NYC NOW - Midday News: NYPD Expands Quality-of-Life Teams, FAA Caps Flights at Newark, and Early Voting Is Underway in NYC Mayoral Primary

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

The NYPD is expanding its quality-of-life “Q-teams” across the city this summer to handle non-emergency complaints like outdoor drug use and illegal parking. Meanwhile, the FAA is capping flights at Newark Liberty Airport to 34 per hour through late October to ease delays. Plus, early voting is now underway in New York City’s Democratic mayoral primary. WNYC’s Brian Lehrer and senior politics reporter Brigid Bergin bring us the latest.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, June 16th. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle. The NYPD is expanding its new quality of life teams across the city this summer. The so-called Q teams respond to non-emergency 911 and 311 calls, like illegal parking, outdoor drug use, and aggressive panhandling. They started out in five city precincts and one public housing complex in April. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch says they're expanding across the city because of the success they've had so far. When you look at what these teams have already accomplished in just two months and all the problems that they've solved, it's clear why we are scaling it citywide.

Since the launch, Tish says the teams have issued thousands of parking summonses, seized illegal e-bikes, and towed abandoned cars, The expansion is set to be in place by Labor Day. Starting today, flights in and out of Norc Liberty Airport will be capped through the end of the year. The Federal Aviation Administration says it's trying to ease delays after a chaotic spring. Most flights will be limited to 34 per hour through late October. Weekend caps kick in the fall with just 28 flights an hour, while crews finish runway repairs. The cuts could disrupt holiday travel later this year. Earlier this year, the FAA had already capped some flights at Nork to address congestion,

but with the new limits, they go further, aiming to curb delays and reduce air traffic overlap with other nearby airports. Right now, it's 66 and cloudy outside. Today, a chance of rain, mostly cloudy, with highs in the upper 60s, Tuesday, more of the same with a high near 72. Stay tuned for more after the break. I'm Jene Pierre. Early voting kicked off this weekend in New York for the Democratic primary for mayor. To bring us up to speed in this busy political season, I'm joined by WNYC's Brian Lair and senior politics reporter Bridget Bergen. Brian, I'd like to start with you because you were one of the moderators for the final mayoral debate last week. What were your main takeaways?

Over the front row seat was that Cuomo and Mamdani leading so consistently in the polls, with that the case, the middle of the PAC candidates, Adrian Adams, Brad Lander, and Scott Stringer really tried to bring their best selves as they see themselves to try to break through. It was really their last chance. Lander especially was very aggressive toward Cuomo. Another example, when Cuomo and Mamdani were going back and forth on how much experience matters versus how much Cuomo's record should be seen as good experience or bad, Stringer said he was in a third lane where he has progressive vision like Mom Donnie, but experience like Cuomo. And Adrian Adams emphasized her experience running city council and dealing with Mayor Adams,

no relation. She was plenty critical of Cuomo like the others were. But of those middle seat candidates, she also criticized Mom Donny the most directly. In the round where they get to ask another candidate a question, she addressed Mom Donny and asked him, what makes you more qualified than me to be mayor? And in that context, it's worth noting, too, that Adams was also the only woman on the stage, and she included in her remarks that she would be the city's first woman mayor. Yeah. Do you think Cuomo did anything to risk his standing as the frontrunner?

Well, only the voters will decide that, and he certainly argued for his experience in managerial competence, which are sort of his brands. But for people who are susceptible to doubt about Cuomo, he also had a few real embarrassments, like being called out by Mamdani for repeatedly mispronouncing the name Mamdani. And he couldn't say if he ever once visited a mosque when he was governor. He basically said he couldn't remember if he ever visited a mosque. He also referred to Muslims as a group as immigrants, which is just so wrong. But how many voters notice things like that? how many voters will be moved by things like that. We don't know. It seems to me that Cuomo calculus

is psychological in a way on the part of voters. Cuomo's presence at the beginning of COVID made many New Yorkers feel more secure and feel like he was also good at being reality-based in comparison to Trump, who was trying to deny the serious of the pandemic to help him politically. But then there was the alleged cover-up of the nursing home deaths and his resignation over the sexual harassment scandal. And now some of these debate remarks. And I think many people are asking themselves, how much do I like Cuomo because he seems strong versus how much do I dislike him for seeming like a bully? And also how much do I think he created a hostile workplace for young women who he considered attractive

versus how much do I think he learned his lessons? So before we even get to policy questions, there's a lot for New Yorkers deliberating about Cuomo to consider maybe with their therapists, Dene. Yeah. Mandani is another front runner. Did he do anything to risk his standing? Well, I think those who are on the fence about him are asking themselves, is he too inexperienced and unrealistic to be mayor, and is he too far to the left? His only government experience is four years in the State Assembly.

