New Director’s Theme: ‘Joy and Justice’

July 28, 2005

By Heather Haddon

After 19 years on the job, Mary Dailey officially stepped down as executive director of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition in May. Dailey is a hard act to follow, but James Mumm comes to the position with a wealth of local organizing experience.

Dailey operates at a lightning pace, and Mumm is already keeping up that tempo. “Anyone who steps into Mary’s shoes knows she runs, not walks,” said Mumm, 34. “That’s what I’m doing. It suits me.”

In his first three months on the job, Mumm oversaw the Coalition’s annual meeting and yearly celebration, planned a long-term vision meeting, and delved into more sundry tasks like building a better office database. “The organization is amazing,” said Mumm, a thick layer of grant proposals covering his desk. “I’m really excited to contribute my boundless energy.”

Overseeing a $2.5 million budget, a large base of members, and various local campaigns, anyone at the Coalition’s helm must be driven. Mumm comes to the post with a seemingly unquenchable vigor, whether it’s for protecting affordable housing, snowboarding or practicing the deceptively difficult art of Zen.

Mumm cut his teeth on grassroots work at an early age. His mother was a union organizer for the electrical workers in Buffalo and Chicago, and he got involved with her campaigns as a teenager. Mumm grew increasingly passionate about local advocacy, helping him overcome a tough childhood and bumpy academic path.

“He’s gone through a lot of stuff,” said Wanda Salaman, who co-directed Mothers on the Move (MOM), an organizing group in Longwood, with Mumm. “He can relate to the problems that Bronx people have.”

Joining the Organization of the Northeast, a Chicago group, Mumm led successful campaigns on housing, welfare rights, and other key issues. He came to New York — specifically, University Heights — in 2002 to fundraise and strengthen MOM. “He got the organization back on track financially … and started launching a lot of new stuff,” said Salaman, a Valentine Avenue resident who still directs MOM.

Mumm hopes to capitalize on his fund-raising skills for the Coalition, and to build on the group’s power and vision. “We are going to take a good look at [identifying] the issues that matter to people,” said Mumm, who was planning a summer strategic planning session.
“It’s a natural moment to do this.”

Trim and athletic, Mumm radiates confidence and intensity. “I like to win,” he said bluntly. “I hope all our elected officials are ready to deal with us.”

Mumm says he is committed to seeking out a plurality of voices and tapping that power for grassroots activism and personal development. “Some people might think he’s a smarty-pants, but he understood what our members wanted,” said Salaman, a former Coalition organizer. “He has a lot of ideas and ambition, and he listens to others.”

Part of Mumm’s openness and energy stems from his practice of meditation and Zen Buddhism. Hardly monkish, Mumm’s mantra is “joy and justice,” and his spiritual side is intrinsically linked with activism.

An avid sportsman, Mumm regularly rides his bike in the Bronx, plays basketball, hikes upstate, snowboards out west and is planning to climb two mountain peaks this summer. “Life would not be complete if I spent all my time working,” he said. “The time playing and doing things with friends feeds my energy so I can work 12-hour days.”

Those long hours have quickly come upon him, but Mumm is calm nonetheless. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing,” he said.

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Director Steps Down After 19 Years at Coalition

July 28, 2005

By Jordan Moss

Staff of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition don’t like seeing their names in print. In fact, the grassroots group has a strict policy that organizers aren’t to be quoted in the media. That’s so residents, the “leaders” of the organization, can speak for themselves.

So, after 19 years at the Coalition, beginning as an organizer in Norwood and ending as executive director, there is little on the record to document Mary Dailey’s career.

Nonetheless, Dailey, who left her job in May, made an impression on the neighborhoods she worked in and the people she worked with.

She started at the Coalition in 1986 after leaving a job at a Central American solidarity organization that barely paid her. “Survival” is how she described her move from that job to organizing for the Coalition in Norwood.

There was no shortage of tasks to take on. At the time, when crack was devastating lives and whole buildings, the Coalition led a “Drugs Out” campaign. In Norwood, that meant getting the 52nd Precinct to do a better job policing crime-ridden sections of the neighborhood.

