An attorney representing Gov. Kathy Hochul issued a letter Tuesday night expressing concerns about coordination and communication between the state and city regarding the ongoing influx of migrants, saying the city has failed to accept “numerous” offers of help from the state.
In an interview with NY1 on Wednesday, Hochul said the attorney has “made clear in court that we offered other resources that are still available, that we have resources still on the table, that we’ve brought significant dollars to the table, will continue to do so. $1.5 billion already.”
The governor said her administration has offered about 12 state-owned sites that could be used to house migrants.
“I can show you all the sites we offered. When they are in need of state-owned sites, we offered them months ago,” she said. “They are still available. That’s the point.”
She said that those sites included JFK Airport, Riverbank State Park and Aqueduct Racetrack, as well as smaller sites, and added that a potential site at Floyd Bennett Field is being worked on.
“We are continuing to help identify sites and are pushing hard for Floyd Bennett Field, and I think that could be a significant development, and, again, on the phone with the White House again today to talk about the leases for that,” she said. “I believe that is going to happen. It’s just a matter of when.”
When asked about her relationship with Mayor Eric Adams, Hochul said the mayor has “had extraordinary challenges, and stated that people enjoy “identifying any disagreements as a major fight.”
“The point is, we are here to help, and when we identity areas where we think more can be done, that’s what we’re doing,” she said.
Hochul added that the reason for the letter was “in response to being ordered by a judge to identify our response to the city, and that’s the reason it is out there.”
“We are committed to this. It’s important that New Yorkers know that,” she said. “These are individuals, human beings, and they deserve to have the ability to be taken care of when they arrive, but the state is committed to continuing to work with the mayor without a doubt.”
Asked about the letter at an unrelated briefing Wednesday, Adams said Hochul “pointed out some things in the letter that she feels that we could improve on, coordination, like her spots.”
“She says here that she had a number of locations that we turned down. We’re going to sit down and show her why we could not use those places,” Adams said. “She stated that the invoicing, of getting the invoices in, we’re taking too long. We want to sit down and show her why it took that long, and to come up with some ideas.”
“We are really pleased with the relationship we have with this governor. Unlike some of the tension with other administrations, the governor and I have constantly talked about our coordination,” he added. “So if her observation is that, ‘Here’s some things that you can do differently,' we’re all in. We’re all in.”