Correction, that's not the only slide. Unfortunately, I do have a couple extra slides. But don't worry, they'll be out of the way very, very shortly, right? Let's open my machine. Hopefully, we can switch to this, so we can see things and stuff. Cool, you can see it. I mean, now that's zoomed in quite a lot. OK, first slide. These are the tech choices that we're going to be doing. Ooh. Cool, you can see me. OK, these are the tech choices we're going to be using. Google Kubernetes Engine. It's managed Kubernetes service. GitLab, kind of obvious. Terraform, just been talking about that. Going to Terraform some infrastructure. Node.js, React and Redux, bunch of JavaScript stuff. Yes, that does make me the most annoying person in the room. I apologize in advance. But OK, it's fine. Accept JavaScript. It's part of the world now. Here's a little napkin diagram of the thing that we're going to actually build. So we're going to have a front end that's going to be serviced from this front end pod that can access all of the static resources and things through by hitting the Kubernetes cluster ingress, going through a service, hitting the front end pod. And then the back end service here is going to be just serving the Node.js app. Slides over. Let's build. So, oh, God, that's hideous. Let's, very quickly, system preferences, display. No, not arrangement. Scaled, 1080. Maybe that'll look better. Ooh, can you still see that? Yeah, you can. That's fine. OK, let's start things. Can someone shout out an animal, please?  Giraffe. You can't say giraffe. I've already got a project that called giraffe. Kangaroo. OK, we've got kangaroo. We're going to create a new subgroup that's going to contain all of our code. And we're going to call it kangaroo. We'll make it public because we want to make things open source. Let's create a new project called, come on, come on, come on. Well, basically what we're going to do is call it ops so I can actually put stuff in. So we're going to call it ops because, not ops 3, public create. Come on, nice and quick, right? So let's create a new folder called kangaroo. Stick that in ops. And then I'm just going to open a terminal. And open this in code. I'm going to kangaroo and open that in Visual Studio Code. Nice. OK, so checklist of things to do so I can actually stay on track. We're going to terraform a cluster. We're going to configure that cluster. We're going to configure GitLab. We're going to initialize a front end and a back end. That's all our app stuff. Then we're going to do some dev stuff and actually develop a little bit of the back end and front end. I'm cheating a little bit because obviously it says zero to Kubernetes, but I do already have a little repo here. But trust me, it's not very much code, so I'm still counting it. So we've got some terraform here. We'll stick. Can make a text bigger, sure thing. There you go, you see that? Awesome. Let's stick that in the kangaroo folder. And let's, yeah, so we're going to create this platform here in terraform modules. We've got GKE. That's going to create a GitLab GKE thingy moboby there. Let's call this actually, because I think I already have a cluster called dev in there. Let's just call it dev kangaroo. And that'll do. So first thing to do, cd into ops, cd into the dev environment, am I the correct user? I should probably, can I switch my email? You can email me if you want to. This is a public email, so don't worry. Authenticate things, come on. You need to be authenticated so I can use terraform. Come on, internet, allow. It's going to be fine. This is what I've got demos about. Right, terraform init. Cool, initializing the back end. That's going to store our terraform state in a Google storage bucket. It's initializing the plugins. Cool, successful, terraform. Don't want to go straight for reply. Now let's plan it out first. Cool, so we're going to create a cluster. Nice terraform reply. So yeah, so whilst this terraforms, let me actually talk about what we're going to be building a bit more. So this talk is pretty much about CI CD and why you should be doing it and why you should be using things like Kubernetes. Also sort of going into some of the depths of if you are already using CI CD, like you're using the GitLab auto DevOps feature, which is pretty much makes my talk null and void because I'm going to be doing everything in 20 minutes and auto DevOps sort of does it in like two clicks. But yeah, so we're going to kind of go into the depths of some of the stuff that auto DevOps, how that works. I'm simplifying things to make it a little bit easier, just for me because we've only got 17 minutes left now. Cool, but we've got Kangaroo. That is a cluster that's getting up and running. So terraforming cluster, and then we're going to run some scripts on this cluster. These are pretty similar to what in the background for the auto DevOps stuff, what it's going to be running. So we're going to be using Helm, which is a deployment tool. And I think it calls itself a package manager for Kubernetes, which is, I guess, accurate. We're going to be initializing that. That'll put Tilla on it, although in the next version of Helm, it's not using Tilla, which is kind of cool. And then we're going to be giving Tilla some permissions to make sure that it can actually do some stuff. We're going to be installing a nginx ingress, just to make sure that, like, back to our architecture diagram, we actually have an ingress that will serve out some stuff. We're going to be sorting out GitLab CD, CI CD things, so making sure that our CI CD pipeline can actually go and talk to our Kubernetes cluster and deploy things. And then we're going to look at some image pull secrets, because I'm also using GitLab's container registry to store some, well, containers. So I'm just kind of waiting for Terraform to actually work now. Come on. Two minutes to Terraform a cluster. I mean, ironically, Google is pretty good at this. And it takes quite a lot longer on some of the other platforms, but I probably shouldn't say that sort of thing. I work for Capgemar, by the way. Can work for us? Cool, corporate shell stuff over. I'm going to get told off for that. Whilst this is Terraform. Oh, no, I can't really commit it up. Actually, I'll talk about some of the other stuff whilst this is Terraforming that I'm going to be doing. So in our checklist, I'm going to be initing a front end and a back end, so that all the scripts are doing are sorting out that configuration of the cluster and everything. The front end, this is a bit where I'm sort of cheating with the zero to Kubernetes, because I wrote a little open source generator thing. This is my website. Look, it's pretty. That basically, if you open a file, and as long as you're NPM and get installed, it'll just boot up and generate. It's kind of like Spring Initializer, if people are familiar with the Java world. It'll just generate you a front end app. And I've got one for back end apps, which I'm also going to be using. With GitLab CI files, because I really quite like GitLab, hence why I'm here. And yeah, it comes along with Kubernetes files to be able to deploy things. I'm currently using a little open source tool that the home office built called KD to deploy things, instead of using Helm, because I have some issues around deploying with Helm, when it comes to aligning things between Git hashes and tracking that, and then converting that into a semantic versioning thing. I don't know if you're good at that sort of stuff. Come talk to me afterwards. But we've terraformed something. Yay. Let's go into, let's actually connect to this. I'm actually going to use the console, which is something that I didn't want to use, but I have to use it. Well, I don't have to use it.  So, kubectl, get pods. I don't have anything in the default namespace. So let's have a look in the kubesystem namespace. Can you see that, by the way? Or do you want me to make it even bigger? A little bit bigger? How's that? Oh, god, that's ugly. I'm going to have to. Sorry for you people who are short-sight. So we actually can connect things. We can see that all of the Google stuff to do with Fluent D and Prometheus and all that stuff is running. So let's run these scripts. Let's get Helm installed. So cd, out of here, and go into Kubernetes. And let's just run the first script. Cool, that's Helm installed. And Tiller, given the permissions, done. Let's run the second script. EngineX couldn't find a ready Tiller pod. That's OK, because Tiller takes a second to install. By the time I've typed out this command, Tiller will be running. Ooh, it's not. Go on. There you go. Now it's running. Let's rerun that second script. EngineX, and it's done. Magic. Let's sort out GitLab CI. So as I said earlier, the tool that I'm going to be using is called KD. And that requires a couple of little variables to be put into GitLab to make sure that KD, I guess, with any deployment tool, you're going to have to tell your deployment tool where to go. So we're going to go into, we want to make all of these variables available to the entire kangaroo group. So let's go into settings, and look at CI CD, and look at variables. And we're just going to create one called kubeserver, I think it's called. And that is going to be the actual URL that we're going to current, the actual IP address of this server. There we go. It needs to be HTTPS, because otherwise it complains. And we need kubetoken, which is the token of a service account so that the GitLab, when it goes and talks to the Kubernetes cluster, it can go and say, hey, I need to go and run this, but I need permission to deploy things and all that sort of stuff. That's what this service account is going to do for us. How do we do this? We run the script, and it creates a service account, and we can even output the token. That's nice. We can just paste that in there, save the variables, call that bit's done. Right. So we've done that bit, we've done that bit. We're not going to worry about the image pull secrets yet. We'll come back to that. And for the time being, we can close that off. That's fine. That's fine. Git add, there you go. I'm doing work already. Terraformed cluster. That's a horrifically short and not very descriptive Git commit. Please don't make your Git commits like mine, because otherwise you end up packing things together.  