NYC NOW - Evening Roundup: Slower Speeds Coming to Some Neighborhoods, a Warning About Skin Lightening Products, and the Decline of the Butterfly Population

Episode Date: March 19, 2025

Transportation officials say a speed limit of 20 MPH is coming to four New York City neighborhoods. Plus, city health officials are warning New Yorkers about certain skin lightening products that contain high levels of mercury. And finally, what New Yorkers can do to help support the butterfly population.

Slower speeds are coming to some New York City neighborhoods. City health officials warn about skin lightning products and the decline of the butterfly population. From WMYC, this is NYC now. I'm Jene Pierre. Transportation officials say a speed limit of 20 miles per hour is coming to four New York City neighborhoods. They are St. George on the northern tip of Staten Island, Dumbo in northwest Brooklyn, Broad Channel, and Queens, and City Island in the Bronx. The city is allowed to reduce the speed limit from 25 to 20 miles per hour on most of his streets

thanks to legislation passed last year known as Sammy's law. The measure is named for a Brooklyn child who was killed by a vehicle in 2013 on Prospect Park West. While the city council could pass legislation to lower the speed limit throughout the entire city, it has so far declined to do so. In the meantime, the DOT is only lowering the speed limit in certain sections only. City health officials are warning New Yorkers about certain skin lightning products that contain high levels of mercury. Skin lightning creams may be used to whiten the skin or remove freckles in acne. The city's acting health commissioner, Dr. Michelle Morse, says these products are a response to a cultural norm

in which lighter skin is perceived to be more beautiful. What we hope, of course, over time, is that that norm is no longer the norm, that it's no longer the belief that lighter skin is better or more beautiful. And that would, of course, be the cultural shift that's needed to decrease the demand for these products in the first place. Exposure to mercury can damage the nervous system and kidneys. A list of the 22 products with high mercury levels is available on the New York City Health Department's website. A look at how much money the mayoral candidates raised. That's after the break.

New York City candidates for mayor are asking for more than, your vote before the June primaries. Candidates are also busy raising money so they can persuade more people to support them. New York City's campaign finance program requires rigorous documentation, but it also offers an eight-to-one match for candidates who qualify. My colleague Michael Hill spoke with senior politics reporter Bridget Berg. Bridget, before we dig into these numbers, remind us quickly how the program works and if there was anything you were watching for from the candidates this time around. Sure, Michael. So, all candidates running for city office have to file these regular campaign disclosure statements

that detail how much money they've raised and spent. And if candidates choose to participate in that very generous 8-to-1 matching funds program you mentioned, they can see that money, the money they raise go even further, but it's really only if they qualify. So I was paying attention to see whether the newest mayoral candidates, that would be Andrew Cuomo and Adrian Adams, hit the thresholds required to unlock those matching funds. And what that means is they needed to raise at least $250,000 in matchable donations from 1,000 city donors.

All right, Bridget, let's start with the former governor. How did Andrew Cuomo do? Oh, Michael, gangbusters. In the two weeks, his campaign was up and running, he surpassed both of those figures. The campaign raised actually $1.5 million, of which, they say more than 330,000 could qualify for matching money. Those funds won't be paid out until next month, and that will be after the New York City Campaign Finance Board processes the claims.

But the campaign could be going from, you know, zero to four million dollars in a very short window of time. And that could be setting up some real alarm bells for his challengers. I spoke with Evan Stavisky. He's a Democratic political consultant who's not working for any of the mayoral campaigns. He's president of the Parkside Group. And, you know, in honor of baseball, season, he put it like this. Yogi Berra famously said it gets late early out here.

So early voting starts in less than three months. And Andrew Cuomo clearly made a fundraising statement in his most recent filing. So it's getting late for the other candidates to consolidate their support if they want to beat them. So now what I'm really going to be watching for is how those other candidates react to those numbers Cuomo put on the board. Now, Bridget, you mentioned City Council Speaker Adrian Adams. What about her? Well, you know, keep in mind she entered the race about a week after Cuomo. so she had less time to raise a whole lot of money,

and she still has a whole lot of money to raise. She raised just about $128,000 in that period, so not all of that qualified for matching. She'll still need to raise another about $140,000 to hit the thresholds. And unfortunately, she won't be able to submit another filing until May 23rd and then possibly get paid out a week later. Of course, her team is putting the best spin on it they can. She announced a campaign team,

which includes some people who used to, to work for Cuomo and former Mayor Bill de Blasio in past years, but she really needs the money to expand her name recognition. She does have some advantages that the other candidates don't. As we've talked about before, Michael, she has a really strong base of support on her home turf, which is Southeast Queens. And I was talking to Basil Smichael, former chair of the New York State Democratic Party and now a professor of practice at Columbia's School of Professional Studies. He says, you know, you can't overlook that Southeast Queen's connection. even though she has some ground to cover in terms of her fundraising and maybe raising her name recognition,

