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Rally for Clinton H.S. Shooting Victim Grows On Facebook

By Alex Kratz

While 15-year-old DeWitt Clinton High School student Yvette Torres fights for her life at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, a group of people, many of whom have never met her, some from as far away as Massachusetts, are doing their best to track down the person who shot her in the back of the head and bring them to justice.

Yvette was shot in the head after she confronted a gunman at a June 11 party in an apartment building near Fordham Road, on the corner of East 187th Street and Valentine Avenue. It’s unclear exactly what sparked the confrontation or why the gunman fired the shot that hit Yvette. But it is clear that there were witnesses to the crime and the shooter remains at large.

On June 17, the New York Post reported that a 17-year-old boy had been arrested and charged with Yvette’s shooting. But the NYPD says no one has been arrested and the investigation is ongoing.

Seeing that the investigation had stalled, Queens resident Nelson Figueroa decided the police could use some help. Read more

Legislature Passes Gay Marriage, Rent Laws in Overtime

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Lawmakers in Albany spent all of last week scrambling to address a long list of items on its agenda before breaking for the year, staying four days past the scheduled end of the legislative session and passing a number of high-profile laws in its final few days.

Among the legislation was a historic bill to legalize same-sex marriage, which after days of intense lobbying in Albany from parties on both sides of the debate, was passed by the State Senate late Friday night.

“I am proud that New York has sent a message loud and clear, that we will not tolerate inequality,” said Bronx senator Gustavo Rivera, in a statement after the bill was approved. Read more

Shelter Plan for Vacant Muller Center Blasted at Hearing

By Alex Kratz

During his lengthy and impassioned testimony at a public hearing concerning the fate of the vacant Muller Army Reserve Center in Wakefield, Father Richard Gorman compared the Bloomberg administration to a) Josef Stalin and b) a group of slave owners (with Wakefield residents being the slaves).

Gorman, the longtime chairman of Community Board 12, which includes Wakefield and Woodlawn, made those comparisons in the course of blasting the city’s controversial proposal to house a 200-bed  homeless shelter for men in the Muller Center. The mayor’s office says the city’s homeless needs outweigh the desires of community residents and stakeholders.

Calling the city’s plan “outrageous,” Gorman said the report that determined a shelter would be the best use of the center was full of misrepresentations and inaccuracies. “It’s a shame trees lost their lives to print that garbage,” he said. Gorman also suggested the city’s plan to turn the building over to the Doe Fund and give the group a fat city contract to run the shelter amounted to a giveback to the nonprofit, which provided valuable support to Bloomberg’s campaign to extend term limits two years ago.

Gorman was not alone in his anger. The sweltering auditorium (the vitriol was equaled only by the thickness of the air) inside PS 21 on East 225th Street was jam-packed with opponents of the homeless shelter, including a long list of local politicians, community activists and residents.

One representative from the mayor’s office, which holds two of the three voting positions on the Local Redevelopment Authority (LRA) tasked by the Department of Defense to find a suitable use for the center (Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. holds the other spot), spoke on behalf of the homeless shelter plan.

In an e-mail statement after the hearing, Andrew Brent, a spokesman for the mayor’s office, said their position had not changed despite the overwhelming and vehement opposition to the homeless shelter plan.

“Given New York City’s demand for temporary emergency shelter and the federal mandate, the Local Redevelopment Authority determined by majority that the facility should be utilized as a homeless shelter,” Brent said in a statement.

Brent, who could not point to any community or political support for the city’s plan, said the Doe Fund’s application to run a homeless shelter at the center was the “most viable” option for the building’s re-use.

In 2008, around 20 Doe Fund employees testified in support of Bloomberg’s effort to extend term limits. Last year, the New York Times reported that Bloomberg, “through his charitable arms,” had donated at least $10 million to the Doe Fund since winning re-election for a third term in 2009. (A spokesman for Bloomberg said the mayor had supported the Doe Fund financially long before the term limits vote. And a spokesman for the Doe Fund said the group’s president, George T. McDonald, had always opposed term limits.)

At the end of last year, Diaz, Jr. repeatedly chose not to attend LRA meetings to prevent the three-member panel from having a quorum and being able to vote on, and approve, the homeless shelter plan.

Diaz spokesman John DeSio said the borough president had yet to decide whether voting against the plan at the next meeting would be better than ignoring another meeting, which might leave the building open to the highest bidder. The LRA must vote on the plan by the end of the month.

In his remarks at the hearing, Diaz said the mayor and the borough president’s office, then occupied by Adolfo Carrion, had agreed the Muller Center would become the new home of the National Guard units currently housed in the Kingsbride Armory annex buildings in order to make way for new schools. The National Guard has said it would be willing to move the Armory units to the Muller Center with $750,000 worth of help from the city.

The city’s re-use recommendation report mentions the Guard’s willingness to move into the Center, but Brent said the Bronx’s and the city’s need for homeless shelter beds trumped that idea. The report said it would cost between $10 million and $15 million to turn the center into a homeless shelter.

Concerned local residents said the neighborhood was already saturated with homeless shelters. Many suggested the mayor’s office was unfairly saddling their residential area with the Doe Fund’s all-male clientele, which is made up of many former criminals and drug addicts.

“Why [is the city doing this]?” asked Mary Lauro of the Wakefield Taxpayers Association. “Because we are a minority community!”

