[ THEME MUSIC ] On this week's edition of "New York Now," we unpack the latest news from a Sienna poll ahead of election day.

Next, we sit down with assembly members John McDonald and Patricia Fahy to discuss the opposition to Amtrak service changes and then we'll look into the impact of legislation meant to support childhood cancer research.

I'm Shantel Destra, and this is "New York Now."

[ THEME MUSIC ] Welcome to this week's edition of "New York Now."

I'm Shantel Destra.

A new poll from Sienna College research institute showed positive results for democrats with just a few days until election day.

According to the poll, voters in New York favor Vice President Kamala Harris over Donald Trump with a 19-point lead.

Governor Kathie Hochul's favorability and job approval ratings still remain low but have increased slightly compared to last month.

At this juncture, voters also seem to be overwhelmingly supportive of the equal rights ballot measure, but as you know, thing are always subject to change in polling especially with just a few days before the end of a very competitive and intense election season.

We'll continue to bring you updates ahead of election day right here on the show.

But moving on now to service changes for Amtrak.

Starting November 11th, there will be a reduction of three daily lines between the capital region and New York City.

The changes are a way to mitigate the construction being done on the east river tunnels in New York City.

The news of the Amtrak changes lifted criticism from writers and some lawmakers even elevated their concerns to the federal level.

We sat down with assembly members, John McDonald and Patricia Fahy for more.

[ THEME MUSIC ] Thank you so much for joining us today, assembly members.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Can you tell us about the letter that you sent to the federal transportation Secretary outlining some of the concerns that you had with the changes to the northeast Amtrak service this week?

Well, let me start by saying, first, we saw this in the news.

So thank God for the news, but that is how we were notified of this cutback.

So thankfully, my office caught it before I did and actually immediately said, we need to do something.

John must have read our minds.

He reached out and said, you know this is troubling, and I said already started drafting.

So we do this quite often and it works well as a tag team.

We started drafting.

Made some edits.

The two of us had this out in record time, I think, and part of it is because it was one of those immediate where, wait a second, why are we writing about this as a done deal instead of some outrage and as you saw in the letter, we are one of the busiest stops-- well, the busiest in the country for a metro area under two million.

We shouldn't have to read about this as just a decision made without some input, without some accommodation, and that's why we're saying, can we have a conversation here?

Like, get a little creative.

This is sending us backwards with trying to get more people on trains.

By the way, this isn't the first time we've done this.

2017.

That's right.

We had a similar-- similar situation, no notice, bottom line is that time Moynihan station was going through renovation.

Understandably important just like east river tunnels is important here.

Same token, it was not with any local input and the impact to the people we represent.

So we basically dusted off our 2017 letter, changed a few of the names.

wow.

Because a few peoples' names have changed and we said, listen, we understand the importance of the work that needs to be done, but there needs to be some consideration for the passengers, and that's what this is about.

It's about the passenger.

And not going backwards.

You know, we've gone past the COVID lows of some numbers.

We are trying to encourage more of this.

We talk a lot about alternative transportation.

We talk a lot about safer transportation, which the train is much safer than the roads, and then what is more environmentally better?

We get people from Vermont who come in to Albany Rensselaer to catch that train into the city.

So the idea that we would have to just read about this with any type of creative solution and I ride this train, not as often would like to going to New York, but it's often full.

It's already a challenge with full, which is a wonderful problem to have, but you don't now cut almost 25% of the trains and not-- not expect a problem.

To add onto what pat is saying, particularly post-pandemic, there are many people who moved from New York City to live in the Capitol Region.

They rely, as they still have jobs in the city, they need to be present and they commute three to five times a week.

We heard loud and clear from our constituents this is unacceptable.

We need to make some kind of accommodation, and some of the proposals actually are not hard to consider.

I mean, that 5:00 a.m. train is critical.

I've taken it many a times.

It's important for people they need to be in their office by 8:00 a.m if we can't adjust the time, at least add more cars to the train that leaves at 5:40 so they can get there close to being on time.

Since you sent the letter, have you had any communication with AMTrak officials or with the transportation Secretary about some of the concerns that you raised?

Well, we'd love to have heard from the Secretary, but I'm not expecting that just yet.

We did just get outreach today and part of it is the power of the press.

We-- this hit a raw nerve.

I can spend years on legislation.

We've been jokeing about this.

We do a lot of events.

We do a lot of legislation and this one went practically viral overnight.

Again, I think part of it is because of the way it was handled and because this is such a popular train.

So while we've said extend the cars, let's look at some creative solutions, but now we are going to push a little more.

Why does it have to be three a day?

Can't we adjust a little bit more here and give some flexibility especially since we know most of these trains are full?

