Midday News: FAA Confirms Newark Radar Outage, NJ Transit Talks Move to D.C., Brooklyn Man Charged in Arsons, and Calls for New Laws in Response to Recent Do...

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Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC Now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Friday, May 9th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: We're learning about more disruptions at Newark Liberty Airport. The Federal Aviation Administration says air traffic controllers directing planes into Newark lost contact over radar this morning for the second time in two weeks. The FAA says the radar facility in Philadelphia that directs planes in and out of the airport went black for 90 seconds just before four o'clock this morning. A similar outage happened on April 28th. That outage led to hundreds of flights being canceled or delayed in the past two weeks after the FAA slowed down traffic at the airport to ensure safety.

Multiple reports say the National Mediation Board has called NJ Transit and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers to Washington on Monday, four days before a threatened strike. The board calls the planned gathering a public interest meeting to get a status of the talks and to try to thaw negotiations. Engineers in March overwhelmingly rejected salary increases from NJ Transit, and the two sides have reached a stalemate. A strike could send some 350,000 riders scrambling for alternate ways to travel.

A 25-year-old Brooklyn man has been charged with setting multiple fires at public housing buildings in Brooklyn, and investigators say he's confessed to them. The FDNY says Unique Cherry set a fire in January at NYCHA's Albany II development in Crown Heights, where he lives. Fire officials say Cherry set two others at the related Albany I complex in December and January. Cherry's attorney did not immediately respond to our request for comment. 57 with clouds now and showers, rain and showers this afternoon. Cooler today, a high of 62. Mother's Day weekend is looking good. Sunshine and high temps in the 70s.

Janae Pierre: Stick around, there's more to come.

Sean Carlson: On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. A dog attack on the Upper West Side has some city lawmakers calling for new legislation. According to her owners, 10-year-old Chihuahua mix, Penny, was out for a walk when she was mauled by pit bulls. Several lawmakers say the case highlights gaps in the current law that fail to hold negligent dog owners accountable. Councilmember Gale Brewer is one of the lawmakers calling for a new law. She represents the Upper West Side in the Council. She joins us now. Councilmember Brewer, thanks so much as always.

Councilmember Gale Brewer: Thank you.

Sean Carlson: Before we get into the law and the changes that you want to see to it, do we have any updates on Penny? This poor dog, how's she doing?

Councilmember Gale Brewer: My understanding is yes, she's out of the vet and the surgery, but she has a long way to go. There'll be all kinds of need for, believe it or not, even physical therapy, and I think also some support mentally for that poor dog.

Sean Carlson: Yes. What are the gaps in the current legislation that prevent prosecution of negligent dog owners in a case like this one?

Councilmember Gale Brewer: There are so many. Number one, it turns out that the DA's office and the police department have all agreed that if you're cruel to your dog, then they can prosecute. If it's just a dog hurting another dog, as in this case, they can't do anything. There's no criminal liability for the person whose dogs did it in any way, shape, or form. We'll try to fill that. Just right now, the only thing that could happen is that the owner of Penny, or the owners of Penny, could sue the owners of the pit bulls. That doesn't really help because I feel, and many others do, that this is not appropriate. Problem is, dogs are considered property. As anybody who has a dog, you don't feel like it's your property. It's your friend.

Sean Carlson: Yes

Councilmember Gale Brewer: Then, [unintelligible 00:03:51] 311 doesn't really take a dog attack as a complaint. That's just a small aspect of it that has to be addressed. Then there are "dangerous" dog laws at the city and the state level, and they need to be cleaned up. We're working with the state at the same time. The police, at this point, in terms of the dogs, can't do anything. However, the Department of Mental Health and Health, they too, although they don't often do this, they're responsible for investigating the danger posed by a dog.

They could, in fact, say to the owner of the pit bulls, "You need to bring these dogs in for evaluation of rabies." Then they could be there for nine days of evaluation, and then perhaps go to OATH, which is the administrative trial, to see what happened. That could delay those dogs being out on the street, which is what people are concerned about. There are so many loopholes.

Sean Carlson: What do you want to see happen legislatively that would address the issue?

Councilmember Gale Brewer: Three things. One is certainly a reporting mechanism. Number two, I want perhaps at the state level, it has to be that it is a crime to have a dog seemingly on purpose bite another dog, maul another dog in this case. We can't do that on the city level, but they do it on the state level. Then we want to have clear Department of Health and Mental Health make sure that they do take action. That if, in fact, something like this happened, they can call in the dog for evaluation and then go through a procedural process.

Third, I think that if a dog naturally bites, has this dog bite a person, then the injury is considered a serious injury that person to dog. We want to make sure that that's also true dog to dog. Particularly in this case, it seems like we're forced on that poor little Penny. There are just lots of places where there is a big gap.

Sean Carlson: Do you have any indication that something like this would pass the Council ? Would Mayor Adams sign it if it did?

Councilmember Gale Brewer: We already started introducing. We have a whole series of things. I mentioned some of them that we're going to be introducing. I do think that, given the wonderful advocacy by so many different people who have dogs, that it could be possible to pass. I just want to be clear that we also have to work with our state electeds to get something even on the issue of property, which is not something that we can do locally.

Sean Carlson: Yes. A quick pivot before we let you go here, Councilmember. Mayor Adams released his executive budget proposal last week. Negotiations with the Council are going to now start. They'll be led by Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, who is also running to replace the mayor. Can you give us some insights into this? How are early conversations going? Do you have any early response to the mayor's budget?

Councilmember Gale Brewer: The City Council, as you know, did do our own response, and I think the mayor did talk about some positives. We're very excited about a baseline for cultural, but there still needs to be another 30 million to come up to the 75 million needed for the cultural. As an example, the mayor's office and the state are arguing about money for child care, but the City Council wants to make sure that there is adequate child care for every parent who wants it. That's another highlight.

We're always very concerned about older adults, making sure that they have food. That's another concern that the City Council has. There are so many. Then, of course, there's the issue of where are the federal gaps? Example, every nonprofit group I know has gotten a call one way or the other, stating either human service or cultural, saying that they've gotten cut 65,000, 100,000. It's a lot of money when you're a small organization. I think it's going to be a very long budget discussion.

Sean Carlson: That's Councilmember Gale Brewer. Councilmember, as always, thanks so much for joining us.

Councilmember Gale Brewer: Thank you.

Janae Pierre: Thanks for listening. This is NYC Now from WNYC. Check us out for updates every weekday, three times a day, for the latest news headlines and occasional deep dives. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast.

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