Midday News: NJ Transit Faces Strike Deadline, City Gears Up for Bike to Work Day, Knicks Cooked in Boston, and Prison Reform in Albany

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Female Speaker 1: Welcome to NYC NOW, your source for local news in and around New York City, from WNYC. It's Thursday, May 15th. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill.

Michael Hill: Today is the last day for NJ Transit officials to reach a deal with union members before a strike shuts down all the agency's rail service. WNYC's Ramsey Khalifeh reports from Newark

Ramsey Khalifeh: There still isn't a deal in hand, and more than 100,000 commuters don't know if they'll be able to ride the train tomorrow. The New Jersey Transit Board met last night to discuss their negotiations with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. New Jersey Transit CEO, Kris Kolluri, says a deal is possible.

Kris Kolluri: We reached a deal once before. I think we can do it again as long as we remember it has to be fair for the employees, but also has to be fair for the taxpayers and the riders.

Ramsey Khalifeh: Last month, the two sides reached a tentative agreement that included pay raises, but an overwhelming majority of the locomotive engineers voted it down and are arguing they're not getting their fair shake.

Michael Hill: Get your pedals ready. Tomorrow's National Bike to Work Day, where advocates encourage commuters to make their journeys on two wheels. The event aims to promote cycling as a healthy and environmentally friendly means of transportation. The New York City Department of Transportation is organizing rides for municipal workers with meetup locations in every borough.

Transportation officials say cycling is at record highs in the city, with an estimated 226 million cycling trips each year. Well, the New York Knicks lost last night to Boston by 25 points, so it's back to Madison Square Garden tomorrow night at eight o'clock. They can wrap up the series and move on to the next round with a win. If not, it's game seven back in Boston on Monday night. 65 with clouds now, 50/50 chance of showers and storms this afternoon. Patchy fog, a high of 70. Then patchy fog tonight, a low around 63.

Female Speaker 1: Stay tuned for more after the break.

Sean Carlson: On WNYC. I'm Sean Carlson. It is time for Politics Brief, our weekly segment, where we break down the news out of City Hall and Albany. Today, we're joined by WNYC reporters. Jon Campbell is in Albany, and Brigid Bergin are here in the city. We're going to start. The state legislature held a hearing on prison reform. It comes in the wake of the death of Robert Brooks and Messiah Nantwi, who were killed by corrections officers while incarcerated in a state prison near Utica last year. Jon, what are the lawmakers trying to learn about that?

Jon Campbell: Yes, Sean, I mean, it has been an awful stretch in the state prison system. You mentioned Brooks, you mentioned Nantwi. Then there was also this wildcat strike by corrections officers that led to a couple thousand being fired, which is exacerbating what was already a staffing crisis in the prisons. You have thousands of members of the National Guard in the prisons now. This hearing was to set the stage for the rest of the legislative session. There's a big push to reform the prison system from lawmakers like Senator Julia Salazar from Brooklyn. She says she's going to be pushing legislation to make this system more humane, to bring more accountability to that system.

These lawmakers had the opportunity to ask questions of the corrections commissioner, Daniel Martuscello, and a number of other people, including Robert Brooks's father. In theory, all of this is supposed to bring attention to the measures they're pushing. Salazar says she wants to expand pathways to allow incarcerated people to be released. She wants to address what she calls the human rights abuses happening within those prisons, but they have to act soon. There's only a month left in the legislative session, and that's a period where lawmakers are going to pass hundreds of bills, and it can be difficult to break through that kind of fast push at the end of the legislative session.

Sean Carlson: Yes. Now, the city mayor's race rolls on with the primary happening late next month, so it's right around the corner here. Former Governor Cuomo is one of the candidates, and he's having an interesting week when it comes to campaign cash. Brigid, what's the deal? Can you explain that?

Brigid Bergin: Yes, Sean. It's kind of a good news, bad news situation. The good news is that his campaign received a $1.5 million matching funds payment on Monday. That payment was really just a cleanup based on his first filing back in March. At the same time, his campaign was also docked $622,000 because the Campaign Finance Board did a preliminary investigation. They found the campaign had coordinated with an independent big money group called Fix The City for a commercial that they have on air supporting Cuomo. Now, Fix The City is like a local version of a super PAC. They can spend unlimited amounts of money. It's backed by some really deep pockets in real estate, finance, technology.

DoorDash gave the single largest contribution, $1 million, last week.

Sean Carlson: Interesting.

Brigid Bergin: Yes, so the committee has more than $8 million raised, $3 million spent. Interestingly, a new filing that showed up after the board met, after they had docked the campaign, that $622,000 matching funds. Turns out Fix The City spent another $675,000 for more airtime for that same controversial ad. Now, there's some folks who are saying his campaign should be docked again for that amount, or some challengers even going as far as to say perhaps the campaign should be blocked from receiving matching funds altogether.

Sean Carlson: Let's stay on the mayoral race while we're talking about it. Marist College is out with a new poll. It contains maybe some not-so-shocking news. Brigid, can you talk about what it says and how the campaigns are spinning those numbers?

Brigid Bergin: Sure. Basically, despite everything we just talked about, Cuomo continues to lead the field in this latest poll. In the first round, first-choice votes, he has 37% of Democratic primary voters. The next closest competitor is Queens Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani, receives 18%. Then 9% for Adrienne Adams, and 8% for Brad Lander. Now, what's interesting about these numbers, then they did also a ranked choice tally to see at what point does someone hit that 50% plus one point?

It took five rounds. Andrew Cuomo, again, ends up winning the field. Of course, his campaign says this is a sign that they are on strong footing, that voters are responding to their campaign and the leadership he has brought to the state, he will bring to the city. Other candidates are saying the timing of this poll, which was conducted between May 1st and May 8th, doesn't reflect some of the penetration of ads that started going up at that time.

Certainly, I think the Adrienne Adams campaign sees some opportunity here that they have bumped up among a field of candidates who've been in this race a lot longer. As a consultant recently said to me, it's getting late early. As you said, we will start voting in this race during early voting on June 14th. The primary's on June 24th. I'll note, Sean, that ballots went out to voters who are permanent male ballot voters last Friday, so the voting has already begun.

Sean Carlson: Yes, right. It's going to be here before we know it. That's Politics Brief. Be sure to sign up for emails@gothamist.com/newsletters. Jon, Brigid, thanks so much.

Jon Campbell: Thank you.

Brigid Bergin: Great to be here.

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Female Speaker 1: 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 podcasts.

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