We need the URL for this clone. Git remote add, origin, you. Git push, you're going to complain, but that means I can copy and paste you. And push it up to master. And cool. If I refresh that page, we've got some operation stuff in place. What I am going to do, by the way, whilst I remember, is go into settings, because I should have done this beforehand, into variables. And we're just going to, is it that one? Yes, we're going to hide them. Save. Cool. Shall I mask them as well? No, look at it. Maybe I should have done that. Security, I'll probably tell me off for that later. Right, so we've configured the cluster. We've configured a bit of GitLab. Let's initialize the front end app. When I say it's a single line, I really mean it's a single line. Cool, it's going to curl and install script. All I need to do is CD out of this and do make. Let's make a front end app. CD into the front end app and run my install script. So it's generating readme's. It's generating config and build files for all the Kubernetes and the GitLab stuff. Yeah, there's the Kubernetes files. We're storing our output files, so that will be things like the index.html, application codes, that will be all the React-Redux stuff. If you're unfamiliar with React-Redux, React is a library built by Facebook. And it's actually pretty good, yay. And it allows us to create these sort of composable components. That's a mouthful. Say that 10 times faster. Composable components, composable components. Anyway. And Redux is a client-side framework that allows you to have a store and then push stuff out from there. And it's loading. And it's installing our node npm modules. Oh, and it even opens code for us. So let's have, let's actually close that, because I've already got it in here. It's already started up. So if I do localhost.eat, cool. It says hello world. That's nice. So quick little dive and explain of what's going on here. Webpack's going to build it all, packaged at JSON. If you're familiar with Node.js, that's going to sort out all of the dependencies and everything. Dockerfile, Nginx, it's going to host it in an Nginx server in a Docker image. GitLab CI, this is the bit that we actually care about. So this is the GitLab bit. Then we're going to build it on a node server. And it's just going to run it and stick everything in public. We're going to build it into a Docker image and then push it into GitLab's CI, GitLab's container registry. And then we're going to deploy it using this KD tool. And KD just requires you to, at least the initial script that I've written. It already has all these variables, and I just need to define it. So let's call it kangaroo.harmelodic talks. Harmelodic is my internet alias. Cool. That looks all fine to me. Let's leave that there for the time being. Let's have a look at these Kubernetes scripts. Cool. That looks like a deployment that'll kick out a single replica and it's got all the registry deployment tokens. It'll do rolling updates. That's nice. An ingress, that's our Nginx ingress bit that's going to manage saying hello to the outside world. That's our service that's going to connect our deployment and our ingress together. Lovely jubbly. We don't need to do anything around that. So initialized our front-end. Done that. Let's CD out of this and do exactly the same for back-end. MakeCD is a command that I made up that allows me to make directories and CD directly into them. What am I doing? Oh, yeah, I'm actually doing a talk. I should probably concentrate on that. Cool. Let's copy that. Let's run it. Exactly the same thing. Readme, config files, it's building everything out. You can see it all just being pulled in from the outside internet. Open source, don't you just love it? Yes, we do. We wouldn't love open source if we wouldn't be here if we didn't love open source, that's what I was about. Or if you're here and you don't like open source, why? Come and convince me and I'll tell you you're wrong. That's installing all of the things. So here we're just using express because I'm lazy and can't be bothered learning any of the new Node.js frameworks because they'll die in about six months. That's the nature of the JavaScript world. We all know it. So I'm just using express. Cool, it started up. So if I go to localhost8080, it says cannot get. But it does have a health check that says, oh no, I because this is running, I configure this there. There's the health check. And if I say that, that then says hello world. Cool. So it's going to say slash API just so that when we deploy things, it's going to be deployed under the same URL. And I can still access things through the ingress nice and neatly by the same URL. Which means HTTPS, which we're not going to do today because I don't have enough time. If we wanted to configure that, that's all good. We're going to do the same thing that we did for the front end and just make it saying kangaroo.harmelotic torx.com. At some point I'm going to have to configure that URL. That works, everything. That's fine. Right, so we've initialized all of that sort of stuff. We've in it at the front end, we've in it at the back end.  Let's do the dev as part of the ops. I want to make this easy because I don't have a huge amount of time. That's just saying hello world. I already have a body parts of Jason thing in there. So if I kick out some Jason, the front end is going to like it. So let's say title is hello GitLab commit 2019. Smiley face. You're complaining because the linter is telling me to use single quote marks, even though I've been brought up on Java, which means double quotes for everything. Hand C plus plus. What are you complaining about? This line is length of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, fine. Stop complaining linter.  Right. That's some back end stuff developed. Let's make sure that the front end can actually talk to the back end. So in our source, we have some components that's going to render a title that says this pops.title. So I did that with that back end where I said title.thing. I'm already prepared. Containers. These are sort of bundles of components that contain the same state and define a specific part of your app, then components define how the little widgets and bits work. That's just going to say, hey, on root, I want you to render index because we're using react router. If you don't understand any of this, don't worry about it. You can, I'll explain it all afterwards if you want. Yeah. And then index container is just going to look into the redux store and get out the title. We're going to render it onto the fetch title. Yeah, we're going to render it into here on mounting. We're going to want to subscribe to the title in case we see any changes. We'll fetch the title from the middleware because this is what redux does. And then we'll render a title component and pass it the title string. So let's have a look at some middleware stuff, the redux things. We've got an action that just sets the title. We have a store. So our initial title is initial title. That's going to build out a store, which gets generated through these reducers that handle actions, blah, blah, blah, JavaScript. Everyone hates it. This is the tasty bit. This is the bit that actually connects our, what did I edit in you? That was going to break something. Ooh, what are you not like? Thank you. It's a good job. Good job I spotted that because otherwise that was going to make everything break. So we want to, this is going to fetch the title. So it's going to say get API as another little preparation thing. And it's going to look at the JSON and it says, if I can read the JSON, set the title as data, but we want it to be data.title. And if it fails, then it'll just say hello world. It still will actually render something. And if it fails everything and even the API isn't readable, it'll still just