Op-ed: Unlikely Heroes and Other Joys of Youth Baseball

By Jarrett Murphy

My son, Owen, and I were supposed to miss this game altogether. It was originally scheduled for back in April, for a day when we were in Ireland. But it rained that day, and the game was called off. So the second and final meeting between the Athletics and Pirates of the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center’s baseball league’s Bantam Division was instead set for Saturday, June 18 at Shandler Field in Van Cortlandt Park.

There was no rain this time. Intense sunshine baked the ballfield. The last time we’d been on the field, our Athletics had a 12-4 lead as the Yankees took their final at-bat only to see the Yanks score eight runs to eke out a tie. The week before there had been another cancelled game because of bad weather; that one would never be made up. This was to be our last game of the year.

The Athletics, coached by Sam Saltares, struck first, scoring twice. We came back with five runs. In the third, they took a 7-5 lead. Then we went ahead 10-7. They put four across in the next frame, but we scored one more in the bottom half to tie the game at 11. Our star player, Artie, was out of town. But we were getting enough offense off the bats of Deandre, our leadoff man, with Carlos, Romeo and Joel getting on base every time. Denae belted a rocket past the third baseman. David beat out a throw to first. Owen had two RBI singles despite having to lay down between at-bats with a headache and fever. Alyssa played heads-up right field, and Jeremy patrolled left. Nick and Quadir stole hits from the Bucs with clever fielding.

Yet we still came to our last at-bat of the season down 13-11. More hits came. The bases loaded up. The tying run came across. Then it was Richard’s turn.

Richard, who happens to be our neighbor, had never played baseball before the season. People who came to our games often heard his name as coaches shouted for him to pay attention, stop playing with dirt, or at least stand up in the outfield. Earlier in the season, he’d asked me to stop the team from chanting his name when he was at the plate because it made him nervous.

Having taken his place in the batter’s box, Richard made a couple of weak swings. Quickly, he was down to his last strike. The winning run was on third base.

The pitch came, and Richard swung, this time with purpose, with meaning. The ball popped off the bat rolling and bouncing toward the shortstop. The bench knew instantly, just by the peculiar way the ball was dribbling across the diamond, that it was all we needed. We roared. The runner on third scampered home. Richard, the fastest man on the team, sprinted to first. He beat the throw by two steps.

The field emptied as Richard stood on first not quite understanding why everyone was hitting him on the helmet. The coach and assistants, grown men all, leapt off their feet. Owen cried with joy. Our final record was 4-4-1, which is somehow way better than 3-5-1, but it didn’t matter that much. If we had finished 1-9, this win would still have felt like the championship.

When the team got their trophies—every team gets trophies—Richard said it was the first he’d ever received. He also got the game ball. The next night he yelled into our yard to ask when the next game is. It was hard to tell him that there’d be no more games until April.

There is plenty not to like about sports—taxpayer-funded stadiums built on top of poor people’s parks, spoiled millionaire athletes, absurd ticket prices, steroid cheats, jingoistic violence. And there’s a lot about sports that is not very profound; they’re an excuse to drink some beer and not think about more important, more depressing things. But sometimes sports are more than all of that. They are a ball dancing across a dusty field and an unlikely hero wondering why everyone is smiling at him.

Jarrett Murphy, a Norwood resident, is editor-in-chief of City Limits.

Ethics Reform Aims to Heal Albany’s Trust Issues

Freshman State Senator Gustavo Rivera knows a little bit about the public’s high level of mistrust in their politicians. In fact, he rode that mistrust to victory over his predecessor Pedro Espada, Jr. last fall in the Democratic primary.

Such was the state of the northwest Bronx’s 33rd Senate District seat, which Rivera now represents.

The now infamous Espada is awaiting trial for allegedly embezzling money from his network of Bronx nonprofit health clinics. His two-year term that ended in December was marked by a handful of investigations into possible ethical and legal violations. Espada did not come into office without a checkered ethical record, but he managed to defeat his own predecessor, Efrain Gonzalez, by repeatedly pointing out the dark cloud of federal corruption charges hanging over his head. (Gonzalez is now serving prison time for stealing state funds meant for local nonprofit groups.)

“I heard it from people all the time while I was campaigning last summer,” Rivera said during a recent interview. “They don’t trust us as legislators.”

Rivera says the current crop of legislators in Albany is attempting to mend this strained relationship between the public and their representatives in government.

Weeks before the furious finale in Albany that brought the legalization of gay marriage, slightly strengthened rent regulation and a property tax cap, the state legislature passed an ethics reform package that freshman Rivera says will help the healing process along.

Part of that package includes language Rivera introduced as a bill in January that would require lawmakers to disclose outside income. (State legislators are considered part-time employees and are free to hold other jobs.)

The public should know where their representatives are getting their outside income from, Rivera said in a statement announcing the deal in early June, “especially if they are being paid by special interests, companies or individuals whose interests are diametrically opposed to the interests of their constituents and their community.”

The deal also sets up a new Joint Commission on Public Ethics to police both the executive and legislative branches, requires legislators who are lawyers to reveal their clients, creates a database of all lobbyists and contractors doing business with the state and penalizes any lawmaker convicted of a felony by depriving them of their pension.

Good government groups said the reforms, especially with regard to disclosure, were commendable. But many, including the New York Times editorial board, trashed the new ethics commission as “so deeply flawed in its structure as to be wholly ineffective.”
Rivera admitted the reforms won’t solve all of Albany’s problems and dysfunction, but said it’s a step in the right direction.

And for those concerned about Gonzalez or Espada (if he’s convicted), don’t worry, their pensions are safe. The law only applies to future legislators.

