Cheers erupted after a spoken word artist finished his poem, an impassioned plea for a change to how DeWitt Clinton High School handles its safety administration.

With the busy summer travel season quickly approaching, Congressman Eliot Engel urged the Bush administration to stop buying oil to fill the strategic petroleum reserve in hopes that this plan will lower the soaring price of gasoline.

In a letter sent to Gov. David Paterson last Thursday, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz advised Paterson against considering former Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Christopher O. Ward for the head position of the New York/New Jersey Port Authority because of Ward’s poor track record in spearheading the city’s efforts to build a giant water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

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

Kingsbridge residents and local merchants reacted with mixed feelings last week about the influx of shoppers and activities that the renovated Kingsbridge Armory will bring.

When Monroe College opened the King Graduate School of Business on its Bronx campus two years ago, the program was spread throughout the college’s five buildings.

Now, after eight months of construction, the graduate and undergraduate business schools have a building to call their own.

As New York City heads into a period of budget deficits, there is a common perception that all city agencies are being forced to trim back 5 percent from their budgets. But there is one agency that gets a pass from City Hall and will actually increase its spending dramatically.

The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), purveyor of a massive filtration plant on our neighborhood parkland, will increase its spending by almost 17 percent in the coming year – a $347.3 million rise over the current year. Since the lion’s share of DEP’s budget comes from water rate payers and not from city coffers, Bloomberg and the city budget office are happy to turn a blind eye towards DEP’s spending increases. In fact, thanks to a stipulation known as the "rental payment," the more DEP spends, the more rate payers actually subsidize city coffers (this year it will be to the tune of $77 million)!

The majority of media attention on the double digit water rate increases (last year it was 11.5 percent – a 15-year high – and this year DEP is proposing 14.5 percent) has gone towards so-called "deadbeats" who have not paid their water bills. To deal with this issue, DEP authorized shutoffs for single family homes and in December convinced the City Council to pass lien sale legislation for multifamily properties, promising it would help with collections and keep rate increases down.

This month we began to learn the truth: The real reason behind the massive increases is not the deadbeat factor but rather DEP’s unchecked spending.

With all the hearts and flowers and loving sentiments issued on Mother’s Day, it has occurred to me as a mom that I wouldn’t be celebrating this special day if it weren’t for my own two kids … and the journey they traveled to make this happen.

With this in mind, I was inspired to write the following, dedicated with love to my daughter Maya and my son Gideon, which presents Mother’s Day from a different point of view.