Dailey’s biggest campaign in Norwood was battling a state-sanctioned rent increase known as MCIs (major capital improvements), which allowed landlords to pass on the cost of boiler, roof and other renovations to their tenants. Dailey remembers many widows who had little to live off but their husband’s Social Security being frightened by the increases. Many tenants also felt that their buildings were otherwise poorly maintained. The issue struck a nerve as Dailey knocked on doors and organized tenant associations.

“We had several meetings of two to 300 people from Norwood on that issue,” she remembers.

Dailey, 44, says the MCI issue was “a way to build a base, to get a whole bunch of people on the same page about what they were going through simultaneously.”

The group didn’t get everything they wanted but their work “radically changed the way DHCR [state Division of Housing and Community Renewal] would review [the MCI] applications,” Dailey said. Landlords were discovered to have lied on the applications about the cost and extent of the work. Eventually, the state stretched the amortization of the loan from five to seven years.

Myra Goggins, a Coalition board member who got involved in the organization around this time, said Dailey led by example.

“I don’t think Mary ever just considered it a job,” she said. “She was dedicated to a cause of just trying to make things right in the world. And this comes across to people and inspires you to try to do the best you can also.”

Dailey’s next stop as an organizer at the Associations from Fordham to Burnside, another Coalition affiliate, featured a marriage of her work on housing and crime. Instead of just getting police to target street-level dealers, Dailey and community residents trained their sites on neglected city-owned apartment buildings that were havens for drug dealers.Through their organizing, they were able to help move many buildings into stable management, such as with the Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, a nonprofit.

After becoming executive director in 1994, Dailey put the organization on a more financially sound footing, increasing the organization’s annual budget by about $1.5 million through foundation grants.

That stability allowed the organization to think more strategically, rather than just react to problems. The Coalition joined and helped form citywide coalitions on education and housing.

“The value of neighborhood organizing is limited if you can’t connect the issues of people on the ground to some kind of greater change,” Dailey said.

She is particularly proud of the group’s involvement in coalitions that pushed the city to adopt a new housing inspection plan that will rely on community input.

Dailey says perhaps her biggest challenge was to make sure that the organization’s youth organizing was actually developing leadership among young people and working on social justice issues rather than providing youth services already provided by other organizations. Perhaps the ultimate success of these efforts was when the Coalition’s youth organization, Sistas and Brothas United, created a public high school focused on youth leadership (see p. 7).

And as she prepared to leave the organization, Dailey began to change how the Coalition is structured. While it has long tried to have at least one community organizer staffing each of nine neighborhood offices, that staffing level has been difficult to maintain financially and has also meant that some neighborhoods have gone without staff for months or years. This combined with the group’s desire to provide its staff with competitive salaries resulted in a plan to have organizing staff in four regions.

Dailey now works with the Center for Community Change, a national group. “I’ll be working to get organizations in the northeast that engage in grassroots and institutional-based organizing to build relationships with one another so they can be more effective in changing public policy,” she said.

Looking back on her long tenure at the Coalition, Dailey said she was lucky to work for an organization that already had a well-established culture of inclusiveness and diversity.

“I just hope I contributed to it being an environment that people could come in and work together and get a lot done,” she said.

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Local Kids Line Up to Read in Summer Program

July 28, 2005

By DANIELLE WHYTE

For as long as there’s been the New York Public Library system, there’s been the summer reading program, to encourage city kids to continue learning when school is not in session. This year’s program theme is “Tune In at Your Library,” and the Fordham branch has a number of eager participants

“Reading is my favorite thing to do in the summer,” said Shania Parsauld, a 9-year-old reading program participant from PS 85. Shania also goes to the Fordham Library for programs like arts and crafts, movie time, and Reading Aloud.

“We want to encourage kids to read and we want to make reading fun, not something you have to do,” said Deborah Allman, supervisor of the Fordham’s Children’s Library.

The citywide reading program is hosted by the New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, Queens Public Library, the Department of Education, and School Library Services, and runs at most libraries. Children are given approximately 20 recommended books, according to their grade level, to read in the summer and they record the books they’ve read in reading logs at their local libraries. The program is sponsored by Emigrant Savings Bank, Scholastic, and Time Warner Inc. Fordham has one of the highest enrollments in the city with approximately 500 participants.