say hello world. Cool. Like when I say on my checklist that I'm saying develop front-end to read some back-end and all I did was just add that. And I know I'm cheating, but I have 20 minutes. Just forgive me, all right? So let's actually commit some stuff in place. We actually need some repos to store all of this junk. Come on internet. You've been good to me so far in downloading all those horrifically large NPM modules. Let's create the front-end. How am I doing for time? I have two minutes left. I reckon I can do this. So that was the front-end. We want to cd into front-end, get status, get add. I should probably concentrate here. CI, cd, middleware. Again, butchering these, get remote, add origin, butchering these commit messages, get push origin master. Cool. I think you're going to be good enough. Then we want to go back to kangaroo, new project. Come on internet. CI, cd, into back-end, get status, add this, into all of this sort of stuff. CI, cd, and kicking out a string, get remote, add origin, back-end, public, create, do, do, do, do, do. Clone that, paste that in there, get push origin master. Right. That's pushed all of that stuff into there. We need to run our little script to sort out these images. So as part of that, we need to go into settings, CI, cd, and not CI, cd, repository, because we need to have a look at some deploy tokens. These are the things that are going to allow Kubernetes to pull the images from GitLab's container registry. We want to read the registry. We want to create a thing. Now let's just call this Kubernetes. Copy the username. So this script just takes cd, into ops, Kubernetes, four. This script takes an app name. So in this case, it's going to be the back-end. So back-end takes a token username. That's the thing I've just copied. It takes a token password. Please don't copy that. I will be deleting all of this except the code, just to make sure that it's all open source. So I will be deleting all of this, just to make sure you can't hack any of this stuff. Or I might just leave it for the day and see who can hack it. And we need to do the same for the front-end. And we'll go into kangaroo, front-end, settings, repository, deployment tokens. I could have automated all of this, but that's no fun. Create deployment token. Copy that. Run the fourth script again. This is called front-end. We've got the username. We've got the password. Paste that in. That's the secret created. Cool. That's all that's done. That's going to start actually deploying all of this. Now I'm pretty sure we've done all of that. We're starting all the deployment, because all of this stuff, if we look at the CICD for the front-end, that's going through the deployment. Whilst that's running, we're going to sort out here. I created a Blue Peter one just in case I massively screwed all of this up, as a, here's what we made earlier, for those people who grew up on Blue Peter. Kangaroo, we need a URL, which means we need to wait. Do we? No, we don't. It's the nginx ingress. That's already been deployed. So let's have a look at services and ingresses. And we have here, ooh, it's already starting to look like it's deploying. That's nice. nginx ingress. So we want to copy this URL. And we want to, I think it's that one. nginx ingress controller. Oh, no, that's the, that's the, that was very good. No, that's the Blue Peter one. Right, OK, that's why you're seeing Blue Peter stuff. We need to copy this one, because that's to do with Kangaroo. And we need to put this in here, paste that in there, take off the port, create that. That'll go and update DNS, which will take a second or two.  Now, all we have to do is wait for, where am I going? Here we go. What was the last thing that I pushed up? It would have been the front end, I think, was the one that I last created. Let's have a look. Front end, yes. So if we go and have a look at the front end, this is probably the one that will finish last. In my CICD jobs, go on, you're deploying. Everything's been green so far. I might have just pulled off a live coding demo in 15 minutes. And if so, I don't know about you, but I'm kind of proud of myself. I'm going to treat myself to a beer later, because God, I need it. I stocked up on coffee just to make sure that I can actually do this. Right, hopefully the Blue Peter stuff, don't look at my Chrome history, Christ, no.  It's worse than you think. So that's our Blue Peter one. That says hello, GitLab. But we want to see something that's better. We want to see our, that's all the init stuff. We can close all that down. It's deployed, which means if we refresh this, that says kangaroo, that says kangaroo. If we click that, it says hello, world. Go on. You're not connecting to the API. There it is. That is a live coding demo. If I go back to the slides. Questions, ask me them afterwards. I've run out of time. Who am I? I'm Matt Smith. Nice to see you.


A federal high court in Abu Dhabi has ruled that the former Minister of Finance, Kemi Adyushan, was not eligible for a mandatory one-year national service. The court presided over by Justice Taiwo Taiwo said she was not obliged to present herself for the National Youth Service, which is the NYSE mobilisation, under the 1979 Constitution, as she was not a Nigerian citizen at the time of her graduation, or when she turned 30. According to the ruling, the Constitution does not require her to present the first-degree certificate or any other document, including discharge or exemption for a political appointment. And so her ministerial appointment was not illegal. Neither was it unconstitutional, even without presenting the NYSE certificate. Well, to break this all down, joining me to discuss is Byodo Shoumi and Achuke Chuli, both public affairs analysts. Thank you very much, gentlemen. It's my pleasure. Great. So I'm going to start with you, Byodo.  So I'm trying to understand, yes, maybe she wasn't holding a Nigerian passport, so she's called abroad, but this judgment is exonerating her on that basis. But there were other claims, you know, other than the fact that she didn't do her NYSE, there were claims of surgery. Is that also being struck off by this court judgment, by the federal High Court? Yes. Thank you for that. We need to remember one thing. Ms. Adi Oshun went to court to seek for constitutional interpretation of the 1979 constitution, whether it applied to her or not. The court held that the 1979 constitution, which they don't recognize, do a citizen. You know, prescribed the NYSE strictly not to be undertaken by Nigerians only. Therefore, by virtue of the 1979 constitution, when she graduated, she wouldn't have been eligible. You know, that's a very straightforward matter. And the second angle to the question is the fact that the issue of forgery was not before the court. That was not before the court. Don't forget, Ms. Kemi Adi Oshun went to the court through a cancer, to seek for constitutional interpretation. She was not tried, arraigned by the Nigerian police force before the criminal justice system in any form. So, therefore, the simple point of law, which she sought the court to clarify. Are you still there, Mr. Shoomi? Let's go on to Achike. Achike, I want you to take it from where he stopped. Yes, I understand clearly that this is what she went to court for. But there was a certificate in the mix which was not given or issued directly by the NYSE. She has been exonerated that the constitution does allow her to be a minister legally in the country. But what about the case of forgery, even though it's not before the court? Yeah, when, you know, sometimes, you know, when you have this kind of issues, it's only the court that can have the financing. We know that was why, you know, she sought the interpretation of the court and the court has spoken. But she was not removed as minister. She did not resign as minister.  