PhD, to address congregants at Bethany Baptist Church in Brooklyn.
A rush transcript of Cuomo’s remarks are below
Thank you very much. Good morning, Bethany. God is good. Now, this is a real accomplishment by Reverend Lacey. He is an author and I'm looking forward to reading this book. And I heard he was an author. So I came here today. I wanted to see if he sounds any different now that he's a published author. But congratulations. Let's congratulate the reverend on getting this done. This is a heck of an accomplishment. The first lady, Cheryl Lacey, our respects, thank you for having me today. I'm also accompanied by my daughter, Cara, my oldest daughter who is here.
Children are a kick. You spend the first half of their life, they want attention from you. Second half of their life, you want attention from them. Try to find ways to get them to come over and visit. It's my birthday. No, it's not. Alright. The gimmick I use is they'll make that phone call when they need a little cash offering. 'Dad I need a few bucks. 'Oh, no problem, no problem. Well, can you Venmo me? I said, no, no. Can you Zell me? I said, no, no, no. Can you cash app me? I said, no, no. You have to come here and pick up the money if you want to see. You got to give me some time. Reverend Lacey is exactly right. We are in a time of challenges. There's no doubt we have challenges right here in this city. You've walked down the block, you feel the challenges.
We have problems with crime, gun violence almost every week. Another innocent victim of gun violence. We have people without jobs, homeless on the street, mentally ill on the streets and affordability crisis all across the board. And we have President Donald Trump, who has a special attention on New York. And he can be dangerous.
I dealt with him during COVID every day, every day I was the governor. He was the president. And we had to deal with each other during COVID. And every day it was a battle. It's like being in a dysfunctional marriage. You wake up every morning, same person, same fight. But Corinthians tells us in 10:13, God will not allow us to be tested beyond what we can bear. We can bear these challenges and we have to start with getting the city's economy running, getting jobs, letting people know there's opportunity.
There's opportunities for advancement. We have to have a public education system that is actually teaching our children the skills they're going to need. We still have too many failing public schools in this city. And the failing public schools happen to be in the poorer communities and the black and brown communities, and they've been tolerated for too long. And that has to stop. And I will replace those failing schools with specialty schools and charter schools. But we're not going to fail in another generation of children just because we can't figure out a better approach.
We have to attack gun violence. We know how to do it. People in the community know how to do it. Violence, interrupter programs. We have to get young people jobs. We have to have apprenticeships, give them recreation and things to do and places to do it. And we have a housing crisis, housing crisis, 1% vacancy in housing, 1% vacancy in housing, which means what?
Of all the housing units, only 1% are vacant. So when you walk in to rent the apartment, you either give the landlord the rent that the landlord wants or the person in the elevator behind you gets the apartment. And that is driving up prices to a point where they're just not affordable. And then you have neighborhoods where you have gentrifiers come in, they buy a piece of property, they raise the rents, and people in the surrounding community can't afford it.
We know how to handle this. We know how to build affordable housing. It's not complicated. It's brick, it's cement, it's brick. That's what it is. And we know that we have to have a preference for people in that community so they can rent those new units we build in their community. It can't be that we're building new housing in communities and then displacing the people who have lived there all their lives. That has to stop.
We know what needs to be done. But I'll tell you the key. The key is not just knowing what needs to be done, it's knowing how to get it done. That's where government fails, getting it done. Because getting it done is hard. It is hard. Everybody says they want change. They don't want to change. They want you to change, but they don't want any change. They want to stay right where they are. You go to do anything in this city and it's hard. You have political problems, you have legal problems. Somebody's unhappy. But that's the art form of government knowing how to make government a vehicle for change. And I'll tell you, you don't want to hear me sing and you didn't want to watch my rhythm in that front pew. And you don't want to see me dance, but I know how to make government work. I have done it all my life. I started with a gentleman named Mario Cuomo when I was 18 years old.
I was the housing secretary for Bill Clinton for eight years, building housing all across this nation. I was governor for 11 years. And we made changes. We made historic changes. We built projects that they said couldn't be built. Go look at LaGuardia Airport and Kosciuszko Bridge and Kennedy Airport and the Second Avenue. Subway. We can get things done if we do it together in partnership. And I believe the best days of this city lie ahead because I believe in us. When Reverend Lacey said the toughest challenge was during COVID, he's exactly right. Almost killed all of us. Took a piece out of me that I'll never get back. Took a toll. But it also taught me something. It taught me to believe in you and to believe in us because when times were at their worst and we were all alone, and it was literally life and death and nobody knew anything and nobody knew what to do, and everybody was giving conflicting information, look how beautiful New Yorkers were. And look how they came together and supported one another. And no matter what it was, the bus driver went to work every morning and the grocery clerk went to work every morning and the train operator went to work and the nurses went and the doctors went and neighbors were there for neighbors and with the pastor's leadership turning a church into a medical clinic. That's leadership.
If we are capable of doing that, we can turn this city around. We can handle this president, we can build affordable housing, we can address gun violence and we'll leave our children a city better than ever before. Thank you and God bless you.
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