If you don't book on the weekends, if you don't book in advance, you're not getting a train, a seat on the train.

We need a little creativity to create-- creative solutions here.

As we know, the changes are a way to mitigate the work plan for the east river tunnels in the city.

So I'm curious, what would you say is the best compromise to address the changes that are needed to the tunnels but also not impact service?

I think adding the cars is the first logical step.

I think playing around with the times a little bit more to meet people's needs and concerns.

Then there's this other thing that doesn't really impact us directly and the people we represent, but this 90-minute proposed layover, I mean, we're used to it in an airport.

You're not expecting it on the train.

That's one things with the trains, they always run on time at least getting started.

Yes.

They're much more reliable and much cleaner mode of transportation, as pat mentioned.

So I'm hearing and we're hearing from our colleagues in the north country and the western part of the state, particularly those across the Canadian border that this is problematic for them as well.

So there's some options where they can maybe take those international trains and bring them up to Saratoga to prevent the layover.

That makes perfect sense, too, because it's less congestion in the Albany area, might allow for another road to be freed up.

We talk a lot about community input, reaching out.

We do hearings on numerous issues.

We are out in the community.

The idea that these decisions were made with no input whatsoever and we had to read about it after a decision was made, so that's, it's while we hope they'll at least extend the cars so that we're not, you know, having full trains all the time, especially once they cut them, I would like to see this reconsidered with some change in time just a week ago I was taking the train back from New York.

It was an evening reception.

If I didn't get on the 7:10 or 7:15 train, I had to wait till the 8:55, which meant I depart get home until about midnight.

Right there is an hour and roughly 45 minutes in between trains already in the evening if you have an evening event to go to.

That's already a long wait, and then as assembly member McDonald mentioned, the 90-minute wait to go north of here, we are one of the busiest stations for a reason, and we don't want to go backwards.

So I am pleased they reached out.

I hope we're going to have a very Frank conversation and I'd like to think if this decision was made somewhat arbitrarily, in other words, maybe every area has been cut by three trains each way, maybe we could push back, give them some of the data analytics here and say, why three in such a busy corridor.

We know through the years that AMTrak had their fair share of financial issues and also infrastructure issues, and I know some Congress representatives from New York have pressed leadership to really address this.

I was curious, what do you make of those efforts by your colleagues in Congress?

Well, it's a joint effort, right?

They are heavily subsidized by the federal government.

The state is supportive.

In many aspects, we do have a little bit of authority but not as much as we'd like.

I'm really hopeful that these changes are indicated for November 11th.

I'm hoping that we have some constructive conversations over the next week or two to kind of minimize the impact, but let's face it.

AMTrak, in my lifetime, has been bailed out on more than a few times which means it's good that the government is supporting them, but at the same token, they should be attendant to the governance concerns.

If you think of the CDTA here, capital district transportation authority, one of the reasons that they're one of the more successful authorities in this state, transit authorities, is because they are so creative with ridership.

They're the ones that do the bikes.

They're the ones that do the car rentals, the electric car rentals.

They're just so creative.

They're now in Warren county.

They're in Montgomery County.

So they've been very creative because the more ridership they have, the more the bottom line, it helps their bottom line.

That's what we-- so yes, AMTrak has been bailed out, a shoutout to President Biden who is one of their biggest fans and helped lead the fight in financing there, but cutting back, you then go back to some of the old behaviors people may have when we need to have lower fares and more options to make sure that we are not going backwards.

So it is-- we want to make sure they're financially solvent, but having less trains does not help that.

So that's part of the pushback here.

But running trains with fuller cars is going to help their financial solvency, too.

Let's be very clear.

There's no problem.

Yeah.

With people signing up to take rides.

my daughter goes back and forth an awful lot and quite frankly, they are running around all the time because they're getting shut out to get out of the capital region or to get down.

And if these issues are not addressed what do you see the long-term implications for these issues especially between you and your fellow lawmakers just traveling back and forth to do the work during session?

Well, serious inconvenience for some of our colleagues who rely on that train.

We often won't start a hearing here, especially in the offsession, we do a lot of hearings, we try not to start those before 10:30 in the morning because that's the first train that you can catch out of Penn station to get up to Albany.

So we try to be considerate of our members.

We don't want to force more of them.

The one thing I love about the train is you're actually more productive, right, you can do so much more work as opposed to drive and trying to multitask.

So we want to make sure that our colleagues have that option as well and that's-- that's part of this.

Let's keep growing here.

So we're not unreasonable people.

As I said to you before, 2017, there was another effort made and to be honest with you, they're very responsive and we're very pleased with the responsiveness.

So I'm going to hold off predicting the future.

Let's see what happens over the next couple of weeks to see if we can reach a good compromise that serves the citizens well.

