NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Claims of Cronyism in the NYPD, Utility Rates on the Rise in New Jersey, Tick Season is Here, and Staten Island’s Maker Park Music Festival

Episode Date: July 9, 2025

Former NYPD chiefs filed lawsuits against the department alleging the Adams administration allowed a system of corruption to take hold in the department. Plus, New Jersey Gov. Murphy's office says utility bills spiked 20% in June. Also, according to Fordham University's tick index, the risk of being bitten by a tick in the New York region this summer is high. And finally, the two-day Maker Park Music Festival kicks off this Friday.

Claims of cronyism in the NYPD. Utility rates on the rise in New Jersey. Tick season is here, and Staten Island's Maker Park Music Festival. From WMYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jinné Pierre. Four former NYPD chiefs filed lawsuits against the department earlier this week, alleging the Adams administration allowed a system of cronyism and corruption to take hold in the department. According to the lawsuits, the chiefs were some of the highest

ranking members of the NYPD. It claims that all of them resigned after they raised concerns about how things were being done in the department and were forced to give up their prestigious titles. WNYC's Ben FewerHurt is covering the story. Ben, tell me about these lawsuits. Yeah, so the suits all cover a few years in the Adams administration that were really overshadowed by alleged corruption in city government, including in the NYPD. The allegations involve top former NYPD officials, including former commissioner Edward Kaban,

and Jeffrey Magery, who both resigned after allegations of corruption came out against them. Kaban notably had his house raided by the FBI, but he's never being charged with a crime. And the suits were filed by former chiefs who say they went against moves in the department made by friends of the mayor. They include James Esseg, who was the former chief of detectives, a sort of public-facing role that's extremely important in the NYPD. What are some of the most significant allegations in these lawsuits? So they allege that friends of the mayor who held top jobs in the department, people like Magery and, Kibon worked to promote unqualified officers to important jobs in the department, and this included transferring unqualified officers to powerful federal local task forces, including a money laundering

unit called the El Dorado Task Force. One suit also alleges that there are a number of improper transfers to the special victims unit, which is the unit that investigates the sex crimes in the city. There's even an allegation that Kavana, the former commissioner, was selling promotions for up to $15,000, but his attorney strongly pushed back on that. You know, Ben, I can't help but think about the impact that something like this would have on everyday New Yorkers. Yeah, so the former chiefs, they're all represented by an attorney, Serena Townsend. And she says the alleged corruption and cronyism in the department has real effects on public safety in the city. All of these task forces, all of these bureaus that Mayor Adams filtered his own people into have a real life impact on New Yorkers.

One thing that stuck out at me in one of the suits was promotions of officers. into the community response team who had a history of not turning on their body cameras at the correct time during a street stop. And the community response team was launched under Adams as a unit that responds to quality of life issues, things like illegal dirt bikes and street vending and illegal license plates.

The suit says that one of the chiefs looked into the issue and found a pattern of unconstitutional stops by officers in the unit. So that's certainly definitely something that impacts everyday New Yorkers. Yeah. What is the city saying about this? So the city says they're going to review the lawsuits, but they also pointed to numbers they say show that crime is continuing to expand down in the city.

The following numbers of shootings, for example, in the city is something that Adams often raises. And he's certainly campaigning for re-election on a public safety message, which helped him get elected in the first place. And attorneys for Edward Gabon, the former police commissioner, who resigned after the FBI raided his house, also really pushed back on the allegations, especially the notion that he sold promotions in the department. That's WMYC's Ben Fewer heard. Now to New Jersey. Governor Phil Murphy's office says utility bills spiked 20% in the Garden State last month. The Murphy administration and some experts say they believe President Trump's tax bill will make them go even higher. Trump's bill increases U.S. reliance on fossil fuels while gutting incentives for wind and solar energy.

Abe Silverman is the former General Counsel for the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities. Silverman says making it harder to bring renewable energy online is going to be expensive. Making clean energy or any other form of electricity generation more expensive or harder is going to raise prices for your consumers. Murphy's office says every option to reduce energy costs in the Garden State is on the table. In New York, there's a fight against Con Edison's proposed rate hike. The utility giant is seeking state approval to increase rates 11% for electricity and 13, percent for gas. That plan has received backlash from ratepayers, elected officials, and advocates.

New Yorkers can share their thoughts at in-person hearings this week. Tick season is going to be bad in the region this summer. After the break, we discuss ways to protect yourself against the external parasite. Stay close, but not as close as a tick. It's tick season, and according to Fordham University's tick index, the risk of being bitten by a tick in the New York region this summer is high. Dr. Tom has spent 40 years studying the external parasites, he's also director of Fordham University's Lewis Calder Center in Westchester County. He warns that ticks are not to be underestimated. Ticks are very important because they're doing quite well in forested areas. Tick habitat is there. We move into it. A lot of our risk is peridimestic. It's right around the house. And consequently,

we're exposed at levels that we hadn't been for a long time. Daniels says tics are the most important vectors of disease in the U.S. They posed a threat of a bacterial infection called Lyme disease. Daniel says the disease can be treated with antibiotics, but you can potentially have long-term problems with your heart or nervous system. It mimics lots of things. And so you end up with a headache, you end up feeling achy, there are flu-like symptoms. But the hallmark characteristic that we came to recognize is this rash.

And it's called erythema migrans because it moves. it actually is a rash that gets larger over the span of a few days to a week or so before it disappears. And it often has the appearance of a bullseye. I think we can all agree. No one wants a rash. Unlike ticks, a rash is something you can typically feel. Daniel says the problem with ticks is that you never know when one is attached to you. And they've gotten pretty good at it.

After all, ticks have been around for about 90 million years. And they figured out a way to avoid being detained. The primary way they do that is to attach while they're secreting a number of different chemical compounds into the wound that they just created. And those compounds reduce itching and they reduce inflammation and they reduce antibody response. You can go days without realizing you've got a tick attached to you. And that's just the strategy that they use to feed on you. So without doing inspections of yourself, looking very, very closely,

especially if you've been outdoors and finding a tick and pulling it off, the likelihood of knowing you've actually been bitten is pretty remote. Daniel says ticks enjoy damp and shaded areas where there's relatively high humidity at the ground. So if you plan on hanging in the woods, forests, or any campgrounds this summer,

be sure to wear long sleeves and use repellents. If that doesn't work and you find a tick attached to your skin, you should remove it as soon as possible. Daniel says the bacteria that causes Lyme disease takes a little bit of time to be transmitted by an infected tick. And so you have about 24 to possibly 48 hours before an infected tick is able to transmit the bacteria to the organism it's biting. But there are other pathogens in that tick. And so the safest thing you can do is to get that tick off as soon as you see it. Grab a pair of sharp pointy tweezers.

grab the tick as close to your skin as possible and pull it out. That's Dr. Tom Daniels, director of Fordham University's Lewis Calder Center. It's never too early to make weekend plans. And if you've stuck with the same indie rock playlist since the Obama era, Staten Island may be your party grounds this weekend. That's where the two-day Maker Park Music Festival kicks off this Friday. It's got nearly a dozen artists, including Don Deacon, John Spencer, Horsegirl, and more. Kristen Wallace started the festival eight years ago when she moved from Brooklyn to Staten Island.

We often ask the audience how many people have been here for the first time. And usually it's a lot of people. So many people would come up to us and be like, this is so cool. I didn't even know this existed. Check it out. Doors open at 5 p.m. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Junae Pierre.

We'll be back tomorrow.