Fordham also hosts other activities throughout the summer like Reading Aloud, which began July 5 and ends Aug. 27. It is one of Fordham’s most popular summer programs with about 30 kids ages 3 to 12 showing up every afternoon to hear library staff read books aloud. Guest readers like local firefighters, pastors and parents have been known to visit.

“It’s something for parents to do with their kids instead of staying home all summer. They can bring them to the library.”

Chenille Rafferty, 10, who attends Pace Academy, explained why she likes reading when school’s out. “Reading tells you a lot and it takes up most of my time in the summer.” Her younger sister, Chelsea accompanies her to Reading Aloud. “I learn how to read, it teaches me, and it’s fun,” said the 6-year-old.

“All kids should be involved in summer reading,” said Allman, “and the Bronx has had an increase of about 11 percent in reading participants.”

This year, the program has also expanded to include reading lists for babies and toddlers.

“We’ve never had so many young kids sign up,” said Allman. “You wouldn’t believe it but parents do read to their babies and toddlers.” Fordham Library has 90 babies participating in the reading program, and because of this, the library has introduced the Saturday program, Baby and Me, where parents can read to their young children.

The Fordham Library is also aware of the area’s large Spanish-speaking population and offers Spanish-language books for kids. “Seeing this is a community that largely speaks Spanish, we need a list in Spanish,” Allman said.

The official summer reading program participation deadline is the first week of August, but Allman is flexible. “It’s not too late to sign up,” she said. “We would never turn a kid away.”

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Making Sense of the News From Israel and Palestine

July 28, 2005

By Peggy Ray

The recent news reports from Israel and Palestine have been depressingly familiar: a Palestinian suicide bomber strikes. Israeli soldiers take over a West Bank town. Palestinians send rockets into Israel. Israel responds by destroying seven alleged weapons factories with helicopter gunships and amasses troops at the border for an invasion.

There those Palestinians go, again, we are led to think. Who can figure suicide bombers and who are these crazed extremists? Why can’t Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas keep his people under control?

One reason events in Israel and Palestine seem so bewildering is that the news we get is usually limited to that from official Israeli sources. Take the latest suicide bombing in Natanya, for example, where four innocent Israelis were killed. This was the first suicide bombing since late February, we are told, so Israelis enjoyed five months of “peace” during a ceasefire.

Our news media never reported, though, what was happening on the West Bank and in Gaza in that same five-month “ceasefire.” According to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, 43 Palestinians were killed by Israelis and 399 injuries were reported. Fifty-six of the injured were hit with live ammunition, 135 with rubber-coated or plastic bullets. Ninety-two were hurt by tear gas and 116 received miscellaneous injuries. We can assume a lot more injuries were taken care of outside of the medical establishment.

In a recent trip to Israel and the West Bank, I learned about Palestinian efforts to mount non-violent resistance against their conditions under the Israeli occupation. Since I got back, I have been following a story of non-violent resistance at a village called Bil’in as one example. As far as I can tell, nobody has been killed there, but there have been plenty of injuries.

Israelis have begun building the Separation Wall in Bil’in. Many residents there made their living as construction workers in Israel until the intifada that began in September 2000. When that led to their being barred from entry into Israel, they turned to agriculture to make their living. Now that means of survival is being threatened as their olive trees are being uprooted and the projected route of the Wall will cut them off from significant portions of their lands. Moreover, according to the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem, that land is to be used for the creation of a new Israeli settlement and expansion of existing ones, right in their faces.

There have been stones thrown at Bil’in, where protests have been going on since April, but not until Israeli soldiers beat people with clubs and fired tear gas, rubber-coated metal bullets, sound grenades and launched a new weapon called “the screamer” which emits a terrifying noise. Non-violent activists at Bil’in and elsewhere have tried to discourage their young men from throwing stones in response to military violence, but have not yet been totally successful. Nevertheless, the courage of so many in confronting Israeli bulldozers and their military support has been remarkable.