the other candidates still need the votes that she may have more ready access to. And of course her campaign says she's planning to be out there on the stump campaigning, trying to make up in retail politics, some of which she can't currently buy in ad time. So does that mean Cuomo is the frontrunner in the money race too? Yeah, not exactly. It's interesting, right? So this is a crowded field, and some of these candidates have been at it longer. Queens Assembly member Zoran Mamdani is lapping all the candidates when it comes to individual contributors. That's the number of people actually giving to his campaign.

He has nearly 19,000 people who have donated to his campaign from all across the city, but with particularly high concentration in Brooklyn and Queens, he raised nearly $850,000 in this fundraising period alone. and with more than half a million dollars in matching claims. That means his campaign could be on pace to receive another multi-million dollar matching funds payment next month. City Comptroller Brad Lander is also expected to hit the fundraising and spending caps for the primary. And with all that money, they are working to remind voters about all the reasons Cuomo left office. Lander was out in front of the publisher Penguin yesterday, calling out Cuomo for taking that $5 million advance to write a book about the pandemic five years ago.

while the pandemic was still happening. That kind of rhetoric, Michael, is not going away anytime soon. Bridget, where does Mayor Adams fit into all this? Yeah, Michael, so the mayor had an anemic fundraising period, to put it mildly. He raised less than $20,000 since January. Only 43 people gave in that last filing. There were also 16 refunds. By contrast, the campaign spent nearly $160,000, so that's more than eight times the amount they raised. That's host Michael Hill in conversation with politics reporter Bridgetberg. And finally, you may have heard some bad news recently about butterflies. Tonight, an alarming news study is causing a flutter in the scientific world.

America's butterflies are on the decline. The journal Science finding that since 2000, the insect's population has dropped 22%. A new report in the journal Science finds the population of butterflies in the U.S. has declined by 22% over the last. 25 years. But WMYC's Alec Hamilton says these are the things you can do to help, even if you don't have a yard. Jeffrey Glassberg has loved butterflies since he was five years old. When I walk out into a field and it's filled with butterflies, it just makes me feel so good. He's the founder and president of the North American Butterfly Association and one of the authors on that paper. Since 1984, He's been running an annual butterfly count in northern New Jersey.

He says the situation locally... It's not good. In Westchester, we've lost about 50% of the individual butterflies over the last 30 years. Climate change is a big cause. So is habitat loss. A lot of people, they hear a parking lot is built. And you say, well, what happens to the butterflies? And for a lot of people think, oh, well, they just...

move somewhere else. But he says that's not the case. When you build the parking lot and have destroyed that little meadow that was there, the population of butterflies that live in the meadow are now gone from the face of the earth. So every time you build the parking lot or the houses or the shopping mall, you're decreasing the number of butterflies. Pesticides also play a role. Louise Washer is a co-founder of the nonprofit Pollinator Pathway.

New York has done a really, really important thing, which is to pass the Birds and Bees Protection Act in 2023. The law limits the use of certain pesticides, like neonicotinoids, that are particularly harmful. Just a grain of salt-sized amount of one of these neoniccs can kill 15,000 bees. So Washer says buying organic produce is one way to help butterflies. You can also volunteer at a neighborhood park and push for them to lay off pesticides and plant native plants. having a diversity of the native plants that might serve them in our parks is just a huge, huge thing. Her organization advocates for more of these types of spots. If you think about parks as being these oases for wildlife, then you have to think of like our apartment

buildings and our streets as the connectors between those oases. And if you do have a yard or a tree pit or a stoop or even a fire escape, just putting out a pot with a mix of native plants, or like annuals, like zinias, you can provide a little way station for butterflies that might be trying to travel across the city. But like, who cares? The world's a little crazy right now. Why care about butterflies? Glassburg says that butterflies and moss together make up the most important food for songbirds

in North America. But maybe you don't care about birds either. Glassburg says he actually had that conversation with someone at a party recently. I said, well, look, do you really want a world for your grandkids where there are no butterflies in the earth that's sick and everything? And he says to me, damn, that's their problem. It's hard to argue with that. But he does argue with that. It's our biological heritage.

It's like what good is the Mona Lisa? You know, there's a lot of people who would say, I don't care if the Mona Lisa gets destroyed. But for a lot of other people, that's important part of the human cultural heritage. and butterflies are a major part of human biological heritage of the planet. The human biological heritage of the planet, a treasure. That's WNYC's Alec Hamilton. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.