She was not sought as minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. I think the claim, you know, through her lawyer was that she did not want to be, she did not want the government she served to be distracted, you know, by, you know, the allegations that were swearing around her. You know, so she resigned. And so that is what the court looked at and said, look, you had really had no business resigning at that particular point in time. But because, again, I think she wanted to preserve her dignity as a person and she didn't want that situation to continue to dot her. But beyond that, again, is that the major reason why the whole controversy started in the first place was because of the allegation of forgery. Unfortunately, she has not been cleared of indicted over that allegation. You know, I'm not sure anybody has. I was about to ask if somebody has taken that case to court. I mean, because we have to look into that. Yeah. Go on. I think we're having connection issues and I think there's a delay. But you can go ahead. I was also only trying to say that I don't, I do not know and not aware of any court case in terms of the forgery. But of course she went to court just to clarify the fact that, you know, this constitution did not apply to her and the fact that, you know, her ministerial appointment was not illegal. But you were saying something so I didn't want to distract you. Yeah, I think what would have happened really is that, you know, it means that whatever certificate was produced could not have been an authentic certificate in the first place because she didn't even need it. And then it is the process of getting that certificate. If you remember the NYC came in at the time they were having this contradictory, you know, statements and all that. But I think basically she could not have resigned if she knew that she was in the right. That is the way I rate the whole of distance. Of course the court has declared that she never did it in the first place. But it was produced on her behalf as having come from the stable of the NYC and that was contentious because at the time the NYC now weighed into it. And after some, you know, back and forth about whether they was released from them or not, it became clear that it could not have come through the normal process at the NYC. So perhaps the court has spoken on this matter of whether she was entitled through the constitutional order to become a minister and to remain a minister. The court says has ruled in her favor. But whether the issue of, you know, forgery if it had been instituted against her, whether she would have won it is very, very contentious. It is very, very likely that she would have lost that particular case if there had been the case. Okay. Let me go back to Biara Shoemi. Let's look at how this impacts on the politics of Nigeria and, you know, office holders. Because this some people would say was a political witch hunt. Some other people would say that, you know, if she left no stone unturned she probably wouldn't have found herself in this mess. But we see things like this happen. And I'll give you another example. The former minister for communications also had a case of, you know, his NYSC. And recently we've heard people try to kick against the National Youth Service Corps. You know, some people have advocated for it to be banned. What role does it really play, politically, in running any office, having an NYSC certificate? Well, when you look at this very particular situation, if it's required by law, by the NYSC Act, that people must go on that NYSC service, then it's important for us to ensure that we do that even if you are still within the cut-off age, you know, range of participating in it. And when you look at this very particular case, I really sympathize with Kemiha De Osho. Because what she has tried to do, this legal interpretation, is to de-rise, you know, the fact that she was forced to resign, it's more or less like humiliated art of service. She does not have a minister of finance, you know, being accused of luxury. And the document turned out, and not only that, the issue in authority denied issue that to her. So that was a major issue. It was very compelling for her to resign. And I thank her for that, and I think she did very well, you know, to take some responsibility at the time. But to now come back and attempt to de-rise, you know, the situation, you know, present herself in a different way. She will still need to make sure that the allegation of what is clear. And that can only be done by the criminal justice system. It cannot be done through interpretation of the Constitution, but it can only be done through being processed through the criminal justice system. This case is totally different from the case of Professor Adenike Grinch, the former minister of state for health, who was caught off in an issue involving money with Yabo, or Baso Dior and all that, when she was a senator, over a trip together. The woman was eventually cleared of all the allegations involved. That's totally different. In this case, she has not been tried. She only went before the court to seek an interpretation of the 1979 Constitution, as it applied to her, but not about the issue of poetry. So therefore, I think it's important we understand that the case is not actually about NYC, the certificate or not being having NYC certificate. The case was actually about possession and presentation of a forged document from the NYC in the process of securing an appointment. Of course, we now know that she didn't need to do that in the process. So why then go ahead and forge a document? If, as I let you do, if indeed it's true, that's the major issue which led to her resignation. Back to you, Chike, in closing, she claims this as a victory for her and many Nigerians in diaspora. So just like Mrs. Choumi has said, she went to a court for an interpretation, not necessarily to exonerate her on the grounds of forgery. Is this a victory worth celebrating in that regard? No, no, it is in a way you could say that the judgment was favorable to her in a way, but not all the way. Because again, the basis of the entire controversy that surrounded her was the basis of accusation of certificate forgery. It was on the basis of the controversy that followed that led her to resign. But if there was something positive anybody would have said about her, was that action of resignation because it is usually against the Nigerian character. We wish that more Nigerian politicians, when they get embroiled in controversies like this or other controversies, would also go the whole way, the whole hog and resign. And that would have stood her in good stead among a lot of Nigerians. So from that perspective, yes, she would have a typical politician that is caught with stolen meat were shot from now to high heavens that he did not steal anything, even though you see it on his sons. You know, he will fight all the way using the resources of the state which are stolen in the first place to try to exonerate himself even when it is glad that he's guilty. She did not do that. And so that was unusual. Maybe because of her background and where she is coming from, where there is a dignity attached to the office that they occupy. And so when you have this kind of controversy, you try to leave the stage. But beyond that, the issue of forgery has not been, because that's not what the case is all about. And I think she should just go and relax and bask in the glory of this particular victory that said she had no reason resigning. But if somebody had taken her on, that's the question we should ask ourselves. Would she stand scrutiny with regards to the certificate that was given to her as a discharge certificate by the NYSE? So if I'm the one, I would advise her to let sleeping dogs lie. Otherwise that matter can be resurrected and it might not turn out favorably. All right. Well, Biotto Shoumi is a political analyst and of course Chiki Trude also a public affairs analyst. Thank you very much gentlemen for being part of the conversation. We appreciate it.  All right. Well, thank you all for staying with us on the program tonight. It's been a very interesting conversation that we've had from the beginning to the end. I'll see you tomorrow with brand new stories on politics. I am Mary Annacle. Thank you for watching.


Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us for today's public safety briefing led by deputy mayor for public safety Phil banks Following our last speaker. We will take a few questions from the media followed by some questions that have been submitted by the public ahead of today's briefing I would now like to turn it over to deputy mayor Phil banks Good afternoon and welcome everyone. I would like to wish everyone and those who are Observing Ramadan around I started yesterday Ramadan will buy it and certainly a peaceful and blessed Ramadan period for all Okay, so I'm here today joined by four of my colleagues And once again, this is our process of informing the public of the steps that we are taking to keep you safe As I said during the first time we started this and you hear continuously This is a two-way street somewhat argue. It's a three-way street. We're going to be informing you But just as important we need you to inform us of what are you seeing out there? What are you hearing and what are your ideas and suggestions that we can continue to keep? New York City safe as the safest big city in America You're gonna be joined by four people today. One of them you've heard from before. He's chief Michael Petri He's a chief of crime control strategies for the NYPD and he's going to be speaking about two topics One topic is going to be about these illegal weed shops and the proliferation of them and the damages that they're causing throughout the city He's also going to be talking about auto and auto related thefts Then you're gonna hear from the parks apartment I'm joined today by the deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark folk and he is accompanied by Assistant commissioner Edwin Rodriguez and they're gonna be talking very excitingly about a new initiative That they are going to be utilizing as far as keeping the park safe cleanliness of the parks go hand-in-hand with with public safety and It's actually very exciting to see that you're looking