From the DR to Walton, Softball Star Tears It Up

By Kristen Gwynne

Claritza Caceres, 17, is a junior at the International School for Liberal Arts at the Walton campus. Quiet and modest, with a petite frame, her appearance hardly lets on that she is what many would consider a softball prodigy. This past season, Claritza muscled a .696 batting average with 45 runs batted in and 29 stolen bases. A pitcher, she had an earned run average of 3.68.

Claritza, who is from the Dominican Republic, did not play proper softball until came to the U.S. at age 12. But she got some serious practice in her home country, where she and friends improvised with sticks and bottle caps.

One year, Claritza got her first real softball as a birthday present from her uncle. Compared to hitting a cap with a stick, it was a piece of cake. “That ball is so special to me,” she said. “It’s my lucky one.”   Read more

All Must Join in Bullying Battle, Say Experts at Monte

By Rachel Sander

In the past year, the disastrous effects of bullying have become more visible with high profile youth suicides. More adults are recognizing that bullying victims can suffer from depression, low self-esteem, health problems, poor grades, and have suicidal thoughts.

That’s why Montefiore Medical Center’s community forum two weeks ago focused on the issue.

“For too long, we’ve turned a blind eye,” said Robert Spencer of the Bronx district attorney’s office at the forum in Montefiore’s Cherkasky Auditorium. Read more

Green Bronx Machine Revs Up Healthy Eating

The sweet smell of basil drifted down the halls of Discovery High School one day in late May. Parents, teachers and neighbors chased it down to Room 279, where Steven Ritz and his science classes hosted a Farmers Market and Edible Plant Sale.

Guests got to shop amidst a selection of fresh veggies, plants, and flowers while learning about Ritz’s unique science curriculum.

“This is my portable science lab,” Ritz explained. “Unlike software that gets outdated and textbooks which are expensive, this room is a constant learning resource.” Ritz says he started bringing plants into the classroom in order to give his students a hands-on lesson, but it’s grown into a mission to make the entire borough eat and grow healthy food. Read more

Armory Report: Long in Length, Short on Answers

By Alex Kratz

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. has made it clear redeveloping the vacant 575,000-square-foot Kingsbridge Armory into a quality job-producing, vibrant community space, is a top priority of his administration. But a much-anticipated report created by an Armory task force he assembled was released with little fanfare earlier this month and appears to generate more questions than answers.

Last week, Diaz’s office quietly released the 267-page report, which included no clear plan for financing the redevelopment. It detailed all of the meetings of the task force, which included union reps, health care industry leaders, developers, community activists and elected officials. It also included three models for possible redevelopment created by a group of New York University graduate students and faculty.

John DeSio, a spokesman for the borough president, said the point of the task force was not to come up with a proposal or a clear plan for financing it. The point, he said, was to show there was still interest in the Amory and to call on the mayor to issue a request for proposals (RFP). DeSio said he had every intention of trumpeting the report with a press conference, but said it had already been leaked to media outlets, so they decided to release it early in the morning, via e-mail. Read more

Local HS Graduation Rates Fluctuate as City’s Rises

By Alex Kratz

As high schools throughout the Bronx and the rest of New York City began holding graduation ceremonies this June, the Department of Education and the mayor’s office proudly announced last year’s four-year graduation rates as the highest the city has ever seen — 65.1 percent, according to state figures.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg pointed to the latest numbers, which also included gains across every ethnic group and in the number of Regents and Advanced Regents diplomas awarded, as evidence the city’s reform plan of replacing underperforming schools with new, smaller schools, is working. The gains represented a ninth straight year of increasingly higher graduation rates for the city as a whole. Read more

Fears That ‘Managed’ Medicaid Means Less Care

By Jeanmarie Evelly

The letter came one day this winter, while 57-year-old Norwood resident Nilta Vazquez was still in the midst of recovering from an extensive spinal fusion surgery she’d had that fall. At the time, she was unable to walk on her own, and had a health aide helping her at home.

The letter said that Medicaid—the health insurance program for low-income and disabled New Yorkers that’s funded jointly through the state and federal governments—was requiring her to switch over to a managed care plan.

Managed care plans differ from traditional or “fee-for-service” health plans in that in the latter, a patient is allowed to visit any doctor that accepts Medicaid. In managed care, a patient instead has one primary care doctor charged with overseeing their care, and can only visit physicians within a certain, approved network of caregivers. Read more

LGBT Activists Discuss Solutions to Bronx Intolerance

By By Kristen Gwynne

Through a series of town hall meetings and other public activities, advocates and organizers are working to promote lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender tolerance in the Bronx, a borough that gained a bad reputation for its intolerance last fall when a group of young adults in Morris Heights were arrested for viciously beating and sodomizing two youths and another man because they suspected the victims were gay.

On May 31, at a town hall meeting at the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, Bronx Community Board 7 and other local community organizers pinpointed lack of advertisement, religion, cultural bias and low socio-economic status as the main causes of the borough’s LGBT intolerance. To navigate these obstacles and improve the borough’s reputation, attendees and panelists suggested working with the police and increasing LGBT awareness, especially in notoriously anti-gay communities.

Panelist Francisco J. Lazala, of the Bronx Community Pride Center and Gay and the Lesbian Dominican Empowerment Organization (GALDE), said the goal is to host a town hall meeting in every Bronx-based community board and create a network to distribute LGBT services across the borough.

