PANEL:

JANET RENO, United State Attorney General

ZACHARY CARTER, U.S. Attorney Eastern District

of New York

ELEANOR ACHESON, Assistant Attorney General

BILL STEERE, CEO of Pfizer

TOM KLINE, Vice President of Manufacturing

Strategies Pfizer

JOSEPH LESSEN, Police Officer

BRIDGET BRENNAN, Special Narcotics Prosecutor

JOE HYNES, District Attorney for Kings County

MARY JO WHITE, U.S. Attorney for the Southern

District of New York

RICHARD BROWN, District Attorney for Queens

County

CHAUNCEY PARKER, Director of NY/NJ HIDTA

JOSEPH CAMPBELL, Captain of the 79th Precinct

BILL THOMPSON, President of New York Board of

Education

LOU CLEMENTE, Sr. Vice President, Corporate

Affairs, Secretary and General

Counsel Pfizer

THOMAS DALE, Panelist

MR. CARTER: Good morning. I'm Zachary Carter. I'm the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, and it is my pleasure to kick off this mornings's forum on partnerships between the private sector and the community in community revitalization and crime reduction.

This morning we are honored to have with us a number of officials and representatives from both law enforcement and the community in the private sector to engage in a discussion about the possibilities that are apparent from the example that has been set by Pfizer and other companies in the area of community development.

I would first like to introduce those who are at our head table. Barely needing introduction is the Attorney General of the United States, Janet Reno. She's joined by Assistant Attorney General Eleanor Acheson. United States attorney for the Southern District of New York Mary Jo White. Bill Steere, who is the CEO of Pfizer. District Attorney for Kings County, Joe Hynes. District Attorney for Queens County, Richard Brown. Special narcotics prosecutor, Bridget Brennan. Chauncey Parker, who is the director of the New/York New Jersey HIDTA. Captain Joseph Campbell of the 79th Precinct. Police Officer Lessen. Is he here? And Tom Kline, a former plant manager at Pfizer, now vice president of manufacturing and strategies, and Lou Clemente.

At this time I would like to turn over the microphone to Bill Steere.

MR. STEERE: Thanks, Zach. I'm pleased to join Attorney General Janette Reno hosting this round table discussion this morning. I'm delighted to welcome her and all of you to our Brooklyn plant.

Like the Attorney General, we at Pfizer believe that public private partnership play a key role in vitalizing inner city neighborhoods and we are here to discuss how these partnerships will make our community a safer and healthier place to live and work.

This is the first in a series of regional meetings that the Attorney General will hold for members of the business community in cities across the country, and what Pfizer has accomplished in Brooklyn is an outgrowth of our companies core values. Pfizer has a long tradition of reaching out to the communities where we live and work.

When conditions began to deteriorate in Williamsburg during the '60s, most of the companies that were operating here moved out. But Pfizer, and a lot of the credit went to Ed Bratt, who is my predecessor and chairman of the company, we decided to stay. Our company relied on the health of our Williamsburg plant and depended upon the health of the community around it, and Pfizer launched a wide ranging program to revitalize the neighborhood.

We entered into a partnership with city agencies and officials, national and local nonprofit organizations and local community groups and businesses. We worked very hard to keep jobs in the neighborhood, to improve state housing and education, and we also tried to attract new businesses. I think the results have been impressive.

By staying in Brooklyn, we helped keep the much needed jobs in the community and today Pfizer is one of Brooklyn's largest employers with about 1200 people.

We have also worked to prevent crime. Pfizer financed the renovation of the neighborhood subway station, put in a closed circuit video station to monitor round the clock and, working with municipal officials, Pfizer helped to renovate hundreds of rental housing units for low and middle income residents and in cooperation with the New York City housing partnership we built hundreds of other new homes on Pfizer land.

But that's not all. Together with the Bennett Children Foundation Pfizer helped create an innovative charter elementary school that has become a model for education reform, and we are delighted this award winning school is located right across the street in one of our rim buildings.

At Pfizer we are committed to good corporate citizenship. We are convinced by giving good opportunities, housing, promoting education and promoting other businesses to do the same is helping make Williamsburg a safer and better place to work.

In a minute I will turn the microphone over to the Attorney General who will discuss the importance of public private partnership in preventing crime.

Before I do that, I would like to introduce Tom Kline, vice president of Pfizer Global pharmaceuticals production and plant management.

For many years Tom was our plant manager. For many years here at our site in Brooklyn he oversaw the implementation of our redevelopment on our initiative here. After the Attorney General speaks, Tom will give us more detail about how Pfizer and its partners have transformed this community. And now it is my pleasure to introduce Attorney General Janet Reno.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: Thank you all so much for being here this morning. All the public officials who are so busy. Everyone who has left work to be here. This is one of the more exciting moments that I have had as Attorney General and I can assure you that I have had many exciting moments.

It is exciting because you can see the possibility of what happens when people have the patience, the tenacity when they refuse to give up; when, in the face of obstacles, they keep trying to figure out what to do. And when they come together, private citizens who care, businesses who care, public officials, police officers, schools, teachers, it is really extraordinarily exciting and then to see additional thought put into it in terms of housing partnerships in which the state becomes involved.

I think that the Pfizer example is one of the more remarkable that I have seen and now I've seen a number of public/private partnerships.

I think Mr. Kline can probably tell you better than anybody else -- I think I'm going to send him on the circuit. Where did he go? Because without his patience, without his care, without just the enthusiasm that he points out what this vacant lot looked like 10 years ago and then listening to Mr. Steere talk about the absolute difficulty you had along the way getting the lot cleared and getting the environmental issues addressed, it takes patience.

So I'm not here to tell you that this is something that can be done easily by waving a magic wand. This takes people who care, who care about their businesses, who care about their community, but most of all who care about people.

If you were to walk through this plant with Mr. Kline and see the way he greets people and people he remembers -- while I gather you are not based in this plant anymore, are you?

MR. KLINE: No, unfortunately I'm in Manhattan. The outer world.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: -- you will see that it is basically working because people care about people. They care about their employees. They care about their environment in which their employees work.

I saw the elementary school that Pfizer helped found. It couldn't have done it by itself. It required Joe and Carol Rich. It required a lot of dedicated people that made a difference.

I've met a police officer who was wonderful. Now, what was his name? Mr. Kline, what was the community police officer's name?

MR. KLINE: It was Officer Raez. Thank you for that.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: And just the way he reacted and he approached me and the enthusiasm that he had for this neighborhood again is a tribute to people who care and who are making a difference.

The whole housing initiative, to see what it looked like before and what it looks like now and to see the innovations that property owners themselves are taking. To see gardens in the middle of the urban city, it shows you what you can do when you take a place like Brooklyn and you care about it and you care about a company like Pfizer and you care about the people who can make a difference.

I've seen successes of this kind in partnerships across the country, in places like Minneapolis, Bloomington, Miami where I'm from, and elsewhere communities are proving that when business, community officials, state officials, federal officials, educators, housing specialists and people who care come together, you can truly make a difference.

I have this theory that you can't fight crime just by putting people in prison and telling them they are going to be there for some time. They are coming back to the community and they are going to commit further crime unless we build a structure in our communities that can make a difference.

We have got to give children a good start, a fresh start, a start that can enable them to grow in a strong and positive way. We have got to provide afternoon and evening and alternative hours for them so that they can be supervised in proper and constructive ways. We have got to give them the skills they need to fill the jobs to maintain this company in a first rate nation.

Some of you business people will say what's in it for me. Mr. Steere will tell you that you have to have some kind of remedial programs to prepare people and then enhanced programs to provide the skills. What if we start providing those in schools before they get to you so that you don't have to pay for it.

One of the great problems we have in federal government is that, where do we find the people with the skills necessary to fill the jobs to function with modern technology.

Again, an investment in the neighborhood, an investment in children, in young people can make such an extraordinary difference. When we look at unemployment as low as it is, but we have to reach out and make sure that we keep people out of trouble.

An astonishing number of young black men are unemployed today because they have been touched by the criminal justice system. We have to keep them out of the trouble in the first place. And if they have gotten into trouble, we have to figure out how we get them back into the community with the chance of success because there are some mighty caring, able people who want to make a difference if we give them a chance to do it.

You can see why I'm so excited. That's the reason -- what I'm going to try to do as a result of today and as a result of my visit in Minneapolis and my occasion to see others is try to figure out what the federal government can do to encourage these partnerships.

How can we address issues of licensing permits and environmental impact statements and other initiatives in a more efficient manner that will protect environment, will protect people, will do everything that we intend to do but do in it an orderly way so that businesses can rely on it? How can we work together to develop programs with federal agencies that can make a difference? How can we partner with the police?

From all that I've heard, we are doing a pretty good job of it, Joe, but my goal is not for the feds to come to town to tell people how to do something. It is to learn from this experience, to go back to Washington and see how we can be a better partner in rebuilding the fabric of the community around children, families and neighborhoods who have seen transition.

It is exciting to see America's city suddenly flourish. And to see what neighborhoods mean, to see what the history means, to drive around this neighborhood and to be told now, that's where this used to be and this used to be my office and this used to be this particular place. And Pfizer got started 150 years ago and still has traditions and they are one generation to another.

There is a sense of history.

But this is really exciting and I just appreciate the business community being here this morning. I appreciate all the government officials who are here, and I am looking forward to your suggestions as to what the Attorney General of the United States can do to more effectively promote partnerships like this across this nation. The answers are here and I'm looking forward to hear them today. Thank you.

(Clapping.)