at this initiative I think that the citizens are gonna be very happy about what we're doing to keep our parks Continue to keep them clean And last but not least we're gonna be here from the Ana Logan who is the director of the mayor's Office of Criminal Justice She is going to briefly explain to you exactly what that office does But then she's gonna have a presentation and she's going to discuss recidivism and What exactly that means and the impact that it is having on our our city And he's a small number of individuals that's committing an inordinate amount of crime and impacting the city And it's a very interesting very informative Presentation Diana and I know that everybody's going to get a lot a lot out of that So for those of you who are tuning in thank you Appreciate it. We're gonna have these discussions You're gonna see them expand you're gonna see a lot more people from city and city government in the future You're gonna see people from our external partners that we work with come up here and this discussion and this informative session We believe it's gonna be very beneficial. So we like for you to Share with your friends share with your colleagues here with anyone who you think would benefit share with everybody Go to hear from Eric comm you can sign up you sign up on the link you get a link We will inform you about the topics that we will be discussing It'll be a platform for you to submit your questions so that we can answer your questions And then you can it's to start for you to engage in these conversations with us. So once again, thank you for all who is joining Our first topic today that we're going to be speaking about is this increase of these illegal weed shops, right? Smoke shops that you're seeing that's taking place all throughout the city And if you have not seen them I just asked you to open up your eyes because every day it seems like there are more and more that are opening up and I just want to take a minute or just a brief second to really explain what we're faced with here before Michael Petrie goes into the details New York City and New York State like many other states have looked apart looked historically at the enforcement of marijuana for decades and Come to the conclusion that there was unjust enforcement It was over enforcement in this area and it was a lot of people in a lot of communities that were severely impacted by the marijuana the marijuana laws and New York State said we're gonna do something about this We know legalized cannabis and we're going to allow and have a system in place that communities and people who were unjustly An unfairly targeted by the criminal justice system who got swept up into that Into that net that they will be given an opportunity Right to be able to prosper from the legal canonization in New York, but there's a group of people out there who says no Stop. We're not going for that. We're not going to wait in line. We're not going to flood the application We're not going to have our marijuana regulated and we're also going to sell it to your kids And we're gonna talk to your kids and we're going to disguise it as candy and we're gonna disguise it as breakfast cereals So let's think about this. We as a government have decided to say hey We're gonna correct the wrong and then we're going to now look to positively impact Certain communities and we're gonna legalize cannabis Other people that have said no they're not going to be able to do that And I am and I think you're gonna hear that I believe Albany has is listening. I think Albany has heard I'd like to thank the governor and all the people in Albany who are at least taking this and making this the level of Importance so that we can strengthen our laws to be able to impact the individuals who decided that they are not Going to play by the rules and I think this is something that as a as a city and as a state We need to keep that high level of Importance in priority and quite frankly, I think we need to drive them out of business It is going to and it has already impacted our communities as you'll hear shortly about the violence that's associated with it Etc. Etc. So so chief LePetri. Can you start telling us about these illegal? Shops that we're seeing smoke shops and what we can be doing about it. Yes, sir. Thank you deputy mayor So as as the deputy mayor stated we've seen a sharp increase in both the ownership and the selling of Illegal cannabis inside of smoke shops. We've identified almost 1,700 Smoke shops in New York City and they pop up daily So what we've been looking at is are these smoke shops acting illegally? Are there complaints associated to those smoke shops whether it be 311 or 911 complaints? How many feet is the smoke shop from the nearest school and with the illegal sale of Cannabis in some of these stores comes a cash business that Individuals are targeting We've seen over a hundred smoke shop related robberies already this year and what we're also seeing is the use of Multiple motor vehicles that are either stolen or have paper plates being used to Then commit these these robberies. So what's the NYPD doing? We have really stepped up our enforcement with our partners and other city agencies, but we've also have Robbery task force in most of our boroughs both on the patrol and The detective side of the investigations and we've you know, we've made hundreds of arrests just this year and we're gonna continue to To focus on not not only the illegal sale of marijuana But also make sure that that these stores are safe and so other surrounding areas one thing that the deputy mayor and myself have been speaking about in the police commissioner is an increase in catalytic converter thefts in New York City Over the past two plus years Over 13,000 catalytic converters have been stolen in New York City and when I speak to other Law enforcement professionals around the tri-state area. They're also seeing the same problem. So why? Well, it really started in 2021 where we saw our shop increases in these thefts and it's a low risk High reward kind of crime, but it also affects families. Think about going outside And thinking you're going to to school or to a game What to the store and now you can't use your car and it takes a while for it to get fixed so the city passed two bills last year that is helping with the enforcement and also the state is Has just passed a bill in regards to catalytic converters. So I like to speak about a specific Program that the NYPD had started in the summer of 2021. It's called the NYPD CAT scan program so what this does is We etch a unique serial number onto the catalytic converter and then we enroll that into a database That serial number allows the NYPD to identify the vehicle that the catalytic converter belongs to and Then what we can do is all we have to do is scan a QR code with The NYPD issued phone and check it through that database We've had four of these events where we've have done etching and we have two events tentatively scheduled for April in Staten Island in Queens and we also Put a Vehicle catalytic converter NYPD CAT scan program sticker on the vehicle identifying The thieves that that car is in the system of the NYPD's CAT scan program So I want to go back to something Mike and and so it's interesting right so we have the People stealing cars often times when they are stealing your catalytic converter. They're stealing them out of Illegal cars.  I want to be clear We're talking about the illegal smoke shots are not the ones who are operating and conforming with the laws I Understand that robberies up in these establishments significantly. Is that accurate? That is correct. So we've really seen And an uptick in these types of robberies in New York City Last year and it continues into this year and you have approximately what percent is of that in A ticket and he's but he's armed robberies people going in with guns. Yes, you're about the location. Yes most of them are With gunpoint robberies Multiple perpetrators will enter and what we see is they then go on to commit another one and another borrow Go commit another one in another borrow. We've had upwards of groups of individuals Do 20 to 25 smoke shop robberies in a month? And they're targeting the the cash that's on site now. Why why are these businesses having so much cash on site? well, it's it's to Circumvent the tax law and I think that the mayor's proposed new bill To increase civil and tax penalties for unlicensed unlicensed and illicit sale of cannabis will be something that that will help You know that if cannabis has been legalized and decriminalized on the state level the federal laws have not quite caught up with that if you Deposit money into a federal bank and it was proceeds of Cannabis are you a committing a federal violations? These businesses are not going to play with the feds Right because the penalties are too harsh So they're not putting this money into the bank and then it makes it an attraction For that cast to be on hand and then for the bad guys and the bad girls with their guns are going to rob Right, so they're not going to try not