Many attendees expressed discontent with police response to harassment and hate crimes. Detective Jim Duffey, part of the NYPD’s three-person LGBT liaison team of openly gay officers, told the audience to call on his team if things weren’t working out through normal channels.

“If you have an incident, call the cops first,” Duffey said. “Those who respond may not be as compassionate. If you feel you are not being treated right, contact us.”

In comparison to the other boroughs, panelists and advocates said, the Bronx lacks LGBT advertisement, an effective tool for helping to humanize LGBT persons. Read more

Cabrera Bill Would Make Nabe Crime Stats Public

By Alex Kratz

Addressing a public safety issue raised by the Norwood News, Councilman Fernando Cabrera has drafted legislation to require the New York City Police Department to share neighborhood crime statistics with community boards and the general public on a quarterly basis.

Currently, the only stats made public are precinct-wide, the so-called Compstat reports that are compiled weekly and posted online at the NYPD’s website. But those stats cover large geographic areas – almost 150,000 people in the case of Community Board 7 — comprising many neighborhoods.

When crime goes down in a precinct, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it has gone down in a neighborhood or series of blocks, which is why the Police Department carves precincts into sectors – for the purpose of identifying problem areas. But New Yorkers rarely see these breakdowns.

The Norwood News did publish sector stats provided by the precinct a couple of years ago, but the information has been kept under wraps ever since. The Norwood News submitted a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request to the NYPD last June for the data and followed up in October. The NYPD has yet to comply with the request, despite indicating specific dates by which it would in two letters to the paper.

Greg Faulkner, Cabrera’s chief of staff, said his office decided to address the issue legislatively following the paper’s coverage, and when Norwood News reporter Alex Kratz raised the issue with Chief Philip Banks III, head of the NYPD community affairs department at a 52nd Precinct Community Council Meeting at Scott Tower, Banks said he didn’t know why the information wasn’t being provided.

A Norwood News editorial in May stated: All we’re asking for is information that will keep residents better informed and more able to help the NYPD keep our streets safer.

Since the editorial, the Bronx News Network has regularly published a clock ticking off the number of days and hours since the Norwood News first filed a Freedom of Information law request last June — as of now, 377 days.
Faulkner said the legislation will probably go through several drafts before it hits the Council floor.

As Deadline Passes, Legislators Continue Push for Stronger Rent Laws

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Housing advocates and local elected officials are making a last-ditch campaign to strengthen the state’s rent laws, which expired on Wednesday. Governor Andrew Cuomo has vowed to keep legislators in Albany until an agreement is reached.

On Monday, dozens of protesters—among them Bronx Assemblyman Jose Rivera and Harlem State Sen. Bill Perkins—were arrested for blocking the entrance to Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office during a rowdy rally to draw attention to the law’s approaching expiration date.

Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos extended the deadline slightly to this Friday, June 17. The Emergency Tenant Protection Act guarantees rent-stabilized status for over a million apartments across the city, and hundred of thousands in the Bronx.

For months, pro-tenant groups and local politicians have been rallying to see that the law is not only renewed, which is likely to happen, but also strengthened—including the repeal of vacancy decontrol, the provision which deregulates apartments once they are vacated if the rent exceeds $2,000 a month.

“I would consider a straight renewal a defeat,” said Bronx Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, in a phone interview from Albany. Read more

Weapon Found in Dumpster Alarms Residents

By By Jordan Moss

Norwood residents got a good scare Tuesday morning, when emergency vehicles arrived at a construction site at 3524 Hull Ave. to remove what they thought might be a missile.

Found in a dumpster by workers at the building, it turned out to be an inert artillery shell, the NYPD said.

Residents who piled into the streets following the arrival of fire and emergency truck and a helicopter hovering over the site (just north of East Gun Hill Road) say that a member of the bomb squad simply carried the weapon in his bare arms to a truck that then took off with it. That sent all the other emergency trucks away and the workers back to work.

One worker who said he was part of a crew installing elevators at the site, said they measured the shell — a narrow, green projectile — at 39 inches. They said it had to have been left there overnight since they had been working with the dumpster the previous day. Several workers and residents got photos of the weapon on their cell phones.

Marlene Lopez, who runs K & M Daycare in her apartment across the street, said that emergency workers told her to close up for the day, after which she called parents and informed them of the situation.

Fight Over Worship at Schools Puts U-Heights Church in Spotlight

By Alex Kratz

When the leaders of Bronx Household of Faith, an evangelical Christian congregation based in University Heights, first approached the city, in 1994, about using its public schools to hold worship services, they didn’t think much of it. They certainly did not think they would find themselves, 17 years later, fighting for freedom of religion and speech as part of a back-and-forth legal case that could end up in front of the Supreme Court.

“It’s taken on a life of its own,” said Bob Hall, Bronx Household of Faith’s head pastor.

After being initially rebuffed, Bronx Household of Faith legally wrangled its way into the auditorium at PS/MS 15 on Andrews Avenue, where it has held services since 2002. But on June 3, a divided appeals court ruled the DOE could once again exclude churches from using schools for worship. That left Hall’s church, along with more than 60 other city churches, once again facing a daunting search for space.

City attorneys lauded the ruling. “The Department [of Education] is quite properly concerned about having any school in this diverse city identified with one particular religious belief or practice,” said Jane Gordon, who argued the city’s case. “The decision is a victory for the city’s schoolchildren and their families.”

