NYC NOW - May 31, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: May 31, 2024

New York City soon will begin accepting new Section 8 applications for the first time in 15 years. Plus, New Jersey Republicans will choose their candidate for the U.S. Senate race next week. Despite Trump's guilty verdict, a couple candidates are still wearing their MAGA hats. And finally, WNYC’s David Brand checks in on the city’s secret weapon for its war on rats.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City. From WNYC, I'm Jenae Pierre. New York City will soon begin accepting new Section 8 applications for the first time in 15 years. The application portal opens Monday, June 3rd. But don't wait to apply. The application period ends just a few days later on Sunday, June 9th. Section 8 is a vital federal program that helps low-income Americans pay for rent. The New York City Housing Authority runs the program in the five boroughs.

Officials say they'll do a random drawing to choose 200,000 applicants from the waiting list. After that, the agency says it will begin issuing about 1,000 new vouchers a month. Amateur tennis players in Brooklyn are demanding reform of city rules after two long-time coaches lost their permits through a pricey bidding process. WNYC's Ramsey Calife reports. Coach Francis Ferdinand lost the rights to teach. classes at the Jackie Robinson tennis courts in Bedstay. She faults the system that requires the permit go to the highest bidder. A lot of people in the community are feeling like their public spaces are for sale. It feels like another form of gentrification. She lost her bid by $35,000.

Ferdinand says she helped revitalize the tennis courts during the COVID pandemic and has lived in the neighborhood her whole life. Ferdinand and another coach are calling for the Parks Department to give more weight to community ties and tenure when awarding permits. They're planning a rally on Saturday. New Jersey Republicans will choose their candidate for the U.S. Senate race in Tuesday's upcoming primary election. But despite Thursday's guilty verdict in the Trump trial, the elephant in the room is still wearing a red MAGA hat. WMYC's Nancy Solomon reports. Christine Serrano-Glassner is the mayor of Mendham.

and a full-on supporter of Donald Trump. I'm giving her my complete and total endorsement. Christine Serrano-Glasner stands with Trump. She'll stop Biden's amnesty, finish Trump's wall, and fight from law and order. The other candidate in the race is Curtis Bashaw, a Cape May hotel developer. He's endorsed Trump for the November election, so it's not to alienate the MAGA crowd. But Bashaw says he's also talking about issues that a person. appeal to moderate voters.

Such as the open border, lack of support for law enforcement. They're concerned about the fact that schools are keeping secrets from parents in New Jersey, and they're very concerned about inflation. Neither Bashaw or Serrano-Glasner are particularly known among voters. Micah Rasmussen of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey politics says bigger names are turned off by the fact Republicans haven't won a Senate seat in New Jersey. Jersey in 52 years. When you don't get your top-tier candidates jumping in, that's an indication that the candidates

themselves don't see an opportunity. They are choosing to stay out of the race. And that's how you wound up with candidates who are not necessarily household names. The winner will face the Democrat who emerges from the primary. The runaway leader in that race is Andy Kim. Nancy Solomon, WNYC News. After the Trump verdict, both Christine Serrano-Glasner and Curtis Bashaw said they believe the prosecution was politically motivated. There's a vicious rat hunter in Central Brooklyn, and she's cute, cuttally, and has four legs. That story after the break. In a section of Central Brooklyn, designated as a rat mitigation zone, the city is increasing inspections and encouraging building owners to put trash in sealed

containers. But the rats are still feasting on nightly garbage bag specials. Now, the secret weapon may be a 31-pound killer whose service comes with no price tag. WMYC's David Brand has more. Hey, Luna. It's garbage night in Crown Heights, and mounds of black trash bags are teetering on the sidewalks. Some are rustling with rats inside. That's prime hunting conditions for a seven-year-old rescue dog named Luna. She's a wiry, unassuming schnauzer mix, but don't let her calm demeanor fool you.

