NYC NOW - Midday News: NYPD Under Federal Bribery Probe, A-Train Shutdown Begins in the Rockaways, NYC Braces for Snow, Critics Push Back on Adams’ Budget, and NJ Teen Joins Local School Board

Episode Date: January 17, 2025

The NYPD is under federal investigation for an alleged pay-to-play scheme, exchanging bribes for promotions. Meanwhile, the MTA begins its shutdown of a stretch of the A train in the Rockaways Friday night. Also, the National Weather Service forecasts up to 4 inches of snow in the city by Monday, with up to 6 inches expected outside the city. Plus, Mayor Eric Adams unveiled his $115 billion budget Thursday, calling it a testament to his fiscal management. But some critics disagree. Finally, WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Christina Argenziano of Closter, New Jersey. At 19 years old, she is one of the youngest members of the Closter Local Board of Education.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Friday, January 17th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. The NYPD is under a federal criminal investigation for a pay-to-play scheme exchanging promotions for bribes. That's according to a letter filed in a lawsuit against Tim Pearson, a top aide to Mayor Adams. The letter was filed last night. It includes claims of testimony from numerous NYPD employees. Federal investigators interviewed about trading sexual favors in cash for promotions. Messages to City Hall and prosecutors have not been immediately returned.

An important transit alert for Rockaway A train riders, the line will be shut down to and from Queens Peninsula starting tonight at 1130 and lasting until May. The MTA says the month's long close will allow for critical upgrades to the Viad ducts and bridge that carry trains across broad channel. Rockway Park shuttle trains also will not run over the channel during the work. The MTA says the changes are expected to disrupt travel for 9,000 daily commuters. It says the work is necessary to protect the line from future storms. Free shuttle buses will run along the Q97 and Q109 routes.

New York City could get its biggest snowfall so far this season by early Monday. The National Weather Service is forecasting 2 to 4 inches. across the region with some places outside the city anticipating up to six inches. Meteorologist Dave Riddell says then it will get very cold. Tuesday into Wednesday it looks to be the coldest of those days where highs may not get out of the teens and the wind chills look to be in the single digits for a part of that time frame as well. The octoblasts will lax likely be just short-lived with temperatures creaking back up later in the week. 37 now, sunshine and 40 tomorrow. Chance of rain and then.

some snow this weekend. Stay close. There's more after the break. Mayor Adams unveiled his $115 billion budget proposal yesterday, calling it a testament to his responsible fiscal management of the city, but some critics don't agree with that. Let's go through the details now with WNIC's Michelle Boconegra. Hi, Michelle, so let's dive into this. For starters, this is just the mayor's plan of how to spend city taxpayer money. Hi, Michael. Yes, but it's not set in stone at this point. Basically, what he unveiled yesterday is the proposal that kicks off the whole city budgeting process. It's called the preliminary budget, which is introduced by the mayor. It's essentially the mayor's vision board for city spending in the upcoming fiscal year. And the mayor is really the driver of the city's budget conversation in this stage. And he's saying now, this is what I'd like to do this year.

But the thing is he has to wrestle with the council on what areas the city should prioritize its spending on. And the key word is wrestle. What is the mayor prioritizing in this preliminary budget? Well, he is prioritizing a few areas, one of them being homelessness and mental illness. We knew that he was hoping to add 900 safe haven beds, which can be a more accessible form of shelter. than traditional shelters. He's hoping to help the city expand its subway outreach. And he's also hoping to fund some pilot programs that ultimately will try to help homeless people find housing. And he has a lot, he had a lot of focus on public safety, as he usually does or has had in his tenure as mayor. He's thinking about this in a few ways. You know, a couple of things that he's looking at is he's hoping to beef up staffing at the city's jails. And he's also hoping to beef up lifeguard staffing, which he hopes that will enable the city to bring more swim classes to folks.

Oh, go ahead, Michael. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm wondering, is there anything getting cut? Well, that is the big tagline from his administration, no cuts to programs, no layoffs of city workers. And he says that the city was able to do this after adjusting its forecast for migrant-related spending. It's also important to remember that the mayor isn't an election year and a tough one for him is looking like. Tell us what his critics have to say about this, Michelle.

