Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn announced an agreement on new legislation authorizing lien sales for the collection of overdue taxes and water bills.

The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development (HPD) recently announced the launch of a new housing safety program, called the Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP). This program will allow HPD to name the 200 most unsafe properties in New York City each year and force the landowners to bring these buildings up to code in a reasonable amount of time.

Council Member Oliver Koppell, chair of the Mental Health Committee, said New York City needs to do more to help youth with mental health issues.

Community Board 7’s Executive Committee recently voted unanimously not to support the building of a small hotel on Webster Avenue.

A listing of public and community meetings in the northwest Bronx.

They meet in a room with a penthouse view. Manhattan’s jagged skyline magnificently backdrops the Bronx’s expansive green spaces. It’s a beautiful setting and serves as a periodic haven where overtaxed caregivers can talk about the effects of a relentless disease.

As if the prospect of meeting and questioning Barack Obama before thousands of grassroots community activists wasn’t exciting enough, Rev. Katrina Foster pastor of Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church was assigned another little task at the Heartland Presidential Forum in Des Moines, Iowa last week – giving the opening prayer.

Despite overwhelming evidence that District 10 schools are still bursting at the seams, the Department of Education’s (DOE) November amendment to the 2005-09 capital plan brings no relief.

Sadly, it’s not a surprise. The DOE cut 1,700 seats from the capital plan last year and is on record saying, with a straight face, that there is no need for additional schools at the Kingsbridge Armory.

Judging the state of overcrowding takes some work but it’s not exactly astrophysics. The DOE could learn from Council Member Oliver Koppell, who simply sent a survey to every school principal in his district.

The public school progress report of the Department of Education published in your Nov. 15 issue grievously misrepresents DeWitt Clinton High School’s achievements past and present for the Bronx, the city and the world.