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

Earlier this year, police officers Carlos Pacheco and Nelfori Ortiz, were working the nightshift in the 52nd Precinct when they received a call from dispatchers saying there had been a robbery in Sector George, a rough area north of Fordham Road and to the east of the Grand Concourse.

Last week, a 39-year-old Hispanic male was shot to death in Bedford Park.

Patricia Carron of Morris Park was one of more than 100 distressed homeowners who attended a foreclosure prevention workshop at Lehman College on Nov. 15 hoping to get help. Her monthly mortgage payments have increased from $1,900 to $3,300 in two years, and now she’s worried that she and her 7-year-old daughter could become homeless.

Bronx senior centers have joined local libraries in a collaboration that will allow centers to use their local libraries to further enrich programming for seniors through activities, book clubs, and even video games.

In July of 2007, former PS/MS 280 Principal Gary LaMotta quietly retired from the city’s Department of Education (DOE) amid accusations that were never fully disclosed to the school or the public in general.

However, the Norwood News recently obtained a copy of the top school investigator’s findings through a Freedom of Information Law request filed with the DOE. Its contents, portions of which were redacted ("to avoid the unwarranted invasion of privacy," according to the DOE), tell the story of a successful educator whose alleged abuse of authority led to his removal.

Nonprofit radio and TV stations, like NPR and PBS, can commandeer the airwaves to prevail upon its listeners and viewers to make contributions to ensure continued broadcasting. Membership drives pre-empt portions of the news and other quality programming for a week at a time or more.

Well, we’re a nonprofit, too, and while we don’t have airwaves, we do have newsprint. And, as you can see on p. 3 and right here, we’re using some of it to invite you to think about the value of the newspaper you hold in your hands as well as our other efforts to bring hyper-local news to your fellow Bronxites in other neighborhoods as well.

With your help, we can create an innovative Network of nonprofit Bronx media that will strengthen existing papers like the Norwood News and Mount Hope Monitor, and eventually leave no neighborhood uncovered. We’re calling it the Campaign for Bronx News Network. We need your help to win this campaign, so please take a look at our letter to readers on p. 3 and send us a contribution today.

Help us build a groundbreaking news network from the ground up by sending a contribution for whatever you can afford to: Campaign for a Bronx News Network, c/o Norwood News, 3400 Reservoir Oval East, Bronx, NY 10467.

I would like to respond to the letter by Patrick Wynne (Nov. 13 – 26) and his derogatory remarks about State Senator-elect Pedro Espada. In the first place, Espada won a hard-fought election against an entrenched Albany fixture, and campaigned throughout the district and in all neighborhoods. His margin of victory was 20 points. With all due respect to Norwood News editor Jordan Moss, for you to state that his spouse, Margaret Groarke, is more representative of the district when she did not campaign or face the voters, is highly presumptuous and speculative on your part. Pedro Espada is the

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I’m writing to support the animal shelter discussed in your recent cover story (“Library to Be Animal Shelter,” Nov. 13 – 26).  It should be noted that the current Animal Care and Control building in the Bronx is a part-time drop-off site that is only open a few days a week. There are a number of ways it could prove beneficial to the community, including if the city’s Animal Care and Control continues its program of high schoolers working with animals. Having worked with cats and dogs, professionally as an author for magazines, I know my relationship with dogs and

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