Brewer asks Sidahmed to plan for emergency and census outreach
Brewer raises the possibility of a future health crisis, hurricane, or census and asks whether Sidahmed is planning with emergency agencies. Sidahmed agrees community media are critical conduits and says he will make that case to agencies.
The other question I have is just...
A little bit hypothetical, but God forbid we have some other crisis.
Office of Emergency Management would obviously...
kick in, but I'm just wondering if you're, you know, this is not a hopeful thing, but there's always something that comes up in our city.
And I'm just wondering if you're meeting with them just to say that if in fact there is some crisis, it could be a health crisis, it could be a hurricane, it could be, you know, something beyond imaginable.
Meeting with them to say if such a thing happens, how could we work together to get the word out?
In other words, obviously there would have to be increased advertising budget in certain communities.
So are you thinking along those lines also?
Absolutely.
I think that there are, you know, in a lot of the communities that the publication serves, we're already in a state of emergency and crisis for a lot of communities in New York City right now.
And I think that ensuring that they're getting critical information out to the communities that these publications serve is critical.
And really trying to ensure that marketing directors at all the agencies understand the importance and that these are your best conduits for trying to get information out to all New Yorkers is something that is incredibly important.
So I will be making that case.
And the example of the pandemic is really important.
And I think there's a turning point for many folks around, you know, how Executive Order 47 kind of coming into and being written right before the pandemic.
And I think really was what set the stage for local law 83.
I wasn't in government.
In 2020.
So I would love to partner with you and understand how that works and how if something like that was to happen again, we can learn from that experience and try to...
Not a panic, but the census could be a panic if this president decides how he's going to handle it and we don't.
So that's an example.
It's a situation where we absolutely need every single outlet to be available and clear.
And so that's an example.
And 2030 is not so far away.
I couldn't agree more.