NYC NOW - February 20, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

The U.S.Supreme Court says it won’t take up a pair of challenges to state laws that cap rent hikes on roughly a million New York City rent-stabilized apartments. Meanwhile, the MTA is planning to replace all the fluorescent lights in the subway with LED ones.Plus, construction related deaths are trending up in New York City for the third year in a row, according to a report from the non-profit New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health. WNYC’s Michael Hill talks with Charlene Obernauer, executive director of NYCOSH to discuss their yearly report.Finally, an artificial turf war is spreading through the Garden State. WNYC's Rosemary Misdary reports from Montclair where a dispute over the turf it used for athletic fields has turned bitter.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Tuesday, February 20th. Here's the midday news from Lance Lucky. Tenants in about a million rent-stabilized apartments in New York City can breathe a sigh of relief. The U.S. Supreme Court says it won't take up a pair of challenges to state laws that cap rent increases on roughly half of the apartments in the city. Jay Martin is executive director. of the Landlord Trade Group Community Housing Improvement Program, he says this won't be the last

time landlords try and take aim at the laws. We're expecting there will be other challenges, but this puts even more pressure on the legislature. Martin says he wants state lawmakers to allow owners to raise rents, unsstabilized departments beyond the annual increases currently allowed, but tenant advocates and the heads of the Senate and Assembly Housing Committees say that is out of the question. The MTA has a bright idea. planning to replace all of the fluorescent lights in the subway with LED ones. The agency says LED lights are more luminous and cheaper.

Dmitrius Critchlow is Senior Vice President for Subways. He says riders will notice the change. Your platforms, mezzanines, and staircases will now be lighter and brighter, and that will give the sense of comfort that the system is more safe. He says changing out all 150,000 lights across the system will take two years. He says lower power bills should allow the MTA to save $6 million a year. The first stations to get the new lights will be Bergen and Carroll Streets on the F&G lines and Clinton, Washington on the sea line. 36 degrees, very bright out there this afternoon, maybe 40 or close to it, 30 overnight and mostly sunny the next couple of days, 42 tomorrow and 44 on Thursday.

This is WNYC. Stay close. There's more after the break. for WNYC, I'm Michael Hill. A new report finds construction deaths are trending up in New York City for the third straight year, even as they decrease across the rest of the Empire State. The nonprofit New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health says 24 construction workers died in the city in 2022. That's the last year for available data as compared to 20 in 21 and 13 in 2020.

With us now is Charlene Obernauer. She's the executive director of New York Kosh, which puts out the yearly deadly skyline report. Charlene, let's step right into this. Who's dying? And how are they dying? Is there a common thread here? Yes, good morning. So what we see in construction fatalities in New York City are mostly deaths by height,

meaning someone has fallen from height, as we call it. And most of the fatalities that we see. are among construction workers, male construction workers, average age is around 45 to 50 years old, and there is a disproportionate number of Latinx workers who die on the job. So Latinx workers make up one-tenth of the workforce, but one quarter of the deaths on the job. In 2022, the state increased the fine amount contractors had to pay anytime there was a worker accident that resulted in a criminal conviction, but that's different from the fines of the federal occupational safety and health administration or OSHA. What did you find

when you looked at how OSHA penalizes contractors after worker dies on its watch? We had seen a five-year trend in increases in 2022, but this past year, we found that the fatality fine amount in construction went down from about 68,000 in 2021 to 59,000 in 2022, which is about a 14.5% decrease. Why was there a decrease? I don't know exactly why there was a decrease. I believe that a lot of the reasons why we see decreases is because of differences in the way that they are, you know, kind of measuring what will make a fine amount. But it's unclear to me exactly why.

And that's something that the report, you know, really wants to figure out. How's OSHA doing on inspections after the safety visits took a dip during the pandemic? So they're still not back up to their pre-pre-term. pandemic numbers, the construction fatalities really showcase that we aren't seeing enough in terms of inspections. But, you know, this past year we saw about 3,183 inspections. And that's down from 4,455 pre-pandemic. Is that an issue because there are fewer inspectors of some kind? Or what's the reason for that? Well, one of the reasons I think that we see fewer inspection numbers is definitely because we have fewer inspectors.