MR. KLINE: Good morning. And please excuse our tardiness in getting here. I appreciate the patience of everyone who waited while we are coming in and I promise to make up some time to get us back on schedule. And I wanted to thank the Attorney General for coming to Brooklyn and hosting this conference because Janette Reno knows in an inner city like this when you add together large amounts of energy and concern and combine them with public and private commitment at the right level, that you can really make a difference in changing the world in this space that we call inner city. So for the attorney general, thank you for your leadership. It is very much appreciated.

We have a number of partners that Pfizer has been fortunate enough to work with who are with us today, and if I may indulge you just to take a moment to introduce some of the partners that are with us, and should I miss anyone please in advance accept my forgiveness.

Deputy Borough President Jeanette Gadson, and a dear goomba, a good friend, the Chairman of the Health Council of the New York City Council and the majority wip for the council, Victor Roblese. And representing Congressman Towns, who has also been working with us for 20 years, Jennifer Jones, who's in the back. And Deborah Cohn, the Deputy Attorney General for the State of New York. Deborah, welcome. And representing Assemblywoman Pauline Cummings, Valerie West. Pauline is from Queens. And my good friend for, gee, it seems like, Joe, didn't you use to be fire commissioner way back.

MR. HYNES: Yes, sir.

MR. STEERE: The District Attorney of Brooklyn, Joe Hynes.

MR. HYNES: Don't remind me of that.

MR. STEERE: And Attorney General Reno the housing that you saw really is due to one person. The inspiration, the leadership and the knowledge of one person who taught Pfizer a role that we could play in housing, and that is the current president of the New York City Investment Fund and the former president of the New York City Partnership Housing Group, Kathy Wild. Kathy, please stand. Thank you.

MR. STEERE: Kathy is a remarkable leader who really allowed us to do so many things in housing in consultation with a number of the elected officials. I promise I won't take a lot of time with you, but I would like to talk to you a little bit about some of the things we have tried to do.

The purpose of this presentation is just as a kick off to show what public and private partnership can do together. So this is our experience, of course, in Brooklyn, New York.

(A slide presentation is showing at this point.)

MR. KLINE: With that set, everybody knows where Brooklyn is at. Here is what our plant looked like in 1982. Right in front is the original office building of Pfizer. This is what, if I could just switch back here. Mike, if you could help me with the technology. There we go. This is our facility in 1982. This is about a 500 foot level from the area. This is the current school building. I want you to note the art deco right here of the school and this stack, which was from our powerhouse. These are where we used to have buildings.

There were 23 buildings in the history of the of company started here in 1849, building 1, 1-A, C, D, 2, 3, 4, all the way out to 23 buildings. This again was back in 1982. But this is at the ground level in 1982.

And if you look carefully there you can see the Pfizer stack, and this is little tree right across the street from Pfizer. This is the building you are in today. That was our community. And so we decided that we wanted to do something about it and this is a little bit of the history of Pfizer.

First of all, as many of you know, our company was founded here in 1849. It was founded by two German-American immigrants, Charles Pfizer and Charles Earhardt. One was a chemist, one was a confectioner. They started making medicinal products from parasitic worms. We have been in the business for 100 years.

Around the turn of that century citric acid was one of the ubiquitous products used in medicine, cleaning, industrial uses and we had deep tank fermentation, big 2,000 gallon wooden vats for fermentation. We became the largest producer in the world of citric acid.

Then around World War I, 1929 Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin. Nobody would make it because it was very unstable.

Winston Churchill, whose mother as you all know was born in Brooklyn - I'd like to call him a Brooklynite - approached President Roosevelt. You Americans are known for your technology, can't you do something about commercializing penicillin?

Five companies were contacted, and until the end it was Pfizer's deep tank fermentation technology right here in the Brooklyn plant that allowed us to be the first company in the world to commercialize penicillin. And on D-Day when the allies landed in Normandy, they carried with them their penicillin from Pfizer and there are many, many, wonderful stories. If I could just share one of them.

Long after the war, in the Dominican Republic, up in the mountainside, literally in a very poor country there was a baby that was dying, and literally up the dirt road came a doctor on a mule carrying penicillin from Pfizer. And he injected for the first time this young baby, one of the first in the Dominican Republic. And then as life would have it the young man grew up and, guess what, came to Brooklyn. And guess what? He came to work at Pfizer and he's here today. Gregg Repereties from our maintenance shop. Gregg, good to have you with us. The penicillin works.

Then you've all heard about the controversy over drug pricing. We have had it in penicillin. Penicillin was selling for $20 a pound. After the war other companies could make it and it dropped to 20 cents a pound.

The executives at Pfizer said we have to do something about it. Why don't we look in dirt. If we look in dirt we might be able to find another magic bullet, another antibiotic.

Penicillin comes from the mold penicillium notatum. They did twenty million tests right across the street, what is now in the school, and discovered the wonder drug terramycin. From there the company began to grow. We expanded all over the world.

And Brooklyn began to change. No longer was it the only plant. No longer was it the only penicillin plant in the world. It began to change. Our community began to decline.

As you know, we lost the inner cities of America in the late '60s, the '70s and the '80s and Brooklyn was no different. Here we were now with a plant that had been here over 100 years with some wonderful products but in a very declining neighborhood. So, we had the blight of the community.

And this is what it looked like on another block. Once again I want to point out the art deco of the building. If you can see the top of the school building here, here's the Pfizer stack. This isn't the same block that you saw before but this is right across the street. And there is a very famous story about Picasso.

He was apparently walking around the city of Paris -- and I'm sure he didn't see it quite like that. That's an American phenomena -- he saw an old rusty bicycle. He took it back to his shop. He took off the handle bars and seat and sculpted it into a wonderful boreshead.

And, in a way, if you think about it, that's what discovery is all about. Discovery is looking at something that everybody else does but seeing it differently. And with our partners that's what we tried to do, to look at this and see it differently. See it literally from 1982 to 1999 and what it might be.

And so we established a plan for urban renewal focusing on each of these areas: Employment, housing, education and crime. And in each of them we had a number of partners, with the New York City partnership on employment, the department of labor and some non-traditional groups, like the Samaritan Foundation and the Brooklyn Borough of Community Services. We established a number of partners to work on employment, the Economic Development Corporation of the City of the New York.

In housing I introduced before Kathy Wilde. Kathy introduced us to the New York City housing partnership, to the local initiative support cooperation list, to the neighborhood housing services and to the enterprise foundation, as well as to a number of people at the New York City Housing and Preservation Department, and they became the partners on the housing.

This morning we had an opportunity to just have a wonderful experience at the school. We became acquainted with Joe and Carol Rich, and I will be telling you more about them later. But they introduced us to the board of Ed and we became partners with Bill Thompson, who's the president of the board of ed and, Bill, we appreciate you very much being with us.

And Bill, if I may call you that, Bill has been a partner for a number of years also, 20 years. And it has been that stability of relationship between elected officials and people who serve us that has made this program so successful and, finally, the crime deterrence.

There has never, never been a time ever, ever that the 90th precinct and the 79th precinct has not responded to anything that we needed. We also had a relationship with Brooklyn South and Brooklyn North and with Joe Hynes, who has been very instrumental in a number of initiatives we have tried working on together.

In all when we take the elected officials that surround this, Bill Thompson, Victor Roblese, Howard Golden and Ed Towns and the local assembly people and 10 community groups, 10 community groups, senior citizens groups, day care centers for children, there are 50 partners. I counted them up. There are 50 partners. So Pfizer is just a catalyst.

It is our role to try to help promote things but people who are expert really have carried out this niche. So first is in the area of employment and there have been two basic areas.

First in the Pfizer plant, as I was saying earlier to Janet Reno, we now have 1200 people in this plant. About 50 percent of the people are minorities. They are working in high technology here. Most people are either new immigrants from 54 different countries or they have come from city schools. And we have been successful in using this goal of the inner city employer to be very successful in our high technology manufacturing.

We did attempt to recruit new industry and we only succeeded in recruiting one company to the area. That's Arlington Press, a small company about 100 employees, a high tech company. They have 10 new employees since they've been here and eight are from our zip code. And we have our partner, president Larry Cornacchia, here with us today.

We are not always successful. We weren't able to recruit the industry that we wanted. We have decided with the help of Councilman Roblese to recruit Big Box Supermarket to come here.

We are going to give them our property at its book value in return for them hiring local people and providing a supermarket that's needed. So, Victor, for your continuing effort, we once again thank you.

We had to demolish a number of our old buildings, one all the way up to 23. We demolished these buildings in order to turn the property over for the community good and on these lots, in addition to having employment, we had a housing program with the help of Kathy Wilde.

I mentioned the partners, Local Initiative Support Corporation, Enterprise Foundation, New York City Housing Partnership, New York City housing partnership, which Kathy led, built the houses that you see around the communities.

These houses are built on what used to be abandoned property and we are going to be building more on other properties on the north side of Flushing Avenue. There is also low income construction, some of which we saw today.

There are two new buildings that Victor Roblese and the state assembly have been very instrumental along with Howard Golden in supporting to make sure we could get this new construction and again our formally abandoned lots, and then they are renovating abandoned buildings.

Jim Rouse the came here in the middle 1980s and he had this board of director of the Enterprise Foundation meeting was held in a building at 306 Union Avenue that was renovated by this initiative. So the concept here is that the community needs to be living. It is not only employment but it is also a place where people can reside and that's certainly part of Brooklyn.

This is a building you saw today. It is on the corner of Bartlett Street and Broadway. This building when I first came here it was occupied. It got burnt out in the 1980s. Then with Kathy's leadership and with the Enterprise Foundation this building was totally renovated and, again, there are a number of buildings in the area for which this has happened.