He's never run anything big. The things he wants to promise in pursuit of equality, like universal child care, he says he will pay for it by raising taxes on the very wealthy, but he would have to convince the state legislature to do that. He can't just do it. And historically, that's been very hard in Albany. And Mamdani's critics say has Bernie Sanders, AOC-style policies will hurt the city economically, more than they help.

Voters will decide. But he is inspiring a lot of people for his willingness to aim high and for having the fire that many Democrats are looking for in the time of Trump. And, Jene, I would just jump in and add that I think part of what we're going to be, what you hear Brian describing there is really the debate over the future of the Democratic Party that we are seeing play out nationally. There's a certain swath of voters who really want someone to bring back that fight, be a little bit more aggressive. We saw a certain version of that play out during the No King's protests taking place across the city and country on Saturday.

And we're seeing different versions of what Democratic politics can look like here in the mayor's race. On Saturday, Cuomo joined Reverend Al Sharpton in Harlem at the National. Action Network. And that same night, Momdani held this massive rally at Terminal 5 on West 56th Street on the far west side with Representative Ocasio-Cortez and Senator John Liu and few others. You know, the place was packed. I think right there in those examples, you see the tension over who is leading the party and what the party, what the direction of the party should look like. Bridget, the news broke the day after the debate that Brad Lander and Zohran Mamdan.

were cross-endorsing each other, how does that change the race? Well, this was the first major cross-endorsement of the election. You know, we saw State Senator Jessica Ramos throw her support behind Cuomo after that first debate. But let me tell you, he made it clear that was not a cross-endorsement. That was her endorsing him. So now we have two progressives endorsing each other just before what ended up being a gangbusters first weekend of early voting. And more on that in just a moment.

But I think one of the questions of the 2021 race that really lingered in the minds of some voters who maybe were not Adam's supporters, where what would have happened if Catherine Garcia and Maya Wiley, who ended up in the second and third slot, had teamed up in cross-endorsed. And right now we're seeing that, you know, with Mom Dani pulling in a consistent second and Lander third. It's a real test of that theory. Yeah, I think the cross-endorsement could be especially important for Mom Dani between him and Lander. in the recent Emerson poll using the rank choice voting formula. Bear with me, there's a little math here that you may not be ready for before eight in the morning. But Cuomo beats Mamdani in the 10th round of counting when Lander running third is eliminated and his voters second choices get counted.

Enough chose Cuomo to seal the win. So who Lander voters ranked below him could make all the difference. Or one way to look at it, best advice, if you're trying to stop either. mom, Donnie, or Cuomo, leave that person entirely off your ballot. Bridget, I want to circle back to early voting. You described it as gangbusters. That sounds like there was pretty decent turnout. Yeah, I mean, think about this, Janay. It was the weekend. So, of course, it was cold and raining. Yesterday was Father's Day. There was a lot of incentive to just, like, curl up,

stay inside. But primary voters turned out. There were more than 30,000. people voting Saturday, another 36,000 yesterday for a cumulative total of 66,000 voters for the weekend. Now, by comparison, in 2021, 32,000 people voted for the entire first weekend for early voting. Remember, we were still dealing with the pandemic. There was a lot more voting by mail. There will be a lot to examine the post-race analysis about how much the electorate's voting behavior is actually changing. I was actually at my early polling site yesterday, not to vote. vote because it was my local why. I was taking my daughter to family swim. And I saw mayoral candidate

and state senator Zulner Myrie out there campaigning. And I asked him what he thought of the turnout because he was the former chair of the elections committee that passed early voting. And he was really pleased to see it, see so many people participating. Of course, he was also talking to voters trying to sway them. But I think it's a real sign that the electorate is thinking about how to participate in these elections a little bit differently. Yeah. One hour. Really quickly, Bridget, Brian, I know we are running close on time here, but I'm curious, what will you both be watching for this week? Well, just really quickly, does the early voting pace keep up? How many cross-endorcements do we see already this morning?

We've seen another one come out with former Assembly member Michael Blake, cross-endorsing with Assembly Member Mamdani. And how much does all this money that's been pouring into these independent expenditure groups to support Cuomo show up in, the experience of voters, or mailboxes stuffed, are the commercials just nonstop? I'll be watching to see if Alanda or Adam Surge actually materializes. That's WMYC's Brian Lair and Bridget Bergen. Thanks. You're welcome. Welcome. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC.

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