The committee created to oversee the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant, the largest municipal capital project in the history of New York City, has not met since June, leading to more criticism of the agency in charge of the project, the Department of Environmental Protection.

Community Board 7 had a quality-of-life hearing last week at Our Lady of Refuge Church and too few people came. If you don’t include members of the board, elected officials and police, there were probably only about 10 residents there.

This, sadly, is not surprising given how often people complain about community problems to no avail and then give up. Nevertheless, as others have noted, showing up is most of the battle. So we want to highlight what the people who actually showed up think about quality-of-life issues.

The top issues people felt the community needs to work on were: noise; drug dealing in the streets; outdoor drinking; illegal clubs; and dog droppings.

Please note the emphasis above on "community needs to work on." For those who haven’t noticed, Glenda the Good Witch is not flying in from Oz to solve these problems, nor is Mayor Bloomberg or anybody else.

Improving quality of life is essentially the mission of this newspaper and the organization that publishes it – Mosholu Preservation Corporation. The last time we were involved in a meeting about quality-of-life issues, dog owners not cleaning up after their pets was tops on the list of complaints. Since then, we have initiated a Cut the Crap campaign with help from Bedford Mosholu Community Association, Fordham Bedford Housing Corporation, as well as merchants, landlords and dog owners. We think it has made a difference.

While much fuss has been made over whether State Senator Pedro Espada Jr. actually lives in the Bronx, there is no doubt that his district, which covers much of the northwest Bronx, is comprised primarily of rent-stabilized apartment buildings. The west Bronx’s share of the city’s stock of stabilized units is increasing every year.

This spike is primarily due to a rapid loss of rent-stabilized apartments in other parts of the city, mainly through a provision known as high rent vacancy decontrol.

Re: "Norwood Going Downhill" letter in [the Norwood News]Sept. 24 issue, I’ve never had much use for naysayers, and in the almost 40 years I’ve lived in this community, I’ve heard a lot of them. When I first moved into the neighborhood, it was changing from a mostly Jewish middle-class neighborhood to a mostly Irish working-class neighborhood, and folks were saying, "There goes the neighborhood."

n a matchup of local high school football rivals, the DeWitt Clinton Governors destroyed the John F. Kennedy Knights last Friday night on their own home field.

The Academy of Mount St. Ursula recently celebrated the achievements of students at an honors assembly on Oct. 1.

High school and middle school applications are due in the next couple of months. Here’s what you need to know to make your decision.

Even the smallest redecorating project can seem daunting, but Webster Wallpaper Paint & Blinds, on Webster Avenue and Fordham Road, has promised its customers for the last 60 years to help them achieve any interior design plan.

Tapping into what it considers an underserved market, Applebee’s, a national restaurant chain, has opened up two new establishments in the Bronx in last couple of months.