And part of what's happened here, which we're both really pleased over the fact that this has gone so viral and hit a raw nerve, which is terrific.

We're hoping that the attention here one reminds people what a great asset this is and again, it leads to some more conversations that, hey, don't forget us when you are making some arbitrary decisions, but two, actually fuels demand and it is not cheap to ride a train.

So again, the more ridership, the more that price comes down, too.

And that is why we also as John mentioned, we need that continued federal leadership to keep these trains affordable because they are the safer, cleaner, and as they advertise, the more civilized way to travel.

I'm much more relaxed when I (laughter) travel.

One last thing, there was just an article in the "New York Times" earlier this week about delay in emergency services in the heart of New York especially in Manhattan, and since the rise of increased traffic into the busiest corridors in Manhattan, they're seeing a delay in emergency response times.

Wow.

It is cutbacks like this that put people back in cars that really then-- you know, it exacerbate a situation.

You know, we have these challenges of addressing congestion pricing when we come back, but we-- you know, whatever gets resolved there, we can't neglect that the times gave a number of examples the other day of people who may have been saved had it not been for these extended times with emergency services.

The more cars, the more traffic on the streets in our busiest corridors, the worse that is.

So the train is not just a better alternative for customers, it's better for all of us.

Well, unfortunately, that's all the time we have for today.

Thank you so much for taking the time to connect with us on this very important issue.

Appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Thanks for the interest.

We were speaking with assembly member John McDonald and assembly member Patricia Fahy.

And for more on the pushback from lawmakers regarding the changes to AMTrak service, you can visit our website.

That's at NYnow.org.

Now turning to our last topic.

One year ago, Governor Kathie Hochul signed a law that meant updating the state tax forms to include a donation box for the early childhood cancer research fund.

Advocates say that their research is significantly underfunded and have high hopes that New Yorkers will opt in to donate on their tax forms next year.

In this next segment, our Elise Kline dove into the impacts and implementation of the law.

Here's that story.

[ THEME MUSIC ] a new law that just reached its first anniversary will start to achieve its goal as New Yorkers start to file their tax returns in February.

The 2023 law requires a space be included on state income tax returns to allow New Yorkers to volunteer donations to the childhood cancer research fund.

The fund currently has a little more than $35,000, which comes from donations from the state annual cure childhood cancer custom license plate renewal fee, according to the department of health.

The department of health, which manages where the funds will go, says they expect the new taxpayer gift law to generate at least $100,000 in fiscal year 2027.

Advocate with the American cancer society, Michael DAVOLI, says childhood cancer research is a significant need and is historically and woefully underfunded.

15,000 children and adolescents in the United States are diagnosed with cancer every single year.

And so by establishing this check-off box on your tax return, it will enable a very simple way for people to contribute to cancer research, which we believe will help lead to more cures down in the future.

Other advocates say because childhood cancers are so rare, it makes funding even more challenging.

Karen WOLOWNIK, a pediatric nurse practitioner and president of the children's cancer fund, says only about 15,000 cases are diagnosed in children between the ages of zero and 19 per year in the United States, compared to adults where there are almost two million cases.

So what that translates to in the course of funding is that there's not a lot of incentive for pharmaceutical companies, for investigators to try new drugs in pediatrics because it's much more difficult to accrue patients who are similar in order to test whether a new therapy or a new drug is going to be effective in that population.

So for that reason, it means that there are much less clinical trials funded for pediatrics than there are for the adults.

WOLOWNIK adds pediatric cancer research is very expensive and while she says every little bit helps, clinical trials and research requires significant funds.

Childhood cancer research can develop treatments and cures for the varying types of cancer, but it can also help address the long-term impacts that many cancer survivors face.

Many survivors of childhood cancer also develop chronic conditions or have experienced, you know, a severe life-threatening condition due to the side effects of their treatment.

You know, progress in improving childhood cancer outcomes relies on investment in childhood cancer research.

Assembly member Linda Rosenthal, lead sponsor of the legislation, sources 1,000 children under the age of 20 are diagnosed with cancer every year in New York state.

Cancer is also the leading cause of death for disease for children throughout the United States according to the national cancer institute.

There are a lot of diseases out there competing for precious funds and you hear about, you know, the high profile ones, like breast cancer, prostate cancer, but childhood cancer, you don't hear as much about.

Even though it is painful and seering for the children and their parents.

So this is a good opportunity for people to be able to make big impact because even a little more money toward research will have a great impact.

Holly Dutcher with the cure childhood cancer association says the new law has the potential to reach a lot of people.

Any opportunity to spread awareness about childhood cancer is really meaningful to the childhood cancer community.

You know, it's something that people don't want to think about, you know, sick kids and what they're going through, but another platform and opportunity to share the meaningfulness of contributing to research really does make a difference.

