Day: October 2, 2024

Treasurer for Brooklyn boro prez candidate Anthony Jones charged in straw donor scheme  New York Daily News

The city has, for the fourth time, changed its mind on the McGuinness Boulevard redesign.

This fall, the Department of Transportation will implement the road diet it has already finalized, then rejected, on the southern half of the roadway. Between Calyer Street and Meeker Avenue, the department will remove one vehicle traffic lane in favor of full-time parking-protected bike lanes. 

The plan isn’t new — it was approved for the whole of McGuinness Boulevard last summer after years of community engagement and planning by DOT. But, weeks after the final redesign was chosen, Mayor Eric Adams ordered DOT to come up with something else — reportedly at the urging of powerful local businesses and one of his top advisors, Ingrid Lewis-Martin.

By the end of the summer, the city had put finalized a stripped-back plan for the northern half of McGuinness Boulevard, between the Pulaski Bridge and Calyer Street, but still planned to implement the full road diet on the southern half. Then, this August, that changed abruptly when DOT announced it would continue the pared-back plan on the full length of McGuinness Boulevard.

The decision drew outrage from community members and local elected officials, who argued the city had gone back on its word despite the demands of the community. 

The Oct. 2 announcement that the city would return to its first plan and remove a lane of vehicle traffic came just as suddenly. 

“This administration is committed to making our streets safer for all New Yorkers, no matter how they travel around our city — by car, by bike, or on foot,” said Deputy Mayor for Operations Meera Joshi, in a statement. “I am grateful to DOT for its commitment to McGuinness Boulevard and willingness to adapt to community and elected officials’ feedback, and of course to New Yorkers for their candor.”

Joshi had previously spoken in favor of the stripped-back plan, saying at an August press conference that there was “lots to be happy about” on McGuinness Boulevard.

A DOT spox said the decision was made “in response to community feedback on our previous proposal and continued outreach over the last several weeks.”

Kevin LaCherra, an organizer with the group Make McGuinness Safe, said the criticism from locals “must have gotten through” to City Hall.

“We have taken every opportunity to say, ‘If you do this, it’s going to be a disaster,’” he said. “And why would any administration want that? I’m sure the Adams administration didn’t want that. So they made the right choice. This is the way our government is supposed to work.”

The redesign is backed by DOT’s own statistics, LaCherra added, which analyzed crashes, injuries, and the way locals and businesses regularly use the road as the department worked to finalize a decision.

It was not immediately clear Wednesday when the redesign would be completed, but crews are set to start work in the coming weeks, per DOT. While construction is underway, and after it’s completed, DOT will monitor the project and make adjustments if needed. 

The northern half of McGuinness Boulevard, between the Pulaski Bridge and Calyer Street, will remain as-is, with two vehicle traffic lanes in each direction and a barrier-protected bicycle lane on both sides.

In a joint statement, a collection of local politicians including Council Member Lincoln Restler, Borough President Antonio Reynoso, and Assembly Member Emily Gallagher celebrated the announcement.

“Credit to the Adams administration and Department of Transportation for taking the safety of Greenpoint seriously,” the pols said. “We are excited to see safety improvements implemented on McGuinness Boulevard this month and are immensely grateful to the Make McGuinness Safe community coalition for their relentless advocacy. We will work together with DOT to monitor and adjust to ensure this is a success for Greenpoint.”

The decision came in the middle of a tumultuous time for the Adams administration. Hours before the news broke, Adams arrived in federal court for his first appearance before a judge for a wide-ranging corruption case, in which he is charged with bribery, fraud, and accepting foreign donations. While he was still in the courtroom, prosecutors said they may end up charging Adams with additional crimes — and that charges against other people involved in the case are likely. 

Last week, federal investigators raided the home of Lewis-Martin — the Adams advisor who had reportedly spoken against the McGuinness redesign.

Restler said local elected officials have been talking with the Adams administration about the redesign since the announcement in August, but that he hasn’t been a “key negotiator.” He credited the local community and advocates for making their voices heard throughout the entire process.

Asked whether the tumult at City Hall may have played a role in the administration’s decision to move forward with a full redesign, Restler said he “[doesn’t] know.”