But Bronx Household of Faith and its robust legal team say the DOE’s policy unfairly singles out religious worship services and has vowed to fight on.
Read more

Reservoir Access Fight Escalates as BP Takes Lead

By Rachel Sander

There’s a path around the Jerome Park Reservoir, just like the Central Park Reservoir. And while Manhattanites can run around theirs with a view of the water, Bronxites aren’t allowed to run and walk next to theirs and many are fed up.

Since construction on a filtration plant for the Croton Water System began in the depths of the Norwood section of Van Cortlandt Park several years ago, the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has cited security as the reason why residents are kept outside of the two security fences surrounding the nearby reservoir (a wide path exists between the fences). Residents say that access and security are both possible and point to former commissioner Christopher Ward’s promise in 2004 to create a track around the reservoir similar to the one at the Central Park Reservoir.

At a June 2 hearing on the issue at Amalgamated Houses’ Vladeck Hall, residents, most of whom live on the west side of the reservoir, gave the DEP an earful.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. convened the meeting at the urging of the Croton Filtration Monitoring Committee (FMC), which had grown weary of the DEP’s lack of responsiveness. The tipping point was the agency’s March release of a long-delayed report that offered the public a mere few days of access in 2013.

Mark Lanaghan of the DEP said his agency attended the hearing to hear from the public. “We are open to exploring public access but we don’t know what you want,” he said, as community members groaned. Read more

Pride, Relief, and Uncertainty for Lehman Graduates

By Rachel Sander

“Why does King Lear suffer? What is a neutron?” poet Billy Collins asked a crowd of 3,000 anxious graduates, proud parents, and supportive friends, during his speech at Lehman College’s commencement ceremony two weeks ago in Bedford Park.

“It’s not about knowing the answers to these questions,” Collins said. “It’s about having the intelligence to know how to think.”

Emphasizing his point, Collins quoted the biography of Noah Webster, founding father of Webster’s Dictionary. For Webster, Collins said, “completing the requirements for his degree would signify not that he was a learned man, but that he had acquired the necessary tools to become one.”

Gloriana B. Waters, a vice chancellor at the school, echoed Collins’ theme. “Your time here has not only given you the education but the knowledge and with hard work and tenacity you can accomplish anything. You are all success stories!” Read more

Teen Chefs Wage Battle for Better Health

By Racehel Sander

Earlier this month teen chefs squared off in a final competition at Evander Childs Educational Campus. The program, sponsored by the Montefiore School Health Program, is part of its healthy eating initiative. Although the program is intended to promote good nutrition and healthy meals, it has not only transformed the way Evander students eat, but the way they connect with one another.

For eight weeks, students met together after school every Thursday. “We’ve become one happy family,” said ninth grader Krystal Rivera, adding that the program has gotten her to spend time with people that she normally wouldn’t hang out with.

The rigorous application process requires students to participate in a group interview and prepare a mock menu.
The 24 students chosen for the program are divided into two teams which “battle” to prepare multi-ethnic meals using healthy ingredients and advanced culinary techniques.

Earlier this month the two teams entered the final round of the competition. After weeks of preparing different recipes, the two teams got to create their own menu. Grace Walfall, director of community health at the School Health Program, said the students had to present their meal to the judges and explain how it was prepared and why the meal is nutritional. Read more

Crime Watch: Boy Shot On Grand Ave.

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Police are asking for help finding the gunman responsible for opening fire on a crowd last Friday night in Fordham Heights, injuring three people, including a 5-year-old boy.

The incident took place on June 10, on the sidewalk in front of 2395 Grand Avenue. The man fired several times at the group, hitting the boy as well as a 30-year-old man and 32-year-old woman. All three victims were treated at St. Barnabas Hospital and later released.

The suspect is described as a black male with braided hair between the ages of 25 and 30, around six feet tall and 160 pounds.

Anyone with information is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477). The public can also submit tips by logging on to the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577. All calls are strictly confidential.

Clinton Student Critical After Shooting

By David Greene

Detectives continue to follow all leads in connection with the shooting of a Fordham-area teenager who is fighting for her life after being shot in the head.

Police were called to Valentine Avenue and East 187th Street, at 11:40 p.m., on Saturday, June 11, and discovered the 15-year old female had been shot in the back of the head as she exited a party inside an apartment building.

Authorities have identified the victim as Yvette Marie Torres, 15, a student of DeWitt Clinton High School. Yvette Marie remains in critical condition at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

As of Monday, June 13, police had made no arrests in the case. Witnesses described the assailant as a black male wearing a blue hooded jacket, who fled from the scene on foot after the shooting

Honoring Megan Charlop by Doing

By Jordan Moss

The staff of the Montefiore School Health Program coordinated the first community service day in honor of Megan Charlop, the beloved Norwood resident and longtime Bronx activist who died in a tragic accident while riding her bike to work in March 2010. The inaugural Meg Charlop Day of Service on a sweltering June 9 resulted in 480 trees planted along the wetlands trail in Van Cortlandt Park near the Mosholu Golf Course and Shandler Recreation Area. The participants removed invasive species as well.

School Health Program staff say they want to involve kids from local schools next year.  The goal is to participate in service projects that will benefit Bronx kids and contribute to a healthy lifestyle.

Op-ed: Action Needed on Dirty Boilers That Pollute and Kill

By Ruben Diaz, Jr. and Scott Stringer

When it comes to health-threatening air pollution in New York, toxic boilers are public enemy number one. These boilers—which burn #4 and #6 heating oil in apartment buildings and other structures—are a menace to the health and well-being of our city. While they are only used by one percent of all New York buildings, they account for an astonishing 86 percent of the city’s airborne soot pollution.

