Editor’s Note: The following is an extended version of the story that appears in our latest print edition. For full disclosure, during this election cycle, Norwood News has broadly covered campaign events which were brought to our attention by candidates who campaigned in our local reporting area of Bronx Community District 7, which broadly covers the neighborhoods of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham, Jerome Park, Kingsbridge Heights, Mosholu Parkway, and University Heights. 

 

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (S.D. 33) formally endorsed Council Member Pierina Sanchez (C.D. 14) for reelection to her Bronx council seat in the upcoming Democratic primary during a campaign event held in conjunction with the Unity Democratic Club last month at Fort #4 Playground on Sedgwick Avenue in Kingsbridge Heights.

 

As reported, the councilwoman first won her seat in November 2021 and her district broadly covers some or all of the neighborhoods of Morris Heights, University Heights, Fordham Heights, Mt. Hope, and Kingsbridge Heights. The councilwoman’s predecessor, former City Councilman Fernando Cabrera, is running in C.D. 14 again, as reported, this time to unseat Sanchez who, like Rivera, is a progressive Democrat and Sanchez is running on both the Working Families Party and the Democratic Party tickets.

 

At the rally, Rivera said he had tried to convince Sanchez to run for office some years ago and that she had initially resisted. “I knew that this is a lady who needed to be in elected office because we have a lot of us that work in public service and not everybody’s built for elected office,” Rivera said. “But I had a sense that she was, and it was exactly the right time for her, and more importantly, was the right time for this community.”

 

He continued in part, “We want to make sure the community in this neighborhood continues to be represented with the quality that this lady brings to the table. She’s somebody who’s not only a smart woman, she’s a hardworking woman, she’s a committed woman, and you’ll know by some of the enemies that she has made, you will know by some of the enemies that she has made, [he repeated] what kind of person she actually is in public office, which is exactly [why] we need to keep [her] in public office.”

 

The councilwoman, who has given birth to two children since taking office a few years ago, thanked her supporters, volunteers, and Rivera for their support before speaking on the issues facing her district. “We’re in a moment where the City is under attack, where our City, our programs, the social safety net, not just in New York City but across the country, is under threat, right?” she said, in a presumed reference to the latest policies of the Trump administration.

 

“We have threats against education, we have threats against Medicare and Medicaid, we have threats against social security, we have threats against all of the programs that support our families across the nation,” she said, adding that as C.D. 14 residents, “a community of strivers,” try to move up to the next socioeconomic group, it was important to have Rivera’s support. “He’s been fighting this fight and serving our community, fighting for that social safety net and beyond since before there was a label that was cool or not cool, a progressive,” she said.

 

“We’re a community where the average worker is earning just $25,000 a year, where we want to make it, we want to work hard, but there’s a lot of obstacles against us,” she said. “It’s so important to be able to say we’re going to invest in education, we’re going to invest in the Kingsbridge Armory, we’re going to get it right this time around, and we’re going to do all of this work together, no matter who is against us and what vision they’re purporting to see, past the lies, past everything and the work is number one.”

Among the councilwoman’s accomplishments is the passage of The Billingsley Terrace Structural Act, establishing a “first-of-its-kind,” proactive building inspection program at NYC Department of Buildings (DOB), inspired by a partial building collapse in Morris Heights in December 2023 which caused over 150 tenants to lose their homes.

 

Sanchez also worked with Rivera and Assemblyman George Alvarez (A.D. 78) on a series of new City and State laws relating to the oversight of daycare centers and increased transparency for parents of home-based daycares following the tragic fatal overdose of 1-year-old Nicholas Feliz Dominici at a now-closed daycare center in Kingsbridge Heights in September 2023. Read more here. [Some bills have passed while others are still pending.]

 

District 14 crucially encompasses the long-vacant, City-owned Kingsbridge Armory which, as reported, was recently the subject of a new partnership agreement between the winning RFP bidder for its redevelopment, 8th Regiment Partners LLC, and the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition.

 

Under the partnership, the latest two-phase, mixed-use plan named “The Kingsbridge Center” designates 20% of the site for community ownership. Read more here. A lawsuit was filed against NYC Economic Development Corporation (EDC), 8th Regiment Partners, and various current and former elected and city officials in late March by losing bidder, Agallas Equities, which broadly alleges corruption and stolen intellectual property amid the RFP process.

 

Agallas has also asked NYC Department of Investigations to investigate a potential conflict of interest in relation to the RFP process. Sanchez was a co-chair of the “Together for Kingsbridge” steering committee behind the RFP process, but is not named in the lawsuit. The City denies any wrongdoing and is moving ahead with the required Uniform Land Use Review Procedure (ULURP). For more on this, click here.