to break the fed law because the penalties are severe inadequate and Sufficient, but they're willing to break the state and city laws. So I just want to actually Applaud our partners in Albany because I do believe they are looking at this and I believe that they're considering increasing the potential sanctions that we can impose When we uncover these illegal smoke shops who are targeting our our individuals there So thank you Albany for actually taking a look at this and certainly For city for the residents for for bringing this out to us and for city government for raising this particular issue But it is it is very very important issue. So so thank you chief of petri. Thank you So next we're going to speak to our partners in the parks department and they go into a form us about a new initiative that is I'm actually excited about because I do believe cleanliness is next to godliness and it certainly it is a hand-in-hand It would lead me to public safety, which is a very important. So So commissioner Tell me what we're going here. Well, thank you very much. Deputy Mayor banks We greatly appreciate the invitation and we also do agree that cleanliness goes hand-in-hand with public safety Last week we marked the arrival of spring Which is really the beginning of the ramp up of the busiest time at parks Just for a bit of context we at New York City parks are responsible for 30,000 acres of land in the city Which is almost 14% of the city of New York. We've over a thousand playgrounds 800 athletic fields. It's a very large system as the weather warms up. So does our operation We've been grooming ball fields and we shortly will begin to turn on over 3400 drinking fountains 800 spray features which are really critical to help keep New Yorkers cool and hydrated As the temperatures warm up. We're also preparing to open all of our beaches and over 50 of our outdoor pools Again critical to help New Yorkers cool down and enjoy the summer But as the deputy mayor noted safety and cleanliness and programming go hand-in-hand It's our mission at parks to make sure that everyone is welcome and safe when they visit any one of our 1700 parks We believe one of the best strategies to do this is to have well maintained parks Our maintenance is a key to that To that end. We're so pleased that Mayor Adams included in his get stuff clean campaign For the first time ever a dedicated second shift cleaning initiative at a select number of parks across the FI boroughs These 240 newly hired Parkies will be working afternoon and evening hours From Thursday through Monday, so over the weekend cleaning what we at Park called hot spots Which is our heavily used sites during the warmer weather months So think of picnic areas barbecue sites places where families and patrons gather We're dedicating staff to make sure that they're clean So when you show up to use a park, it's clean and along with cleanliness comes safety Simply put we're committed to maintaining our parks over a broader period of time at a larger number of parks across all five boroughs Critical to that also is the staff maintaining our over 1400 public restrooms There's been a lot of conversations in the press and amongst Our colleagues in government and the public about the importance of the public having access to safe and clean restrooms we are very pleased at parks that we provide more public restrooms and any other agency in the city and 1400 of them open seven days a week throughout the year We do really like to remind New Yorkers though that clean and safe parks is also dependent upon your use and your Coming to Park. So if you see issues you see concerns Please call either 9-1-1 or 3-1-1 to report cleanliness issues And if you're coming to barbecue We really do appreciate if you clean up after yourselves pick up after yourselves Bag up the trash and then place it right next to one of our trash containers and we'll make sure it gets out of there Very quickly and or if you want to carry it out carry in carry out. We also appreciate that So again on behalf of all our hard-working colleagues at parks We appreciate this opportunity deputy mayor and we look forward to a great summer. I appreciate you So so so let's let's go over a couple of potential takeaways one is that if you are visiting the parks and if you see something Whether it's cleanliness related or not that does not look appropriate We like for you to call 3-1-1 or of course if it's an emergency call 9-1-1, right? That's the first takeaway, correct, correct Absolutely either 3-1-1 or 9-1-1 and the second takeaway is that if you utilize in the park Do the best you can right to clean up after yourself, right?  You can help us help you correct by you actually doing a lot of cleaning up yourself But we're also dedicating Resources where they were not dedicated before right dedicated shifts to evening and weekend hours, correct So this would be a correct statement that the areas at least where we're starting this initiative I think you said was you know 62 different facilities that the people should see cleaner this year than they did previously Absolutely, that's our goal. Yep. Very good. Excellent Okay, so last but certainly not least right I am joined here by Deanna Logan Director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice me and Deanna speak Five or six times a day She has a very very critical and important job And I think it's gonna be interesting what she is going to be speaking about now So so Deanna if we could just get a real quick overview because a lot of people may not truly know or understand What that Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice does and then you're going to have a presentation That's going to focus in on recidivism and just certain areas in the criminal justice system, right? Yes. Okay, it's on you Okay. Well, good afternoon everybody. I'm really happy to be here with my colleagues from the parks department from New York City Police Department They keep me with Chief LaPetria all the time apparently but Thank you Mayor. Thank you Deputy Mayor Banks My name is Deanna Logan and I am the director of the Mayor's Office of Criminal Justice We affectionately refer to ourselves as Moc Jay and a lot of people refer to us as Moc Jay as well We serve as the think tank and Coordinating entity for the city's criminal justice system and what does that mean? It means that we advise Mayor Adams and Deputy Mayor Banks on criminal justice policy and serve as the mayor's representatives to the courts to district attorneys Defender organizations state criminal justice agencies among other entities We work with our law enforcement Partners with city agencies not for profits foundations the public And our goal is to implement data-driven Anti-crime strategies and promote the operation of a fair justice system Our efforts include projects to address current crime conditions Prevent offending and build strong neighborhoods that ensure enduring safety Moc Jay's work is grounded in data We have our research innovation and policy teams They work collaboratively to identify concerns that may be barriers to public safety And so now deputy mayor I'm gonna just kind of go into some of the collaboration and the efforts that we've had on the one of the main main Crime challenges that we've been seeing right so Under mayor Adams leadership with deputy mayor banks the city's public safety agencies began an Unprecedented collaboration to align crime data across the city systems mock Jay New York Police Department Department of Correction and many providers of our service work together to coordinate the data systems and Produce an accurate picture of public safety landscape within the criminal justice framework of New York City We also mock Jay have a long-standing relationship with the office of court administrations data team That both drives the data that's available and helps to analyze criminal justice trends So with our sister city agencies and state city agencies We also work with the partner service providers and justice involved individuals To obtain and review not only the quantitative data that you hear us talk about in terms of numbers But qualitative data like how it actually works for them on the ground to inform the city's governments critical criminal justice work our Unprecedented collaboration across all of these multiple data streams allowed us to drill down Into the city's most challenging public safety matters That one challenge that New York City is facing right now is the recidivism problem And when we talk about the recidivism problem What we are really talking about is the deep dive into the data that shows us that Approximately 9,000 people that have a Recent persistent pattern of recurring criminal charges and missing court And so I want to be really clear about that because when we're talking about a recent persistent Criminal charge pattern where we're not saying that everybody's been convicted We're saying that these individuals in a very short quick period have been coming back on Recurring criminal charges and they're failing to actually show up in court for those charges, right? so in the last year 2022 there were approximately a 190,000 arrests and chief Lopetri will let you know because you see he's smiling at me because he knows that that's accurate of those 9,000 individuals that were charged in court that had that pattern of recent persistent recurring criminal charges the population of 9,000 Represents 8% of all arrests right 8% and then when we looked even closer What we realized is those 9,000 with that pattern of them there are approximately 2,000 that would go on to commit violent felony offenses, right? 