This was typical housing stock. This was right over on Park Avenue, one block away, and this is the kind of building that was replaced with this one. This is the New York City housing partnership middle income houses.

Then there is education. We were able to take our administration building in consultation with Joe and Carol Rich and turn it into a wonderful school. We now have over 400 students in this school and the students are performing among the highest in the City of New York in the reading and math scores.

What it has proven is that through partnership with groups like the Riches and with Bill Thompson and the board of ed, this is a public school education, can work in the City of New York. We just have to dedicate the time and the energy and have the commitment to make it happen.

This is what the property looks like today where the former buildings were at. The buildings I showed you before were over here. This is where the school is.

We now have a program where we are going to turn these buildings into a middle school and building a new gym face. I didn't mean here. This will all be open space. Where the former buildings are will be open space for the school. This will be parking for the large Big Box Supermarket.

This is our mayor. We had all of the mayors, three mayors over two terms for two of them, and one for another have been good enough to support us in this initiative and finally and lastly there is crime.

Crime used to be, in my view, the number one reason that would drive us out of this community. We were fortunate enough to have partnerships with the 90th Precinct and the 79th Precinct who have always responded. And at one time there used to be a transit police and a housing police and a number of times we would have a commander for all of the units come in to see us and one little anecdote.

This is the subway system. This system is not really used mostly by the Pfizer people but it is for the community.

One day after a distinguished gentleman with blue eyes named Tom Kline was also mugged at the station, we started a program along with the NYPD to put in closed circuit television cameras here and then since the officers were really needed to ride the trains and couldn't be monitoring the cameras, we decided to have the cameras monitored by our guards. And right down here today our guards monitor those cameras and, of course, the police responded.

There are many, many other stories and I would just like to wind up with one related to Joe Hynes and the employees of our plant.

One day I got a call from Joe a number of years ago. I said, look, I'm heading up a program called DTAP, Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison, which he had founded. We can't keep having the revolving door of sending people to prison. What we need is we need jobs for these people and I wanted you to come down. And I was a little bit apprehensive, gee, he's a good friend and he brought me down.

I never forget I was in a crowded room and a young man started walking toward me. He had his diploma. He had just graduated from the Drug Alternative Treatment to Prison and I tried to step away. He looked me in the eyes. He said hello. Hi. My name is Tony. Today Tony is one of the best employees in this plant and today, Attorney General Reno, you met some of the people that are only a few to the drug treatment to alternative program.

We didn't have a chance to see many of the people here. Here we have 30 employees who are either physically or emotionally handicapped who we were also successful in hiring in conjunction with the Brooklyn's Bureaus of service.

I applaud Attorney General Reno and I applaud you for listening and I think we are almost on time.

MR. CARTER: During the next phase of the program, we are going to have a number of people who have been active in playing a role in developing partnerships between the community and law enforcement between the community and private industry in both crime reduction and community revitalization.

At the end of the day, we hope that by listening to some of the reports of the models of the cooperation that will be presented to you today, that we can discover ways of replicating those successes around the city. We are going to start first with Eleanor Acheson, Assistant Attorney General of the United States.

MS. ACHESON: How would you like to do it? Would you like me to stay there or come here?

MR. CARTER: Can everybody here?

MS. ACHESON: Good morning. I think, as Tom has illustrated with Pfizer's story, public safety is more than the presence of police and police activities in a community. Public safety is a complicated and forever sort of forward moving set of work by many, many, many players, perhaps initially and most important the investment of police and other law enforcement, but followed quickly by all sorts of players in a community. People very committed to it, very invested individuals, public servants and very importantly businesses.

And what Pfizer has done in Williamsburg is a demonstration about private leadership to build institutions for public safety just as the input of other partners.

And I think, as Tom's presentation illustrated, it is a completion of work by lots of lots of people with very different interests coming from different backgrounds and disciplines with different kinds of interests. But all of it with a basic commitment in the community, and that's what builds public safety, public commitment and constant renewal of that in the development of institutions and processes in a community that are going to draw people in.

Now, why is the Department of Justice interested in this? Well, we are very interested in public safety and we are very interested in doing what we can from Washington beyond federal agents and U.S. Attorneys who come in and deal with cases that have to be investigated and prosecuted.

What else can we do? Well, what we can do is to bring assets of the federal government and the knowledge of the federal government and the communication ability of the federal government and the nationwide presence of the federal government to profile examples like Pfizer's in Williamsburg, and we are very interested in what Pfizer has done in Williamsburg and what other companies have done with their partners in other communities and want to talk about them across the country to promote corporate community partnerships for public safety.

And, as Tom so vividly demonstrated, beyond public safety for education. That is a compelling need of a community in a particular place. For housing, if that is a compelling need, for jobs, for health and for the building of institutions to provide those services.

What are we doing as the federal government? Let me tell you about these things we are doing in this corporate community partnership context.

First of all, we are, and using Tom Kline and Pfizer's example, shamelessly I should say, we are going around the country to meet with people in different communities to identify similar kinds of efforts by private business and their partners in other communities bringing, when we come, Tom Kline and Pfizer's example with us to identify those efforts as they differ in different communities and to learn, as we have learned, from the Pfizer example about how this works.

And we are using that knowledge which we have gained by going on the road and going to these places, by talking to people who are engaged in these initiatives across the nation to do a second thing, which we hope will be of great value to not only businesses but other partners in such partnerships in communities across the country. And that is to use your example, to use the example of Pfizer and its partners in Williamsburg, and the example of other similar partnerships in other communities to put together a how-to manual for corporations and communities on developing and sustaining public safety partnerships and the other kinds of investment and activities in communities to which they can lead.

We hope this document will be available in July. It is designed to help players in such partnerships identify the community's public safety concerns, assess the current level of community resources to meet those public safety needs.

And when I say community, I mean everybody, the private resources, the public resources, the public interest resources. Assess the assets of all those players against what are the needs of the community, would do we have locally and what do we need in part to get from private interest outside the community, the state or federal government, and then to help in ways that we can identify how to bring all of that together to move forward to benefit the particular community in question. So that's the second thing that we are doing.

And the third thing that we are prepared to do in any community that expresses any interest in this, either to the local law enforcement officials or other firms, or to our U.S. Attorneys is to help identify in ways that are useful to such partnership initiatives, what are the assets that the federal government has either already in or that it can bring to a particular community and locale.

And in that regard I want to point out to you that I think everybody has in their packet a map, which is several of the counties of New York showing most prominently. We made this map really for Tom. It has Kings County and Brooklyn right in the center. So he can refer to everybody else's as the outline places, and it has Pfizer almost right in the center. It is a little map like this but I think it is very useful and we can add to it.

This is really just to illustrate how we can present in a geographic context all, not all, but here are some of the assets that are important to community public safety partnerships. Let me just illustrate by showing you a couple of things that are on that map.

The light blue piece on the map, and this is the piece in Brooklyn, and there are others in other countries, the Department of Justice Weed and Seed sites.

Weed and Seed is a law enforcement strategy located in neighborhoods that coordinate criminal justice efforts with social services in neighborhoods to eliminate violent crime, get after drug trafficking and drug related crime, provide safe environments for families and children, bringing in assets like boys and girls clubs, use community resources like schedules and other facilities to build in the community safe and stable places for the community, particularly children, and to use that as part of the strategy to drive out crime.

Another piece that's on your map, which has a slightly different focus but is very essential for these kinds of partnerships, are the little buildings at which there are many of them. It looked like banks there in black that are all over here.

Those are local development corporations which are funded by the United States Department of Commerce and the New York State Economic Development Corporation and they deal with financing. They provide financing for local areas or tell people how to get it. They help people find locations for businesses and other activities in communities.

We help people deal with government entities and government processes, and this is just by way of example of what we can learn for anybody who wants to know what assets are in a community or available to the community either directly or indirectly from the federal government. We do not show but we can show department of labor initiatives that deal with job training and job placement, department of education initiatives, small business administration initiatives and other such activities and assets that are very important to these partnerships. So I will end with just telling you, again, how pleased we are to be here. How much we have learned from Pfizer. How much more we want to learn from Pfizer and all of you here in the room today about what we can do to assist in these very, very important partnerships.

MR. CARTER: Next, we are going to hear from a number of officials from the law enforcement community who will describe the initiatives in ways they have been involved over the past several years and focus on partnerships between the community and law enforcement in crime reduction in community revitalization initiatives.

First we will here from Chief Esposito, who will talk about the status of crime reduction citywide and, also, to talk specifically about some of the special initiatives in crime prevention that the New York City Police Department has been involved in. Police officer Esposito.

OFFICER ESPOSITO: Thank you very much. I few things I would like to say. First, I know we are all here to help. I'm going to ask you for something at the end of it so, hopefully, we will give a little bit. I need something from everybody here and I will tell you at the conclusion.

Just as far as crime is concerned, we are doing terrific in Brooklyn North and South. Over the last five, six years we have done over 50 percent in crime reduction.

Brooklyn North homicides are done 70 percent. Shooting incidents are down 70 percent. So we are doing a tremendous job with fighting crime and we don't do that by ourselves. That's the U.S. Attorney, the DA's office, private sector, everyone involved.

And I think the people in this room and the people sitting here know that the police department is doing all they can to fight crime. So the things we do in partnership that Mr. Carter was talking about is our Weed and Seed programs or defined programs.

Weed and Seed is a program with the federal government. We put money into in East New York. We did it in unit houses. We had -- part of it is we went in there and very intently we took out violent drug gangs, violent gangs and we did what we do best. We fought crime.