 

Another issue affecting the councilwoman’s district is gun violence. Sanchez was joined by cure violence group Bronx Rises Against Gun Violence (B.R.A.G.) for a rally on May 9 outside her Fordham Heights constituency office after a non-fatal shooting took place in the building next door at 2065 Morris Avenue on May 5.

 

As reported, the councilwoman secured a commitment from Gov. Kathy Hochul for $10 million in resources to uplift neighborhoods in her district, around the time she founded the “West Bronx Community Safety Partnership,” which has a public health and community-driven approach to safety.

 

Later, we asked Rivera what differentiated Sanchez from her primary opponents. He said he had no issue with her opponent, Bryan Hodge Vasquez, who he said seemed like “a good kid” but was critical of Cabrera, alleging the community in question had been “ill served” by the former councilman.

 

“I’m glad that he was termed out,” said the senator, who lived in District 14 before the 2023 senate redistricting of S.D. 33 forced him to move. He was critical of Cabrera’s alleged actions during the negotiation of a prior community benefits agreement (CBA) brokered in the context of the 2013 Kingsbridge Armory redevelopment project, the now-defunct Kingsbridge National Ice Center.

 

“When it was being negotiated, it was Fernando Cabrera who made a last-minute attempt to get some goodies for his church,” he alleged. “Basically, he asked for a payoff from both the developer and the City, and he was turned down by both of them.” This was covered by various news outlets at the time, including Norwood News, The New York Times, and City Limits.

 

Rivera further alleged Cabrera was not active during the CBA negotiations. “His chief of staff was present at all the meetings but he never was and after they had a handshake deal, he came in through the back door and tried to get a payoff from the developer and from the City, and both of them told him to go screw himself,” the senator said.

 

Rivera made further allegations regarding Cabrera’s “New Life Outreach International Church,” where he is a pastor and which has as its address 2757 Morris Avenue in Bedford Park. The church is located on the street level of 2763 Morris Luxury Apartments.

 

“It’s new,” Rivera said of the building. “It is a building that is actually fully market rate [housing],” he alleged. “The place where that building is is the place where his church used to be and he actually facilitated the selling of his church. The private developers bought the property next door and put up a building that was 100% market rate, and he actually facilitated that.”

 

Property ownership and sale records for 2763 Morris Avenue are not publicly available. However, according to the church’s website, it opened in 1988 on White Plains Road, and after expanding to other Bronx locations, in 1999, a Morris Avenue building was purchased and in 2013 [the year the KNIC CBA was negotiated], the church started building a new Morris Avenue sanctuary and moved into it in 2018. 

 

A one-bedroom apartment overhead costs $2,350 as of June 21, according to Zillow. NYC Department of Finance (DOF) records list the property owner as 2763 Morris Avenue LLC, with a billing name of The Berkshire Bank, and an address in Brooklyn. The property value increased from $564,000 in 2015 to $6.2 million in 2019 according to DOF.

 

Rivera said that as a sitting council member, Cabrera should have known better than anybody “housing is one of the most important and basic issues of people here.” He compared the alleged deal to that of other communities of faith who Rivera said approached him with available spaces and said, “We want to make sure that we partner up with developers who actually want to do development that is affordable and that is available for the people who live here.”

St. James Terrace, a mixed-income, affordable and supportive housing development located on the grounds of St. James Episcopal Church at 2520 Jerome Avenue in Fordham Manor, opened on Oct. 29, 2024, following a negotiation with its church officials. A year prior, the Diocese of New York opened the NY Episcopal Federal Credit Union adjacent to the church which, according to its website, provides “fair, affordable financial services” to the community.

 

Rivera continued, “So you have somebody who does not deserve to be in public office again. Leave him where he is. Ultimately, Fernando is making some comeback. He still wants attention. God bless him, literally, God bless him. Stay in church, Bro. Don’t come back out here.”

 

Norwood News contacted Cabrera for comment on the above and he responded alleging Rivera’s allegations were “false.” He added, “They reveal just how disconnected he is from the realities of our district. I was fully engaged in the CBA negotiation process for the Kingsbridge National Ice Center (KNIC). For Sen. Rivera to claim otherwise is laughable, especially considering he, himself, never participated in a single meeting.”

 

Cabrera alleges Rivera has no firsthand knowledge of who was present. “His absence speaks volumes about his chronic disengagement as an elected official. His attempt to rewrite history is a blatant distraction from the epic failures and corruption allegations surrounding Council Member Pierina Sanchez, failures he continues to ignore.”