9,000 that have the recurring and within that population There's a pocket small pocket of 2,000 individuals that go on to commit violent felony offenses Now putting that information into perspective What we know is people with recent persistent pattern of recurring criminal charges and missing court are At high risk for failing to appear in court and committing another crime However, they're also the small concentration of people who commit those crimes, right? We identified this group by working with all of our partners across agencies Service providers and we worked together and we said what do all of these people have in common? what do they share and When we look at data, I can tell you that the research innovation team there they're usually really complicated and the the thing that was most astonishing about this group of people is that what they shared was Absolutely common sense. It wasn't complicated. It was that within this group. They were Recent pending felony cases in court multiple warrants two or more in the past five years Several open cases and three or more right several open cases means three or more within the past five years Once we actually honed in on those shared factors It wasn't hard for all of the experts in the area to replicate our findings, right? That's when we know that we're we're on to something when we can give our Partners the information of what we're seeing and they can take the data and they can do it themselves and they did and They concurred that these individuals were most likely to reoffend and miscourt the same way that we came to that understanding Now what we also know is true from our data is that? people within this within the arrest population who don't have these shared factors and Don't exhibit the pattern of recurring criminal charges in missing court are Actually returning to court so people who? Don't have warrants in the last five years No convictions in the last three years No felony convictions in the last ten years and no pending cases Generally have significant fewer incidents of recurring criminal charges So the data is clear. It shows that people who have recent patterns of recurring criminal charges are Driving a considerable amount of the crime we're seeing today, right? This population of individuals as you should be seeing on your screen I hope you're seeing on your screen Disproportionately accounts for a significant percentage of the crime and non-court compliance 8% of the arrested people as you're seeing out of the hundred and ninety thousand city-wide arrests in 2022 that group accounted for 27% of felony arrests 22 of all or 22% of all arrests 29% of felony robbery arrest 57% of felony burglary arrest 36% of grand larceny arrests 33% of larceny auto arrest which I'm thinking chief laboratory falls into your catalytic converter Population and then 60% of misdemeanor pettit larceny arrests The small population of individuals with this recent persistent pattern are actually really struggling. We know that they are struggling to modify their own behavior They're also individuals that are not susceptible to the supports that work for the majority of people that we talked about that aren't seeing that pattern We understand that for some individuals with this recent persistent pattern of recurring criminal charges A period of incarceration is warranted and in some cases the necessary mechanism to order to disrupt that cycle But we also understand that true public safety requires multiple methods and partners that can deploy the tactics to combine Strong accountability and robust prevention strategies We know that many among the recidivist group are struggling with a heightened level of need And it means that in specific cases we must employ a much more targeted form of support And supervision to provide Intense services Accountability coping skills that will afford these individuals the ability to overcome their behavior Based on research in new york and other jurisdictions. We can improve outcomes for many of this group With a much more precise response to address their behavior and needs That would include more active and stringent supervision while they are out of jail Housing supports mental health care Trauma informed therapeutic supports to help guide better responses to difficult situations stressors and fears What we know about this population is that they respond to what we take for granted getting up and going to an appointment Rises in them a level of fear and flight or flight response that does not actually happen for average new yorkers and citizens Improving the outcomes for this group is possible And we will be coordinating across our incredible array of talented Service providers to do everything in the city's power to increase the intensity Precision and effectiveness of how we help this population Successfully return to court to answer their charges and to avoid reoffending so What you know is more intense individualized supervision and clinical supports equals reduced re-arrest rates Increased court appearance rates to go back and finish their cases and address their Crimes and fairer more efficient system operation for the criminal justice system Excellent So if I could just you know a couple things diana and first of all, thank you that was very informative and I'm Relatively confident that our listeners here, you know got a thorough education understanding of this issue here So small percentage of the population creating an order in amount of A crime has taken place right driving the numbers are for the percentages are higher And even within that small amount like we can identify even within that small amount the ones that are actually Taking that and are creating violent felony offenses against us so we can see the population It's nine thousand that population will change because since it's common sense Criteria then people roll in and people roll out but the trend of nine thousand People that are overall reoffending stays and two thousand of them will go on to commit violent felony offenses And since we're talking about recidivism, we we know who these individuals are correct Well, we know we can identify them at arraignment And so we know that we need to do something different for those individuals exactly and and and at difference Can be harsher in conservation races, but it could actually just be services that they actually need as well, right? Absolutely There's the two things that you can give them, right? You know if it's required from conservation, which as a society we do want to make sure that That is only a last step a last resort We want to be ready to make the assessment the tree are to determine will housing work will job work will mental health Assisters worth work to be able to get these individuals out of criminal justice systems and as the last resort In conservation if need be just to save the rest of society would I be accurate and framing it? Okay, thank you Okay, so listen here that that actually sums up our our presentations for this week once again Thank you, and I believe that we're going to go to some type of questions. Uh, David Thank you, deputy mayor We will now take a few on-topic questions from the media related to today's presentations We encourage those who have an on-topic question related to today's briefing to use the raise hand function now For any off-topic questions, please follow up with the press office for a response Our first question will come from Debra Lee santos Who is with the Manhattan Times bronx free press debra? You want debra? You line is now unmuted Terrific good morning. Can you all hear me? Yes Terrific. Thank you for the time in the presentations In time the conversation, uh To public on public safety to a change in seasons and the uptick Of use of the park's green spaces and overall increase in just the use of public spaces You know, it's an obvious concern that the youth related incidents that we've seen proliferate involving guns in instance some instances not involving them in others for example the uptown platform Seeing where a young man was was brutally beaten by another group of of of youth um, the concern also Is uh exacerbated as we turn again in terms of the uh the season and think about how there'll be more use of public Faces, there'll be more congregation. There'll be more opportunities, rightfully so And I want to ask the deputy mayor to speak to how it is at the nypd And the city agencies that are represented here today specifically plan on addressing That concern