To put it another way: This noxious heating oil produces 50 percent more air pollution than all of the cars and trucks in New York City, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. And the human toll is staggering. We know that the air pollution caused by dirty boilers and other sources is responsible for more than 3,000 deaths and approximately 6,000 emergency room visits for asthma in children and adults in New York each year, according to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.

This is a citywide problem, but the roots of it might surprise you. New data evaluated by the Manhattan borough president’s  office shows that 63 percent of the boilers using #4 and #6 oil are located in buildings with one or more units of rent-regulated housing. And a breakdown of these buildings by zip codes reveals that the 12 most affected neighborhoods, the so-called Dirty Dozen, are in the Bronx and northern Manhattan. Our analysis shows that 10467—including Bedfor Park and Norwood in the Bronx—has the highest number of dirty boilers in rent-regulated buildings (252) of any New York zip code. It also ranks fifth in the city for individuals under the age of 5, a population that is particularly vulnerable to such pollution. Read more

Goulden Avenue: Closed For Construction

By Kristen Gwynne

Starting on July 5, a stretch of Goulden Avenue, from 205th Street to about one block north, will be entirely closed off to traffic as workers connect water pipes underneath the street. The pipes will connect the Jerome Park Reservoir to the new water filtration plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park.

The Department of Environmental Protection, which is managing the project, says that stretch of Goulden Avenue will be closed until school resumes in early September, at which point the DEP will open one lane of traffic going in each direction.

Before the opening, motorists and the BX10 bus will be detoured down Paul Avenue, which is parallel to Goulden.

The construction to begin this summer is one of two segments. The second, on Goulden Avenue adjacent to Gate House No. 7 at the reservoir, is expected to start at an undisclosed time in 2012, and will take four to five months, though DEP spokesman Michael Stasiak said some work outside the street boundary will take longer.

Stasiak said minimizing disruption to Bronx Science motivated the decision to do the projects separately. “The excavation across from Bronx HS of Science is the priority, as the work must be completed for operation of the filtration plant [in Van Cortlandt Park],” said Stasiak in an e-mail. “If we wait, we would miss the opportunity to get the noisy work outside Bronx HS of Science started when school is out of session this summer.”

Bronx Science is not the only school to be affected by the construction. Several others, including Lehman College, DeWitt Clinton High School, and High School for American Studies, are very close to where the work will take place.

Clinton Principal Geraldine Ambrosio said students do not take that route and will be largely unaffected by the traffic change, but noted other small inconveniences may arise. “It’ll probably congest the other areas — if they go down Paul Avenue. We have a lot of teachers who use that parking [on Goulden Avenue], and the neighborhood people park there overnight,” Ambrosio said.

The DEP also said it will not use rock blasting, another controversial issue, and will excavate with drilling instead.
The DEP says once school is back in session it will do quiet work during school hours and save louder work for late afternoon, when classes have ended.

The filtration plant is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2012.

City Offers Discount Prescription Drug Card

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Last month, the city introduced its first prescription drug discount card, called the BigAppleRx card, which anyone—even non-city residents—can use for purchases at thousands of participating pharmacies throughout the five boroughs.

“All too often, the rising costs of prescription drugs place a burden on New York City households. And this is particularly true for the more than one million New Yorkers who don’t have health insurance,” Mayor Bloomberg said at a press conference introducing the card on May 18.

“Having access to a free prescription drug card can mean the difference between being able to afford prescriptions and being forced to skip doses.”

According to a press release, the card could save an average of 47 percent on most prescription drug purchases. A diabetic who regularly buys generic glucose control medication, for example, would save an estimated $831 a year.

The card can be printed online, no registration required, and used at any participating pharmacies, including big name chains like Target, or at local mom-and-pops like Oval Pharmacy on East Gun Hill Road.

Visit www.bigapplerx.com to print out your card or to find a pharmacy near you that accepts it.

Senator Looks to Shed Pounds, Promote Healthy Living

By Fausto Giovanny Pinto

Dressed in Rocky-esque training attire — hooded sweatshirt, jogging pants and sneakers — State Senator Gustavo Rivera walked into the Mary Mitchell Family and Youth Center and challenged himself to a weigh-in.

Rivera was joined by Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. (sans workout attire) and numerous organizations, to launch the Bronx CAN Health Initiative.

CAN, which stands for Change Attitudes Now, looks to promote a healthier lifestyle among Bronxites, who often rank last on health polls. To help promote the initiative, which will encourage Bronxites to set healthy goals, Rivera said his goal was to lose 20 pounds by the end of the summer without using any gimmicky diet or workout program.

“There is no magic. Eat three-fourths of a plate, less fat, less sugar, less salt, less everything,” said Rivera.

Dr. Jane Bedell, assistant commissioner for the Bronx District Public Health Office, prefaced the weigh-in with some grim facts. One-third of Bronx adults are currently obese, she said. Even more startling was the prediction that if trends don’t change, as many as 50 percent of Bronx children will develop diabetes.

“We have come together before when our children were in danger and now it’s time to come together again,” said Bedell, comparing how Bronxites passed laws in the past for child hazards such as lead poisoning. Read more

Rent Hike Rattles Tracey Towers

By Alex Kratz

Residents at Tracey Towers, the twin concrete high-rises on Mosholu Parkway, are bracing for another battle with management over their desire to raise rents up to 77 percent over the course of the next three years.

