Thursday’s Headlines: City Budget Reveal Edition

As Mayor Adams presented his preliminary budget yesterday, the representation of a certain statistic seemed a bit off.
As Mayor Adams presented his preliminary budget yesterday, the representation of a certain statistic seemed a bit off.

The big story yesterday was Mayor Adams’s unveiling of his preliminary budget. Most outlets, such as City and State, stuck to the top-line numbers (e.g., $98.5 billion in spending). The Times emphasized that Adams’s “conservative approach,” which amounts to $4 billion less than the city’s present financial plan, would reduce a city work force that burgeoned under Mayor de Blasio.

Gotham Gazette headlined the mayor’s pledge to be “laser-focused on fiscal discipline” while Gothamist featured his remark that the budget is “radically practical.” The Daily News showcased Adams’s order that the NYPD “trim the fat” on spending, while amNY found a transportation angle: City Hall’s promise to promote the Fair Fares program for low-income New Yorkers.

And Sally Goldenberg got a filthy Sanitation scoop:

Comptroller Lander, for his part, posted a gimlet-eyed tweet on an Adams budget-presentation slide that fear-mongered on crime:

In other news:

  • On Day 2 of the “Adams Confronts the Mostly White Press Corps” story, Hizzoner stuck to his guns that reporters cover him unfairly because they see him through a racial lens. Adams lectured a Post reporter, saying that he offered the criticism because he is “trying to help” city scribes “grow” and “be kinder.” Like Streetsblog, Daily News columnist Leonard Greene bemoaned the city’s lack of newsroom diversity while chiding the mayor for being thin-skinned. The Post’s editorial board told the mayor to stop whinging and get cracking for constituents — by getting tough with the Gov. Hochul and Albany lawmakers.
  • It was a bad day for the MTA: Three individuals were struck by trains, one fatally (NY Post); complaints to the MTA inspector general mounted over last year’s (NYmPost, amNY), and a man was fatally shot, allegedly by a companion, on the LIRR (NY Post, Gothamist, ABC7, CBS2, Newsday).
  • A multi-agency team will clean up drug paraphernalia in Washington Heights’s subways. (CBS2)
  • The growing G train ridership needs longer trains, says Brooklyn Assembly Member Emily Gallagher. (Brooklyn Paper)
  • The motorist who struck a pedestrian at an Upper East Side intersection on Tuesday got hit with a failure-to-yield summons, according to Council Member Julie Menin. (Patch)
  • Urbanist David Zipper interviewed Jessie Singer about her new book for Bloomberg City Lab. We had an excerpt the other day.
  • The 42nd Street blog reported more details on the e-biker who died after being doored in Hells Kitchen.
  • Former NYC DOT official and Friend of Streetsblog Ryan Russo has resigned as head of Oakland’s DOT, saying he is moving back to New York for family reasons. Could a job with Ydanis be in the offing? (Oaklandside)
  • Safe-streets activist Choresh Wald called out the DOT for unsafely striping crosswalks in order to goose parking, as if the lack of daylighting at intersections wasn’t a major hazard for pedestrians. (Via Twitter)

  • Journalist Liam Quigley, meanwhile, was out there today helping a Trump-loving state court officer who was avoiding tolls and automated enforcement. (Via Twitter)

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