The seed part is we went in there and we made people in unit houses feel pride and commitment to their area. How did we do that?

We fixed the housing development. We didn't do that. That was money from the federal government that did that. We took the kids and taught them to stay off drugs. We got them involved with mentoring programs. So we worked both ends of it and it worked very, very well.

For a time and a place their unit would have a shooting every other day. We didn't have any acts of violence for months at a time. I think we went six months without a shooting over there. That was a tremendous testament to an area that was ravished by drugs.

The weed part of the program, we mentor the kids. Floyd Bennett. Marines are involved. The Navy is involved today, the office is involved and we give these kids some positive role models so that they can look to us, to other people in the community, people in their communities, success stories from the communities and follow their leads instead of the lead to drugs and violence. So we are doing that and we need to do more of that.

As I said, crime, I think we are doing a fine job with that. What I see a need and where we are failing is the outreach to the community.

What I see in the community, even though crime is down in record proportions, I don't feel that the community feels we are in sync with them.

I talked to the elected officials. I talked to Miss Gadson, people out in the community, and what happens is they see us sometimes as an occupying Army and that's not something that we want. We want to feel like we are a part of the community and to do that we have to reach out more. And that's what I need from corporations, from federal funding, state funding, to be able to go out and have focus groups with some of the things we are doing.

We have people from the community come in, and not our friends. We try to have some of our critics come in, and a dozen of them or so, and sit with our officers who are out there doing enforcement and let them try and see the other side of the fence. Let them see our point of view.

We want to see their point of view. We want to see what we are doing wrong that makes the people that live and work out here in the neighborhood not appreciate us as much as we think we should be appreciated, or not to see things the way we think we should see them, and the other side is we want to be able to see the police from their point of view.

Now, we are doing that but we are not doing it enough. What do we need? We need mediators, moderators, facilitators. We need somebody to put out a little bit of a brunch so that people want to come in and have a cup of coffee with us and a glass of juice. So we do need that. That's what we need.

We also need more with the young. We got to get the kids off of drugs. We can put them in jail. We can build jails and put people in jail. I want to keep people out of jail.

How do you do it? Role models, mentoring, things of the nature.

Like we have said, we've done the crime fighting. We have got to go the other way and that is my message to the people here today. If you want to help us, help us that way.

So I hope that something good will come out of that in that forum and I just thank you for your support.

MR. CARTER: Captain Joe Campbell from the 79th Precinct.

MR. CAMPBELL: I'd just like to be a little more specific about what the seven-nine and how Pfizer helped us.

When I first came to the seven-nine, I asked the more senior officers, you know, what about the area, about Pfizer? They told me when they first got here they had narcotic foot posts on all those blocks where you saw the abandoned building was and where the abandoned building was they were selling drugs and it was a drug den. So the CO had to supply four or five guys a tour, 24 hours a day to prevent drug selling. And now with the new housing it frees our officers up to do< other things.

For example, before the chief came today, he came to the seven-nine where we sent about 150 kids to Rye Playland with the community affairs officer and a young officer. So we are trying to move that way. As we reduce crime, we want to move the other way and teach the kids the right way.

And what else we did, after Pfizer put up those buildings and they moved the drug dealers out of there, they went into the Marcy development, which is the site across the street.

So what we did, we did a joint initiative with the FBI and with money supplied by HUD, we moved a special narcotics unit into the Marcy projects. We got a moving van, moved these undercovers in, brought in a couch and a bed and they lived there.

They identified the drug dealers and with that work and with that long investigation, we closed down three or four major operations there, which included finding who the supplier was in upper Manhattan and giving them information up there. So we feel the effort that Pfizer put in it really frees up the seven-nine to do a lot of other good work.

MR. CARTER: Next we are going to hear from District Attorney Joe Hynes. I've appeared on a number of panels with both Joe Hynes and Dick Brown, and I think what both of them have in common is that they are secure enough in their tough law enforcement credentials and background that they dare to sound like social workers in forums like this and I think it has been a real tribute to both.

MR. HYNES: Thank you, Zach.

First, I would like to mention two people that you've heard from. I'm the co-chair of the Metro Council of the National DA Association. That's the big city DAs around the country.

Shortly after she was confirmed the Attorney General of the United States appeared before our group and you can imagine the group.

Not particularly cynical.

And she said, hi, I'm Janette Reno. I'm the former states attorney from Dade County, Miami, Florida. Here's my telephone number if you need us at any time. Of course, no one really paid that very seriously, but I wrote it down.

Two weeks later I called her and she came right on the phone. She has set the tone as a former local prosecutor to build the most important partnership from the federal government and local prosecutors which is embodied by Zach Carter and Mary Jo White than any attorney general of my memory. It is really great to be with her today.

Tom Kline, I met him in '89. I was running for DA and I was summoned to Pfizer. Now, Tom Kline doesn't invite you. You are ordered to come to Pfizer and he wanted to talk to me about crime and he wanted to measure who I was.

He said, "You know, the local precinct commander and I had a conversation sometime ago." And I said, "Couldn't you put someone around the perimeter of Pfizer to stop the crime, like a scooter cop?"

And the captain said, "Well, gee, I haven't got the money for a scooter." The next morning he had a scooter from Tom Kline. And Tom mentioned about the -- that's Tom Kline.

He mentioned about the cameras in the subway. He said to me "Listen, Joe, if you become DA, do I have your commitment you will give priority to prosecution?" Sure, you have my commitment. I'm sure he didn't believe that for a moment. But I did and that's the way our relationship grew.

And when Tom mentioned DTAP, the Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison -- I will get to that for a moment and then I will get off -- he was very, very supportive from the beginning, and we have had such a great relationship.

And I must ask my colleague, the United States Attorney Carter, to issue with me a joint subpoena to Bill Steer to find out why Tom was taken to the outer borough of Manhattan.

Drug Treatment Alternative to Prison was started here in Brooklyn in 1990 at a time when the county was the fifth most violent municipality in the United States per capita. We had 800 people killed in 1991. 129 of them were kids 17 years or younger. And one of the many strategies began with drug treatment. That's been adopted by many of our colleagues here in the city and outside the city. Judge Brown in Queens has adopted it. Bridget Brennan from the City wide special prosecutor's office. Let me tell you a minute about it.

It cost $82,000 for two years to incarcerate a non-violent drug addict, a sick drug addict. It cost $36,000 for that same period to rehabilitate him in long term drug treatment rehabilitation. But the key to the success of the program had to be jobs. And having built from credibility with my friend Tom Kline, he's right about it.

Of course, when I called him and said I've got this idea about getting jobs for recovering drug addicts, he came down, very cynically, and properly so, and listened and watched. And he was among the first people to take our recovering drug addicts into the program.

Today, nine years later, we have 400 people who are taxpayers who used to be drug addict criminals, who used to go jail for life on the installment plan.

That's what happens to drug addicts. They commit crime. They go to jail. They do their time. They come out. They don't have a job. They go back to the same neighborhood where he committed the crime. He goes back to jail, all the while picking your pocket and my pocket. Think. It saves $44,000 for each one.

And the final point in a tribute to the business community, because we could not have the success in drug treatment as an alternative to prison without the business community, without the people like Tom Kline.

It is successful. It should be something that spreads across this country and I know with this Attorney General everywhere she goes she tries to promote it. So it is always a pleasure to be here and, Tom, good to see you again.

MR. CARTER: Dick Brown, District Attorney for Queens County.

MR. BROWN: Thanks, Zach, and I want to thank you and Mary Jo for allowing me to participate in this conference, and thank you, of course, to the Attorney General and Pfizer for making it happen.

I only wish that Pfizer had started many years ago in Queens County and not in Kings County. Finally, I want to thank Joe Hynes for stamping my visa and allowing me to come into Kings County. It is not every day he allows me to come into Kings County.

The partnership that exists today - I've been in government now for 40 some odd years - the partnership that exists today not only in terms of the relationship between the various law enforcement agencies, federal, state and local, but with the business community as well is something that I have never seen in my days. And we are doing so much in the area of prevention that was never thought of many years ago. And it is something I think is so very, very important to ensure that we are daily involved in lowering the level of violence, investigating criminal conduct.

We are partners with the police in all of the good things that have been accomplished in lowering the level of crime within our respective counties. But we are doing so much more these days.

I, too, have a DTAP program, like Joe referred to. We have programs in which we bring the kids into the office and allow them to be summer interns or interns during the school year. We have programs that take the kids out visiting various locations across the entire city, be they ball games or museums or what have you. All toward the end of taking kids and putting them under the umbrella of people who can lead them in the right direction.

I think the program that I'm perhaps most proud of within Queens County is that which we do out in the Rockaways. We are involved with Weed and Seed. Mary O'Donoghue of your office, Zach, is a partner with us in everything that's being done in that area.

We have done a lot of good stuff with HUD. Andrew Cuomo, who has a Queens identity, as most of you know, was very helpful to us in funding some of our undercover initiatives in the Rockaways with respect to narcotics interdiction.

But the program I think we are most proud of is our school anti-violence program, which we developed about six years ago out in the Rockaways and that is truly a relationship between business, the community and law enforcement.

We have taken eight schools out there and we send our assistance into the schools. We have an interagency council in which business and teachers and parents and students as well, together with the business community and cops, all meet and talk about what it is that they can do to lower the level of violence.

Two weeks ago, together with the United States Tennis Association, the junior tennis league, we took 1,000 kids out to the U.S. Open site, provided them with a day of tennis instruction in a say no to violence demonstration.