In a recent letter to tenants, RY Management, which has run the 869-unit apartment complex since the early 1980s, said the current rent rates do not cover the cost of maintaining the buildings and they had applied for a rent increase with the city’s department of Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD). Because it was built under the state’s Mitchell-Llama program, HPD must approve any rent increase.

Tracey residents claim RY’s problems are the result of mismanagement and they shouldn’t be the ones to shoulder all of the burden.

In the past, tenants say, RY has squandered funding that tenants have paid for. A few years ago, RY received a $4 million loan to repair the roof and do some work on the façade, which was cracking and causing leaks. They paid to erect scaffolding, but instead of doing the roof and façade work, RY used the money to replace the boilers. Meanwhile, the scaffolding remains at a cost of $5,000 a month even though it isn’t being used.

The unattended roof and façade work has led to significant leakage. Tenant Association leader Sam Gillian said several apartments cannot be rented because they are in such disrepair from water damage.

At the Tracey buildings, where a Chinese delivery man once spent four days trapped in a broken-down elevator, there are more than 800 open housing code violations. “Instead of taking care of the violations, they just pay the fines,” said Lorraine Stuart, a Tracey tenant for 35 years. Read more

‘Gun Hill Road’ Isn’t Your Typical Bronx Tale

By Alex Kratz

One of the great pleasures of watching “Gun Hill Road,” a new independent film by Bronx native Rashaad Ernesto Green that debuted in front of a New York audience during the first-ever Bronx Week Film Festival in mid-May, is its familiarity.

Look, there’s New Capitol diner on Kingsbridge Road and Jerome! Is he getting on the 2 train or the 4 train? Wait, isn’t that the bodega on Gun Hill Road in Norwood?

“The Bronx itself is a character,” Green said during a question-and-answer session after the screening.

While the setting, characters and dialogue all feel like the Bronx, the storyline deals with difficult topics — most notably, transgender lifestyle choices and how they play out in Latino families — that are only now starting to be discussed openly in the borough.

The history of Bronx-based film is filled with crime stories and gangster tales (think: “A Bronx Tale,” “Fort Apache, The Bronx,” or “The Wanderers”). And “Gun Hill Road,” shot entirely in the Bronx, contains some of those elements. It begins with a prison cafeteria stabbing carried out by the main character, a father played by Bronx-native Esai Morales, who has lived a life of crime.

But the heart of the story centers around how Morales’ character, having just been released from prison, deals with the discovery that his teenage son is transgender. Read more

Divinely Inspired, Youth Hoops League Takes on Devoe Park

By Alex Kratz

Shane Barker, a 16-year-old University Heights resident, does not usually use Devoe Park, the triangular and hilly green space that sits on the corner of Fordham Road and University Avenue and is just blocks from his home.

“Me and my brother don’t come down here because there’s troublemakers,” he says.

But today is different. It’s a gorgeous, sunny Saturday morning and Shane, sporting cornrows and the wispy beginnings of facial hair, is one of 70 kids participating in a newly-formed basketball program created by a Bronx-based group called the New York City Christian Athletic League.

Aided by word of mouth and an infusion of funding from local Councilman Fernando Cabrera, the hoops program is flourishing in a park that has become synonomous with trouble.

The league’s founder, Edwin Santiago, and his “right-hand man,” Frank Abarca, both attend Bronx Household of Faith, an evangelical Christian church that meets at PS 15/291 on Andrews Avenue in University Heights.

In 2005, Santiago, who lives in Soundview and works part-time at Horace Mann, started a men’s softball league that has grown to the point where it now includes 10 other city churches. He wanted to expand the league to include youth leagues, but only recently decided to take “a leap of faith” and go for it. Read more

Parks Dept: Oval Playground To Open in Late June

By Jordan Moss

An early burst of summer weather has residents anxious to utilize a new playground, spray showers and basketball courts in the southern part of Williamsbridge Oval Park.

But they’ll have to wait a little while longer.

The Parks Department says the long anticipated upgrades, funded in connection with the political deal that paved the way for the mammoth water filtration plan now taking root in the Norwood section of Van Cortlandt Park, will be completed in late June after the contractor finishes punch list items. The original completion date was last January but the severe winter pushed the work back, an agency spokesman said.

A rehab of the recreation center, including upgraded bathrooms and ADA compliance, which was supposed to be done by May 31, also suffered from the relentless cold weather and is only 70 percent finished. That building will be completed at the end of the summer.

Park advocates say they love the design of the new playground but hope there are no more delays.

“Friends of the Oval just wants to make sure the park is open as quickly as possible,” said Eileen Markey, a member of the volunteer organization, adding that the sprinklers are “a public health need” that help keep the peace in the heat of summer.

Startling Statistics Put Focus on Latina Suicides

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Health care professionals and the city’s elected officials are looking for ways to tackle the daunting problem of teen suicides, as data from several sources shows that Hispanic teenagers, especially young Latinas, are disproportionately at risk for self-harm compared to other racial groups.

In the Bronx, 15.3 percent of Latina teenagers reported having attempted suicide in a 2009 survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which looked at  youth  behavior (numbers in Staten Island and Brooklyn were even higher).

City data shows the same disturbing trend: according to a 2008 report from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 46 percent of Hispanic teenage girls polled reported feelings of “persistent sadness.”

“It’s pretty startling across the board,” said Alan Ross, executive director for the Samaritans of New York, a nonprofit suicide prevention organization that also runs a 24-hour emergency hotline. Read more

Neighborhood ‘Gem’ Mary Vallati Honored

Mary Vallati, an outspoken and tireless member of the Norwood and Bedford Park communities for the past several decades, was rendered nearly

speechless when she received two surprise proclamations for her outstanding community service last week.

