NYC NOW - June 14, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: June 14, 2024

New York City officials have released their annual count of street homelessness. WNYC's Karen Yi reports that the numbers are slightly up from last year. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is preserving access to mifepristone, a common abortion pill. WNYC’s Caroline Lewis explains what that means for people in abortion-friendly states like New York. Finally, a WNYC review of internal documents shows that Eric Adams' campaign team regularly sought guidance from campaign finance officials even before he declared his candidacy. However, as the New York City Campaign Finance Board asked more questions to ensure compliance, the campaign stopped replying. Adams' fundraising is now subject to several investigations. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with reporter Brigid Bergin, who has been following this story.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, June 14th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. New York City officials are out with their annual count of street homelessness. W.N.C.'s Karen Ye reports the numbers are slightly up from last year. The new numbers show about 4,100 New Yorkers slept on the streets, subways, or parks during the city's annual point in time homeless count this January. The yearly survey is done on the same day every year to tally up how many individuals are unsheltered. Though this year's numbers remain largely flat from 23, it's still the highest street homeless count since at least 2010. Critics of the count say

it's not reflective of the true scope of the problem since it's conducted in the winter and doesn't include homeless people who may be sleeping in bank vestibules, fast food restaurants, or emergency rooms. The Adams administration says the consistency in year-over-year numbers show their efforts at outreach and increasing low-barrier shelter beds is working. The U.S. Supreme Court is preserving access to a common abortion pill. W&Y's Caroline Lewis explains what this means for people in abortion-friendly states like New York. The Supreme Court decision comes just as new options are opening up for New Yorkers to access abortion medication, and this ruling means that they will remain available. New online companies have been popping up that prescribe abortion pills remotely

and send them through the mail, and pharmacy chains like Walgreens have started offering abortion pills at some locations. All that is due to recent Biden administration reforms that aim to ease access to abortion pills. The Supreme Court decision puts an end to months of legal limbo for those changes and access to the abortion pill Miffa-Pristone more broadly. 82 and partly sunny now mid-80s today with chances of afternoon evening showers and potentially strong thunderstorms as well. We could see damaging winds and large hail and some flooding. Stay close. There's more after the break. A WNYC review of internal documents shows that the team behind Eric Adams' bid for mayor was regularly seeking guidance from campaign finance officials even before he declared his candidacy.

But as the New York City Campaign Finance Board asked more questions to ensure the Adams team was in compliance, the campaign stopped replying. His campaign's fundraising is now subject to several investigations. Joining us now to talk through what these documents tell us and why it matters is WNYC's senior politics reporter, Bridget Berg and Bridget. What documents did you look at and why? Well, Michael, I reviewed all the communications between the City's Campaign Finance Board and Mayor, Adams' 2021 campaign. So we're talking emails, phone logs, loads of compliance reports produced by the board. I got all of these documents through multiple freedom of information requests to the agency, and I filed them not long after six donors to the Adams campaign were indicted by the Manhattan DA on

charges that they were trying to circumvent the city's campaign finance laws and pump more money into his campaign by making it appear like more people are donating to it. Now, of course, we have to note the mayor himself has never been charged with any wrongdoing, and neither has anyone who worked for him. Bridget, I can't wait for you to tell us what you found, but before we get, they remind us how the city's campaign finance system works. So this city offers a very generous matching program to encourage more people to participate in the democratic system, really regardless of their means. And it's also supposed to encourage candidates to reach out to more of the voters they're hoping to represent. So every dollar someone who lives in the city donates is matched with $8, up to the first

$250 for a mayoral candidate. But when you're in the program, Michael, you know, you have to agree to certain donation limits, spending limits, and disclose certain details about how you're raising your money and who it's from. So there's potential for really big money and that money comes from city taxpayers. That's the why. But it comes with certain obligations. What did the documents tell you, Bridget, about how the campaign was raising and spending its money? Well, they raised a lot and received more than $10 million in public funds. Early on, you know, they were asking the board some interesting kind of mechanical questions, like how do you record donations made via wire transfer or from someone's trust?

Stuff that just reminds you that these systems aren't always easy to navigate. There were also some more creative questions. The campaign asked about using money they raised to conduct a poll about issues that matter to New Yorkers and the priorities of the new administration. They asked about buying tickets to a comedy show that they would give away to people who showed proof of COVID-19 vaccinations, you know, a real sign of the times there. They even asked about doing promotional events for the mayor's memoir, Healthy at Last. And emails show they got clearance for Equinox and Blink Jims to send a blast email to their members recommending the mayor's book and noting that at that point,

he was now the Democratic nominee. Were there any issues that jumped out at you? Yeah, for sure. So part of the catch with these matching funds is you need to disclose information about people who donate to you and people who collect or bundle donations for you. The board reviews all that information from the campaign about their donors and then asks follow-up questions, which the campaign is supposed to answer by a certain deadline. The records show that after the mayor won the primary, his campaign really stopped responding to the board

specifically related to the people who may have collected donations for the campaign on certain dates or from certain businesses. You know, the board flagged hundreds of these donations that they had questions about. Has the mayor's campaign commented at all? So Vito Pitta, the campaign's attorney, said that the campaign has always followed the law and best practices. He declined to comment on any issues that were part of the post-election audit with the campaign finance board.

You mentioned an audit there. What kind of oversight and enforcement does the campaign finance board provide? So the board, as I mentioned, reviews donation information shared by the campaign, and then they send back these periodic reports with any flag donations for the campaign to address, but they also do a really robust post-election audit. Now, most of the penalties for not following the letter of the law are assessed after they do that full audit of the campaign's records, which often takes years. It's one of the biggest criticisms of the board.

And some of those critics say that the Adams campaign and the conduct that's been reported is a sign that the current rules just don't work. Councilmember Lincoln Wrestler has legislation that would actually let the board withhold all matching funds if a campaign doesn't respond to the types of inquiries. It appears the Adams campaign ignored. We've developed a package of legislation

to ensure that every donor who contribute is legitimate and to give the campaign finance board more tools to hold campaigns accountable. It sounds as if that would give the agency more power. How are people responding to that? Well, Michael, we're going to learn more about that today. The council has a hearing on that package of legislation. The head of the CFB is supposed to testify, and there are also be leaders of some good government groups there who are often the ones who you would think would be supporting a package like this. But in my initial conversations with a few of those groups, the reaction has been interestingly lukewarm at best. I spoke to John Caney of the good government group, Reinvent Albany.

And he said he was concerned about anything that would make it too onerous to participate in the program. And he also thought that this proposal to withhold funds was just making too big a deal of this kind of reporting issue. This is how he's described the solution. is the solution disproportional to the problem. You know, you have a rat hole, so you put a nuclear bomb in it. Is that way you want to be doing?

And I think we're going to hear more of that kind of skepticism, Michael, albeit maybe less colorfully spoken at this hearing today. And if there's news coming out of that, I know you'll bring it to us. That's WNMC's Senior Politics Reporter, Bridget Bergen. Thank you, Bridgett. Thank you, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WMYC.

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