NYC NOW - October 13, 2023 : Evening Roundup

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

Officials say a second man with New Jersey ties was killed in last weekend's Hamas attack on Israel. Meanwhile, various groups and religious leaders plan to legally challenge Mayor Adams' proposal to suspend New York City's right to shelter rules for homeless, single adults due to the migrant crisis. Also, Competitive Power Ventures has scrapped plans for a second power plant in Woodbridge, NJ. Staten Island leaders are reigniting efforts to secede from New York City. Finally, a new Hindu temple in Robbinsville, NJ, faces allegations of forced labor during construction.

Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. I'm Sean Cronelson. Officials in New Jersey say they've learned of a second man with ties to the state who was killed in the Hamas attack on Israel last weekend. 22-year-old Lear Abramov moved to Israel last year to join the military and become a DJ. In a Facebook post, his mother said, quote, the world stopped when she received the news of her son's death. Here's State Attorney General Matthew Platkin speaking about Abramov, as well as the death of Etai Gisco, and moved from New Jersey to Israel as a child. We mourn for all of the people who were slaughtered,

and we mourn for all the individuals. The innocent civilians now caught up in the horrors of war. Several other people with ties to the tri-state area remain missing following the attack. You can hear the Attorney General's full conversation with W&C's Tiffany Hanson Saturday on all things considered. In other news, nearly two dozen groups, including religious leaders and the city's biggest union, say they plan to oppose in court. Mayor Adams' request to suspend the city's right to shelter rules for homeless single adults amid the ongoing migrant crisis.

Christine Quinn is organizing the coalition. She heads Wynn, a homeless shelter provider for women and families. The mayor thought he was going to sneak this by, that he was going to repeal the right to shelter. He was going to throw new arrivals out on the street like they weren't human beings and nobody was going to notice. Adams is asking a court to change the city's unique and longstanding legal obligation to provide shelter to anybody in need. He says the righteous shelter was never intended to address a migrant crisis. Plans for a new natural gas-fired power plant in Woodbridge, New Jersey are no more. Competitive Power Ventures is abandoning its six-year-old plan to build a second power plant in the community, saying the project is no longer financially feasible.

Charlie Cradaville is the central Jersey organizer for the nonprofit Food and Water Watch. He says the plant also presented certain environmental concerns. We've seen more and more days where people have had to take precautions because of poor air quality and often that's because of particulate matter. And this plant would have gotten permission to dump another almost hundred tons. Plants for the power plant were submitted to the state in 2017 before New Jersey passed in an environmental justice law that activists said would have prevented it from opening. Stay close. There's more after the break.

Could you imagine a New York City with only four boroughs? Elected leaders on Staten Island are renewing calls to secede from the Big Apple. WNYC's Ramsey-C-Col-Kalifé has more. The migrant crisis is sparking growing calls among Staten Island politicians for the borough to become an independent city. They say the borough would never have housed migrants if it weren't for the Adams administration. Borough President Vita Fasela is now planning a study on the cost and political implications of Staten Island becoming a city.

The move would require Staten Island to have its own police force, school system, and much more. He says it's time for change. I just think it's a sort of visceral feeling that we have our own set of priorities and needs and what we would like to do. Some Staten Islanders agree with the idea to secede. Take lifelong resident Iran-Colon. The migrant issue is a New York City issue that New York City is throwing on Staten Island. It's like they did out the garbage with the dump. He's referring to the Fresh Kills landfill, which represents.

resulted in some of the earliest calls for Staten Island to secede roughly 90 years ago. Locals didn't like the island being a dumping ground for the city's garbage. Similar calls for secession over the dump reignited in the 1990s, as covered by WNYC at the time. Staten Island voters Tuesday night approved Proposal 5 to secede from the other four boroughs. That effort was eventually blocked in Albany. Successful today, an independent Staten Island would not have to follow New York City's right to shelter law. Staten Island is currently housing around 300 migrants, at a former high school in the Erosher neighborhood.

