NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: NYC to Regulate Pollution From E-Commerce Warehouses, Lt. Gov. Weighs Future in Politics, the Symbolism of Rikers Island and Egg Prices

Episode Date: February 28, 2025

New York City lawmakers are considering two bills that would regulate Amazon-style warehouses to reduce pollution and improve air quality. Plus, New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado won’t run for re-election but he's not leaving politics. Also, Mayor Eric Adams steps into a longstanding controversy over the city’s racial past at the Rikers Island jail complex and the symbolism around its name. And finally, a look at what’s behind the high price of eggs these days.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. I'm Jene Pierre. Local lawmakers are considering two bills that would require Amazon-style warehouses in New York City to reduce pollution and improve air quality. The measures would call on the city's Environmental Department to create rules for areas that have frequent big freight truck traffic. Experts say those areas are disproportionately in low-income communities of color, like Red Hook, and have some of the worst air quality. The Environmental Department says it supports one of the measures,

which mandates regulations and penalties for sites that attract heavy trucks. A spokesperson for Amazon says the company has no comment on the bills. New York Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado is stepping away from re-election, but he's not stepping away from politics. Delgado says he's still weighing his options for the future. In a recent interview, he reiterated his support for democratic priorities like health care reform and economic equality, but was pressed on how he could push for change

despite sharing similar views with current state leadership. When you have economic power to the degree that our corporations have, they can channel that and make that economic power political power. And they're the ones who get in the rooms. They're the ones who have access to that political power. Delgado's comments come days after he announced he will not run alongside Governor Kathy Hokel in 2026. There's renewed focus on Rikers Island since Mayor Adams announced that he'd allow ice agents to operate in the jail complex.

More on that after the break. New York City Mayor Eric Adams says he wants to allow federal immigration agents onto Rikers Island, advancing President Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration. The mayor is stepping into a longstanding controversy over the city's racial past and the symbolism around the Rikers' name. WMYC's a room. Vinicapal has more. When I say people, you say power. People.

Power! People! Power! A few weeks ago, prison reform activist Darren Mack stood before a crowd of demonstrators outside city hall. He invoked the name of a city official from the 1800s, Richard Reiker. He was a judge. And what he did, he made a deal with races from the South that came to New York City to kidnap free black men, women and children to put them back into the bonded.

of that present system of savour. Riker was part of the family that owned Rikers Island. He operated at the center of a network of white people, known as the Kidnapping Club, who helped capture black New Yorkers and transport them into the hands of southern slave owners, ostensibly under the Fugitive Slave Act. Mack is the co-director of Freedom Agenda,

a group that works with people affected by incarceration. His point about Riker wasn't merely academic, but likened Riker to Mayor Adams. saying he too had made a deal, only with the Trump administration, and that it endangers black and brown immigrants awaiting trial. He made a deal to put immigrants into a system of bondage or rack is out, and that's not right. The office of Mayor Adams rejected Max analogy. In a statement, Liz Garcia, a spokesperson for the mayor, called it an egregious, uninformed comparison.

She said the city has cared for 232,000 migrants. and that the mayor wants to address the small number of migrants committing violent crimes in our city. But Darren Mack says the mayor's plan can't be separated from the history of Rikers. Historian Jonathan Daniel Wells says Richard Riker sat atop the kidnapping club. It really was a group who tried to make life pretty miserable for black folks in New York City before the Civil War. Wells is the author of The Kidnapping Club, Wall Street, Slavery and Resistance on the eve of the Civil War. He says Reiker was often presented with cases where he had to decide whether a black New Yorker was legally free or, in fact, a fugitive slave who had to be returned to a slave owner by law.

