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Your afternoon must-read briefing informing the daily conversation among knowledgeable New Yorkers | | | | |  | | By Joe Anuta | |  The Rev. Al Sharpton gave the eulogy at the funeral of Jordan Neely, who was choked to death by a subway passenger. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo | The Rev. Al Sharpton delivered a fiery eulogy Friday that included an indictment of law enforcement and the city’s mental health services at the funeral of Jordan Neely, the 30 year old who died earlier this month after a fellow passenger on the subway put him in a chokehold. That passenger, 24-year-old Daniel Penny, was released by police after the incident and remained free until he was charged with second-degree manslaughter last week. On Friday, Sharpton said that if the race of the two men were reversed — Penny is white while Neely is Black — that would not have happened. “We can’t live in a city where you can choke me to death with no provocation, no weapon, no threat and you go home and sleep in your bed while my family has to put me into a cemetery,” Sharpton said to the crowd gathered at Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem. “There must be equal justice under the law.” Sharpton repeatedly criticized the decision to let Penny leave the police precinct — a call that was made jointly between the NYPD and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, according to testimony from police brass at a City Council hearing a day earlier. He also took aim at the mayor and the city’s response to homelessness and mental health, arguing that the administration needed new policies conceived of jointly with advocates and family members of Neely, who struggled with mental illness and had been yelling at passengers on the train May 1 before he was choked by Penny. “In the name of Jordan, we’re going to turn this city around to serve the homeless,” he said. While several politicians were in attendance, Mayor Eric Adams was not among them. The Neely family has criticized the mayor’s response and had asked him not to come, a wish Adams’ office said Friday it wanted to respect. “Jordan Neely’s life mattered and his death was a tragedy,” mayoral spokesperson Fabien Levy said in a statement. “Mayor Adams is thinking about Jordan and his family today, and wanted to ensure that Jordan was the sole focus at today’s service.” In the nearly two weeks between when Neely was killed and when Penny was charged, Adams had declined to comment on the case, saying that he did not want to impact the outcome of the trial and wanted to wait until the district attorney concluded his investigation. It is a policy he has continued to maintain, even after Penny’s arraignment. “I don't want, if this case goes to trial or anywhere further, I don't want someone talk about changing venues … and the DA will make the determination on how to handle this case,” the mayor said last week.
|  | From the Capitol | | | | 
Gov. Kathy Hochul highlighted budget investments to support workers and make New York more affordable at a rally in Buffalo on May 19, 2023. | Mike Groll/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul | MIGRANT HOUSING: Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday told reporters that there are no immediate plans to move asylum-seekers to SUNY campuses, but that she had simply talked to various state agencies about any empty space they might have to help the migrant crisis in New York City. “More help is needed” in New York City, Hochul said in Buffalo, “and we're working with them, literally hour by hour, trying to identify places where there are welcoming communities. And we're working very hard to try to get some legal work status that will allow them to go work on the farms in upstate, work in the hotels, work in the restaurants.” Some Republicans have railed against housing migrants on SUNY campuses, but Hochul said again that no decisions have been made. “We're just doing an overall survey of all state assets,” she said. — Joseph Spector COURT MOVES: The state’s chief administrative judge Joseph Zayas, who was recently appointed to the position, on Friday said his first deputy will be Judge Norman St. George. St. George will serve as first deputy chief administrative judge, which is the second-highest ranking administration position within the state’s judiciary. The appointment is the latest overhaul of the court system since Chief Judge Janet DiFiore resigned last year. Chief Judge Rowan Wilson was confirmed to the job by the state Senate last month after Hochul’s initial pick, Hector LaSalle, was rejected. Now Wilson and Zayas are remaking the entire court operation that has a $3.3. billion budget, 3,600 state and local judges and nearly 15,000 non-judicial employees. St. George had already overseen the court system outside of the city and is a former administrative judge for the Nassau County Courts. — Joseph Spector
| | From City Hall | | | | 
A new report detailed the fiscal troubles facing the MTA in the coming years. | Kevin P. Coughlin/Office of Governor Kathy Hochul | TRANSPORTATION: The MTA’s financial woes are about to get slightly better, thanks to New York’s newly approved congestion pricing plan and help from the state budget. A report released Friday by Thomas DiNapoli, the state comptroller, showed the agency won’t have to put as much money in the coming years toward its ballooning debt — which is expected to reach $56.7 billion by 2028. Those wins — plus the payroll mobility tax — will bring its debt repayment rates back down to pre-pandemic levels. Initial projections were that a fifth of its revenue would go toward debt repayment in 2024 and 2025. Now, that number is down to about 16 percent through 2026. In a press release, DiNapoli said the MTA “should use this opportunity to stop its recurring cycle of fiscal crises by paying down and managing its debt more appropriately to shore up future operating and capital budgets.” — Zachary Schermele
| | On The Beats | | | | 
Former Assemblymember Michael Cusick, left, was nominated to the New York Power Authority board. | Jessica Alaimo | NYPA NOMINEE: Gov. Kathy Hochul has nominated former Assembly Energy Chair Michael Cusick to the New York Power Authority board of trustees. Cusick is currently the head of the Staten Island Economic Development Corp.. He’ll appear remotely before the Senate Energy Committee next week, setting up a likely confirmation by the Senate. NYPA got extensive new ability to build new renewables as part of the state’s budget deal. NYPA lost a board member earlier this year when Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente, a Republican, resigned. Picente criticized the state’s energy policy and direction in his resignation letter. He’d served on the board since 2015. The board currently has five members and state law requires four members to be present for a quorum. — Marie J. French EDUCATION: The majority of New York City high school seniors missed at least 18 days of school last year, according to a new report. The report, which was published by the Empire Center for Public Policy, looks at absenteeism trends in city public schools. Roughly 40 percent of students were chronically absent, or missed at least 10 percent of school days. In the Bronx, approximately four in 30 children are missing each day, with closer to three in 30 missing citywide. “Student absenteeism has become significantly worse in schools in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, and while it’s difficult to measure the exact impact on student learning, it is clear that missed school is an undesirable outcome,” said Ian Kingsbury, report author and Empire Center adjunct fellow, in a statement. “Addressing this chronic issue first requires honestly identifying the problem. Now that we know the numbers, hopefully school leaders will take action and work to bring kids back to school.” — Madina Touré
| | — New York City Council member Kristin Richardson Jordan’s abrupt end this week to her second bid for a council seat came ahead of a planned $400,000 attack ad blitz. (Jewish Insider) — Via The New York Times: ‘In N.Y. Prisons, Guards Who Brutalize Prisoners Rarely Get Fired.’ — Colonie residents are under a boil-water advisory after a water treatment plant’s pumping station failed near Mohawk River. The warning will be in place until Sunday. (Times Union) — A Christian institution in Western New York fired two staff members after they included their pronouns in an email directed to the university. (The New York Times) | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Subscribe to the POLITICO Playbook family Playbook | Playbook PM | California Playbook | Florida Playbook | Illinois Playbook | Massachusetts Playbook | New Jersey Playbook | New York Playbook | Brussels Playbook | London Playbook View all our political and policy newsletters | | Follow us | | | | |  |
