NYC NOW - August 14, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

The Adams administration is facing criticism over tent encampments near a migrant shelter on Randall’s Island. Meanwhile, the City Council will vote Thursday on a resolution emphasizing the role of school newspapers in fostering student expression and critical thinking skills. Plus, while NYPD statistics show a decline in certain violent crimes, such as murders and shootings, a new report highlights a rise in felony assaults. Finally, New York City's Campaign Finance Board is scrutinizing donations to Mayor Adams’ 2021 campaign fund, particularly contributions from Queens-based Royal Waste Services.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, August 14th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The Adams administration is facing criticism this morning over tent encampments near a migrant shelter on Randall's Island. Under city policy, shelters may evict single adult migrants after 30 days. those who've applied for asylum are eligible for extensions. Camille Joseph Varlack is the mayor's chief of staff.

She says the city plans to address this issue. We will have conversations with the folks there, understand exactly why they're there, who the individuals are, whether or not they are asylum seekers, whether or not they may be other individuals, and make sure that they're given the resources that they can move on. The number of migrants arriving in the city dropped below 1,000 last month. That's the lowest level since 2022, but the city is still caring for around 65,000 migrants.

Local officials are asking the New York City Department of Education to ensure there's a student newspaper at every high school. The city council will vote on a resolution tomorrow that says school newspapers provide students with a platform to express their ideas while developing critical thinking skills. Student journalism advocates say the measure is a step in the right direction. Katina Perron is working with CUNY's journalism school to develop a new curriculum as part of a new high school elective. Young people deserve to have a seat at the table on issues that affect them, and high school journalism, scholastic journalism is a step towards that. The DOE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. As NYPD statistics show most violent crimes such as murder and shootings,

continue to decline across New York City, a new report is highlighting a rise in felony assaults. As WNIC's Brittany Craigstein reports, researchers say there are a lot of reasons those numbers are growing. Felony assaults are typically the most harmful kinds of assaults, the ones that can lead to severe injury or even death, and they've been climbing every year since 2020. That's particularly concerning because to become a felony assault, it's not just getting punched. That's Elizabeth Glazer, the founder of Vital City, the nonprofit that made the report. She also served as director of the mayor's office of criminal justice under de Blasio. Her team crunched several years' worth of NYPD data. They found other usually less violent

crimes like harassment, misdemeanor assault, and criminal mischief have also gone up since the pandemic. And they're the kinds of incidents that can happen anywhere in any near, on the subway in the street in Midtown. And Glazer says that could be fueling New Yorkers fears about public safety. Jeffrey Butts is a professor at CUNY's John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He says it's hard to figure out why people are committing assaults, but necessary to address the problem. So it could be housing issues, income, family trauma. Lots of things can lead people to react violently against one another.

But he says New Yorkers should keep the stats in perspective. On a per capita basis, the city's crime rate is still below other major cities like L.A., Chicago, and Philly. Brittany Crickside, WNYC News. Stay close. There's more after the break. NYC. New York City's campaign finance board is paying close attention to some donations to Mayor Adams' 2021 campaign fund, and is scrutinizing some contributions from a Queens trash hauling company called Royal Waste Services. Here to explain it's doubly-MICs, Liam Quigley.

Liam, tell us about this company's donations to the Adams campaign back then and what licenses they were given. Yeah, so this company was flagged on a campaign finance board draft audit for making a number of donations on the same day in June of 2021. that got the suspicions aroused and flagged them on this list. And then years later, they went on to get licenses in these commercial waste zones. The donations totaled a little over $10,000, and they were all made on the same day. So that got them flagged. Liam and tell us, what is the commercial waste zone? Yeah, so these are new zones.

Basically, residential trash is picked up by the sanitation department, but all businesses in the city have to. use private carding companies. So for years and years, those companies could come from all over the city. They could pick up in the Bronx and then go to Manhattan. But the waste zone system is designed to restrict the amount of miles. All those companies were racing around for decades. And because people were dying and it was just kind of a really dangerous industry. The sanitation commissioner called it, you know, the Wild West. So these new zones are kind of key to survival for these companies. you really need to get in a zone to keep picking up commercial trash in New York City.

The city's been trying to reform the private waste industry for quite some time. What was the goal of the overhaul? Really, it's about cutting down on the miles these vehicles are traveling. That produces effects for the environment that are negative. It's bad for the workers. It's bad for pedestrians and bicyclists who are dying under the wheels of these trucks. So it's really a whole suite of issues that the city, wants to fix by restricting these companies to certain zones, which they have to get into by

proving that they're safe operators and that they have a plan to really operate in a way that's less dangerous. And so has the mayor's campaign, has it had anything to say about this? Mayor Adams campaign officials didn't reply to request for comment about this particular company that was flagged in the audit. And to be clear, they're not accused directly of any wrongdoing and neither is royal waste. Have you heard from good government advocates, any of them about any of this? Yeah, Rachel Foss with the group Reinvent Albany, told me how these type of donations that get flagged by the campaign finance board can be indicative of an individual or a group

of people trying to gain some influence by amplifying their donations. If you are gathering donations from a bunch of people and you deliver them to the campaign and you are the intermediary, you are definitely the way of amplifying your you're standing with the campaign, right? So sanitation officials are really strongly defending their selection. They say the process was very rigorous and that companies that wanted to get in these zones, including Royal Waste, had to submit thousands of pages of paperwork, safety plans, etc. So they're really defending this selection process, which has been years in the making.

Liam, what else is mentioned in the campaign finance board audit that made your head turn? There's definitely some names that are familiar. if you're following these investigations into the Adams campaign and how some of the fundraising happened behind the scenes. There's KSK Construction Group, which has been the subject of investigation by the FBI into potential straw donors. There's also New World Mall.

So Royal Waste ends up on that list. It doesn't mean that they're the subject of the same type of investigation, but it's a thing that auditors were looking into. WNIC's Liam Quigley. And thanks for joining us. You can read Liam Fall Story at our news site, Gothamist. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC.

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