The bulldozers are at work in Community District 7. A surge of development – mainly of housing units – is apparent throughout the area. This is good news, as it is evidence that our neighborhoods are desirable and convenient places to live.

Sometimes, it’s what politicians don’t say that is significant. In his spirited State of the Borough address last week, Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión conspicuously omitted any mention of the Kingsbridge Armory – conspicuous because he spoke of many current and future Bronx redevelopment projects. And in last year’s speech, Carrión firmly stated that it’s time to stop studying and start acting on the armory.

Our schools have seen many changes over the last several years: a new governance system, new curriculum, new initiatives and programs in local schools, and the restructuring of many low performing schools.

Nearly every month, your newspaper features negative articles and editorials against the siting of the Croton filtration plant and related parks projects in the Bronx. I would like to present a different view to your readers.

The city unveiled another major push to create small schools last week that includes four highly-anticipated local projects: a high school focusing on community activism, a bilingual high school, a new middle school at MS 143, and permanent status for the Jonas Bronck Academy. The new initiatives, which will be housed in preexisting facilities, joined 49 other projects citywide that will debut in September. The Bronx gains the lion’s share of the new schools.

If you looked at John Herrold’s career trajectory you might call him the accidental parks administrator. After all, his career began in the petroleum industry and then he became a freelance photographer, doing weddings, portraiture and architectural work.

Leon Margolin gets a lot done in a week. As a resident in the Outpatient Rehabilitation and Pain Clinic at Montefiore Medical Center, he works the usual crazy hours of a young doctor. But somehow Margolin, 31, finds the time to work on promising medical inventions and other scientific pursuits.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Marguerite Grays ordered the city Tuesday to stop construction work on the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park until she made a final decision in the matter of whether the filtration plant could go forward.

Though crime was down a modest 2.71 percent overall in the 52nd Precinct last year, police are trumpeting their success in curtailing shooting incidents. There were 23 in 2004 compared with 44 in 2003, for a decrease of 47.7 percent. Murders were also significantly down from 13 in 2003 to eight in 2004.