And one day there was a small, if perhaps temporary, victory. Several hundred villagers, along with their Israeli and international supporters, approached the land where six bulldozers were uprooting trees and clearing a path to build the Wall. They dismantled a barbed-wire roadblock preventing their progress, then were beaten back and met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Later, they returned and dismantled the foundations of the Wall that had previously been built.

We cannot rely only on Israeli government sources for our information. We need to know how the situation looks from the Palestinian point of view as well if we are to make intelligent judgments about our government’s role in that sad conflict.

Peggy Ray, a member of Bronx Action for Justice and Peace and a board member of Center of International Learning, traveled in Israel and Palestine with a Fellowship of Reconciliation Peace-Builders delegation last month.

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May We Explain…

July 28, 2005

By Editorial

We thought it would be useful to explain the roles of the different sections on the editorial and opinion pages and how we choose what to print here. Credit goes to Bernard Stein, former editor of The Riverdale Press, for suggesting this in a workshop we attended several years ago.

Editorial
What you usually read here in this space are the views of the newspaper as an institution. They are usually written by the editor, Jordan Moss, but publisher Dart Westphal occasionally writes, or collaborates with the editor, on editorials. It is the only place in the paper where we stake out a position on an issue.

Most of our editorials are about local issues, as that is the paper’s main focus, but occasionally they are about issues beyond the Bronx.

As a matter of policy, we do not endorse candidates for public office, since we believe that our readers are more than capable of deciding for themselves whom to vote for. Rather, we feel, it is the paper’s role to inform our readers to the greatest extent possible about the candidates’ campaigns and records and to provide information about how to register and vote.

Editorial Photo
This section began as Mess of the Month when the paper was a monthly. We still try to run a “Mess” photo once a month. Otherwise, we run a photo to illustrate one of our editorials or simply a picture of some delightful scene in the community.

Letters
This is the reader’s domain. As we often say, we love letters to the editor, regardless of their content, because they show that you’re reading the paper and you care enough about your community to share your opinion with your neighbors. We print virtually every one we get.

We consider the letters page one of the most important sections of the paper as everyone — whether they are a local resident or an elected official — has full and equal access to this critical community forum.

Another thing: With a full-time newspaper staff of only two, we obviously can’t write about everything. So, sometimes, a letter to the editor about an issue you care about is a quicker way to bring it to our readers’ attention than waiting for us to write a news article about it.

We don’t print anonymous letters. And, we don’t like letters where the author asks us to withhold his/her name. A healthy community dialogue cannot be enjoined from behind a curtain.

A couple of suggestions for letters: keep them to 300 words — the shorter the better. E-mail them if possible. Include your affiliation, if relevant to your letter, and your phone number so we can call you if necessary.

Op-Ed
Our op-ed section is another forum for reader viewpoints. There is a higher threshold for inclusion in this section. Op-ed articles are well-written, well-reasoned essays with a specific viewpoint. Readers can submit articles at any time, but you can also call us to see if we are interested in your particular topic (more often than not, we will be). Op-ed article subjects vary widely. They can be about a local issue or, as is the case in this issue, about a subject anywhere in the world.

We would love to get more frequent op-ed article submissions, so if you care deeply about something, get it down in writing and send it our way!

Op-ed articles should be no more than 600 words.

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Advocates Want Rehab of Streets Near Library

July 28, 2005

By DANIELLE WHYTE


Advocates hope Poe Place (left) and Coles Lane (right) can be rehabbed in time for new borough library. Photos by Danielle Whyte

When the borough’s new regional library opens early next year on Kingsbridge Road, community advocates want to make sure that two North Fordham streets in the immediate vicinity are no longer eyesores.

Coles Lane and Poe Place are two small dead-end streets that have been a magnet for litterbugs and vagrants. Coles Lane, which joins Kingsbridge Road and Bainbridge Avenue, was repaved recently but it is still used as a dumping ground and is a haven for loiterers.
Poe Place is a dead-end street with drainage problems, loads of trash and damaged sidewalks and curbs.

Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation (FBHC), in collaboration with the City College Architectural Center, is proposing a redesign for the two streets that “will add additional lighting, greenery, and be handicapped-accessible,” said Rosanna Viera of FBHC.

FBHC is planning to share its proposal with the Department of Design and Construction (DDC) and the city Department of Transportation (DOT).

“DOT has always been aware of our problem; it’s more of presenting it to DDC and to try to get everyone on board who is going to be a part of the design and building,” Viera said.

DOT says things are still in the fact-finding stage.

“Right now things are in the preliminary phases,” said Craig Chin, a DOT spokesman. “We need to meet and discuss and find out what to do. They [FBHC] are going to bring their proposal and bring the borough commissioner up to speed.” The Bronx DOT commissioner is Joe Palmieri who, since appointed in 2003, helped get the streets paved and steps repaired.

FBHC manages 80 buildings in the northwest Bronx and its Office of Policy and Planning, which works on public infrastructures and community and housing development, has raised about $2 million from elected officials to improve Poe Park, which is close to the two problem streets.

FBHC first began lobbying for improvements to the two streets in 2001, when plans for the new $50 million Bronx Borough Library were announced. The new library will dramatically increase traffic in the area and FBHC wanted to make the two roads safer and more attractive.

“There’s been very minor improvements,” said Viera. “The garbage problems have gotten a little better but there’s still graffiti and illegal dumping still takes place.”

FBHC succeeded in getting the DOT to make some repairs to Coles Lane, but many of the steps are still hazardous and uneven. Coles Lane is also very steep, which Viera considers dangerous, and there is still loitering at night.

“They should keep working on it,” said Sergio Fernandez, a Coles Lane resident. “Some people come out of nowhere and do graffiti.”

FBHC hopes to coordinate their construction proposal with the Bronx Borough Library by incorporating similar materials. The new library will feature glass walls that will overlook Poe Place and Coles Lane.

“We want the view from the library to be more pleasant and coincide, not contrast, [with] the new library,” said Viera.

But there are still no definite plans for the Poe and Coles makeover.

“We’re moving forward but these projects take time and patience,” said Viera. “We still have a long way to go.”

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New Inspection Program Targets Problem Landlords

July 28, 2005

By Andreas SCHNEIDER

Dial 311, wait, and lodge a complaint about landlord negligence. Thousands of people perform this civic ritual every month, according to the mayor’s office of operations, hoping that the condition they’ve called about will be resolved. However, 311 calls mainly highlight problems in individual apartments, rather than in entire buildings or the landlords who own them. Now, for irresponsible landlords across the city, those calls are starting to add up.

Multiple 311 complaints will now be one factor in qualifying buildings for surprise roof-to-cellar inspections under a new building inspection program agreed to on July 18 by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) and the City Council.
The program has begun in Council District 15 (as well as two districts in Brooklyn and Manhattan) in the Bronx, which includes the neighborhood of North Fordham. Landlords and building owners chosen by the program will be legally obligated to bring their entire buildings into compliance with the Housing Maintenance Code.

“This is a mechanism through which City Council members — in conjunction with local community groups — can work with HPD to identify buildings that would benefit from roof-to-cellar inspections,” said Ali Davis, legislative director for Council Member Gail Brewer, who collaborated with HPD and housing advocacy groups to formulate the program.

Under the new plan, a team of HPD inspectors will inspect up to 30 of the worst buildings in three Council districts every two months, before rotating on to three new districts for the next two months. After completing inspections, HPD will issue a written report detailing the violations and meet with various city agencies to decide whether to pursue the landlord in court. Tenants will also be able to obtain copies of the report from the Internet, their Council member and local community groups.

Before inspections begin in each set of Council districts, HPD will consult with the local Council member and local community groups to determine which buildings are most in need.

Legislators and community activists are hopeful that the proactive nature of the plan will accelerate repairs, help avoid abandonment of distressed buildings and finally provide a distinct legal procedure to force the city’s worst landlords into code compliance.

“This is a new way to handle distressed buildings,” said Hilda Chavis, a member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, who worked closely with the Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development to negotiate the terms of the new plan. Now, Chavis and the Coalition are helping formulate the list of buildings to be inspected in Council District 15.

