NYC NOW - Midday News: Teen in Critical Condition After Pride Shooting, MetroCard to Be Phased Out by Year’s End, and Rent Guidelines Board to Vote on Increases Amid Citywide Political Shifts

Episode Date: June 30, 2025

Police say a 16-year-old girl is in critical condition after being shot in the head near the Stonewall Inn as Pride celebrations wrapped up Sunday night. A 17-year-old was also shot and is in stable condition. Meanwhile, the MTA will stop selling MetroCards by the end of the year as it completes its shift to the OMNY tap-to-pay system. A planned four percent fare hike could also raise the cost of a single ride to $3. Plus, the city’s Rent Guidelines Board is set to vote Monday night on potential increases for rent-stabilized apartments. WNYC’s David Brand joins us to explain what’s at stake.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, June 30th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Police say a 16-year-old is in critical condition after someone shot her in the head as pride festivities around the historic Stonewall Inn wound down last night. Police say a 17-year-old is in stable condition after a gunshot to her leg. Connor Weiss lives near the Stonewall and heard the shots. This is the first time in all the years I've lived here that I've even heard about anything close to this violent happening on Gay Pride Day, certainly in this neighborhood. Police said they're still trying to figure out what led to the shooting. Stonewall Inn is considered the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.

Big changes are coming to New York City Transit Fares, WNYC's Ramsey Calli, Ifay explains. New Yorkers can get ready to say goodbye to the Metro card by the end of the year. The MT plans to stop selling the vinyl fare cards as it fully transitions riders to its tap-to-pay Omni system. At the same time, transit officials are planning a 4% fare hike at some point this year, which is likely to push the cost of a single ride to $3. As the city moves away from the Metro card, officials say riders are also likely to lose the

30-day unlimited pass. Officials say they instead want to offer other discounts to frequent riders through on The new affair system isn't without problems. New Yorkers across the city reported having getting charged for multiple trips that they never took. MTA officials say this was just a bug, and they corrected the charges. 85 and partly sunny in the big city right now on the way to a partly sunny day, a high temperature of 87 with a calm wind. 50-50 chance of showers and storms tonight, mainly after 8, low 75, then tomorrow showers and storms likely, mostly cloudy, 87.

Stay close. There's more. after the break. The group that controls the rent on roughly one million rent regulated departments in New York City votes tonight on whether to pass new rent increases. Their decision comes at a momentous time in city politics. The presumptive nominee in last week's Democratic primary for mayor, Zoramam Dhani, ran on the slogan, Freeze the Rent, and he's pledged to appoint members who will do exactly that. joining us to talk about this is WNYC's housing reporter David Brent.

David, first of all, we're, of course, talking about the Rent Guidelines Board. Let's just establish what the board is for for folks who may not understand what it does. Hey, Michael. So, yep, it's that time of year again, the annual Rent Guidelines Board vote. So this board is nine members, all of them appointed by the mayor. They're all housing experts. There's lawyers, economists. There's a nonprofit director.

Two of them represent the interests of tenants. Two represent interests of the landlords. And then there's this five-member majority that's supposed to be more detached. They're called the public members, and they split the difference here. They meet often in the spring to go over data on both how the city rent-regulated tenants are doing. They look at median income, unemployment rates, how many people are getting public benefits. And they also look at how landlords are doing and conditions in their buildings. How much profit are people making?

How much does it cost to run and maintain these buildings? And then they hear a lot of testimony from members of the public, from tenants, from landlords, from politicians. And then that all culminates in the vote that's happening tonight, whether to increase the rent and buy how much. That decision is always a hot topic, David. But I have to say, this year feels different. There seems to be a lot more focused on that decision. Affordability is an issue across all political lines. Yeah, I think you're right. And it's not just you and me who think that. I talked to a number of housing experts and historians who they say they've never seen such a focus on the board's decision. And I'd say that's for two reasons. The first is timing. This is just the second time that a local primary has fallen in June. It used to be in September. And so that puts people's vote in the primary election right around at the same time as the board's vote. So it's a hot topic. And then there's a second reason. And that's like you said at the beginning, Zeran, Mom Donnie, the president.

presumptive Democratic nominee who scored a huge upset victory last week. He did it by running on affordability and specifically on rents. And here he is speaking at a rally outside a rent guideline board hearing in April. We need to be clear that if we are serious about tackling homelessness, if we are serious about tackling the housing crisis, then there is only one answer that we have to lead with. And that is freezing the rent. Yes.

That slogan frees the rent has been a key piece of his campaign right from his very first announcement last fall. Voters might see that, though, and think he's talking about everybody's rent. So I think we need to clarify here. He's talking about rents and rent-stabilized apartments that are subject to the board's decision tonight. But that isn't new for him. He's actually got himself arrested at last year's board vote protesting and an increase. And he's planning to be back there tonight. As you said, he's pledged to appoint board members that,

won't vote for any rent increases throughout his term if he were to win in November. And that's definitely a different position from his three his top likely opponents in November, Eric Adams, Andrew Cuomo, and the Republican nominee, Curtis Slewa. Now, David, what have they said about rent increases by the board? Well, Cuomo says that calls for a rent increase are just political pandering. And he said he'll leave it up to the board to make those decisions based on the data. with Adams, similar stance. So right now the board is considering an increase of 1.75% to 4.75% on new one-year leases.

And then 3.75 to 7.75% on new two-year leases. And right after they made that announcement, Adams said that that top rate is too high, that 7.75 on two-year leases. But he also told landlords at a town hall recently that he does not support a rent freeze and that he's not going to, quote, play politics with their assets. So Cuomo says a rent freeze is just political pandering. So Cuomo and Adams may appeal to landlords. What have landlords had to say about Mamdani's pledge? Well, they hate it. And not only that, they say what Mamdani is proposing, requiring his board appointees not to vote to raise the rents, actually could be illegal. Here's Kenny Burgos. He's former State Assembly member and head of the rent-stabilized landlord lobbying group, New York Department Association. The law clearly states that the

RGB is an independent body. They are bound to follow the law, which requires them to review key data before they make a decision. So this is all kind of hypothetical. Domani obviously hasn't won. He hasn't appointed board members. But it suggests to me that if you were to win and try to put that in place, they might sue.

Lastly, David, what do past years tell us about how the board votes during an election year? If the mayor appoints the members, do they ever back off on rent increases when the mayor is up for re-election? Yeah, I wanted to see if in these re-election years, if mayors were pressuring their boards, if there's any indication that the rent increases were lower in re-election years. So I reviewed votes going all the way back to the Lindsay administration. And what I found is there's very little indication of that the board is voting for smaller increases in a re-election year. So in 1989, the board voted for an increase of 5.5% when Mayor Koch was up for re-election. That was about the same as the previous year.

year. He ended up losing to David Dinkins in 1993 when Dinkins was up for reelection. There was an increase of 3%. That was exact same as the previous year. He lost a little different from Mayor Bloomberg. During his 12-year tenure, they saw an average annual rent increase of about 3.1 percent. But in the years he was up for re-election, the board voted for increases of just 2.25 and 2.5 percent. And then there's de Blasio, whose boards famously froze the rent three times, but not actually in his reelection year of 2017. WNYC, housing reporter, David Brand. David, thanks for this.

Thanks a lot, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC. 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.