NYC NOW - November 22, 2023: Midday News

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

A former city correction officer is going to federal prison for two-and-a-half years for smuggling contraband into jails in exchange for bribes. Meanwhile, New York City police are looking into a viral video of a man making Islamophobic comments towards a street food vendor on the Upper East Side. Finally, amidst Mayor Eric Adams' proposal for major budget cuts across city services, community composting groups are bracing for potential reductions. WNYC’s Michael Hill speaks with Justin Green, Executive Director of the environmental non-profit Big Reuse, and Councilmember Sandy Nurse from Brooklyn's 37th district, to discuss the potential impact of these cuts.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Wednesday, November 22nd. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. A former city correction officer is going to federal prison for two and a half years for smuggling contraband into jails in exchange for bribes. WNYC Samantha Max reports. Crystal Burrell pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges for

sneaking drugs and other prohibited items into the Anna M. Cross Center on Rikers Island. Then, prosecutors say, she conspired with others to smuggle even more contraband into a federal jail in Brooklyn while she was out on bail. She later pleaded guilty to additional charges. Prosecutors Say Burrell received about $10,000 in bribes for bringing in the contraband, which a detained man sold to other people in jail. That man has also pleaded guilty and is waiting to be sentenced. Breil's defense attorney declined to comment. New York City police are looking into a viral video of a man berating a street vendor on the Upper East Side. Vice News first identified the man in the video as Stuart Seldowitz, a former official with the National Security Council and State Department.

In the clip, Selowitz makes a series of Islamophobic remarks. The vendor asks him to leave. In a second video taken another time, Seldowitz tells the vendor, quote, If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, you know what? It wasn't enough. Saldowitz told the New York Times, the vendor said he supported Hamas, and that prompted his statements, but neither video capture such vendor remarks. 52 with sunshine now, partly sunny today and 59 for a high. Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, sunny and 53 in Breezy.

It's WNYC in New York. NYC. Mayor Eric Adams is proposing significant budget cuts across city's services like schools, policing, and sanitation. But community composting organizations are also bracing for significant reductions, even as the practice grows in prevalence across the five boroughs. Justin Green is the executive director of big reuse. It's an environmental nonprofit and one of eight organizations whose community composting, education, and outreach teams have been eliminated. Council member Sandy Nurse represents New York City's 37th Council District in Brooklyn.

They both join us now. Justin, under the mayor's plan, what exactly will happen to community composting? Well, Michael's Department of Sanitation has been funding our programs at our eight organizations, the New York Botanical Gardens, Queen Botanical Gardens, Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, Snug Harbor, Lower Eastside, Grown-Y-C, and our organization, Big Reviews for 30 years. And with these cuts, it will completely eliminate those community composting programs and 115 jobs associated with it. Those programs for the last 30 years have been providing compost education, outreach for curbside compost collection, and community composting. Community composting is where folks can drop off their food scrap drop-offs at farmers markets and community gardens all around the city.

we compost that material and make it into high-quality compost that we provide back to the city for parks and community gardens and street tree care. If you walk by street trees in New York City, you know that the soil needs a lot of help. And the composting arms of these organizations are funded through the Department of Sanitation, which is where the cuts would happen. Justin, would you explain how groups such as yours provide a different service from the orange smart bins that are now on corners across the city? city or the curbside, brown bins in Brooklyn and Queens? That's a great question. We provide a community-based solution, so it's a different system. So residents are deeply involved in bringing us their food scraps.

They help apply the food scraps that we, after we've composted them, to their street-tree care events and that community gardens. So it really involves the community. It's very local. it's sort of the most ecological approach to composting because we compost right in the here in the city, and then we use that compost to green the city. Councilmember Nurtz, I know this is a subject you care a lot about. You founded B.K. Rot, a food waste hauling and composting service.

But what about your constituents? Have you been hearing from them about this particular proposed budget cut? Well, I have heard from many of my colleagues in the city council who love these programs. Their communities love these programs. They love being able to bring their food waste to the farmers market. They love being able to bring their food waste to community gardens where the New York City Compost Project is hosted at or is hosting a drop off, for example. And they're very, very concerned.

You know, we just passed the Zero Waste Act this year, which includes the curbside organics collection service bill. And for New Yorkers, many of New Yorkers, this is the first time they're doing this. And a lot of these organizations are providing the outreach and education and awareness in person. They're going to people's doors. Justin, you know, his organization talks to 75,000 people a year about these programs and about composting. And so it's very hard to imagine us achieving. high participation rates without the vital education, hands-on education, and experience that

these community organizations provide. You mentioned the smart bins. Yes, there are many smart bins in the city, for example, in Manhattan, but if you look in the outer boroughs, they're very concentrated in just a few neighborhoods. So there's really no substitute at this moment for the grassroots work that these organizations do and the network that they've been providing to help let New Yorkers know about what composting in, why it's important, and why we must continue to move forward in doing this. You know, Grow NYC has a petition asking the city council to stop the mayor from enacting these cuts.

Yesterday, Brooklyn Councilmember Shahana Hanif posted on social media that she will oppose any cuts to the program. Councilmember Nurse have to ask you, what's your sense of how others are in the council are feeling about this? Well, I think it's extremely concerning. I mean, 30 million has been, over 30 million is being proposed for cuts to the Department of Sanitation in the November plan. And this will have a significant impact on how the city feels, if it feels clean or not. And, you know, the cuts to the New York City composting project with potential layoff of over 100, workers is not a good look. I think most of our, most of my colleagues don't want to see people lose their jobs and they don't want to see people lose their jobs who are doing this important on the ground community work. The smart bins, as I said, can't replace the work that these organizations do. It's not just the outreach and education. They're actually processing the material. I mean, maybe Justin can highlight how much material big reuse is processing alone.

but across the botanical gardens and all of these other organizations in the network. We're talking about millions of pounds of food waste each year. I have one more question here. Justin, if the cuts are not reversed, what then? I know a lot of these organizations have been meeting to try to come up with some way to save the effort. Is there a plan B? 30 seconds here. Well, you know, we understand there are a lot of cuts in the city and we're happy to be, you know, have some cuts, but cutting 100% of our programs will be devastating to these programs. Like they're just not enough other ways to fund it to keep them going.

And so that means loss of the food scrap drop-offs to the farmers markets and all the compost we provide to community groups and street-tree care. I'm afraid we'll have to leave it here. I've been speaking with city council members Sandy Nurse and Justin Green. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC.

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