The problem was that when there was any gray area or any room for doubt, he almost always decided on the side of the white slave owners. Will says Reiker was like many rich and powerful New Yorkers, who knew the city's economy was deeply tied to that of the South and to slavery. Riker's chief antagonist was David Ruggles, a black New Yorker and abolitionist who coined the phrase the kidnapping club. He brought attention to the disappearance of countless people in New York City, including black children. It's probable that they would never be seen again and that they would live their lives enslaved. Jacob Morris runs the Harlem Historical Society and started a campaign 10 years ago calling for Rikers Island to be renamed because of its association with Richard Riker and the violence in the state. inside the jail. The chief judge of New York City's legal system going along with the kidnapping of

children and his name is on the island, the largest penal colony. That's disgusting. That's a disgrace. But prison reform activist Darren Mack says he wants the name to remain for now. As a 17-year-old, he was incarcerated at Rikers for 19 months before serving a 20-year sentence for being an accessory to robbery. He experienced firsthand what he called the oppressive brutality of Rikers. You know, the name is directly connected to a system of oppression, bondage, and inhumanity with Richard Riker. Therefore, the name should remain until we end this 21st century bondage and oppressive system. Under a plan announced by the city, Rikers is set to be closed in 2027, but advocates say it's unlikely that deadline will be met. That's WMYC's

Arum Vanikapal. How much are you paying for a dozen eggs right now? I recently paid $4.99 for a dozen, and folks in the WMYC newsroom have spotted prices as high as $12. And it's not just fancy organic eggs versus conventional factory-formed ones. Sometimes the same exact product is priced differently one day to the next. My colleague Michael Hill talked with WMYC's Ryan Kylath, who's been looking into what's behind these price swings. So is the trick for finding cheap eggs just to go to big chain retailers then? I wish it were so simple.

Big national stores do have these economies of scale on their side, but that's not the only factor here. Plus, we don't all have those stores nearby. Stepping back a bit to the causes for these spikes, right? There's been a bird flu outbreak in this country since 2020, ongoing with ups and downs. Right now, we are in a particular. bad place with it. So for context, in 2020, the U.S. lost some 40 million chickens to bird flu. This year so far, we're over 23 million. So this has obviously wiped out egg supply, hence the price increases. But the outbreak is concentrated among conventional egg producers. Three quarters of the

lost chickens this year are in these big sort of caged bird factory farm kind of spot. Mostly in the Midwest, but more than 2 million birds lost in Pennsylvania, which is a big supplier for New York. And that's one reason why the fancy, organic, cage-free, pasture-raised eggs, the stuff we normally think of as expensive, those are often cheaper than the conventional eggs right now because of that bird flu mismatch. Now, bodegas, supermarkets that mostly stock conventional eggs, you know, associated key food, they're exposed to those higher prices on conventional, and they have less inventory space, so they're more exposed to daily price swings on the wholesale market, too. And ironically, the bougie stores that stock mostly fancy eggs, sometimes those can be the cheaper option right now.

Wow. Now, is that consistent that the fancy eggs are cheaper? Hard to say, we've been collecting prices from all five boroughs, only hit about 20 stores, but that's been roughly consistent so far. Of course, with supply wiped out on those conventional eggs, demand is way up on the fancy. Let'sy ones. So prices are climbing there, too, just less. Several retailers I spoke with said they're having a hard time getting any eggs in at all. Their normal purchase orders are going half filled. The manager of one key food in the Bronx told our colleague, Catalina Ginella, he's just buying any eggs he can, any brand, any amount, any time, whenever he can. It's the craziest thing he's seen in 25 years in business. Yeah. How long does this going to last, right? So it takes about six months to go from ordering a new chick to getting that first egg from it. So we are probably in for at least a few months of these high prices while farms rebuild their flocks. And of course, the outbreak is ongoing, so the chicken losses will likely continue.

It sounds obvious that you have been on the hunt. But until that time frame, you mentioned, what can consumers do to hunt down the best prices? Yeah, basically you want to shop like a 19th, century villager, you know, like get to know your supplier, talk to your local grocer, find out their timing and their movements. Tracking egg prices is a full-time job. That's WNYC's Ryan Kylath, talking with my colleague, Michael Hill. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a lovely weekend. We'll be back on Monday.