Because again, you're you're already seeing that uptick in in youth violence and youth incidents And that's likely only going to be exacerbated by the change in in weather Thank you for the question debrily. Unfortunately, we only have time today to take questions related to the presentations that were made during this briefing We will refer that question to the press office and somebody will follow up with you later this afternoon our next question comes from Bernadette Hogan from the new york post Bernadette your line is now unmuted Great. Hi guys. Thank you so much This is a question for director Logan The figures that you provided about the group of 9 000 and then the smaller group of very violent offenders the 2000 How do those figures compare to 29 or 2019 or 2018? What's the five-year arc and how can you explain That transition of numbers so So unfortunately when we look at the data part of this unprecedented Collaboration was to get us additional variables that really start in 2020 and don't allow us to go back Into the 2019-2018 to do that. We do know that our partners in criminal justice In a cja is what we refer to them as Have a dashboard that kind of gives a little look into this population But overall the data really starts and is reliable when we look starting in 2020 Thank you Earlier this week the administration reached out to new yorkers asking them to submit questions for the officials that have joined us here today We will now get to as many of those as we can with the time that we have left Our first question comes from alice in queens and is for the parks department She asks if a park is overgrown with invasive vines such as english ivy. How can I report it to be removed? Great. Thank you very much alice for the question Certainly control of vegetation and parks is one of our primary focus and if there's overgrown vegetation We encourage any citizen to call 311 and report it through 311 with the location And if you have a sense of the type of vegetation you can also submit photographs and then we'll follow up on that request. Thank you Our next question comes from richard from the bronx and is for the nypd He asks the most recent opportunity for the community to participate in the bronx comm stat was a real example Of transparency and fostering trust. How can the community further support the nypd with community oriented policing? separate and apart from precinct councils Thank you. Yes. So we we just had our really our second Comstat community meeting which went very well With the bronx this week, you know, as always You know, it's the community and police working together, right? So the police department needs the community For the eyes and ears, you know, call 311 call 9-1-1, you know, walk into your local precinct And really meet the offices from that precinct or or the area that that you live in or the area that you work in Thank you Thank you chief Our next question comes from cathleen in brooklyn for macjay In response to the covet pandemic macjay worked with community organizations to open emergency re-entry housing To decarcerate rikers island does macjay remain committed to the emergency low barrier re-entry housing model in addition To the transitional housing bed scheduled to come online this summer So the administration and macjay are committed to making sure that housing is a priority When we opened up the re-entry emergency hotels, that was always meant to be a short term emergency We are now working to move into transitional housing, which is a much more Cost-effective way for the city to provide housing to all of those people who have criminal justice involvement Most importantly, what the emergency re-entry hotels did for us was allow us to take Best lessons learned meaning that as we're moving into transitional housing We will make sure that the partners that are providing it have immediate placement for individuals within The 24 to 48 hour period that we had to do with emergency hotels We will have the onsite services that support individuals And we will be able to do it at a much more cost effective way for the city and for all of the people that need the supports Our next question comes from lauren from queens for the parks department She asks has the past infestation of the spotted lantern fly compromised the health of street trees Is there a plan to survey street trees and exterminate spotted lantern flies? Thank you lauren for that question Actually, the state's department of agriculture is the lead agency on spotted lantern flies and we regularly coordinate Approaches in response to them the spotted lantern fly is mainly Threat to agricultural crops Alone they are they do not kill trees although in great quantities they could weaken trees At this time we at parks are not considering any widespread Treatment or certainly not removal of trees in order to control the spotted lantern fly population We do encourage all new yorkers though. If you see a spotted lantern fly, please feel free to just squash it and dispose of it Thank you All right, the next question comes from greg on statten island and this is actually related to the chief's presentation Just earlier Are there more local police patrols being planned to combat people walking around in early hours of the morning Checking car doors in private driveways and parked on the street Thank you greg so yes, so we have seen a uptick in motor vehicle break-ins in statten island we actually just had statten island Into comp stat just just a couple of weeks ago and that was one of the things That we were questioning the commanders on so what the commanders have done is they have moved Some patrols to the to the areas and to the times that they do see A cluster of car brakes and we're also looking at car brake recidivists recidivists who might live in the area But you definitely will see and and are seeing a more increased patrol in regards to car brakes and statten island Next question comes from roger from statten island. This is for mac j Does your office track repeat offenders when it comes to shoplifting? This is a big problem in our city Mac j doesn't actually track individuals We review aggregate data to identify trends and patterns that allow our partners to work And support individuals but also for nypd does the enforcement part of that work We do however Work with the mayor on those initiatives that are Most pressing and so as it regard to retail theft there will be more to come because We have been working very closely with deputy mayor banks and with the mayor for the retail theft plan On individuals that are the recidivists that are driving that So if I could just add to it. So the new york city police department does track Shoplifting recidivists as we track all recidivists in new york city, and I will tell you this We know who the 327 individuals are that have been arrested over 6,000 times in the past year 327 people Have been arrested 6,000 times for shop shoplifting related crime and when you look at Those individuals almost half of them are convicted felons. So those are the individuals some of them That diana logan was speaking about during her presentation Thank you Our next question comes from sarah in brooklyn and is for the parks department Can you tell me more about the plan to bring legal e-bikes into parks? Great. Thank you sarah for that question. We're very excited about this pilot initiative We at parks along with the entire city has seen the significant growth in electric micro mobility including e-bikes And in coordination with our sister agencies across the city We're very pleased to be part of mayor adam's recently announced micro mobility plan This includes a pilot which will allow e-bikes on parks roads and designated greenways These are critical part of the city's infrastructure of mobility As with all things safety is our top concern. So micro E-bikes will not be allowed on pedestrian only pathways The goal of the pilot is again e-bikes on park roadways and greenways Through the pilot we will be looking at interventions that help support safety on these paths including signage Education to help reduce conflicts We'll have more details about the pilot closer to its rollout in the beginning of the summer Thank you Our next question comes from laurene from queens Which is a question that we've received repeatedly during this week's responses from the public And it focuses around Regulation of law and licensing for e scooters mopeds and flybikes when it comes to riding on sidewalks This is very dangerous. And if someone is caught doing so can it be confiscated So yes, so bicycle enforcement through our patrol officers or 20,000 approximate patrol offices and our Highway offices is something that we take very seriously and it is Illegal to ride recklessly on a sidewalk Things of that nature. So it is something that we enforce and we've seen a sharp increase in that type of enforcement Thank you chief on behalf of the adams administration I would like to thank everyone for tuning in to today's briefing. We look forward to seeing you all at our next one. Have a great day