Midday news: Former Newark Mayor Sharpe James Dies, Cuomo Fined for Campaign Violation, and Dems Prep for NJ Governor’s Race

Janae Pierre: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Monday, May 12th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: New Jersey officials say former New York Mayor Sharpe James has died. James was 89. He served five terms as the mayor of Newark between 1986 and 2006. In 2008, he was convicted of fraud and served 18 months in a federal prison. In his statement, Newark's current mayor, Ras Baraka, credited James with helping establish Prudential Center, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center. Baraka also called James "a warrior of our city." New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz also praised James, calling him an iconic and influential leader.

It's good news, bad news day for Andrew Cuomo's mayoral campaign. The Democrat received his first payment of public matching money from the New York City Campaign Finance Board today. The board approved more than $1.5 million for his campaign committee. However, his campaign was also fined more than $600,000 for what the campaign watchdog says is illegal coordination with a political action committee. The board says an ad distributed on May 4th by a group called Fix the City included information the campaign published on its website. Cuomo's spokesperson denies any wrongdoing and says the campaign plans to appeal the decision. The Campaign Finance Board's investigation continues.

The New York Knicks are back at the Garden tonight, looking to rebound after a tough Game 3 loss to Boston. The series stands at two wins for the Knicks, one for the Celtics. Fans know this is a pivotal moment. Game 4 starts at 7:30 tonight. Alison Stewart will be talking about the Knicks coming up in just a minute or two on All Of It. 69 and mostly sunny right now. Sunny today and a high of 74 with a light wind. This is WNYC.

Tonight, WNYC and NJ Spotlight News are coming together to bring you a discussion with the Democrats running to succeed New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. It will be similar to what you may have heard last Wednesday when we had the Republican candidates on stage. Joining us now to talk through what to expect is my co-moderator for tonight, Briana Vannozzi, NJ Spotlight News anchor. Briana, first of all, okay, we know five Democrats will be on stage tonight. Tell us who they are.

Briana Vannozzi: Well, I will note. I hope it's not exactly like last week because, as you'll recall, it got a little raucous. We've got five candidates. I should mention, these are the candidates who have qualified through New Jersey's Election Law Enforcement Commission to participate. Basically, they needed to have raised a certain amount of money, a threshold to qualify for the state-sanctioned debate.

They are two sitting Congress members, two sitting mayors of the state's largest cities, the former state Senate President Steve Sweeney, Mayor Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, who I'm sure many folks, if they weren't familiar with him, they certainly got familiar with him this weekend. Newark, of course, is the state's largest city. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop, he was the first to enter the race actually two years ago. Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill and Congressman Josh Gottheimer.

Michael Hill: Now, we're not calling this a debate. Tell us why and what's different about this format.

Briana Vannozzi: This is a conversation with the candidates. This is actually a format that's worked quite well for us in the past, really leaving this to be a more free-flowing, fluid conversation so that candidates can't come in with their canned 60-second answers where we don't get into the depth of policy discussion that we want to see and that we believe voters want to see in order to make an informed decision. This is a very important race. We are, of course, in charge, Michael and I, of leading us through these topics and issues and ensuring that every candidate gets a fair amount of time to state their policy platform and, of course, rebut if need to.

This will not be that old-school style of debate. We really want to get some of the personality out of who these candidates are and really learn about why they stand for the issues that they do. What are their proposed goals and how are they actually going to go about it? That's really difficult to get to in a 30-second rebuttal or a 60-second response. We really hope that that's what we get tonight is a really robust exchange of ideas and, of course, that the audience gets a lot out of it before they head to the polls.

Michael Hill: Robust versus raucous. Now, you mentioned that at the top, and we saw what happened last week. Are you expecting, are we expecting that kind of exchanges, those kinds of exchanges among these five Democrats?

Briana Vannozzi: Honestly, it is the most contentious race in the last 40 years, gubernatorial race that is, in the last 40 years for New Jersey. It's certainly one of the most crowded, but I don't. I think it'll be pretty civil on the Republican side. These folks have really been going after each other quite a bit. Although we have seen the gloves come off more recently, particularly folks who are targeting Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, who's the perceived front runner, at least if you go by the Rutgers-Eagleton poll and by party support. I do think there's going to be some fire exchanges, but I'm just putting this out into the ether now that this will be, "Decorum will be maintained."

Michael Hill: Fingers crossed, we should say, right, Briana? [laughs]

Briana Vannozzi: That's right.

Michael Hill: All right, Briana Vannozzi and I are moderating the discussion tonight. You can hear it on WNYC and you can see it on NJ Spotlight News at 7:00. Briana, thank you so much for being up early with us this morning. [laughs]

Briana Vannozzi: Absolutely. I'll see you later, my friend.

Michael Hill: All right. Great.

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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, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

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