Those kinds of things are all of vital, vital importance, as far as I'm concerned, because of the standpoint from local prosecutors our role is a lot greater these days then simply prosecuting and investigating. If we don't go ahead and grab these kids early on, and it is the responsibility of all of us, law enforcement, the business community, state, local, federal, and I think that's what local prosecutors like Bridget or Joe or myself are really all about these days. And so I'm delighted to be here and delighted that the Attorney General, who Joe properly points out, knows the problems of local prosecutors as well as anybody in this country, would host this meeting for us. Thank you.

MR. CARTER: Next I'm going to turn to Chauncey Parker, who is the Executive Director of New York, New Jersey HIDTA.

MR. PARKER: Thanks, Zach. I just want to take a moment and tell you about an idea, not an original idea, but an idea to help kids throughout New York City.

I'm an Assistant U.S. Attorney in Southern District of New York and Mary Jo is my boss and she's put me on detail to be the director of the HIDTA program with only the instructions to make it real. Do real work.

What the HIDTA program is in a nutshell is a federally funded program to support and develop partnerships that will measurably reduce drug use and crime. We are not measured by any credos. We see how many people are arrested but implement things that will really arrest drug use and crime.

A small thing, the NYPD types their reports, a million reports, intelligent reports on typewriters. We had funds, and not additional funding, to computerize them so all those reports within the next year or so should be computerized. Everything in northern Manhattan is already computerized.

The thing I learned, the theme throughout the whole day, all morning, is that if you want to really reduce drug use and crime the place to start is to provide opportunities for kids and get them never to get involved in drugs in the first place and give them positive things to get involved in.

What I did I met John Ryan, head of the police athletics league. You've got to go to the 168th Street armory, meet this Dr. Norbert Sanders. He should be on one of the those pictures in the Macintosh ads for people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world do. He's the guy that grew up in New York City, ran track, went on to win the New York marathon, become a Park Avenue doctor.

What he did as a kid he ran track on the drill floor of the 168th Street armory, which are like armories all over the city. The cathedrals are as big as this plant, square block drill floor over 40, 50, 60,000 square feet and on the other side of it 50 to 100 beautiful mahogany paneled offices throughout the building that are basically empty right now.

So Norbert, what he had been able to do was to take the drill floor and essentially convert it from a place where 1,000 homeless people were sleeping on the drill floor, put 1,000 homeless men into a track and field center. But he didn't have enough money or resources to complete the renovation on the drill floor or to convert any of the other rooms in the armory. And that's how I met him, through John Ryan.

We were able to get some funding to help him finish the renovation of the drill floor and, in addition, convert some of these mahogany panel beautiful rooms throughout the building. And it was like, and I believe it is with this proposal, it was like the field of dreams. All of a sudden once it was built people came.

Teach for America, they moved, which is the largest office in the country, moved their headquarters to the 168th Street Armory. Police athletics opened a center in the middle of Washington Heights. It is their largest center in the city. Stanley Kaplan, head of Stanley Kaplan, heard about the program. "You really supported the kids in this community. I'll tell you what I'll do. I will give you 500 free scholarships for 500 qualified kids if you are really going to provide this kind of classroom and a space for them to study." That's the kind of thing that happened.

The bottom line this armory which used to be 1,000 homeless people and there certainly wasn't one kid in the entire facility, and smack in the middle of Washington Heights in the last nine months 200,000 kids have been running track, working on computers, dancing and playing basketball and getting reading classes from Teachers of America teachers. It is absolutely bursting at the seam. You really would have to see it to believe it. There is a little picture there.

I know the Attorney General will be going up herself. It is 40,000 square feet, a magnificent facility and not unusual. It is not a building that had to be torn down and rebuilt. It is a cathedral that was basically empty. But throughout the city there are buildings just like this. There is no armories just like this.

And the proposal is just as an example. This is the picture of the Bedford Atlantic Armory, which is less than a mile away from here. There's a drill floor there or here with 50,000 square feet and in the corner of this -- and this is in better condition than the 168th Street Armory -- in the corner is about 20 boxes that are being stored there. Smack in the middle of Bed Sty and Crown Heights. Same thing in the proposal would call for converting that armory.

There is an armory in Harlem, which there is the tennis program that's down there now and then. Convert that into a magnificent tennis center for kids in the community which each of these facilities would have computer labs and reading labs and all sorts of things. Smack in the middle of Harlem, 142nd Street and Fifth Avenue.

Same thing in Queens, there is an armory in Jamaica, which the armory drill floor is being used now as a garage, 50,000 square feet, and behind it are these sort of endless, kind of interesting rooms. These buildings are, used to be stables. Huge spaces that are just empty. To convert that and the same thing to convert the Jamaica Armory, the Franklin armory in the Bronx, convert these into young centers for kids. Same in the Bronx; Jamaica, Queens, Bed Sty, Harlem you could put in a place and I think it would work.

You sort of have a model where we have a model to look at 168th Street. Kids really did come. It is a place there. Kids come from riding the subway two hours to go there, to people who live around the corner. Hundreds of thousands of kids use it just because it is available.

This is just an idea. It is real. It happened on 168th street.

We worked with the national guard in New Jersey and converted an armory there in Jersey City into a center for kids. It is just a proposal for you all to think about.

MR. CARTER: Next I'm going to turn to education and schools and the role of revitalizing schools and revitalizing our communities. I think that a smaller group of us, and including the Attorney General of the United States, had an opportunity, an extraordinary opportunity, to tour the school that's sponsored by Pfizer in partnership with the New York City Board of Education, and it was absolutely extraordinary. And I think any of you that had toured that school would have been impressed with the facility, with the program and, more importantly, with the kids. It would be the rival of any private school you would ever visit and I paid private school tuition so I know of which I speak.

So we have been invited here today to talk about, to address the issue of partnership between the private sector and public education.

Billy Thompson, the president of the board of ed.

MR. THOMPSON: Thanks, Zach, and good morning everyone. It is a pleasure to welcome the Attorney General here and to have heard -- to hear you had the opportunity to stop over at the beginning of Children's School at the beginning of the day.

As Zach has mentioned, it is a wonderful school. It is a New York City public school, but it was done in conjunction with private partners at Pfizer.

Joe and Carol Rich, who have been major driving forces between behind the creation of that school, and one of the things that are mentioned is, as Tom Kline pointed out earlier, it is being expanded into a middle school. The grades are there and marks are phenomenal but we are expanding it.

And two years from yesterday the New York City Board of Education will approve a resolution expanding that school and creating a middle school. It is not, and I will say it is a great example, but it is not totally unique these days.

And one of the things that's going on in the New York City public school system across the board, one of the things, as I listen to different people speak and heard Dick Brown speak and heard Joe Hynes speak and Zach Carter, we have collaboration with all of their offices and with the police department. But everyone has a little piece with the U.S. Attorney's office in the eastern district.

We worked with one of our schools in a debate situation, so we had students they worked with at Bushwick, I believe, with Joe Hynes.

Joe has worked with us in a number of different instances. Sending DAs, assistant district attorneys into schools, letting them speak to our kids, letting them understand the dos and don'ts early on in life, but at the same point working with us to cut down truancy. You heard Dick Brown what's going on in Queens and what's going on out there.

The story these days is a collaboration and the beginning of Children's School is a great example of collaboration and that one collaboration between the private sector.

When you say it is a wonderful school but it is something. At the same point you've heard about the all girls school in Manhattan. That is another collaboration and it is something that happened after this. You get to use this as a partial model, but at the same point we have an all girl schools in Manhattan that we are entering into an expansion also. That's being done with Anne and Andrew Tish and other private partners that have, in fact, created another school where the reading scores went off the charts as far as increasing.

You can look within the school system, whether it is working with the private sector in developing what we call the virtual Y with the YMCA where they are raising million dollars of to provide after school programs tied into the school day. So you have an expansion of the school day. Eventually we will have 200 schools being involved in that.

You need realistic after school cooperation which is, in fact, raising dollars and working with us. There are at least 25 and looking to go to 50 schools, another extension of a school day.

Our kids need more time on task, time with teachers. It is an extension of the day. You go into example after example after example.

New York City partnership is, in fact, raising I believe $15 million over a few years. We have started in District 19 with an experiment.

What's that experiment?

It is providing incentive bonuses for teachers and superintendents and principals and they are committed to raising $15 million. We are already on the way in the first year of one school district in Brooklyn. The story is one across the school system and across the city of everybody forming partnerships.

And I look around the room. There is dozens of partnerships and people in this room who are involved with us, whether it is working on the computer literacy, whether it is working with our kids or our teachers and principals. That's what the story is these days, collaborations, and ones that are done in a very focused manner and I think that's where we have changed.

The Board of Education has changed in not asking -- if you had asked the old Board of Education five or six years ago we said and people said how can we help. And, basically, our response used to be give us money. That's nice except money for what? What are the outcomes? And particularly the business community, no one wants to say, okay, here's money, what are you going to use it for? What's the bottom line? What's the outcomes? What are the outcomes? What are we getting for our money. How are children being thought better? How are children learning better because of those dollars? We have tried showing those things so I think the story these days is one of collaboration.

You talked a -- it is the perfect time. As you look at corporate community partnerships for public safety, there is no better way to deal with public safety than through education, and I think everybody up here would agree with that and the role of business in building safe and sustainable communities.

Pfizer, the work they have done both in housing, in education and public safety, that's how you build. That's how you build a community, through a partnership like this. So I'm happy to be here.

This is -- I'm glad you were able to see our school earlier because it is really phenomenal and it is a model that we are replicating in a number of other places. But really that one is the first.