 

He added, “Under their joint oversight, we’ve seen a 107% increase in homicides in the 52nd Precinct, and 129% in the 46th Precinct, crime and violence surge to historic levels, skyrocketing rents, and a plummeting quality of life for working families, unprecedented decrease in quality of life. Rather than address these crises, Rivera resorts to political smears.”

 

The year-to-date crime stats for both precincts are included below including the changes compared to 2024. While the NYPD provides the overall evolution of historical crime for the City, we asked if the department could provide a comparison for the two precincts in question since 2022, when Sanchez first took office and will share any feedback we receive.

Cabrera said his claim that he sought personal or church-related benefits as part of the CBA in 2013 is “an outright lie.” He said his church has served the community with integrity for decades, providing food, housing assistance, mental health services, and youth programs without ever seeking special favors. “To suggest otherwise is shameful and slanderous. I am seriously considering legal action against Senator Rivera for this baseless accusation.”

 

On the claim about market-rate housing at or near the church property, Cabrera said, “This, too, is false. The church does not own or manage the apartments above our church building. [Rivera did not claim he did.] Anyone can fact-check online that the apartments above the church are affordable housing units.”

 

Norwood News searched NYC Department of Housing, Preservation & Development (HPD’s) Housing Connect platform where affordable housing lotteries are posted but did not find any details for 2763 Morris Avenue. We also contacted HPD to ask if it ever included 2763 Morris Avenue in its affordable housing lotteries and will share any details we receive.

 

We also ran a search of our own published stories on such lotteries and could not find any for this address. As reported, some published affordable housing lotteries are not actually affordable, especially for residents earning $25,000 per year. As above, the apartments at 2763 Morris Avenue are described on their website as “luxury” apartments.

 

Cabrera continued in part, “Once again, Sen. Rivera demonstrates his lack of knowledge about district developments and the lies he continues to propagate for political purposes. During my tenure on the City Council, I led the largest rezoning initiative in Bronx history, the Jerome Avenue Rezoning, which created unprecedented affordable housing opportunities for thousands of Bronx residents. My record on affordable housing is clear, strong, and unmatched.”

The pastor added, “Instead of focusing on smears, Sen. Rivera should explain why he has consistently been missing in action during some of the most critical challenges facing our community. Sen. Gustavo Rivera is trying to plant a seed of doubt in voters’ minds, a classic dirty political tactic used when someone has no real record to stand on, and support Council Member Pierina Sanchez who has failed us.”

 

He continued, “The community knows this to be the reality. All he knows how to do is make baseless accusations and mudslinging. That’s not leadership, that’s desperation. The Bronx deserves leaders who show up, tell the truth, and deliver results. I always have and always will.”

 

We reached out to Sanchez for comment on Cabrera’s remarks. Her team said they had none. We also reached out to Rivera and he defended his allegations robustly saying they were facts “clearly available for all the world to see.” He added in part “Bronx voters know me, know my record, and I’ve been reelected a bunch of times, even when I’ve had challenging campaigns, even against him [Cabrera] twice, so I think that my constituents know me and they know who I am, and what I stand for, who I fight for, and how I do that.”

 

Rivera said Sanchez was an “incredible collaborator” and added, “She is someone who is a person of leadership, of integrity, and somebody that continues to be here.”

 

As previously reported, Cabrera courted controversy in 2014, while serving his second term at City Council, when he praised the Ugandan government in a video posted on YouTube, after the government passed a law criminalizing homosexuality as reported at the time by The Gothamist. For more on this topic, click here.

 

Following that controversy, when contacted, Cabrera confirmed he had allocated funds during his time in office to Destination Tomorrow, The Bronx’s designated LGBTQ+ resource center, and this was later confirmed by the center.

 

We recently spoke to the pastor on the subject of domestic violence at the funeral of Pamela Alcántara Rubiera, Norwood News offered to run a profile piece on the former councilman’s candidacy as we have done for various candidates over the years. We also requested details of any endorsements he received. We have not received a response to date.

 

According to Cabrera’s website, he successfully secured “record-breaking funding for district 14, ensuring unprecedented investment in community resources and development projects. “This funding has significantly improved local infrastructure, education, and public services, benefiting residents across the district,” the website reads.

For details of some recent matching funds program payments by NYC Campaign Finance Board to various candidates, click here.

 

Primary Election Day in New York is Tuesday, June 24. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Early Voting runs from June 14- 22. To be eligible to register to vote, a person must be a U.S. citizen; be 18 years old on June 24; a New York State resident for at least 30 days before the election; not be in prison for a felony conviction; not be adjudged mentally incompetent by a court; and not claim the right to vote elsewhere. The last day to register to vote in person was June 14. Applications to register to vote by mail should also have been received by June 14. For more information, click here. Find where to vote early at http://findmypollsite.vote.nyc.