NYC NOW - May 8, 2024 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Some New York City councilmembers are expressing frustration with the Housing Authority’s plan to eliminate unarmed security guards at 55 senior housing developments. Plus, the family of 16-year-old Mahki Brown are struggling to understand why he was gunned down in Manhattan. Also, WNYC’s Samantha Max went near Columbia University and visited more than a dozen shops and street carts who are feeling the financial hit as protests have roiled the campus. And finally, WNYC’s Sean Carlson and Jon Campbell discuss the latest after a judge tossed a proposal to codify abortion rights and other discrimination protections in New York off the November ballot.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Jenae Pierre. This is a slap in the face of folks who have paved away for us and who deserve to be prioritized. They're living there in their golden years. Some New York City Council members, like Public Housing Committee Chair Chris Banks, are expressing frustration with the housing authorities plan to eliminate unarmed security guards. at 55 senior housing developments. Nica says they need to do this to plug a budget hole.

But Councilmember Alexa Avila says that plan is misguided. This is just not the place to cut. One life, one safety issue, 6.8 million, it's not worth it. She says the cost to fund security guards for eight-hour shifts is a drop in the bucket for Nica's overall $5 billion budget. Nica officials say they have a $35 million deficit this year, partly due to decades of federal disinvestment and a significant drop in ring collection. The guards are slated to be gone by the end of June.

Neighbors and family of 16-year-old Mackay Brown are struggling to understand why he was gunned down Tuesday afternoon in Manhattan. Here's WMYC's Brittany Crickstein. Mackay Brown's family says he commuted almost an hour each way to get to Broome Street Academy Charter High School in Soho from his home in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Lekisha Jenkins is a longtime family friend. She says the journey was worth it. The change came.

You seen the growth. You seen the I want better. I know what my mother's doing. She's putting me on a path. She's leading me for my future. He wasn't a bad kid. Police say they're investigating the shooting, which happened on Spring Street just minutes from the school.

Many businesses near Columbia University say they've taken a financial hit in recent week. as protests have roiled the campus. WMYC's Samantha Max visited more than a dozen shops, streetcarts, and restaurants. Universal Barbershop on Broadway would normally be bustling this time of year, with Columbia students and their parents getting last-minute haircuts before graduation. But Alex Kovasov, who runs the shop, says it's been empty lately, and the college has canceled its main commencement ceremony.

Very hard. Nothing we can do. A couple local vendors on the block surrounding the Morningside Heights campus, say they have experienced an uptick in business in recent weeks. The owner of a print shop says more people are coming in because they can't make copies in the libraries which have been closed to students in recent days. And a deli cashier says reporters covering the protests have been buying food. But many businesses told me street closures, police activity, and limited access to university buildings has caused a drop in a copy.

Peter Asan runs subsconscious on Amsterdam. He says the sandwich shop has been struggling to stay open with the drop in foot traffic from students and campus workers. He says they make up about 85% of his business. Whatever happens to the university, it affects us tremendously. A few blocks away at the Hungarian pastry shop, a lion snakes out the door. Owner Philip Benyuris says he hasn't seen much of a fluctuation in business. And he says pro-Palestinian activists and Israeli students share the space peacefully. That should be a vision and a hope for everywhere.

He hopes Columbia's campus can foster a similar environment in the future. Samantha Max, WNYC News. A proposal to codify some discrimination protections like abortion probably won't make it to the ballot in New York this November. More on that after the break. A New York judge has tossed a proposal to codify abortion rights and other discrimination protections in the state off the November. off the November ballot. An appeal is expected after state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Doyle removed the Equal Rights Amendment because state lawmakers didn't follow the proper process when they first approved the measure two years ago. For the latest, my colleague Sean Carlson talked with

WMYC's John Campbell. Can you just remind listeners what the Equal Rights Amendment is? As it stands, the New York State Constitution, it has anti-discrimination protections in it. It prohibits any firm, any corporation, any institution, including the state itself, from discriminating against anybody based on their race, color, or religion. What the Equal Rights Amendment would do, it would add all sorts of things to that list. Ethnicity, national origin, age, disability, sex. It would also add sexual orientation, gender identity, or expression. And critically here, it would add pregnancy and reproductive health care and autonomy.

me. So it would basically help enshrine abortion protections in the state constitution, not just state law, as it is now. And it would also apply these discrimination protections to LGBTQ people. And voters are supposed to get their say on this in November when it's scheduled to be on the ballot. But with this ruling, that's all kind of up in the air right now. Yeah. So why did the proposal get knocked off the ballot? And what did the judge say in his ruling? It's all a process thing, a procedural. thing. Republicans, they generally oppose the ERA, as a lot of people call it. And they're trying to defeat it by any means necessary. So they sued and they claimed that the Democrat-led legislature didn't follow the right process when they first passed this amendment in 2022. And today,

a Rochester area judge agreed he's a Republican. The legislature was supposed to get this official opinion on the amendment from the Attorney General's office before they pebble. before I passed. And they didn't do that. That opinion didn't come until several days later. So the judge ruled that the amendment shouldn't be on the ballot this November. But immediately, Attorney General Letitia James said sheet appeal. So now it's going to be up to the appeals courts to decide this. Well, here's something I don't understand about this, John. If the process was at the heart of this ruling, supporters of the ERA are saying that there are other state constitutional amendments that follow the same path as this ballot question on their way. way to approval. So do they have a point there? Well, I mean, this is really going to be up for the courts to decide that, Sean. So, you know, that said, the timeline is pretty clear cut in the state constitution. It says the legislature has to get this opinion from the attorney general before they move ahead. And then if they don't hear back in 20 days, they can move ahead then, too.

That said, you know, the legislature is making this case that lawmakers substantially complied with the timeline. Andrea Stewart Cousins is the Senate Majority Leader. She says her counsel believes the lack of an AG's opinion doesn't negate the amendment. So we believe that we will be successful upon appeal, and we will certainly appeal that so the people will have the right, should have the right to vote this November. Changing the Constitution is this big involved process. It requires consecutive elected sessions of the legislature to pass it before it even goes to voters for for final passage. So this AG's opinion was in the hands of the legislature for months before they passed it the second time. So this is a big election year, right? We've got the presidential

race and all the congressional races and state lawmakers are all on the ballot as well. What kind of effect could this have on the election in New York and November? That's a really interesting question because both Democrats and Republicans have been kind of looking at this as a way to get people to the polls. Democrats have framed it as a way to protect abortion rights by enshrining them in the state constitution. And this amendment all came in the wake of the Supreme Court repealing Roe v. Wade. And that's a particularly potent political issue, easy for me to say, in a democratic state like New York. Republicans, on the other hand, they're starting to frame it too. And they're framing it with another issue entirely.

Women's Sports, former Republican gubernatorial candidate, Lee Zeldin was at the Capitol in Albany. He held a news conference with Riley Gaines. She's the former University of Kentucky swimmer who has been very, very outspoken against trans women competing in women's athletics. And they're making the case that this amendment goes too far, that it would keep institutions from preventing trans women from competing against cisgender women, which they impose. All right, John, as we said, State AG, the Tisha James says she's going to appeal the ruling. What does that process look like? and where does this go from here? Well, some of that is still TBD.

Since it's constitutional question, the AG's office could potentially take it straight to the top court, the Court of Appeals, or they could choose to go the appellate division, especially if they want to make other arguments. It's going to end up at the Court of Appeals anyway, probably that'll all play out over the next couple months. So stay tuned.

That's WNYC's John Campbell, talking with my colleague, Sean Carlson. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WMYC. Catch us every weekday, three times a day. I'm Junae Pierre. We'll be back tomorrow.