And OSHA really needs to increase its budget. We recommend that they double its budget. But of course, every year they just receive modest increases if they get increases at all. So we really do have to see proper funding for these enforcement agencies. The report tracked the amount of press release is put out by OSHA 13 issued last year. Why is that important to consider, Charlene? Well, one of the reasons press releases are important is because they garner negative media attention for employers whose wrongdoings lead to worker injuries or deaths on the job. And they kind of serve as a warning to other employers who might be tempted to skirt legal

requirements. So in order for the agency to hold bad employers accountable, they need to issue these press releases to inform the public and to inform, you know, potential consumers as well. Now, we mentioned perhaps a shortage of contractors or a shortage of inspectors. But on this issue, what does Nykosh, what does your organization recommend OSHA and the city do to improve safety and hold contractors accountable? Well, one of the first things is that the Department of Buildings needs to be fully funded to do its job. You know, there was a report on the fiscal 2024 preliminary plan for the DOB, and they indicated that they, in their 2024 budget, they adopted 51 million less than its fiscal 20203 budget. So this is to, you know, eliminate gaps. They call it the program to eliminate gaps, which is where they basically eliminate

positions, including safety titles like inspectors, in order to save money. And this is really, really not a good idea when you look at the need for enforcement in New York City. So one, fully fund the Department of Buildings and continue to increase that funding so that we can see increased numbers of inspections in New York City. And then also, as I said, we recommend that OSHA gets a serious increase in their funding as well in order to properly do its job. Charlene Obernauer of Nike Hars.

Thank you for coming on this morning. Thank you so much. We read to OSHA for comment. The agency did not answer any of our specific questions about the report, but said it's committed to improving worker safety. A turf war is spreading through the Garden State, artificial turf, that is. WNMIC's Rosemary of reports from Montclair,

where a dispute over the turf it used for athletic fields has turned bitter. Woodman Field in Montclair isn't much of a park at the moment. It's just a big pile of dirt with a chain-link fence around her. Allison Sargent has been living across the street from the park for more than 70 years. The trees that once lined the park were cut down to make way for a new turf field. It really is a loss to the community on so many levels. In a town and in a state where we consider ourselves top at our environmental game, This is an atrocity. A new $8 million synthetic turf baseball field is planned for Woodman Field this spring.

But the town has paused the work. Furious residents are pushing back because of the turf's impact on environment and health. Anna Grossman is one of the Montclair residents organizing against the project. Synthetic turf companies are taking the garden out of the garden state everywhere. We are paying for it with our health, and we are paying for it with our tax. She's joined by residents from half a dozen neighboring New Jersey communities, waging their own anti-turf campaigns. They cite research that turf fields can get as hot as double outside temperatures, creating a heat island. They're also worried about the materials used in synthetic turf.

Research shows the ground-up tires used in the subsurface contain toxins that can cause cancer and birth defects. At a recent public meeting hosted by the Montclair Board of Education, parent Tyler Matheson spoke in favor of turf. The fields in Woodman are substandard and dangerous. Multiple injuries have already occurred, and we all believe, many of us do at least, that we are one mishap away from a potentially catastrophic event. But others, including the union representing NFL players,

say turf actually causes injuries. They point to Jets quarterback Aaron Rogers' Achilles' injury on the turf field at MetLife Stadium. Down goes Rogers in the sack for Leonard Floyd. Dr. Sarah Evans is a professor of public health at the Icon School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. There are very real increased risks of injury. The way that the cleats or the shoes engage with the turf

that it may have less grip, it causes them to get sort of more of those twisting types of injuries. Across the Hudson River, New York City's Parks Department says it has 50 turf projects planned over the next five years. But a bill in the New York State Senate could put a moratorium on new turf fields, pending further research into their environmental effects. Rosemary, Midsdary, Ms. Derry, WNYC News.

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