The Croton Filtration Monitoring Committee will cap off a year of increasingly spirited monthly meetings with a Dec. 21 finale that will feature DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd. Community anger over the DEP’s failure to secure more jobs for local residents will undoubtedly be a lively topic once again, especially with the bulk of construction set to begin early in 2007.

A fledgling senior housing project on the campus of the Academy of Mount St. Ursula in Bedford Park recently received a $10 million boost from the federal government, which will fund a third of the proposed 240-unit development, the Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation said. The Housing Corporation has been working with Mount St. Ursula for the past few years to create senior housing on the sprawling and under-utilized Ursuline campus, which includes a Catholic all-girls high school and a convent.

It’s the kind of thing that should make any schoolteacher proud. Instead of just accepting what they were told and nodding their heads listlessly, students, parents and community residents decided to do a little research when they were told that our community didn’t need the 1,500 high school seats it was lopping off the five-year capital plan.

Starting in September 2007, 28 first-graders will take their seats in a brand new gifted and talented program at PS 54 in North Fordham, as part of the city’s plan to open four new "self-contained" gifted programs in Region One, which covers the western half of the Bronx.

New York City is planning on almost two-thirds of Bronx students failing to graduate high school, says a new report that has outraged elected officials, non-profit advocacy groups and a raucous crowd of more than 400 concerned parents and student activists at a rally in North Fordham two Saturdays ago.

In the summer of 2005, New York City unleashed a new proactive campaign against the city’s most notorious landlords, including Moshe Piller, who owns several health and safety violation-ravaged buildings on Valentine Avenue in North Fordham. As a result, Piller and other landlords are being taken to task for their neglect and indifference to tenant complaints, but other serious offenders continue to slip through the cracks, city officials say.

Toward the end of her extraordinarily active and devout life, Sister Annunciata Bethell played a role in a modern miracle. Every day of the week, throughout the summer of 2004, Patricia Burlace, Sr. Annunciata’s assistant and protégée at her beloved senior center, would drive the elderly advocate to the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center to visit conjoined, and then separated, twins Carl and Clarence Aguirre and their mother, Arlene.

For as long as anyone can remember, Sallie Caldwell has been active in the local community, serving on various committees and looking out for her neighbors at Tracey Towers. Caldwell is currently vice-chair of Community Board 7 (CB7) and the corresponding secretary of the 52nd Precinct Community Council (her daughter, Brenda, became president of the Council during the summer).

As we approach December, the squeak of new sneakers on freshly polished hardwood floors begins to pierce your ear. A whistle blows. A ball is tipped. Ah, the dank smell of a sweaty practice jersey. It can only mean one thing: another college basketball season is shifting into high gear.