NYC NOW - April 2, 2024: Evening Roundup

Episode Date: April 2, 2024

A New York state budget deal remains out of reach in Albany. Meanwhile, New York state’s first legislative staff union is on the verge of landing its first contract. Plus, a grand jury has indicted the man arrested for killing NYPD officer Jonathan Diller. Also, WNYC’s Sean Carlson and Arun Venugopal discuss the new Netflix film, “Shirley.” And finally, WNYC’s David Furst talks about tips to get the complete solar eclipse experience this weekend with Cody Shakespeare, with the Amateur Astronomers Association of NYC.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. We begin in Albany, where a New York State budget deal remains out of reach. Assembly Speaker Carl Hasty says negotiations with the Senate and Assembly are progressing. They're just slow. The train is going in the right direction, but maybe we're riding on the local track and not the express track. Hasty is a Democrat who represents parts of the Bronx. Among the major issues under discussion are housing policy and Medicaid spending.

Governor Kathy Hockel wants to revive a tax credit for New York City developers who include affordable apartments in their buildings. But Democratic lawmakers say they won't do it without additional eviction protections for existing tenants. New York's first legislative staff union is on the verge of its first contract with the city council. Speaker Adrian Adams signed the proposed agreement on Tuesday. WMYC's Bridget Bergen has more. It's been a long, hard fight for the Association of Legislative Employees. The union of some 370 council staffers has spent two years at the bargaining table and a decade of organizing. The tentative deal includes a host of worker protections and a 60% pay bump for the least paid employees.

Union President Daniel Kroop works as a council finance analyst and says, says the deal is sorely needed. We're about to introduce enforceable protections to hopefully put an end to the unfair treatment, termination, and abuse. So I think of it a little bit like Rules of the Road where there once was a wild west. Members will have to ratify the deal later this month. A grand jury has indicted the man arrested for killing NYPD officer Jonathan Diller. WMYC's Charles Lane has the details.

The grand jury approved charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and weapon possession against Guy Rivera. Prosecutors say Rivera was parked illegally and opened fire as Diller and his partners investigated. The grand jury agreed that there was enough evidence to hold a trial over whether Rivera attempted to kill Diller's partner. A jury also indicted the driver of the car, Lindy Jones, with weapons possession after prosecutors say they found a loaded pistol in the glove box with the serial number defaced. Rivera faces life in prison if convicted. Jones faces 15 years on top of already pending weapons charges. Rivera's attorneys declined to comment, and messages to Jones's lawyer were not returned. It's primary day in New York, but let's be honest. This one lacks a bit of

excitement. After the break, we'll go back over 50 years to the 1972 campaign of New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisle. Stick around for that conversation and more. Primary Day has reached New York. Both President Biden and former President Trump have already secured more delegates than they need to win their party's nominations at the conventions this summer. Still, voters like Ann Scott say she's going to vote no matter what. This happens to be a foregone conclusion, but the next one is not, and I just feel like I want my vote to count. But let's go back in time to primaries of the past, ones where the nominees weren't a guaranteed win. In 1972, New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm ran for the Democratic presidential nomination,

which was the first time a black woman ran for any major political party. A new film on Netflix captures the energy and the shortcomings of her campaign. It's called Shirley, and it stars Oscar winner Regina King as Chisholm. Her sister, Raina King, produced a film, which was 15 years in the making. The sisters, Raina and Regina King said they felt like a lot of people who, They expected to know a lot about Chisholm's story just weren't aware of who she was. That's WMY's season room Venigapal. He recently saw the film and talked about it with my colleague, Sean Carlson.

So let's talk about the movie. As a presidential candidate, Chisholm takes her message to voters. It's a message of change. What did that sound like? Well, Shirley Chisholm became a national figure in the immediate wake of the civil rights movement. So she was navigating all these very intense cross currents. You had the Vietnam War, which was happening at the time. Black power was alive and well.

Chisholm believed in channeling energies into the political system, getting people to care and to vote. Here's a scene from a black church from the movie. Our will can create a new America in 1972. One where there is freedom from violence and war, at home and abroad. Where there is freedom from poverty and poverty. discrimination where there exists at least a feeling that we are making progress for everyone. Progress for everyone. So that's her message from a campaign rally as captured in the movie,

Shirley. At the same time, Sean, you know, she's fighting disillusioned white voters who felt that civil rights movement had been a mistake and who were increasingly drawn to the law and order message of President Nixon, who was the incumbent who she was trying to go up against. Aram, what can you tell us about Chisholm the person herself? Well, she was born in Brooklyn, but at an early age, she was sent with her siblings to Barbados, where her mother was from. And then eventually she returned to Brooklyn. So her accent in real life and then in the film also carries more than trace of those years of living elsewhere, which you will hear in the movie. But the movie really doesn't tell us anything about her upbringing or her years at Brooklyn College or her political awakening and her assent.

