NYC NOW - Midday News: NJ Transit Faces Strike Deadline, City Gears Up for Bike to Work Day, Knicks Cooked in Boston, and Prison Reform in Albany

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Thursday marks the final day for NJ Transit to reach a deal with union engineers to avert a strike that could halt all rail service. Meanwhile, Friday is national Bike to Work Day, with New York City officials promoting cycling as a healthy, eco-friendly commute option. Rides for municipal workers are planned in every borough. Also, the Knicks were blown out by a Celtics team that was missing star player Jayson Tatum in Game 5 of the NBA playoffs. Plus, this week in politics, lawmakers are holding a hearing on prison reform following the deaths of two inmates in custody. Plus, we get an update on Andrew Cuomo’s campaign finances.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, May 15th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Today is the last day for NJ Transit officials to reach a deal with union members before a strike shuts down all the agency's rail service. WNMC's Ramsey-Kulife reports from Newark. There still isn't a deal in hand, and more than 100,000 commuters don't know if they'll be able to ride. to train tomorrow. The New Jersey Transit Board met last night to discuss their negotiations with the brotherhood of locomotive engineers and trainmen. New Jersey Transit CEO, Chris

Kaluri, says a deal is possible. We reached a deal once before, and I think we can do it again. As long as we remember, it has to be fair for the employees, but also has to be fair for the taxpayers and the riders. Last month, the two sides reached the tentative agreement that included pay raises, But an overwhelming majority of the locomotive engineers voted it down and are arguing they're not getting their fair shake. Get your pedals ready. Tomorrow's national bike to work day where advocates encourage commuters to make their journeys on two wheels. The event aims to promote cycling as a healthy and environmentally friendly means of transportation.

The New York City Department of Transportation is organizing rides for municipal workers with meet-up locations in every borough. Transportation officials say cycling is at record highs. in the city with an estimated 226 million cycling trips each year. Well, the New York Knicks lost last night to Boston by 25 points, so it's back to Madison Square Garden tomorrow night at 8 o'clock. They can wrap up the series and move on to the next round with a win. If not, it's game 7 back in Boston on Monday night.

65 with clouds now, 50-50 chance of showers and storms this afternoon. Patchy fog, a high of 70, and then patchy fogg tonight, a low around 63. Stay tuned for more after the break. On WNYC, WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. It is time for politics brief, our weekly segment where we break down the news out of City Hall and Albany. And today we're joined by WNIC reporters. John Campbell is in Albany and Bridget Bergen are here in the city. So we're going to start with the state legislature held a hearing on prison reform.

It comes in the wake of the death of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwee, who were killed by corrections officers while incarcerated in a state prison near Utica last year. John, what are lawmakers trying to learn about that? Yeah, Sean, I mean, it has been an awful stretch in the state prison system. You mentioned Brooks, you mentioned Nantwee, but then there was also this wildcat strike by corrections officers that led to a couple thousand being fired, which is exacerbating what was already a staffing crisis in the prisons. You have thousands of members of the National Guard in the prisons now. And so this hearing was to kind of set the stage. for the rest of the legislative session.

There's a big push to reform the prison system from lawmakers like Senator Julius Salazar from Brooklyn. She says she's going to be pushing legislation to make this system more humane, to bring more accountability to that system. And these lawmakers had the opportunity to ask questions of the corrections commissioner, Daniel Marcello, and a number of other people,

including Robert Brooks' father. And in theory, all of this is supposed to bring attention to the measures they're pushing. You know, Salazar says she wants to expand pathways to allow incarcerated people to be released. You know, she wants to address what she calls the human rights abuses happening within those prisons, but they have to act soon. There's only a month left in the legislative session, and that's a period where lawmakers are going to pass hundreds of bills, and it can be kind of difficult to break through that kind of, you know, fast push at the end of the legislative session. Yeah.

Now, the city mayor's race rolls on with the primary happening late next month. So it's right around the corner here. Former Governor Cuomo is one of the candidates. And he's having an interesting week when it comes to campaign cash. Bridget, what's the deal? Can you explain that? Yeah, Sean. So it's kind of a good news, bad news situation.

The good news is that his campaign received a $1.5 million matching funds payment on Monday. You know, that payment was really just a cleanup based on his, first filing back in March. But at the same time, his campaign was also docked $622,000 because the Campaign Finance Board did a preliminary investigation. They found the campaign had coordinated with an independent big money group called Fix the City for a commercial that they have on-air supporting Cuomo. Now, Fix the City is kind of like a local version of a super PAC. They can spend unlimited amounts of money. It's backed by some really deep pockets and really estate finance technology, DoorDash gave the single largest contribution a million dollars last week.

Yeah, so the committee has more than $8 million raised, $3 million spent. But interestingly, a new filing that showed up after the board met, after they had docked the campaign at $622,000 matching funds, turns out fix this city, spent another $675,000 for more airtime for that same controversial ad. And now there's some folks who are saying his campaign should be docked again for that amount, or some challengers even going

as far as to say perhaps the campaign should be blocked from receiving matching funds altogether. So let's stay on the mayoral race while we're talking about it. Maris College is out with a new poll. It contains maybe some not so shocking news. Bridget, can you talk about what it says and how the campaigns are spinning those numbers?

Sure. I mean, basically despite everything we just talked about, Cuomo continues to lead the field in this latest poll. In the first round, first choice votes, he has 37% of Democratic primary voters. The next closest competitor is Queens Assembly member Zoroamam Dhani receives 18% and then 9% for Adrian Adams and 8% for Brad Lander. Now, what's interesting about these numbers, then they did also a rank choice tally to see, you know, at what point does someone hit that 50% plus one point? It took six, excuse me, took five rounds and Andrew Cuomo, again, ends up winning the field. You know, of course,

his campaign says this is a sign that they are on strong footing, that voters are responding to their campaign and the leadership he is brought to the state, he will bring to the city. Other candidates are saying the timing of this poll, which was conducted between May 1st and May 8th doesn't reflect some of the penetration of ads that started going up at that time. Certainly, I think, the Adrian Adams campaign sees some opportunity here that they have bumped up among a field of candidates who've been in this race a lot longer. But, you know, as consultant recently said to me, you know, it's getting late early. And as you said, this race, we will start voting in this race during early. voting on June 14th, the primaries on June 24th, but I'll note, Sean, that ballots went out to voters

who are permanent mail ballot voters last Friday. So the voting has already begun. Wow. Yeah, right. It's going to be here before we know it. That's politics brief. You're sure to sign up for emails at gothamist.com slash newsletters. John Bridget, thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Great to be here. Thanks for listening. This is NYC. now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

NYC, YC, NYC, NYC.