MTA Increases Fares + AIPAC Seeks Bowman Challenger

Jul 24, 2023

The NYC Thorn is a weekly roundup of local political news compiled by members of NYC-DSA.

The Metropolitan Transit Authority’s Board voted unanimously to raise fares for the first time since 2019. The Board had paused previously scheduled fare increases during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Governor Kathy Hochul issued an executive order extending the controversial 421-a tax break to a Gowanus housing development project, despite criticism from many labor unions.
A detainee at Rikers Island died in his cell, the seventh inmate to pass away in 2023, following the deaths of 19 inmates in 2022. The federal government is preparing to strip control of the jail complex away from the City’s Department of Corrections.
The City agreed to pay out $13 million to settle a class-action civil rights lawsuit brought by 1,300 protesters involved in protests following George Floyd's murder in 2020.
After Edward Caban officially became the new Commissioner of the New York Police Department, Tania Kinsella was elevated to the position of First Deputy Commissioner despite several Civilian Complaint Review Board complaints, including one as recent as 2020.
The NYPD initiated more vehicular pursuits in the first six months of 2023 than in the prior five years thanks to Mayor Eric Adams’s encouragement of the tactic.
Mayor Adams is looking to impose limits on how long people can stay in a single shelter, as the administration continues to struggle to accommodate asylum seekers.
The City is distributing leaflets at the US-Mexico border trying to discourage migrants from coming to New York.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is reportedly recruiting a possible primary challenger to Congressmember Jamaal Bowman (NY-16, Westchester County) after Bowman boycotted Israeli President Isaac Herzog's address to Congress and refused to support a resolution falsely claiming that Israel is not a racist apartheid state.

Donors to Mayor Adams’s campaign who were indicted on campaign finance fraud charges had direct contact with Rachel Atcheson, one of Adams’s long-time aides who now serves as his deputy director of food policy.
Mayor Adams has raised $1.3 million for his reelection campaign since January of this, largely from real estate executives and wealthy individuals in the suburbs outside the City and in Florida.

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