Despite ongoing community concerns, work will begin this month on a 6-story, 48-room Comfort Inn on Webster Avenue in Norwood, as the McSam Hotel Group moves ahead after struggling for more than a year to convince neighbors that the project will be good for the area.

This is not the kind of news that makes the front page of the city’s tabloids or the top of the 11 o’clock news (or even the bottom).

But it should because it will affect millions of New Yorkers and the city’s civic bloodstream.

As Juan Gonzalez first reported in the Daily News last month, the city is now negotiating a contract with Verizon to provide cable service in the five boroughs.

That’s important for two reasons. The first is obviously that it will introduce cable competition for the first time. Time Warner and Cablevision will no longer have virtual monopolies.

The second reason is that part of the deal will include what percentage of revenue will go toward public access television.

Community leaders are getting very tired of waiting for the city to choose a developer for the Kingsbridge Armory.

So are we.

Almost 18 months ago, we celebrated the announcement of the release of the request for proposals by stopping our "Armory Clock," the countdown of days that passed since Governor George Pataki visited the armory in 2005 and announced he would help figure out where to relocate the National Guard units that still occupied the buildings behind the landmark facility, which appeared to be the main stumbling block at the time.

Even though MS 80 is well within the readership area of the Norwood News, it would seem that no one in that surrounding neighborhood has read the paper’s periodic reminders to “cut the crap.” The other day I had occasion to walk along Rochambeau Avenue on the MS 80 school side of the street from East 208th Street to Van Cortlandt Avenue, and that entire length of sidewalk had dog poop splayed every few feet, anywhere from the curb’s edge to the center of the sidewalk. By the time I decided to start counting, I totaled no fewer than six

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I just wanted to take a moment and tip my hat to Jordan Moss, editor-in-chief of the Norwood News. During his tenure, he has been able to take what was once a very good “idea” and blossom it into a viable bi-weekly newspaper. For almost 20 years, it has been wonderful to see the Norwood News cover our area and the problems within it, especially as the neighborhood and its problems evolve. A perfect example was to have the hindsight to cover the police news, by sector, as in your great 52nd Precinct map [Jan. 24–Feb. 6, 2008 issue]. Many

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The New York City Independent Budget Office (IBO) has agreed to investigate the massive cost overruns that have plagued the construction of the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

With less than three months until opening day, the largest local youth baseball program in the northwest Bronx has no place to play. Because of construction projects in many of the borough’s parks, the city says everyone, even the kids, are going to have to sacrifice playing time this year.

In the days leading up to Super Tuesday, Bronx Democrats took to the streets, the parks, and the banquet halls to show their support for their candidate of choice. Before the votes were counted, support for Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton seemed divided. Obama got some vocal grassroots support, while Clinton had the endorsement of most of the borough’s Democratic politicians.

Congressman Eliot Engel signed on to a Congressional resolution on Monday honoring the New York Giants, their fans, and their owners for their Super Bowl XLII victory over the previously undefeated New England Patriots in Arizona on Sunday.