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

Two issues ago, we complained about not being able to get the New York City Police Department to release to us neighborhood-by-neighborhood statistics (the precinct is divided into lettered sectors).

Soon after that, the NYPD complied with our Freedom of Information Law request, which we appreciate. In our last issue, we published the sector maps including how many incidences of each crime category (homicides, rapes, auto theft, robberies, etc.) there were in each sector in 2008. (We failed to note that the source of the statistics, from which we created the maps, was the NYPD.)

If discussion on our blog (bronxnewsnetwork.org) is any indication, this is the type of information that many residents find useful. Knowing that crime of a particular kind, or crime in general, is up or down precinct-wide is much less useful than knowing what the trend is in your neighborhood.

Currently, Amalgamated cooperators are preparing to elect new directors and vote on proposed bylaw amendments on May 8. One of the amendments is quite simple.

Onstage    The Lehman Center for the Performing Arts presents Cirque Le Masque, featuring acrobats, aerialists and gymnasts, April 19 at 4 p.m. (tickets are $20 to $35; $10 for children 12 and under;) in the Concert Hall at 250 Bedford Pk. Blvd. W. Also coming up is Legends of Salsa 2: A Tribute to Ismael Quintana, featuring Jimmy Delgado’s Salsa con Dulzura Orchestra and a group of salsa performers, April 25 at 8 p.m. (tickets are $35 to $50). For more information, call (718) 960-8833.    The Bronx Library Center, located at 310 E. Kingsbridge Rd. off Fordham Road,

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A quick look at all the important things you need to know about the Bronx borough president special election set for April 21.

Usually it’s the kids, not the grownups, clowning around in elementary school cafeterias. But on April 2, parents, aunts and grandmothers at PS 340, in North Fordham, turned the tables, putting on a loud, colorful clown show for more than 100 squirming students.

Hoping to drum up parent involvement in this year’s Community Education Council elections, the Department of Education (DOE) is allowing all parents to weigh in on their favorite candidates online.
But the number of candidates has declined sharply and election outreach efforts have lagged, leaving candidates to acknowledge a general sense that parents aren’t tuned in to what purpose the councils serve or why they should get involved with them in the first place.

One of only a dozen recipients of the 2009 New York Times Company Foundation College Scholarship, 18-year-old Andrew Boryga of Bedford Park is headed for the Ivy League.

Thanks to a new coalition of the borough’s four largest institutions -Fordham, the Zoo, Montefiore Medical Center and the New York Botanical Garden – plans are in place to transform a stretch of Fordham Road into a lush, tree-lined parkway. It’s just one of several aesthetically pleasing projects being developed and pushed by the Four Bronx Institutions Alliance.