And if you listen to Joe and Carol Rich tell you the story, it was tough getting off the ground at that point because the New York City Board of Education when they started didn't know how to deal with it. We do now and they can pick the phone up and call the president of the board or the chancellor, get an instant response and have us work for them. That's the way it should be.

Again, I'm glad you were able to see our school. This is a great forum. We tied it altogether really well. Good job. Thank you.

MR. CARTER: We have with us from the Local Initiative Support Corporation Lisa Belsky. Is she here? Let me add one thing because we are nearing the end of our time.

I seldom in my position tell the Attorney General of the United States what to do so this is a novelty for me. Mary Jo and I are always telling each other what to do so that's less of a novelty. But I'm going to enlist them at this stage as my co-facilitators, if you have any follow-up questions of any of the presenters, please feel free.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: Mr. Thompson, I need your phone number.

MR. CARTER: We play golf together. I have his phone numbers.

MS. BELSKY: That's how I feel. I'm a little humbled being able to tell you about my partnership when I've heard about a number of ones here. I work for the Local Initiative Corporation Association which was mentioned earlier by Mr. Kline. LISC is the world's worst acronym, community development intermediary, not LISC.

We are a not-for-profit organization and work in partnerships with corporations like Pfizer and invest their corporate dollars and philanthropic dollars in communities across the country. It was founded in '79 and in 15 years has invested $15 billion in this city and 42 other cities nationwide.

Principally our theory is we need to be in partnership with communities and communities can best solve their own problems when equipped with the right resources.

Primarily we have been focused with a real estate development strategy. The idea was if you change the way the neighborhood looks, you change the way the neighborhood is, and getting the kind of corporate involvement and budding commercial space, take Big Box Supermarkets and creating jobs, you can change the face of a neighborhood.

We realized about -- I've been at LISC for only 10 years now and we realized about six or seven years ago public safety was one piece of the agenda that we had, much to our dismay, ignored for many, many years. And it was something that community development corporations, our constituent groups, told us over and over again was very important to them.

We have partnered up with on a national level with some organizations very expert in our world, police executive research programs, Geller and Associates run by William Geller and Harvard University and management. And sort of in that institutional partnership we kind of promoted our kind of, our concept of CDC, Community Develop Corporations, and police could make very good partners and bringing in the private sector resource we could really make hey with that idea.

There was a synergy to be found in the work of community development and work of, to use the label community police, and if we could help figure out what community meant, the police could help us figure out what public safety meant.

We launched a demonstration program. We looked for places with very strong key organizations, very progressive interesting police departments. We started with Seattle, Kansas City and out in East New York with the seven-five. That program has been up and running for four plus years right now.

And the premise is pretty simple, by marrying these two institutions, police and CDCs, you can accomplish a lot and we have slowly begun to work more and more with the Department of Justice and look to programs like the Weed and Seed as reflecting or own mission that the sentence no longer ends with pride and closing down the crack house. We now go the second step and say we replaced it with and we fill in the blank with something real wonderful with new community assets. The program we hope has been a big success.

Harvard University will come out with their cases that will say whatever they say. I think they are real fun to read. This New York project was a very interesting one.

We had three precinct commanders over time. We had a myriad of community affairs officers, change of lieutenants and change of sergeants, but we had a very serious and we think very entrenched commitment by the seven-five to our program, and that project and its partners in Seattle and Kansas City have now responded to a number of things. We have doubled the size of the program.

We are now also looking at Boston's retail district and the cooperation of the city. In Toledo in very serious partnership with Weed and Seed.

The New York project has been a very exciting one though. It has allowed us to sort of grow out. Our program is called the Community Security Initiative.

CSI has sort of branched out and we are now work very closely with Carol Perry and others and people in the Brooklyn Weed and Seed program, and we feel also -- we just kind of entered into a very interesting partnership in the city that's much better than LISC.

CSI is a partnership principally between housing preservation and development, HPD, and the New York City Police Department. Commissioner Safir, Rich Roberts and the mayor stood up together. Housing is an anti-crime strategy and we ought to be pursuing it.

The program is called Safety at Home. The LISC is a community safety element. We are working with the seven-nine. We are working with the four-two. Chief Esposito has been in support of this program, as has the precinct command for us.

And we are just really kind of looking at things you are doing and that we are doing and figuring out how we can share lessons across our various experiments and build, I guess, a new book of best practices that people in the justice department, people in the private sector, people in the community, which is LISC's primary constituents, can use. Not just in this city but other boroughs in the city across the country. I appreciate your time.

MR. CARTER: I'm next going to call on Bridget Brennan, special prosecutor in the City of New York, to describe our block program.

MS. BRENNAN: First of all, I would like to thank you for the opportunity to hear about the tremendous work being done here and to talk a little about the partnerships that we have been involved in.

What we have seen throughout the city in the last few years is a tremendous success in eliminating neighborhood narcotic organizations and that success has been primarily lead by the enforcement efforts of the New York City Police Department with the assistance of the prosecutor's offices, the U.S. Attorney's office. The New York Police Department has really lead the way on the model block program.

It started out in upper Manhattan around 163rd Street where a group of residents of a building wanted to buy their building but they couldn't obtain financing for that building. And the reason was the building was just infested with drug dealers. There were vacant apartments which had been taken over by the drug dealers. The residents couldn't obtain any financing for the building. The building was in disrepair.

But the residents had a good idea. They contacted a community group. That community group reached out to the police department, reached out to the others in the community and, all of a sudden, the idea for model blocks was born.

That building was taken over apartment by apartment. The vacant apartments were boarded up. The traffickers were arrested and eliminated from the building. And then the police department took a look at the whole block and we worked together with them on an enforcement program for the entire block. The block was taken over building by building, and the narcotic traffickers were eliminated from that block.

So that a block which had previously been infested with narcotics dealers -- and we sought surveillance videos which showed that the narcotics dealers were sitting on every stoop. Cars were being approached. Nobody could walk down that block without being confronted by drugs. Within a few months time, that was all eliminated. It was the most remarkable thing.

Merchants in the area contributed paint, contributed other supplies to repair the buildings and, all of a sudden, you had a block where people were out on the streets. There was a block dedication just a few months later and the street was boarded off. It was blocked off so that the kids could play volleyball in the street and the residents of the areas just thronged the street. And they were welcoming the police department, the police representatives and ourselves and telling us just how happy they were to be able to live in their block again, to be able to walk in the streets again.

That's the kind of success we have seen here with the kind of partnerships that we have developed, and we have had real success on the neighborhood level.

The real stubborn problem in this City has been on the higher level. Those narcotic traffickers who are supplying the low level drug organizations and who are supplying drug organizations throughout the east coast and the mid west. That's where we have had a real stubborn problem.

And the reason for that is there is a lot of money to be made in narcotics trafficking and, as long as there are people out there using drugs, there will be people out there who are going to supply the drugs. So that's the kind of partnership we are looking for. As District Attorney Hynes has said and District Attorney Brown and all the others, enforcement can only do so much.

What we really need to do is eliminate the problem of drugs and people who are using drugs. We have to give them alternatives, a reason not to use drugs, and that's why we are turning to those of you in the community and those of you who are representative of the corporations.

Those people need jobs. They need other supports and we can't supply that. We can work on these enforcement efforts, which have been tremendously successful in bringing down violent crimes in this city, but we can't supply the other piece of it.

And I'm so hopeful hearing about what's happened here at Pfizer that we can replicate that throughout the city and that in a few years we will have solved that very stubborn problem, too. So, again, thank you very much for that opportunity.

MR. CARTER: I understand that Raul Russi of the New York City probation department is here and will address forming a partnership for jobs for probation.

MR. RUSSI: For me this is a great opportunity. The second opportunity I have had with this great Attorney General to present the work that we have done with offenders in New York City.

I first was given this opportunity when I was head of the division of parole and we shared the work at the Brooklyn College with the Attorney General.

The New York City Department of Probation is already involved in several partnerships. We are a partner with several non-profit organization. We are a partner with our nightwatch program with the Boston style program where the probation officers and the police officers work as teams in the community and we have several projects here in Brooklyn.

We have begun a partnership with the Christian athletes to use the athletes as role models and teachers and trainers for our probationers. We have a tremendous partnership with the communities in Brooklyn and in the Brooklyn areas where we go in and clean up the neighborhood of graffiti.

We have been in partnership with Joe Hynes and his task force with doing that throughout Brooklyn and throughout city. We help build organizations.

If we go into a neighborhood and we find that the neighborhood has a tremendous amount of graffiti but there is no organization to make it happen, we help organize the community into block organizations, community based organizations to actually complete those projects.

So I just wanted to share that up front real quick and tell you why I am really here is to pitch and I am here to pitch. I want you to know that up front.

It is a program that we have been trying to get started for a while. Most of the players are here so I figure this is a good time to do it.

We were very much interested in joining the Board of Education, ourselves, the police department and, hopefully, some private company and with the help of, obviously, the federal government to put probation officers in the school, bring probation officers back into the community.

What we hope to accomplish is that there are target schools where there are a lot of young kids on probation. We want to bring the probationer to school, teach him with the officers in the school, obviously with the Board of Education and, hopefully, a partner in the private sector that will supply the following things for us: Some education tools to help us infuse some additional help with these children. Provide what is probably the most important thing that these children need, which is mentoring, individuals who can take a child who has probably -- the only adult may be a grandparent who is raising them, there is no structure -- and provide structure, a relationship, the kind of relationship to build individuals. The kind of relationship I had in my life. Part-time jobs while they are under our supervision and internship programs where children can come in if they succeed as they walk along. We can get them into a program, further education, a scholarship program.

