Fernando Cabrera, a 45-year-old pastor and college professor who, a little more than a year ago switched political parties and moved to the Bronx, is poised to become the new City Council representative for the 14th District.
Overcoming a feisty, well-financed challenger as well as considerable political turbulence for championing the extension of term limits and breaking with allies in a divisive battle for party leadership in the borough, Council Member Oliver Koppell secured the Democratic nomination on Sept. 15 and a certain path to a third term.
At Fernando Cabrera’s primary victory party at Maestro’s catering hall last Tuesday, a young man wearing a blue Cabrera T-shirt introduced himself to a reporter. "I’m James Bond," he said.

His real name, actually, is John Zaccaro and he was also one of more than 100 members of Cabrera’s New Life Outreach International Church who got off their pews and stepped into politics this primary season.
Sam Aboah looked around with pride at the dark-skinned and brightly-dressed crowd of people gathered in the Bronx’s Crotona Park on a hot Sunday afternoon in August.

He was surveying the results of the first-ever Ghanaian parade and festival and the culmination of months of hard work by himself and many of his fellow Ghanaian transplants.
Although Yudelka Tapia came in third in the District 14 City Council primary election behind the incumbent Maria Baez and the projected winner, Fernando Cabrera, she still plans to keep on fighting to improve the Bronx.
Bagpipers play at the Bronx County Courthouse on Sept. 9 for the annual 9-11 memorial service. For the first time, a new borough president, Ruben Diaz Jr., addressed an audience of people who had lost a loved one to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center eight years ago.
In a slew of press releases over the summer, Bronx Congressman Eliot Engel has made it clear that he has no intention of maintaining the status quo in terms of health care reform.
The Bronx County Democratic Committee voted to endorse Queens Councilman John Liu in the Sept. 29 runoff election for the citywide Comptroller position.
A listing of local meetings for our readers in the northwest Bronx and beyond.