We always keep walking by it. and she'll just pounce on a bag and grab one right out of there. That's Luna's owner, Zach Henson. He says Luna's nab's 65 rats so far this year. He takes a picture of each one, laying next to his size 10 and a half Adidas high tops. They're big, man. Luna's public service recently earned her a commendation

from her local council member. But Henson says she's just getting started. I have a goal for her to get like over 200 this year, but that's going to involve some strategy. We approach a heaping pile of bags, on Kingston Avenue. Just on the hut. The shy little dog

suddenly transforms into an apex predator. She pounces on a bag. Two rats shoot out. Oh, yep, there's one right there's another one. They scramble up a cellar door through a crack in a cement stairway just out of reach.

It's a rare miss. Every once in a while we take her on a walk and she'd get a rat and we'd be like, oh my God, that's crazy. And now when she goes out, if she doesn't get a few in a week, we're like, I'm sorry, Lina.

We keep walking. At the corner of Pacific Street and Troy Avenue, Luna locks on to another mountain of bags wedged against an apartment building. She sniffs at them and climbs on top. Rats have chewed holes through each bag. Anthony Hardison is watching near the doorway of the building. He's a fan. You recognize this dog?

Oh yeah, he's famous. Well, he's famous, well. Catching rats. He comes over here every night like slack work. He goes up. into the kid, he looks around, goes in between sniffing. He's brilliant. We need more of him. Put like tenant in every burrow. A rat darts into a great leading to the basement, another near miss. They're actually in the walls of this building. The tenant on the third floor, they're actually

in her apartment. And they're about as big as your mic here. And I hear him in the middle of the night, hear them in between the walls, between the main wall. There's a space between. They're in there. Hardison says he's lived in his apartment for 11 years, and the rat problem's getting worse. So all I can do is fight back, traps, glue, whatever I can do, I find holes, I seal them up. Because I know once my wife sees one of those big things in there, she's going to want to move. She's going to want to leave. But the situation may be improving for the neighborhood overall. Last year, the city's health department deemed a swath of Crown Heights, Bedstuy and Bushwick, a rat mitigation zone. Data shows the rats were running amok in these neighborhoods.

So the city increased inspections and started instructing building staff to put the mouth watering trash and closed containers. The rat problem got so bad that Mayor Eric Adams appointed a rat czar to control the vermin. Councilmember Chi Osei says the rat mitigation zone is actually working. Complaints are down, according to city data. I think just continuing to reduce the amount of food that is accessible to rats is our best way to win this war. Jose recently honored Luna with an official citation. But he says he doesn't think an army of... vigilante pups is the answer to the problem.

I don't think that's the best use of our resources, but I would like to see the city move more expeditiously on curbside containerization. We can give her a lifetime off of rat hunting before we fix that problem. Back on Pacific Street, Luna isn't ready for retirement just yet. She sniffs an overgrown tree box, pokes her head into the wheel well of a Ford Explorer, and slips through a gate to pounce on another bag. Two more rats scatter.

She keeps coming up empty. Well, you know, it's like baseball. You have streaks. You have, like, dry periods. Henson says she'll step back into the batter's box tomorrow. Plenty of rats are still out there roaming the streets. One time I kicked the trash can, and it was like a fountain of fur came out. Like, probably conservatively, 10 or 15 rats flew out of this hole in the side of the trash can at once.

And I, like, backed off because I was like, that's disgusting. Yeah, man, if that's too much, for you, then that's pretty bad. Yeah. It was like fur, but as a liquid, like flowing out of there. Foof. Go get them, Luna. That's WNYC's David Brand.

Want to see photos of Luna? Check them out on our news website, Got the Miss. Before we go, a quick heads up about something cool we're doing. As part of our election coverage, WNYC is using laundromats across the New York metro area as hubs, civic engagement. We call the project Suds and Civics. Get it? Anyway, on Monday, it's broadcasting live from Bubbles Our Us in Patterson, New Jersey. Lucky for you, we're going to make you feel like you're part of it. We'll share the conversation in every episode here on NYC Now that same day. Be sure

to check it out. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Got a shout out our production team. It includes Sean Bowdage, Amber Bruce, Ave Carrillo, Audrey Coole, Audrey Coole, Leora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, Jen Munson, and Wayne Schulmeister, with help from all of my great colleagues in the WMYC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the people at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadrado. I'm Junae Pierre. Have a great weekend. We'll see you on Monday.