“What we’re looking for is to have [a landlord make] the repairs and, if he doesn’t comply, to make him legally accountable,” Chavis said. “If he doesn’t take care of his responsibilities, he will be held accountable in court.”

HPD spokeswoman Carol Abrams said that the new program complements HPD anti-abandonment programs in effect since the late 1990s. “The difference,” she said, “is [the new program is] really giving the City Council more of a role in selecting the buildings that are important to their constituents.”

Whereas those initiatives rely mainly on reported violations and complaints such as those from 311 callers, the new program involves community groups and Council members in selecting notorious buildings that might not show up in complaint logs.

“This program will produce detailed strategies that will be used to address some of New York’s most problematic housing issues,” said Council Member Joel Rivera, who represents the 15th District, in an e-mailed statement. “As a result, this will ensure that people in the Bronx will live in sound and secure apartments that we all deserve to live in.”

Currently, Rivera and the Coalition are meeting with HPD to formulate the list of distressed buildings in Rivera’s district. Abrams, from HPD, said the list should be finalized and inspections should begin soon. Anyone interested in participating in the building selection process can contact the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition at (718) 584-0515 or Council Member Rivera’s office at (718) 364-3700.

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Metro-North Improves Local Service

July 28, 2005

By Andreas SCHNEIDER

Janet Graham and Carlos Mendoza stood on the Williams Bridge station platform one recent Friday waiting to board the 5:21 p.m. Metro-North train to North White Plains. Graham, who works at Montefiore Medical Center, was waiting to go home. Mendoza, who works nights in Westchester County, was just beginning his day. That Friday, like every day, they boarded the train in Norwood and didn’t get off until they reached North White Plains.

“It’s great,” Graham said of the direct service. “A lot better than before.” Local trains connecting lower Westchester County and the Bronx began running last fall.

Although the service has been available since October, Metro-North officially announced it during a July 20 press conference at the Montefiore Children’s Hospital, part of “Transportation Day” at the Medical Center. The long awaited train service, which highlights a developing trend in Metro-North’s train service as a whole, was celebrated during the event as a boon for local businesses and attractions as well as for Metro-North.

“This has been on the agenda for a number of years now,” said Spencer Foreman, MD, Montefiore’s president, in a speech. “Having MTA open Williams Bridge station to southward bound traffic is a wonderful thing.”

Previously, passengers commuting between Westchester and the Bronx, such as Graham and Mendoza, were forced to change trains at Mount Vernon West, resulting in waits of up to half an hour, Graham said. The local trains run on a new third track, completed by the MTA in October 2004, which allows local trains originating in North White Plains to stop in the Bronx while keeping a second track open for express trains into Manhattan.

“We have employees who live on that line who have always had to drive in or take an indirect and remote [train] route,” Foreman said. “[This] enables us to get more associates to work where they don’t have to use the critically short supply of parking.”

Dart Westphal, president of Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore that publishes the Norwood News, said that the new service would allow businesses to stretch farther when looking for employees, a point that was echoed by the MTA.

“The third track allows more trains to stop in the Bronx,” said Charles Zabielski, director of Marketing at the MTA. “Now, businesses can extend their employee reach into the suburbs.”

The local trains also stop at the New York Botanical Garden.

“It’s good news, it’s a convenience, and we welcome it,” said George Shakespeare, senior publicist at the Garden. “It’s a great way for employees and visitors to get to the Garden.”

Aside from benefiting local Bronx community development, the new service, which Montefiore, Fordham University, the New York Botanical Garden and many other local interests spent years fighting for, exemplifies the rise of two new passengers bases: intermediate and reverse peak. Intermediate passengers are those who board the train at a middle stop and get off before the end of the line, similar to how one would use a subway.
Reverse peak passengers head out of Manhattan during peak morning hours and back into it during peak evening.

In recent months, Zabielski said, the amount of intermediate and reverse peak riders on Metro-North has skyrocketed.

“That’s the only reason we’re not losing ridership,” said Marjorie Anders, a Metro-North spokeswoman. The third track coverage, she said, recognizes this increased demand for intermediate service. Since the service began running last fall, the number of passengers departing at Williams Bridge has more than doubled.