Members of the 52nd Precinct Community Council, of which Vallati, 95, has been a member since the 1970s, organized the proclamation presentation without telling the honoree.

During the council meeting last Thursday night at Scott Tower, Vallati sat in the front row while a group of family and friends gathered in the corner of the room, waiting patiently to unleash the surprise, which didn’t come until an hour and a half into the meeting.

Representatives for Councilman Fernando Cabrera and State Senator Gustavo Rivera each presented Vallati with separate proclamations. Cabrera’s chief of staff Greg Faulkner called Vallati one of the “jewels in the crown” of this community.

“I don’t know what to say,” said Vallati, who is also a longtime member of the Bedford Mosholu Community Association. Later, she did say, “I’m proud of the work we do. It’s been keeping me going all these years.”

Fellow council member Grace Siemer said, “We need more Marys in young people. A lot of people complain but don’t come through and participate.”

Sen. Diaz Betrays Tenants

By Editorial

Most New Yorkers don’t know who their state legislators are or what they do (or don’t do).

But there’s no better illustration as to why they should than the impending debacle over rent regulations in New York City.

Last year the Democrats had their best shot at strengthening rent regulations and lifting the threshold for vacancy decontrol above the $2,000 it was set at in 1994.

But one of the Democrats was Pedro Espada, who fashioned himself a man of the people but preferred to live in the Westchester suburb of Mamaroneck while he fashioned sham pro-tenant legislation that was designed to favor his benefactors in the real estate industry. In nabbing the chairmanship of the Housing Committee by holding the evenly split Senate hostage, he was able to block key tenant bills at will.

Voters had the good sense to remove Espada for this and a variety of alleged transgressions, but we are still left with his “amigo,” Bronx State Senator Ruben Diaz, Sr., an Espada enabler who voted in favor of the so-called “Rent Freeze” bill but now has amnesia.

A couple of weeks ago, Diaz beat up on Mayor Bloomberg and Council Speaker Christine Quinn for their push for gay marriage legislation; he said they should be focused on the Emergency Tenant Protection Act.

Surprised by Diaz’s sudden concern for tenants, we asked him why he sided with Espada last year on a bill that would have undermined rent stabilization.

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” he said. “This is this year. That was last year.”

When he was reminded of his vote, and that he attended Espada’s rally for the bill, he said it was in the name of friendship.

Bronx tenants don’t need their elected legislators to be “friends.” They need them to do the people’s business, which would have been to stand up to Espada last year.  This year, strengthening rent laws beyond a simple renewal of weak regulations has little chance of passage because of the

Republican takeover of the Senate, so Diaz’s conversion serves only himself.

Diaz may have forgotten what he did to jeopardize the living situations of thousands of Bronxites, but his constituents never should.

DOE Holds Do-Over Council Elections After Lawsuit

By Jeanmarie Evelly

Marred by complaints from parents and the threat of a lawsuit, the Department of Education agreed to hold a second round of voting for its Community Education Councils, the nine-member parent panels that oversee each of the city’s 32 school districts.

The original election started May 1, and parents had until May 7 to go online and cast their votes. That session was voided, however, after myriad complaints and a lawsuit filed on behalf of parents citing numerous problems, including a shortage of candidates running, inaccurate information about candidates on ballots and that there was so little outreach about the election that few parents knew it was happening, much less how to go about voting.

“This is the fifth election, and they still can’t get it right,” said Marvin Shelton, Council president for Bronx District 10.

Community education councils are largely advisory bodies that were put in place to foster community involvement when Mayor Bloomberg took control of the DOE in 2002. CEC elections have been held every two years since and are overseen by the DOE’s Office for Family Information and Action.

Parent advocates argue the elections should be run by a body independent of the DOE, which they say has failed to keep parents informed and involved in decision-making.

“There needs to be independent oversight of the DOE, in total,” Shelton said, adding that parent participation overall has dropped since the mayor took over. Read more

Bronx Pols Want Out of Immigration Program

Local elected officials are speaking out against a program that requires law enforcement agencies to share digital fingerprint records of people who are arrested with federal immigration officials, who then check the prints for a person’s green card status.

The program, known as “Secure Communities” and run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was originally intended to deport criminals who were determined to be in the country illegally and to focus on “the most dangerous and violent offenders,” according to the ICE’s website.

But data shows that the so far, 79 percent of the 102,000 immigrants deported under the program have never been convicted of a crime.
A group of 38 New York legislators, including 13 Bronx Senate and Assembly members, sent a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo last month imploring him to withdraw the state from the program.

“Our communities are far less safe because of this program,” State Sen. Jose Serrano told the Gotham Gazette.

“It will only further fuel what law enforcement officials and immigrant advocacy communities have been saying for years: immigrants will be distrustful of their local law enforcement and will allow for crimes to go unreported or unsolved,” State Sen. Gustavo Rivera said in a press release.

At the moment, counties in 44 percent of the state have been activated in Secure Communities—none yet in New York City.

In early May, Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn announced that the state would stop participating, though the Department of Homeland Security has said the program is mandatory and that all U.S. counties will have to be enrolled by 2013.

Congressman Jose Serrano, representing the Bronx, also issued a letter urging Cuomo to withdraw, and along with several other members of Congress, called for President Obama to halt the policy entirely until it can be reviewed further.

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