Editorial: The Armory Vote One Year Later

It’s the one-year anniversary of the nearly unanimous City Council vote that scuttled the mayor’s juggernaut to stuff a cookie-cutter mall inside the landmark Kingsbridge Armory. In that time, the city’s two tabloids, the New York Post and the Daily News, have taken every opportunity to whack at Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. for his opposition to the project, which gave the necessary juice to a community and labor-backed effort to defeat it in the City Council. Regular readers know where we stand on this, but as long as the editorial boards of the city dailies continue to harp on this, we are compelled to reiterate our position. For more than a decade, community organizations led by the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition hammered out plans for a remake of the facility that made room for recreation, community programming, small businesses, a movie theater, etc. Related, the city’s chosen developer, never offered details on what it was going to provide except for retail. Despite this and the clear sense that the Armory would be a mall pure and simple, the community’s only firm request in the end was that people had to be paid a living wage, particularly when the developer was going to receive over $70 million in taxpayer subsidies to remake a public landmark. It was hardly an outlandish request. Several other municipalities have enacted wage guarantees on development projects benefiting from taxpayer subsidies.

Another Church Hit in String of Robberies

A sixth Bronx church was burglarized this past weekend, the latest in a string of break-ins targeting churches in the area since the start of November. Someone broke into an office window at the Church of the Mediator, on West 231st Street and Kingsbridge Avenue, late Saturday night or early Sunday morning, according to the church’s senior warden Frank Holsapple and the NYPD. The thief, or thieves, made off with several recently donated laptop computers and about $800 in cash, money the church was collecting for a Christmas toy drive. “They hit every church around here, and I guess we were the last stop,” Holsapple said, adding that the burglar or burglars wrecked the office they broke into but were unable to access the rest of the church.”It could have been a lot worse,” he added.

Murder at Tracey Towers, Shooting on E. 204th St.

Last week, police arrested Tracey Towers resident Horace Nichols, 38, and charged him with stabbing fellow resident Jack Hewitt to death on Dec. 8. Police also confirmed that a 20-year-old Hispanic male had been shot on Friday, Dec. 10 outside of the Super Laundromat on East 204th Street, but was expected to survive. The investigation is ongoing.

School Lunch Bill Passed, at Expense of Food Stamps

Lawmakers in Washington reauthorized funding for the Child Nutrition Act earlier this month, a bill that funds and sets the guidelines for a number of child nutrition programs, including how much federal money goes towards school lunches. The legislation, which comes up for renewal every five years, is a $4.5 billion package that included additional funding this year, something health advocates have long been lobbying for. But the extra money comes at a price, as the Senate dipped into $2.2 billion in stimulus funds intended to expand SNAP, the federal food stamps program. The cuts have put anti-hunger advocates in an awkward position, where support for one nutrition program means a major setback for another.

Workers Say Cemetery Planning Layoffs

Woodlawn Cemetery officials are planning to lay off more than a dozen workers and hire outside contractors to cut costs, employees say. After an internal investigation into racism charges, cemetery officials said they would change their training practices. But several minority employees say nothing has changed.

Tips for Enjoying Low-Calorie Holidays

It’s December, the season of holiday parties, endless office cookie trays and general excess. People tend to eat and drink more between Thanksgiving and their New Year’s resolutions, and the overindulgences can have negative health consequences. “We see so many people who have problems maintaining their health and weight at this time of year,” said Dr. Ernest Patti, a senior Emergency Room physician at St. Barnabas Hospital, who says many patients, especially diabetics, find themselves seeking medical treatment after months of holiday bingeing. “They eat and drink too much and, at the very least, feel sluggish, gain a few pounds and may not feel like themselves,” Patti said. “No one says you can’t party around the holidays, but moderation is the key.”

City Continues Plans for New School on Webster

The Department of Education has completed design plans to construct a new elementary and intermediate school on Webster Avenue, according to spokesman Jack Zarin-Rosenfeld, who says the project should be completed by 2014.

Op-ed: Should Parks and Beaches Be Smoke-Free?

As a child I always enjoyed going to our Bronx beaches and parks with my family. While affluent children enjoyed collecting seashells by the seashore, I remember fondly picking up cigarette butts so we could spell out our names with them. Little did we know of the harms of secondhand smoke and the impact discarded cigarette filters would have on our environment. The facts are indisputable and alarming. Smoking kills more New Yorkers each year than AIDS, drugs, homicide and suicide combined, and the Bronx has one of the highest rates of tobacco use in the city. Secondhand smoke is a known Class A carcinogen. Even brief exposure to secondhand smoke can lead to more frequent asthma attacks in asthmatic children. Cigarette butts are toxic, slow to decompose, costly to manage and growing in volume; 75 percent of the litter found on NYC beaches is cigarette butts, and it takes over a year and a half for a cigarette filter to decompose.

Neighborhood Notes

Prescription Drug Cost Help Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and its Bronx partner organizations will provide information to Medicare beneficiaries and their caregivers through the Medicare low-income subsidy (LIS) or “Extra Help” Program, May 26, from 10 a.m. to noon, at the Bronx River Senior Center, 1619 E. 174th St. Those who qualify may receive help in paying for prescription drugs. For more information on the program, visit www.medicare.gov, or call (800) 633-4227. St. Brendan’s Auction/Raffle St. Brendan’s leisure club will host a “Chinese Auction/Raffle and More” on June 6 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the school