This is a major identity shift for a railroad originally designed to shuttle suburban commuters directly into Manhattan’s business district. Now, with the rise of intermediate and reverse travel, Zabielski said, “I like to think of us as the subway of the suburbs.”

In coming months, Metro-North will continue renovations on Bronx stations and work on replacing the current cars running on the third track with newer models, Zabielski said.

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Smaller Youth Programs Lose in New City Scheme

July 28, 2005

By Heather Haddon

Three venerable providers of youth programs lost their city contracts last month under a reorganized system for after-school services. One agency, the Tolentine Zeiser Community Life Center, has already shuttered its program and laid off staff, and others are wondering how they will keep their offerings afloat.

“I find it very disturbing,” said Jennifer Walford, 30, who has worked at Tolentine for years. “The mayor can find millions of dollars for a stadium, but he can’t find money for teens who need it.”

In addition to Tolentine, the EARS violence prevention program and Sistas and Brothas United, a youth group run by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, lost their contracts. Sistas and Brothas will be out $50,000, plus an additional $50,000 from a private matching grant.

“That’s a lot of money we really needed,” said Ronn Jordan, president of the Coalition. “We are trying to scramble to figure out how to cover it.”

Last December, the city unveiled Out-of-School Time, an overhaul of its funding of after-school programs and some day-care services. Three funding streams from the city Department for Youth and Community Development (DYCD) and the Administration for Children’s Services were collapsed into the new program, which seeks to streamline services and create new performance requirements.

Community District 7 maintained roughly the same number of contracts, but resources were further concentrated. The big winner was the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, which received a total of five grants. Two are for programs at its Norwood headquarters, along with offerings at PS 8, Tracey Towers and its Educational Counseling Center.

“I was really worried about this, but it worked well for us,” said Don Bluestone, executive director of the Center, at last month’s Community Board 7 meeting. “Smaller programs didn’t do as well.”

That appears to be true. The after-school offerings at Tolentine, Sistas and Brothas, and EARS all serve around 75 kids each, while the Center serves thousands. The trend was repeated in other city areas, with big agencies, like Big Brothers/Big Sisters and the Boys and Girls Club, netting multiple contracts.

“I think [consolidation] is the whole philosophy of the city these days,” said Marcy May, director of EARS, whose organization lost the $35,000 they had received from the city for 20 years.

DYCD acknowledged that some grants went to large programs but denied that size was a determining factor. “There is great diversity in the organizations that have been selected,” said Michael Ognibene, a DYCD spokesperson.

At least 11 organizations with smaller budgets received grants, according to Ognibene, but that only represents 5 percent of the total awardees. Some critics have compared the shift to the Bronx Meals on Wheels overhaul, which consolidated providers of meals for the homebound elderly last year. Two agencies now do the work formerly conducted by 17 organizations.

The city emphasizes that cuts were not made to youth funding, but that grants were made using a different approach. In addition to the Center, Inwood House received money for their after-school programming at PS 33 and MS 399. Local grants were also allocated to initiatives at MS 254, PS/MS 15, and St. James Recreation Center.

Some worry that the overhaul has shortchanged North Fordham and University Heights, where Tolentine and Sistas and Brothas are focused. At its last meeting, Community Board 7 changed its district priorities to reflect the shortage of services in those specific areas. But Ognibene said the grantees are geographically diverse, with most city zip codes covered.

The Coalition is disputing the city’s decision, and Jordan said that elected officials have written letters on their behalf. But May was told there would be no appeals process in the short term. “They won’t even talk to us,” she said.

Tolentine staff and kids were grim about the fate of their program, which has served area youngsters for 22 years. “I’ve been coming here a long time,” said Marcus Hilton, 16, of Sedgwick Avenue. “It wouldn’t feel the same to go to another place.”

Gilbert Torres, a program worker, has seen generations of young people come through Tolentine’s doors. “Some of them aren’t the best kids in the world, but this gives them a place away from getting into trouble,” said Torres, 24. “A lot don’t have fathers or brothers, but at least they have this.”

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