Any information or special reports about various countries may be published with photos/videos on the world blog with bold legit source. All languages are welcome. Mail to lucschrijvers@hotmail.com.
Search for an article in this Worldwide information blog
dinsdag 1 oktober 2024
WORLD WORLDWIDE US USA - New York - New York City - THE CITY - Adams’ lawyer files to drop charge, and another aide exits
Dear New Yorkers,
The resignations in Mayor Eric Adams’ inner circle keep coming. On Monday night, Timothy Pearson, a combative longtime aide to Adams, became the latest one.
Pearson, a retired NYPD inspector, was more recently tasked by Adams with leading the Municipal Services Agency — a shadowy new agency tasked with finding cost-savings that played an influential role in contracting related to the asylum-seeker crisis. His phone and “certain documents” were seized by the FBI earlier this month.
Adams is currently facing federal charges for allegedly accepting gifts in exchange for favors and illegal donations from Turkish nationals. Pearson has at times crossed paths with key figures in that case: He was part of an entourage that traveled to Turkey with Adams in 2015. And he attended a dinner in Brooklyn with Adams and top officials in the Turkish consulate that year.
In other Adams news from Monday, Adams’ criminal defense lawyer, Alex Spiro, filed a motion to dismiss the bribery charge against the mayor. That’s one of five charges in the indictment unsealed last week by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams, focused on the favors Adams allegedly did for the Turkish government in exchange for illegal campaign donations and travel perks.
Spiro attempted to frame the charge as meritless, noting that federal bribery charges require prosecutors prove a public official performed an “official act” with the expectation that they would receive some form of bribe in return. “There was no quid pro quo. There was no this for that,” said Spiro, and thus, he argued, no federal crime.
Read more about Pearson here, and more about Spiro’s attempt to get the bribery charge against Adams dismissed here.
Our Other Top Stories
How have the city’s business leaders responded to the federal charges against Adams? Mostly with deafening silence, THE CITY has found. That’s at least in part because they’re afraid of the possibility of a more progressive and less business-friendly successor.
Last week, a reader wrote in to ask THE CITY how Adams’ legal bills would be paid for. We went digging, and found some answers.
Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn has a new job: housing systems to absorb rainwater. The government-funded systems in Green-Wood are part of a larger effort to prevent flooding during major storms.
Chalkbeat reports that one of the two companies contracted for a newly revealed pilot program testing security cameras on school buses is run by Justin Meyers — the former chief of staff to Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Phil Banks, another member of Adams’ inner circle whose phones were seized by federal investigators in September. A spokesperson for BusPatrol told Chalkbeat that Meyers “did not lobby the City of New York for or participate in discussions with the City” about the pilot program.
On the latest episode of FAQ NYC, the hosts discuss how a recent Supreme Court decision that could help Adams beat the case against him — plus a new poll conducted right before the mayor was charged, which shows overwhelming disapproval of his job performance. Listen here.
Reporter’s Notebook
Property Transfer Program Poised to Return
Councilmember Pierina Sanchez (D-The Bronx) has introduced a bill to bring back a version of a controversial program to take distressed properties from negligent landlords who have not paid their property taxes. Third Party Transfer, which has been frozen since 2019, gave those properties to nonprofits to preserve them as affordable housing, but community advocates and some elected officials charged that the program wrongly stripped homeowners and small landlords of valuable assets.
Taking cues from a task force’s recommendations, Sanchez proposes guidelines to better target properties and avoid ensnaring owners who shouldn’t be in the program, while ramping up outreach efforts and creating a way for tenants to buy buildings.
“We cannot leave New Yorkers to suffer living conditions dangerous to their health and safety,” Sanchez said Monday during a Council hearing in which the Department of Housing Preservation and Development expressed its lack of support for the bill as written. “We can focus on rescuing properties in the worst conditions, while protecting and uplifting and even expanding homeownership.”
— Samantha Maldonado
NYC Water Will Taste Different for a While
New York City’s famous tap water might taste a little different starting this month as the city begins a $2 billion infrastructure project to stop a leak in its water supply.
The Delaware Aqueduct Repair Project, in the works for more than 20 years, will be fixing over the next eight months or so a hole in the city’s primary water source, the Croton Distributing Reservoir. It’s been leaking 35 million gallons of drinking water into upstate New York each day for around 30 years, according to the mayor’s office.
To fix the problem and make sure New Yorkers still get their water, the Department of Environmental Protection is connecting a bypass tunnel, mixing in water from a different reservoir from the city’s system of 19 of them.
That means you might detect a slight change as you quench your thirst from the tap, DEP Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala said at a press conference – adding it’s not anything bad, but “literally just kind of the terroir, if you will, of where the water is coming from.”
— Katie Honan
Things To Do
Here’s what’s going on around the city this week.
Tuesday, Oct. 1: Art from the Heart, an exhibition of vintage works by local artists. Free from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily, at the H.H. Biddle House in Conference House Park in Staten Island.
Saturday, Oct. 5: A daylong birthday bash celebrating the Brooklyn Museum’s 200th anniversary that includes curator talks, art, music and more. Free from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., registration required.
Happy 5th Birthday to THE CITY!
As one of our valued Scoop subscribers, you’re at the heart of what makes our reporting possible. Celebrate five years of independent journalism by giving a birthday gift to help us continue for another five!
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten