NYC NOW - June 29, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: June 29, 2023

Two firefighters from Clifton, New Jersey, were rescued yesterday after their boat went over a waterfall and got stuck in the Passaic River. In other news, over two dozen city council members and advocates are urging Mayor Adams to increase the budget for the "Fair Fares" program, which provides half-priced Metro Cards to low-income New Yorkers. Finally, with the official due date for New York City’s budget on Saturday, Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council are striving to finalize a more than $107 billion spending plan, set to be the largest in history. WNYC’s Sean Carlson sits with Elizabeth Kim of the People and Power team to discuss the implications.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Thursday, June 29th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. On WNYC in New York, two Clifton, New Jersey firefighters were rescued after their boat went over a waterfall and became stuck in the Passaic River. They were helping three people stuck in two boats on the river yesterday afternoon when their own boat plunged over the falls. The state police helicopter crew arrived, repelled a rescue or 100 feet down to bring them to safety. More than two dozen city council members in New York at advocates are calling on Mayor Adams to increase the budget for the Fair Fairs program. It gives half-price metro cards to low-income New Yorkers.

They want the mayor to add more than $60 million to the program, and they're calling on him to change its income restriction so more people would qualify. Caitlin Pierce is Deputy Director at Riders Alliance. The city's in an affordability crisis, and I think everyone knows that it's time to give people cuts in terms of costs when we can and where we can. A spokesperson for Mayor Adams says he's still evaluating the proposal. Alternate side parking suspended today and tomorrow, but still pay the meters. The air quality is getting slightly better again. It's now in the high end of the moderate range. New York City is usually moderate most days during the summer.

78 and partly cloudy right now. widespread haze today, mostly sunny in 85, widespread haze again tonight, down to near 74 low, and then tomorrow mostly sunny in 85 for a high. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. New York City's budget is officially due on Saturday. Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council are trying to reach a deal on a more than $107 billion spending plan

that is poised to be the largest in history. Here to break down the discussions and talk about what's at stake is WNYC's Elizabeth Kim. She covers City Hall for the People and Power team. Hello, Liz. Hi, Sean. Okay, let's start with the size of this very yummy budget pie. $107 billion was a starting point of negotiations. That is $6 billion more than the budget last year.

Now, I think most people, including myself, would think, well, more money would make negotiations easier, right? But that has not been the case, has it? No, it hasn't. Now, last year's negotiations were relatively smooth. It was the mayor's first year in office. You also had a council with a lot of new and, to be frank, inexperienced members. You may remember that the council got heavily criticized for allowing the mayor's office to make cuts on schools. They, in fact, had to publicly apologize for approving them. But this year, the gloves are off. The negotiations have. been contentious from the start, in large part because the mayor started out the budget process by ordering cuts. He's done three rounds of cuts in total, and as a result, there's been a lot of public sparring between members of the council and the mayor over those spending decisions. The mayor came into office positioning himself as fiscally responsible. You know, he says the city needs to tighten its belt. There's a slowing economy and unexpected cost.

due to the ongoing migrant crisis. He's basically said that every agency needs to make sacrifices. So what we have is this very public battle over what many would consider critical services, like libraries, senior programs, affordable housing aid. Yeah, let's talk about that affordable housing aid. We've discussed that a little bit on the show here. Now, the mayor issued a veto last week of a package of bills the council passed to help homeless New Yorkers. what kind of message does that send to the council?

That's a prime example of the tensions and the growing policy divide between the mayor, who's a moderate Democrat, and the council, which has a lot of progressive members. Now, the legislation that the council passed expands the pool of people eligible for rental subsidies. Adam says that it's just too expensive. The city can't afford it. So after days of floating this idea of a veto, he finally does it. And it's pretty extraordinary. It's only his second veto since taking office. But more than that, these bills passed with a veto-proof majority, meaning that it's very hard to see a path for him to override the legislation by forcing the council to take another vote. So instead, it's likely that they're headed to court. And that was indeed something that the mayor hinted at when he announced his decision. How does that affect budget negotiations? So the bills won't take effect immediately. So the question of financing them won't likely be a sticking point this year. The mayor actually did come around on one measure, which was doing away with a rule that required people in shelters to stay 90 days before being eligible for rental assistance.

And, you know, he's going to be willing to pay for that. But this broader policy question of how to address the city. affordable housing crisis is not going to go away. And it basically suggests that there are more battles to come. Not to say that there aren't any fights around housing in this upcoming budget. For example, there's a huge pressure campaign to get the mayor to expand a program that gives free legal services to low-income people at risk of eviction. Now, I don't want to be the cynical reporter here.

But at the same time, there usually is some kind of budget. dance, right? The mayor makes some cuts. Council restores them. There is also something different, though, about the city circumstances this time around, right? The city, rather that you've talked about, the mayor saying the economy is slowing. Absolutely. And there are a confluence of factors that's making these budget negotiations different from previous ones. One, the economy really is uncertain. We're now in the era of remote work. Offices are half empty, and that leaves the future of the city's commercial districts in doubt. And there's also this looming issue of billions of dollars of federal pandemic aid that New York City benefited from. They're expiring in the next two

years. And both the mayor and council need to decide what happens with the programs that the federal money funded, popular programs like universal pre-K and summer school. Now, this is a problem that doesn't have to be solved in this upcoming budget. But lawmakers will have to confront it next year. And that has been one of the underlying tensions of budget talks. That's WMIC's Elizabeth Kim, who will continue to closely watch the budget talks as we near the deadline on Saturday.

Liz, thanks for joining us as always. Thanks, Sean. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day, for your top news headlines and occasional deep dives. And subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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