Well, so broadly, his critics are skeptical of this budget. So some folks are saying that the mayor touting a no-cuts proposal still falls short of, in their view, rectifying years of cuts to programs. So Justin Brannon, who's the council's finance chair, says, that the preliminary budget still doesn't make significant investments in things like early childhood education, Parks, CUNY. And, you know, even stepping outside of the regular bucket of the mayor's political critics are the budget folks. So the Citizens Budget Commission says that this preliminary budget could be another case of under budgeting by the administration, particularly as it faces some uncertainty in the near future. You know, of course, the city's effect about

by larger forces above it. President Trump is getting inaugurated next week. What might that mean for the city's financial forecast? And of course, Mayor Adams is down in Florida today, or will be at some point to meet with President Electrum to talk about New York. But essentially, to your point, essentially economists and budget experts say that the city needs some wiggle room to deal with any potential cuts to federal programs.

So one example that was given to us by the Citizens Budget Commission is that if there were, for example, cuts to federal Medicaid spending, that could potentially impact the city's public hospitals. And then what? You know, the city has to essentially figure out how to shoulder that burden to ensure that everything keeps operating the way that it has been. So that is something, a scenario in which a little cash in the couch cushions could alleviate. Indeed, indeed. So that's Michelle Bocanagra talking to us here about the mayor's proposed $115 billion spending plan. Michelle, thank you. Thank you, Michael.

What were you doing at 19? Heading to college classes, going to work? How about serving on a school board? That's exactly what. 19-year-old Christina Argentiano from close to New Jersey's up to these days. She's recently been sworn in as a member of the Closter Local Board of Education, making her one of the youngest people to ever serve in that role. She joins us now. Hi, Christina. Welcome to the Morning Edition. Hi, thanks for having me. You're most welcome. How exactly did you decide to run for office? Did you have any

inspirations? Oh, yeah. I think my dad was a huge inspiration. He's been serving on my high school school board for the last 10 years. So just like growing up, I've just really seen my dad, my mom really giving back to the community and being like super involved in like my school and my town. And then when I decided to study politics, I thought what better opportunity than to get a young voice involved in politics than right now in the school board because I saw that there was a seat open and there's a lot of older voices in politics right now. and I thought, I'm a young person. I'm studying politics.

No harm in starting early. A 19-year-old school board member is not exactly commonplace just yet. What kind of reaction did you get from people in your community while you were running when you were campaigning? A lot of people reached out to my mom and they were like, oh, I didn't know you were running. And my mom was like, it's not me. It's actually my daughter. So a lot of people's first thought just was automatically that it was an adult. But when she told them that it was me, a lot of people were like, wow, like I'm so proud of her.

like this is going to be great for the town. And I got like a lot of messages of support from like my friends, um, my friends as parents, people from around the town through my parents that text my parents. So it was honestly a lot of support when I was expecting a lot of skepticism and criticism for being so young. And obviously it turned out that a lot of people did believe in me based on the results. So it felt very supportive to see that. What was your margin of victory? I won by, I think, Almost 500 votes. Wow, that's impressive.

How did you do that? Leading out to the election, me and I took one of my friends, and I went around my whole town going door to door, putting in flyers and mail and ballots into every single mailbox. And then I also had lawn signs made, and I reached out to everyone I knew in town and asked if I could put signs on their lawn, and I had signs put out everywhere around town so I could get my name out there. So I did a lot of campaigns.

And what were you telling people your priorities were, what you were going to do once you got on the school board? So on my campaign flyers, I talked about student wellness and fiscal responsibility and things like that. And also I talked about like the importance of like a young voice in politics and the importance of like representation, decision making. And I think how because I'm a younger person on the board, I feel like I'd be bridging a gas. between students and the board. So I feel like I'd be more of a representation of students. You were 14, 15 during the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tell us, how did that experience of attending school remotely affect your academic experience? And how do you think that influences your perspective as a board member now? During COVID, I think that really affected a lot of things

going into lockdown. Like, I feel like being in school and like education really dropped off for a second there. But when we came back, I feel like a lot of things went to normal, just a lot of learning and academics went to a lot of online tools. So I think as someone who's like actively still learning in a post-COVID environment, I can offer like a unique perspective on that because I'm someone who's experienced it and is still experiencing it. So even though you're serving on the board, you're also, as we said, an NYU student living in New York City, what do you think the experience of switching back and forth between these two worlds will be like. Yeah, I'm not worried about it. I live 45 minutes away, so it's not a long of you. And when it's

like something that you care about and you're passionate about, I'm not worried about committing my time to it. So I'm excited to like learn to manage my time and balance school and this. So I think I'll be fine. Christina, Argentiano is a politics student at New York University and a new member the closer local Board of Education in New Jersey. Christina, thanks so much for being with us. Thanks for having me. It was good talking to you. Thanks for listening.

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