NYC NOW - October 21, 2024: Midday News

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

Jury selection begins this Monday for the trial of Daniel Penny, accused of fatally choking Jordan Neely, a homeless man, on a subway train last year. Meanwhile, New Jersey officials announced plans to build 80,000 homes for low- and middle-income families, though some towns argue they lack the space to meet these demands. Plus, the Adams administration will not renew a $300 million contract with BlocPower, a startup managing job training and anti-violence programs. WNYC’s David Brand has the details.

Welcome to NYC now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Monday, October 21st. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle. Jury selection begins today in the trial of Daniel Penny, who choked a homeless subway passenger to death last year. WNYC's Tiffany Hansen has more. Penny, a 25-year-old former Marine, is facing manslaughter and homicide. charges in connection with the death of Jordan Neely on an uptown F-train in May of last year.

The charges stem from an incident in which Penny placed Neely in a fatal chokehold. Some on the train said that Neely, who was homeless and had struggled with addiction and mental illness, was acting erratically. Others said the 30-year-old former street impersonator had not attacked anyone. The altercation sparked protests and increased scrutiny of subway safety. Penny has pleaded not guilty. He faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted. Court proceedings in his trial are expected to last about six weeks. New Jersey officials are announcing a plan to develop 80,000 homes for low and medium-income families across the state, but not everyone is happy about it. Jeffrey Serrengian is an attorney who represents towns in affordable housing matters. He claims the state is asking many

towns that don't have available land to overdevelop their communities. Why are you imposing an obligation that is unrealistic. Why are you pouring water into a full glass? State officials shared numbers for how many affordable housing units each of around 500 municipalities is expected to produce. On average, towns were assigned 550 new homes, though some are being asked to develop as many as 1,000. 23 towns that are filing a lawsuit to overturn the state's affordable housing law. Sunny today with a high near 80 tonight mostly clear with a low around 63. Stay close. There's more after the break.

On WNYC, Michael Hill, a contract, the Adams administration signed with a green energy company is raising questions. Blockpower is a Brooklyn startup that was awarded a combined $300 million in contracts during a job training program. distribute funds to organizations addressing gun violence, despite having little experience managing such a large initiative. Now City Hall says the contract will not be renewed because officials don't know how many people participated or whether they found employment. Double D in my seat, David Brand joins us. Santa, tell us more. So, David, how did this deal between the city and block power come together? Well, we have to think back to the spring of

2021. New York City was coming out of the worst of the pandemic and there was this really disturbing spike in shootings and violent crimes. So Mayor Bill Deplasia wanted to get people at risk of gun violence, formerly incarcerated New Yorkers, people with gang affiliations, into a paid jobs program with a focus on residents of Mott Haven in the Bronx and Brownsville, Brooklyn to start. So the city made about $24 million available at the time. And some of this from federal funding to set up a program like this, and they contacted Blockpower. Email show that City Hall reached out to Block Power to set this up, and they had to do it in a short amount of time, just a few weeks for this pilot program.

This came to involve a lot of subcontractors, people providing social services and case management, job trainers doing HVAC, construction, electrical training, and people handling payroll. And it was a really positive plan to all for these crucial job skills to people who are unemployed or underemployed from low-income communities, many of them formerly incarcerated. And they got paid $20 an hour for this 12-week program. David, how did the Adams administration expand this program and the money going to block power? Well, in October 2022, Adams hailed it as a key upstream solution to stop gun violence by getting people jobs. Here he is at a press conference announcing expansion of the program that month two years ago. You want to take the steel gun out of someone's hand, put a steel screwdriver in their hands, and allow them to be productively employed in their communities.

This investment is going to allow 3,000 more New Yorkers to participate in this program. So the city said Blockpower was doing a really good job. They gave them a new contract worth about $176 million this time. And as part of that, they put Block Power in charge of distributing tens of millions of dollars to groups fighting gun violence. It's kind of an unusual arrangement. They became the pass-through for all of these anti-violence, street-level anti-violence groups. But two years later, the Adams administration's view changed on Block Power and on the program. As you said, they opted not to renew the contract for the program in June.

I started looking at this because I wanted to find out what happened at this program that was, praised and was seemingly doing such good work. The city told me block power wasn't providing basic information, like how many people got jobs or even how many people were enrolled in the program. They commissioned a report by researchers from John Jay College that found there was actually never a way to gauge the effectiveness of this program. What? What does block power say about that? Well, they dispute it all, and it seemed pretty angry with what the city's saying. They issued a first-year impact report back in October 2022 saying about a quarter

of the 1,700 participants in the program got jobs in fields related to the training program, so green energy or electrical or construction. But they do say now employment was actually never part of the contract. It wasn't a metric that they were supposed to meet.

And they say they were sharing information with the city all along. Notably, though, they refused to share any data with me. They said, ask the city. The city tells me they don't have any of that data. There's also a financial dispute here. This block power says the city owes them money for administering all that money to the anti-violence groups. Meanwhile, the city says, we're not going to pay the remainder of what block powers owed until they

resolve these other issues they have with subcontractors who say they're not getting paid. Is it normal for such large contracts to be so unclear about what counts its success? Well, I talk to some good government groups, people who specialize in program design and assessment, and they say it can be, especially if they're set up in a rush like this through an emergency contract. But they also say even the best programs need metrics. And if the city is spending hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer funds on these programs, there should be a way even with the best intentions to tell if it's working or have a measure of success. WNIC's David Brand. David, thank you.

And you can read much more of his. reporting on Block Power at our news site, Gothamus. Thanks, David. Thanks, Michael. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a date, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives.

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