She was the second black person to enter the New York state legislature, Sean. and in 1968 she was elected to Congress. The movie focuses entirely on a different moment in time. That's just over 50 years ago when Chisholm decided that a small group of old men, as she once wrote, exerted way too much control over the nation. And that was time for a change. Well, tell us more about the movie. How is she portrayed as a candidate?

A mixed bag. She felt really strongly about the issues, but her feelings were fairly nuanced in ways that her advisors were kind of pulling their hair out about. They were cautioning against these kinds of answers. They wanted simple answers, right? And she really resisted, which we can hear in this clip. It concerns busing. Busing is an ineffective solution to school integration.

It is a burden carried by the same children we're trying to help. That is a great answer for Florida. But you can't say that you don't support busing in Massachusetts or New York. It does sound like something Wallace would see. Interesting. So, yes, these very complex answers, which they're really trying to push. back against. And by Wallace, which they say she sounds like they're referring to George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, staunch segregationist. He's also running for the Democratic nomination

and makes a number of scenes in this movie. Now, Chisholm died in 2005. From the perspective of the filmmakers, and I'm Chisholm supporters, what was her legacy? I think for a lot of people, the emphasis has always been on her being a first, the first black woman to run on a major ticket for the presidency. but I was in an advanced screening for this film and I heard a different argument by Zingha Fraser. She is the director of the Shirley Chisholm Project of Brooklyn Women's Activism at Brooklyn College. And before the movie, she spoke and she said the important thing is not so much that Chisholm was first, but that she was someone who sparked a fire and she was a catalyst for change. Frazier's argument is that anyone can be that catalyst even today.

And that's why Shirley Chisholm is relevant. why they feel that this movie is relevant even in 2024. That's WNYC's Arun Venigapal talking with my colleague, Sean Carlson. There's a solar eclipse happening on April 8th. New Yorkers are in luck because Western and northern parts of the state will be in the path of totality. Cody Shakespeare is an education outreach volunteer with the Amateur Astronomers Association of NYC.

He lives in Queens, but plans to travel north on the big day. WMYC's David First talks with Cody about tips to get the complete eclipse experience. So it looks like the path of totality will include Buffalo, Rochester, Plattsburgh, Syracuse, will be right on the edge of the total eclipse viewing path. Where are you heading? So I'll be heading over near the shores of Lake Erie, probably on the New York side, maybe on the Pennsylvania side, it depends on the weather. Are you trying to look for the spot that on that,

day is going to be the most cloud-free? Yeah, that's right. So I'll definitely check the weather the morning of, and by that time, the weather will be very reliable. But the day before, morning of, I'll check the weather and make sure I end up in the right spot. So, Cody, what made you want to go? Have you ever done something like this before? Yeah, so I've known about, they call them the two great American eclipses. I've known about them since 2016 when I graduated high school, and I went to the 2017 solar eclipse. I went down to Tennessee, or Kentucky, I can't remember, and saw it in totality. So that was really amazing. It made me even more sure that I would go visit this one as well. What do you do when you're not chasing a solar eclipse?

Well, I'm a PhD student in astrophysics, so I'm doing research on exoplanets. So this is right in the middle of your wheelhouse. Yeah, definitely. It's total solar eclipses are one of the most amazing experiences. Total solar eclipses really give you a perspective on what our moon and our sun really is. The moon is just a ball of rock and the sun's just giant ball of fire. It kind of really puts everything in perspective because you see it in real time as the moon goes in front of the sun. Meanwhile, Governor Hockel and lots of other people are reminding New Yorkers to stay safe when viewing the eclipse. Looking directly at the sun during a solar eclipse can lead to permanent eye damage. So how are you preparing for the event? About 10 solar eclipse glasses, I'm probably going to give

some of them to my friends and family who won't be going to the path of totality. You've been in that moment before, right? What does it feel like? Does it feel like you're in one of those scenes from 2001 Space Odyssey? Yeah, it really does. It's, you know, you kind of take this sun for granted in essence, like it's always up there. Like it's just this lamp that's always on. But for a moment, it goes away. And you feel the drop in temperature. It suddenly gets a lot colder. It's like, it's like night just fell upon you within like a couple seconds. If you look around you during the eclipse, there's a sunset in all directions. And like the birds, everything will go silent.

I mean, people will go silent too. So it's really an amazing moment where, you know, all life, everywhere you look, there's evidence that this is happening. That's Cody Shakespeare. Volunteer with the Amateur Astronomers Association talking with WMYC's David First. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Jenae Pierre.

We'll be back tomorrow.