There was recently a lot of mention about an individual in New York City who took children and paid for their education as long as they maintained a B grade point average right through college. It would be tremendous to see success for us to do that.

Obviously, I have a completion program permanent employment. You should know, depending on the number you use, a child in custody can cost you from 50 to over $100,000 a year, one child, and you can imagine the cost to society. That's just the cost to maintain the individual in the system.

The damage to the victims, to organizations like this, businesses who are damaged from these victims are tremendous. An entire neighborhood can be interrupted by one child who is out of control. We know this in the police department.

I started in the police department. I was 15 years in the police department. I know what one individual, one bad individual can do to an entire neighborhood. On the other hand, by turning him around, you can have a good mother, good father, good neighbor, taxpayers and a homeowner and a real positive individual in the community.

Most recently this past weekend a program we have where we have the YMCA and ourselves in a partnership, we take PINS kids, Persons in Need of Supervision, we buy their family a membership in the Y. We use resources from the federal government. It was criticized. We were taking hoodlums and buying memberships. These are not hoodlums. PINS kids are not hoodlums. They are kids who are struggling.

They were brought to us by the police department and by the schools. Help this individual help his family. And one of the things we need to do is structure their life and a membership in a Y goes a long way to have a place to go, help education. A lot of Ys have education programs, whatever.

We were criticized for buying these memberships. What we need is support so when somebody writes an article like this, we can say this is not fair; this is not true. The reality is much different. We do need a partner for this program. I think it will be a tremendous program. Thank you very much.

MR. CARTER: I believe Nancy Mahon of the Soros Foundation. Is she here?

MS. MAHON: Hi. A couple of minutes ago I was thinking this meeting is beginning to sound like a pep rally and I just wanted to say how incredibly important it is to, as other speakers have said, to listen to one another and to understand how all these different pieces fit together.

I think for all of us involved in business that change, personal change or community change, it can be a messy business but it is a halting business. It goes slowly, but there is absolutely nothing more worthwhile than working on community change, particularly in the public safety area, as people's enthusiasm here has shown.

In terms of pieces, I'm going to talk about I do work for the Soros organization. I think, among foundations, we have focused a great deal in creating public safety and creating the safety in our communities.

I'm in charge of a division that works primarily with prisoners and former prisoners on many of the types of programs that Raul heads up and many of the programs that the Attorney General referred to. And in particular we are focusing on education programs which, you may know, is the best way to fight crime is to invest in education.

I just want to talk a little bit about a group we have formed in support of the Council on Foundations. The Council of Foundation is as a result the Mafia on foundations and it has these sort of work groups that get together.

And, previously, before I joined the foundation, there was no public safety group, which seemed sort of strange to me. We put a group together and we had it in D.C. two years ago. We invited Justice because we have terrific relationships with many divisions of Justice.

And another foundation said you are inviting Justice? We are inviting justice, and he said that's radical. What's so terrific working with altruistic people at Justice, Katrina and Noel. It was a radical idea.

This Justice Department, as people have said, has an open door, is really open to listening, which I think is incredibly important. I want to name a few of the things in working together that we have found in working with justice and other foundations.

One is just leadership. The leadership of the Attorney General continues to show the importance of rehabilitation and the fact that 95 percent of the prisoners are going to get out of prison and we should think of a way to have them be taxpayers.

Also, in risk taking it is difficult in large organizations, as we all know, to put your neck out a little bit and what is terrific with working with partners sometimes you're friends are willing to do it and sometimes you are willing to do it.

On expertise, the business of crime control is an extraordinarily difficult and complicated business and it is critically important, I think, if folks like corporations and foundations are to invest money that we understand exactly what we are investing money in.

Also, I believe an important thing is perspective and someone like Attorney General Reno brings a local perspective and a federal perspective. As Tip O'Neill said, all politicians are local. I think in a criminal justice change is all local.

I think we started with eight members originally last year. We now have 45 members. We do not have any corporate members. We would very much invite and look forward to working with corporate partners.

One of the things with corporate partners you have is a very wide definition of community. Like Avon invests a lot of money for the domestic violence community. They see their community as primarily women.

Pfizer is looking at community in a local sense. Also, we need your good business sense. We have been the big beneficiary of a booming stock market led in part by the Pfizer corporation happily, but this is an extraordinarily good time to work with the foundation.

Stock money is up. There is money around. We have a national election, as everyone knows, coming up. The politicians are listening about the criminal justice policy.

Lastly, I would like to see change start at home, and that's where corporations can make an enormous difference and employers can make an enormous difference.

Do you have a human resource policy? Do you have funds for mental health care for victims of crime? Do you have policies for domestic violence victims in terms of relocation and do you have access for employees whose kids are all of a sudden in trouble and arrested and really do not know what to do? So, once again, thank you and congratulations.

MR. CARTER: I'm going to turn to for a moment the role of a private enterprise in reinvesting in economic revitalization in our communities, and I will turn first, if he's here, to John Mulvanerty of EAB bank.

MR. MULVANERTY: EAB is a local commercial bank with offices throughout the New York City Metropolitan area, including all of Long Island. And a big thing that the bank does as an initiative is to sponsor different schools in the areas where we send people in and help them with scholarship programs and things of that sort. I'm going to completely wing it. I was unprepared to speak.

In addition, we're also very active in the local chambers of commerce and things like that. And I'm completely freezing.

We take our responsibility in the community very, very seriously. We try to have people out there and foster partnerships, sponsor community street fairs and things of that sort to keep kids busy and keep them out of trouble. Thank you.

MR. CARTER: I will supplement John's presentation on the role of EAB in North Amityville in connection with our Weed and Seed program out there. Because the thing I think he takes the most for granted is the core of their business.

They actually opened a branch out in North Amityville in a place which was across the street which was an open air drug market. And when we had the ribbon cutting ceremony a couple of months ago for that bank, I told the audience then that they had paid the greatest tribute to that community's revitalization that they could. They put their money where their mouth was. Nobody opens up a bank in an area that is unsafe. That community had become sufficiently safe that a bank would open up a branch there is wonderful. And we also have Katherine Wilde.

MS. WILDE: I'm President of the New York City Investment Fund which is an organization that is attempting to bring the resources of global corporations and finance leaders to deal with economic growth, supporting economic growth in the communities of the city. Not every neighborhood is lucky enough to have a Pfizer. And, certainly, if we think about it, Pfizer is truly unique among global corporations for the kind of commitment they have made to major communities and the kind of leadership they have shown over such a sustained period.

So what we are trying to do is mobilize a lot of resources. Pfizer is one of our investors that is providing both financing and, more importantly, resources, clout, expertise to support efforts to grow jobs and support communities on the ground. The expansion of the beginning with Children's School is one of the projects that we are helping work with Pfizer to finance.

I think, though, we shouldn't let the Attorney General leave without responding to her comment about what the federal government can do in this era of devolution of responsibility to state and local and the business level.

I think it is great to have a federal official here inviting us to remember their existence down their in Washington and there is much they could do. We would not have urban renewal here if it wasn't for the Urban Federal Renewal law. We wouldn't have 40 years activity if it weren't for the Community Development Act. We wouldn't have the house near it if it wasn't for UDAC and the low income tax programs.

It easy to forget these things but, fundamentally, revitalization of neighborhoods, the forging of partnerships has been lead by the federal government historically.

They played a much reduced role, particularly in financing these initiatives, over the last 10 or 12 years and we really need them to stay involved, particularly if we are to get the kind of global resources and major corporation involved in these communities.

The federal government creating vertical partnerships in the cities themselves and low income neighborhoods themselves do not have the resources to be able to mount these kind of efforts and bring together these coalitions. There is an important role that you have to do and I'm glad you are here to invite us to invite you to do more.

MR. CARTER: Now, I want to give an opportunity for any of the members of the round table or any members of the audience to raise any questions or make any observations about the role of government in helping form corporate community partnerships.

MR. EISENSTADT: My name is Marv Eisenstadt. I have a plant in Brooklyn. We make Sweet and Low.

What I try to do -- it is a family business so it is a little different from Pfizer, although we did business with Pfizer from the beginning. He supplied us with saccharin years ago.

What I try to do is to keep jobs. I think, as you all said, jobs are most important because a child begins to learn at the family level, and if the mother works and the father is working and the child comes home to that kind of environment, then half the battle is one.

What I do is -- downsizing is a dirty word to me. Brooklyn, unfortunately, has 37,000 companies but over 90 percent of them are less than, employ less than 20 percent. Brooklyn -- I'm a little nervous.

Unemployment in the United States is about 4 percent. Brooklyn has about 9 percent unemployment. Companies that employ hundreds people, like Pfizer, these big companies, especially the ones that deal with people that have stock in the company, they have to stop this downsizing.

One way to do is that the CEO shouldn't make millions and millions of dollars and lay off 20,000 people. Another way is to tell the stockholder why they are not looking at the bottom line, why they are keeping jobs and they will understand because who buys from these companies but all of us.

Now, what I do is I have equipment. I can get modern equipment and I can lay off 200 people. I won't do it. And all the people live in the community.

Now, say a company keeps 20 extra people, those 20 extra people might have 80 children and those children will be secure and I think that's one way to start is convincing these big, big companies to stop laying off thousands of people. Lay off maybe 500 people. I mean, give us a break. And the government can help in educating these companies how they can do it, and I'm sure if the public relations of the company tells the stockholder why they are not looking at the bottom line, the bottom line would even be bigger.

MR. BRODSKY: My name is Norman Brodsky and our company is City Storage and we moved to Brooklyn about five years ago, which is wonderful because I was born in Brooklyn so it is like coming home to my roots.