Dutcher adds even if people don't donate, the box on the tax form still helps raise awareness.

It still puts in their minds that, you know, there are children being diagnosed with cancer and there are ways that you can be a part of making a difference in their lives whether it's research or finding, you know, a local organization that you can contribute to.

That will make a difference immediately to the lives of those children and their families.

New York state comptroller Tom DiNapoli says while the legislation has good intent, there are many challenges around state laws to raise funds through tax checkoffs.

The program overall is just not working, I think, as the legislature would want it to work, which is to have taxpayers put the money in and the money be spent on these worthy causes.

One of the challenges for this kind of tax law, he says, is the number of tax checkoffs on New Yorkers' tax forms, which currently has 34 different choices to donate to a variety of initiatives including health, veterans, food banks, wildlife and campaign finance.

Having reached a point where perhaps we have too many of these checkoffs.

Perhaps that's partially why we see fewer people participating because it's a little overwhelming, you know, when you see so many different options.

How do you pick and choose?

It's different than it was years ago when you only have one, two, three or four options.

A recent report from the state comptroller's office shows that participation in tax checkoffs has declined more than 60% just in state fiscal years 2022 to 2023.

DiNapoli adds the spending from the state dollars raised through these state checkoffs is lagging with about $16 million unused and unspent on the causes they were intended for.

The problem has been that the money just is not being spent as, I think, the taxpayers who do the checkoff would expect that it would be.

So we've done reports showing that less than half of the different funds that are set up have actually had consistent disbursement.

WOLOWNIK said with any donation, there is a question from donators about where their money is going but many people are also particularly skeptical of state government.

I think once this rolls out, you know, the department of health, who is going to be distributing these funds really needs to be transparent.

The department of health plans to engage with childhood cancer research experts via the release of a formal request for proposals in state fiscal year 2027.

The annual reporting, which is required by state finance law from state agencies on their spending process of state checkoff funds, is also falling behind.

According to analysis from the state comptroller's office in recent years annual reports were issued for less than half the funds with spending.

DiNapoli says while the executive office in the legislature have been pressing the agencies to get the state significant funds of unspent dollars out the door, there needs to be more oversight.

There's no penalty if they don't do a report.

Perhaps a little bit of embarrassment, but that doesn't always work.

So if there would be a way to compel an annual reporting, I think that would go a long way to having the kind of accountability.

Some lawmakers say they're very disappointed in the current oversight.

The fact that the money is not being disbursed is a disgrace and the comptroller has pointed this out.

The Governor's office is aware of this and yet it still remains here.

So I don't understand the level of incompetency that's going on right now because obviously, they are aware of it, but nothing's being done.

A spokesperson from the Governor's office says they are reviewing budget policies and implementation for inefficiencies and ways to improve health programming.

In addition to ensuring agencies are working together to spend funds in accordance with state laws and regulations.

The Senator highlighted tax checkoff for veterans currently stopped filing about $3 million in state funds that have not been disbursed for about seven years.

Some lawmakers in the assembly, also disappointed, say they have even considered voting against tax checkoff bills.

It kind of takes somebody with a pretty strong back bone to say, I'm not voting for these anymore because I don't think they're effective.

I don't think they're getting there.

I thought about voting no on some of these and just making that point and debate on the floor, but in the end, I do end up supporting them because I do want to give people a choice to be able to donate to them, and I'd rather try to address the problem on the back end as far as the distribution of the funds.

Assembly member Walsh and Senator Ashby sponsored a bill last session trying to improve oversight of tax checkoff spending.

Specifically for veterans tax checkoff donations but the bill failed to make it to the floor of both houses.

Ashby said the bill didn't make it to the finish line because it didn't seem to be a priority issue.

I think it's priorities, you know, and for too often, we've seen veterans legislation and issues fall by the wayside.

Ashby says he has had conversations with his colleagues in the legislature and intends to continue to push this issue next Legislative Session.

Whether it's a veterans checkoff or a childhood cancer tax checkoff, the funds need to go where they're supposed to go, and siting in an account for years, seven years, is not right, and we need to make sure that this doesn't happen.

This is an issue, according to several lawmakers, but whether or not it will be a priority in this upcoming legislative session against other top priority issues remains to be seen.

Elise Kline, "New York Now."

[ THEME MUSIC ] For more information on tax donations to help with childhood cancer research, you can visit our website.

Again, that's at NYnow.org.

Next week on the show we'll be talking all things election day, from the changes in state law for local races to casting your ballots and the importance of voting.

You won't want to miss it.

Well, that does it for this edition of "New York Now."

Thank you for tuning in and see you next week.

[ THEME MUSIC ] Funding for "New York Now" is provided by WNET.