At a gathering billed as “a fireside chat” with the Partnership for New York City’s Kathryn Wylde and sponsored by Crains New York, Gov. Kathy Hochul shook up the narrative that she’s to blame for congestion pricing. Instead, she said she inherited the issue from former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. 

“I have to clean up the mess,” she told Wylde in front of an audience of business leaders Tuesday in New York City. “I never gravitate toward the easy. I gravitate toward the hard.”

Hochul had a sympathetic audience in Wylde, president and CEO of the partnership and a vocal proponent of congestion pricing. 

“It’s going to take us into the next generation,” Wylde said, citing data that indicates fixing the subway’s infrastructure will save $20 billion in lost productivity. 

Hochul also promised that she would continuously monitor the new pricing scheme, which goes into effect in January. 

“This is not turn it on and say goodbye,” Hochul said. “We will continue looking at this.”

Wylde kicked off the conversation by mentioning three recent stabbing deaths in New York City; two of which took place in the neighborhood where the governor and her husband live.

“It’s abhorrent,” Hochul told the audience. “It shakes our sense of security to the core."

The suspect in the three cases has stayed in the past at the main men’s intake shelter near Bellevue Hospital, and has a history of mental health issues.

The governor pointed out that her administration had invested $3 billion in mental health supports, including supportive housing which now serves 700 people in New York City. She also appeared to push for an expansion of Kendra’s Law, though she didn’t mention the law by name. The law allows for involuntary outpatient commitment.

Hochul also denied that bail laws are to blame for criminal recidivism.

“It’s the implementation of those laws (that’s the problem),” she said.