The one thing that I saw here today I was a little disappointed in there is not very many companies that are here. We started here probably with five or 10 people. We have a few hundred people we now employ. We are in the Brighton Point to Williamsburg section. We are building the first new building on the waterfront probably here in 50 or 60 years, and a lot of the things that you are saying here is terrific here. We did a lot of things in the community and we never knew that this existed.

I'm sure there are a hundreds of companies like this, probably a little smaller, that don't have the opportunity to participate in this. We do a lot of things on our own.

We work for special services and work for the Board of Education and hire people and the handicap children from the Board of Education. We do a lot of these things ourselves and I think it is important for this group to go out into the business world and attract the smaller companies.

The larger companies are great. Maybe they have more resources, but the people who are ground zero here are the people you really have to attract.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think that's the reason for this whole -- you've got the exact reason for this meeting, to spread the word. And I would like to know why you moved to Brooklyn five years ago.

MR. BRODSKY: We moved to Brooklyn five years ago because of the rents in the city, the labor force we have here.

I want to tell you about our labor force. We hire from welfare and when we first moved out here, the only people that drove to work were our executives and now you can't even park within our parking areas here because our employees got cars. It is a wonderful thing to see these people get trained.

Pfizer talked before about training people. All our people -- I can remember the first time somebody had a vacation. They said I want to take my vacation. I said, no, you are going to get paid for your vacation. They said, do I have my job when I come back? To see this in the community. We hire lots of community people here and it's a wonderful work force.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: You have touched on what I think is one of the most important things, there are good reasons, from a business point of view, why moving in the inner city or to other parts of the city should be made and what you could be doing. And I think that becomes fascinating, so I would like to follow up with you, if I may, sir. I think I've got where I can get in touch with you.

MR. BRODSKY: Yes, you do. Thank you.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: But this is exactly the reason for this, to try to have regional round tables like this to spread the word.

I'm going to ask Mr. Steere to speak to the crime prevention and business people in the city to suggest that we spread the word across the country, to their branches across the country. It can truly make a difference, and what you all did today by spending this time with me has been very helpful for me.

MS. RUFFINS: My name is Janet Ruffins. I'm executive director of Genesis Homes and I'm the lead agency for the East New York regency. I would offer Pfizer to expand into East New York from Brooklyn. You could probably find you some space.

One of the things I think you said that you are right we have a lot of small companies in East New York. What we are looking for is to figure out how to get companies to invest in, not so much in money, although if you said, here, have some money I would certainly take it, I'm looking for expertise.

You have planning expertise. You have financial expertise. You have the ability to pull together groups to make mergers. You have projects, business projects, think differently than the CEO of a lot of community based organizations.

We work with the 75th. We have the police on board. We are trying to do long, broad, term planning and we need the business to be apart of. And that means what I need most is time. Meaning to come to the table and come to the meetings and really be a part of the larger planning process because there are things that we can be helpful with together that you probably can't do yourself.

They have access. They deal with their particular issues, but you are looking to change a whole neighborhood and that takes investment. I think people are very generous.

We have a lot of businesses that give that do special events but I really do need more time.

MR. CARTER: Jeanette Gadson, Deputy Borough President of Brooklyn.

MS. GADSON: I don't mean to be redundant, but I would be remiss if I did not welcome the Attorney General to Brooklyn. What makes this special, this is a family.

New York City, the Borough of Brooklyn within New York City is a family of neighborhoods, of businesses. The president of our chamber of commerce is here, Ken Adams. This morning the borough president himself was not here because he was celebrating mom and pop day at borough hall, bringing in the merchants from across the borough who have, as the gentleman talked about, the small businesses.

We celebrate that. We celebrate the collaboration that you've seen in this room today, with Brooklyn's corporations. New York City is proud to always talk about their corporations. I'm proud to talk about Brooklyn's corporations.

Our private sector, who for the entire time that I served as deputy borough president of Brooklyn, they have been right there. No matter what the condition or whatever it is that we needed in the borough, they have been there to support us and they are here today, and I am just so glad for your leadership. I am proud to be a woman, to look at how you have taken and thrown away the hatchet and instead served with compassion, with dignity and with community. Your sense of community is profound.

When I traveled with you this morning on that tour, I saw a kind of spirit that is so necessary in government and it is that kind of spirit that makes you the leader that you are. And that's why we can sit around this round table.

And I don't need to tell you about Pfizer, you see, because Pfizer belongs to us here in the Borough of Brooklyn and then they expanded across the world. But first they belonged to us and Pfizer and all the rest of our companies we are very, very, proud of them. And I salute what is being done here today.

My district attorney, Queens district attorney, and this district attorney is wonderful. Did you hear what he was saying? All the collaborative efforts that he's doing. Isn't he great? He's just really great. I just had to tell you that the Borough President of Brooklyn sends his love.

MR. CARTER: Let me point out one thing before I take a couple of last questions and ask the Attorney General to make some observations in wrapping up, if all we did in this session was to inspire each other, we wouldn't be accomplishing very much. That would last for about 24 hours and we would go about our business. So it is our intention to follow up with a series of meetings.

I'd have to tell you, this may disappoint some of you, you are on our permanent mailing list, so we will be bothering you in perpetuity on this issue until we replicate what Pfizer has done here throughout the city.

Chase Manhattan bank has agreed to host the next meeting and you will all be notified. Joe Michaels who is Deputy County Executive of Long Island.

MR. MICHAELS: I would be remiss if I didn't stand up and say something because you've shown a map up on the wall and there is a map in everybody's folder today and Suffolk County is not on it.

But I will tell you this much --

MR. CARTER: The map wasn't large enough.

MR. MICHAELS: Mary O'Donoghue, they can see us in Suffolk County. They are not created -- help create three Weed and Seed sites out in my county and I really must thank them both for doing that. They can see as far as Suffolk County and beyond and know that crime truly is a universal problem and is not something that is truly in an inner city problem, and we appreciate your help.

I would just like to say in Suffolk County we have partnered up with the State University of Stonybrook. We have partnered up with EAB Bank, with several banks, all of which business has taken its role in trying to deal with crime in our communities.

In coming here today, I was interviewing some of the 30 police officers we specially assigned into the three Weed and Seed sites in Suffolk County whose only job is to be involved in community policing and I asked a few of them -- we have been in operation now for the last three years in these three sites of North Amityville, North Bellport and Huntington station. I asked a few of the police officers who work the midnight to eight tour -- did they think that this approach was working?

And one of the police officers, one of the young police officers related a story to me and it ties in.

He said he was on patrol late at night at 3:00 in the morning in the Bellport community and he saw people working in a business -- this was only a couple nights back -- working in a business late at night, and he pulled up in front and said,> this is kind of peculiar, three o'clock in the morning people are working inside this business. And, as some of you, those of you in business do know, 65 percent of all people are employed in small businesses of less than 100 people.

So the officer went around to the back of the building and saw that the garage doors were open and there were several people working in there, none of which looked like they were stealing anything. They were actually involved in what they called sink or boats. They were making sinks and it is a labor intensive job.

The officer said he questioned the manager, the night manager, and said I've never seen lights on here at night. I've never seen people work here at night. This is unusual.

The man said, a couple of years ago we wouldn't do this. We wouldn't come in at night. It was a little too risky. My employees wouldn't show up. But it is hot during the day. We would like to work late night hours so we can avoid the 95 heat of the day.

So the truth is, Weed and Seed in my community, in Suffolk County, is working and I have one question. We had three Weed and Seed sites, none of which are on the map. I noticed that there are four Weed and Seed sites in the county just before us. We would like to get another Weed and Seed site there, too. So if you could see your way in the future, we would like to see that. Thank you.

MR. CARTER: I'm going to have to turn the floor over because we are running out of time to the Attorney General.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: When I was a little girl, my favorite baseball team was the Brooklyn Dodgers.

MR. KLINE: May I interrupt?

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: You have to hear this whole story.

MR. KLINE: Before you do, may I have you addressed appropriately -- this wasn't planned.

This is a Brooklyn Dodgers cap.

MADAM ATTORNEY GENERAL: I have thought over the years why I was a Brooklyn Dodger fan and it was clearly because of Jackie Robinson. My mother said that any team that did that was the best team, and they weren't winning when I started cheering them on and then they started winning. When they moved to Los Angeles that was the darkest moment of my life, but I had named my colt, the only colt that I ever had Dodger. So I often wondered what Ebbett's Field looked like. I wondered what Brooklyn meant. It had such an air of community. A sense of spirit.

I now have another reason for loving Brooklyn. Even as Attorney General I will let you in on something that I did. My sister and I decided to come see my brother and niece in Brooklyn where they have lived for some time. We explained to the security detail who was new that we would take the train to New York and we would take the subway to Brooklyn, which we did. We had a wonderful time.

But as people talk about community, just the sense of community in walking through Brooklyn that night and the sense that I have had over the years as I have come to visit and the fact that another Janet Reno lives in Brooklyn, makes it very special for me.

Now, for this morning you made it extraordinarily special in the sense of your spirit, the experience of so many different people that care.

Mr. Brown, will you forgive me? I will get to know Queens better because I have a niece living up there. But it is very special that it should be in Brooklyn and I will treasure my hat. I always will.

My thanks to you all and particularly to everybody from Pfizer. This has been a wonderful, wonderful morning and I can't tell you how much I appreciate your time and effort you have put into this.

MR. CARTER: We are adjourned.

(The morning proceedings concluded at 12:15 p.m.)

(The afternoon portion was held at Pfizer's Manhattan office.)