Ramsey-Helife, WNYC News. Thousands of Hindu devotees helped build the BAPS-Akshirdam. The soaring Hindu temple was dedicated Sunday in Robinsville, New Jersey, before a full opening plan for next week. But as WNYC's Arun Venet Kapal reports, others involved in the construction say they endured years of forced labor. The dedication of the BAPS-Aksh-Thub temple was a spectacular event. There were fireworks, 15,000,

hundred dancers and a light show highlighting the temple itself, a majestic white marble structure whose main spire rises nearly 20 stories into the sky. One of the 6,000 people who showed up for the festivities was Shivani Patel. She's 24 and worked at L'Oreal until earlier this year, when she quit her job for an unpaid position helping to build a temple. I wanted to kind of do something that was a little bit bigger than myself. Temple officials say this is now the largest Hindu temple in North America. Construction lasted eight years and involved 12,500 volunteers. In Patel's case, it was a dramatic shift from her corporate job. So I did a lot of the grouting work here. I did a lot of power washing, cleaning, chisels, a bunch of tools that, quite honestly,

I'd never touched before. Patel says the work was empowering. And for many others who are part of the Swami Narayan tradition of Hinduism, the formal opening of the temple is a moment of triumph. Even Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi weighed in from afar with a congratulatory message. But the project has also been marked by controversy, involving workers from India who are now suing the temple. You know, they were essentially cheated out of a lot of money. This is Patricia Kakalik, an attorney based in Brooklyn. She represents nine plaintiffs who say they were paid an average of $450 a month, just over $1 an hour over the course of years, and subjected to grueling.

ruling conditions. The lawsuit argues that Temple officials intentionally recruited workers from the lowest casts in India and then regularly reminded them of their place in the social hierarchy. The employer confiscated the employees' passports and weren't able to leave. The lawsuit was filed after one worker from India, Mohan Lal died on the site. Along with the lawsuit, there is a federal investigation which came to public attention after federal law enforcement officers raided the property in 2021. a spokesperson for the Justice Department would not comment on the case. In Yogi Thravady, a spokesperson for the temple and individual officials named the lawsuit, denied the charges.

Thravati told WNYC, the workers in the class action were like the thousands of other faithful who volunteered their time. He also noted that there were originally 21 plaintiffs and that 12 of them dropped out of the lawsuit. But others in the Hindu community say they're skeptical and waiting for more facts to emerge. I won't be going to this temple. Sonita Vishwanat is the co-founder of the group Hindus for human rights. As progressive Hindus, we would want a Hindu temple to answer these questions about these allegations and to make sure that the people coming to the temple to pray can be reassured that none of this is true or if it is true that reparations have been made.

Despite the controversy, temple officials say they expect hundreds of thousands of devotees, and other visitors in the coming year. Thruvedi, this spokesperson for Baps, a Hindu denomination whose full form is Bochasynvasi Sri Aksharpurshottam Swami Naray and Sandsda, says one of the central tenets of the faith is Sava, or service. The point of Sava, and this is embedded in the theology of Hinduism, is not just to serve to give back to others,

but it's to grow yourself within. This is the ethos that drew people like Shivani Patel to quit their jobs and help build the temple. Patel grew up in the temple community. This is where she learned to speak Gujarati and where she studied Barthanatium dance. A few days before the temple opening, she stood in its vast courtyard.

She says the allegations against the temple bear no resemblance to her own experience here. What I can say is my time here as a volunteer, I felt nothing but love, support, empowerment, unity, and overall just a sense of peace. Sanchani here on this campus. Anne Patel says that seeing the temple in its full glory gives her goosebumps. The Baps, Akshardam, will be fully open to the public on Wednesday.

Arun Van Gogh, WNYC News. One note before we go, we're dropping another special episode on Saturday morning. It's the next installment of WNYC's five-part investigative podcast series, Imminent Danger. One Doctor and a Trail of Injured Women. Be sure to check it out. Thanks for listening to NYC now from WNYC. Quick shout out to our production team. It includes Sean Boutich, Amber Bruce, Avey Carrillo, Audrey Cooper,

Liora Noam Kravitz, Jared Marcel, and Wayne Schulmeister, with help from the entire WNNIC Newsroom. Our show art was designed by the folks at Buck, and our music was composed by Alexis Quadraro. I'm Sean Carlson. Have a great weekend. We'll be back on Monday.