Volunteers from The Bronx Lions Club celebrated Three Kings Day by visiting the Pediatric Outpatient Department at North Central Bronx Hospital in Norwood, on Jan. 4. Members of The Lions Club dressed up in costumes and presented some 350 toys and games to children at the hospital.

On Friday, Jan. 4 at 1:43 p.m., a fire broke out on the fourth floor of 3120 Hull Ave., a five-story brick apartment building. Fire Department officials said they had the blaze under control by 2:07 p.m. and that no one was injured. The cause of the fire is still under investigation.    
-Katie Rogers

The Croton Filtration Monitoring Committee passed a resolution, 5-2, last week calling for three public officials to investigate the cost overruns that have ballooned the northwest Bronx project estimate from $890 million to nearly $3 billion.

Despite Election Day for city offices being still almost two years away, local northwest Bronx City Council races began warming up this fall. All three City Council seats in the Norwood News readership area are up for grabs when term limits force out Maria Baez (14th District), Oliver Koppell (11th) and Joel Rivera (15th) at the end of 2009.

State Senator Efrain Gonzalez’s pending trial on fraud and corruption charges is still pending after pre-trial hearings were postponed twice in 2007.

Senator Efrain Gonzalez’s indictment on criminal corruption and fraud charges put a face on the secret nature of member items, or state grants doled out by elected officials at their discretion. Before 2007, neither the Senate nor Assembly publicized how $170 million in member item funds were being distributed.

Calling it “without a doubt the most important legislation I’ve ever passed,” an anti-human trafficking bill first introduced by Bronx State Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz became a law in 2007.

Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión spent 2007 positioning himself for a 2009 mayoral run, but the former teacher sent shock waves through the city’s political establishment when he announced in mid-December that he would instead be running for comptroller.

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