“I don’t think this was a decision that they came to in a day, or post-indictment,” he said. “I’ve given up on trying to understand what the internal decision-making process is over there. But I’m pleased that they came to the right conclusion, and whatever the reason or rationale, this is a decision that enhances safety in our community, and that’s what matters.”

LaCherra was optimistic about the redesign, and felt positive about Wednesday’s announcement — despite the city’s flip-flops.

“I’ll feel a hell of a lot better when I’m walking to the subway across one lane of traffic in each direction. That’s when I’ll feel good,” he said. “But I can’t imagine who in their right mind would want to put us through anything else. I just have to hope. The mayor made a promise to this community. Through the action that he’s taking today, he’s keeping that promise. The same thing for DOT.” 

Mayor Eric Adams may possibly face additional criminal charges on top of his historic indictment on federal bribery, soliciting foreign campaign donations and wire fraud charges, prosecutors said at a Wednesday court hearing in Manhattan.

Hagan Scotten, an assistant US Attorney for the Southern District of New York (SDNY), said during the Oct. 2 conference before Judge Dale Ho that other co-conspirators connected to the Adams indictment, who have yet to be named, are likely also to face criminal charges.

“We think that is quite likely … that additional defendants will be charged in connection with this scheme,” Scotten responded when Judge Ho asked him if other co-conspirators would face charges.

The mayor is accused of running a nearly decade-long scheme in which he received undisclosed travel benefits and illegal campaign donations from foreign nationals in exchange for doing favors on their behalf. 

Throughout the roughly 90-minute conference, which marked Adams’ first official court appearance, Adams sat silently beside his attorney Alex Spiro, facing forward.

Spiro, who filed two motions this week — one aimed at dismissing the bribery charge against Adams and another asking the court to sanction SDNY for allegedly leaking grand jury evidence to the press — spent much of the conference pushing for a speedy trial.

Specifically, he urged judge Ho to schedule the trial to wrap before the end of the petitioning period for getting on the 2025 mayoral Democratic primary ballot early next March in order to avoid having the trial interfere with the mayor being able to garner petition signatures.

He declined to set a trial date during the conference, saying he would take Spiro’s argument “under advisement” and render a decision later.

In a statement following the hearing, Spiro suggested that Scotten’s revelation that his office could bring additional charges proves his argument that the government has no case against the mayor.

“The prosecution is desperately now saying they ‘could’ bring a new case because they are suddenly facing dismissal of their actual, flawed case and sanctions for misconduct,” Spiro said in the statement. “This is the sort of nonsense that prosecutors say when they don’t have a real case. If they had a real case, they would have brought it.”

Material against the mayor

The conference mostly consisted of Judge Ho working out a calendar for the coming court proceedings between the prosecution and the mayor’s defense. That includes setting dates by which federal prosecutors must respond to the motions Spiro has already filed, Oct. 18, and the date when Spiro must answer back, Oct. 25. Ho also scheduled an Oct. 30 hearing to discuss those motions and the prosecution’s responses.

On top of that, the judge set a Dec. 4 deadline by which SDNY prosecutors must turn over all of their evidence, known as discovery, to Adams’ defense team.

Scotten explained that the prosecution has a mountain of material supporting the historic 5-count indictment.

The discovery material includes written communications, text messages, Signal app messages, calendar entries, voice memos from Turkish nationals, conversations between Mayor Adams and co-conspirators, business records from Turkish Airlines, and forms that Adams submitted to the city’s Campaign Finance Bureau. Scotten said multiple witnesses are willing to testify about the alleged illegal contributions.

Additional material could be found on a phone federal agents seized from Adams last November, but has yet to be unlocked before the mayor changed the passcode just before it was taken, Scotten noted.

The mayor surrendered to federal authorities on Friday and pleaded not guilty to all five criminal counts in federal court.

Adams offered no statements throughout the conference and departed Manhattan Federal Court with Spiro just before noon on Oct. 2 without speaking to a scrum of reporters gathered outside.

Several protesters were also outside the courthouse calling for the mayor to resign, with one holding up a sign calling Adams the “Black Donald Trump.”

AFTER WATERING DOWN a years-in-the-making plan to improve the safety of Greenpoint’s McGuinness Blvd., the city again reversed itself.

The post Brooklyn officials applaud city’s reversal on McGuinness Blvd. ‘road diet’ appeared first on Brooklyn Eagle.

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