State and congressional primary races are not the only elections taking place this month. If you’re not one of the 33,840 Bronxites who has already cast your vote in the upcoming primaries as of Election Day at 3 p.m., which includes those who voted early, it’s important to know that in addition to your vote, depending on your district, for congressmember, State senator, and State assemblymember, elections are also being held for district leaders, State committee members, and judicial delegates.

 

District Leader 

As reported, for Democrats, according to the Bronx Democratic Party website, district leaders are unpaid, volunteer, party officials who are elected by voters within each assembly district (A.D.). Every two years, Democrats in each assembly district elect two district leaders. Often, there is a male and female district leader.

 

District leaders’ official duties include electing the chair of the County Party, currently State Sen. Jamaal Bailey (S.D. 36) in The Bronx, appointing election workers at local poll sites, selecting the Democratic nominees for vacant Civil Court judgeships, and working with Assembly members in organizing political activities in their districts e.g. voter registration drives, community engagement, etc. District leaders serve two year terms and must reside within the district they represent.

 

As reported, during a prior meeting of the Bronx-based Unity Democratic Club held Nov. 16, 2023, Paige Havener, VP of political affairs at the New Kings Democratic Club (NKD) in Brooklyn, explained that it was their understanding that the female district leader role, within the Democratic Party, had been introduced decades ago to encourage more participation by women in politics. They then talked about how NKB sued the Brooklyn Democratic Party to encourage more participation by people of all genders.

 

Havener said they and other candidates took a case against the Brooklyn Democratic Party whereby they refused to declare a gender for the district leader roles and won their case. “The rule now is that you have to have two people of different genders, but those two different genders could be male and female; male, non-binary; or female, non-binary,” they said.

 

As reported, in light of this news, Norwood News later asked the Bronx Democratic Party what the election process for district leaders was in The Bronx (if different from Brooklyn). A party representative said that in The Bronx, district leaders are able to run and identify as male, female and nonbinary.

 

State Committee Member

According to the Bronx Democratic Party, one female and one male State committee member represent the voters within each assembly district. “Their main responsibility is representing their district by attending and voting at their respective political party’s State convention and annual meetings,” an extract from the Party’s website reads.

 

“A strong State committee member also serves as a liaison between the community, local elected officials, city government, and political candidates.” According to the Party’s website, State committee members are unpaid elected party officials who serve two year terms and must reside within the district they represent.

 

Judicial Delegate 

According to the Bronx Democratic Party, judicial delegates are unpaid positions and are elected at the same time as other political positions. “Unlike the other political positions, each political party elects judicial delegates,” an extract from the Party’s site reads.

 

“The main responsibility of the judicial delegates is to attend a convention where they elect individuals to the New York State Supreme Court. This is an unpaid job, but requires little time, and is a great public service opportunity. It also gives newcomers the opportunity to learn more about petitioning and the political process.”

 

Judicial Delegates serve a two-year term and must live within the assembly district in which they are elected. Each assembly district elects about six judicial delegates.

 

In response to some further questions raised by Norwood News in early 2024, a Bronx Democratic Party spokesperson confirmed that an elected official e.g. an assembly member, city council member etc is allowed hold a second role within the Party like district leader or State committee member.

 

Though low-ranking in the grand scheme of politics, it’s clear, therefore, that these three Democratic Party positions hold a significant amount of weight in determining who gets to represent constituents. The roles of State committee member and district leader, in particular, are often seen as a way to learn the political ropes and as stepping stones, not least in terms of name recognition, to higher office.

 

Examples of district leaders who have later gone on to be elected to higher office include Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81), and his son, Councilman Eric Dinowitz (C.D. 11). A.D. 81 encompasses Kingsbridge, Fieldston, Riverdale, North Riverdale, Spuyten Duyvil, Van Cortlandt Village, and parts of Norwood, Kingsbridge Heights, Bedford Park, Wakefield and Woodlawn.

 

Local Democratic clubs play a key role in determining who fills the above-mentioned three roles, nominating their candidates of choice in line with their own internal bylaws. As reported, as a long-time institutional force in grassroots organizing in A.D. 81, the Ben Franklin Reform Democratic Club (BFRDC) is also a Democratic endorsement facilitator for largely centrist Democratic candidates for political office at all levels. Last year, for example, members voted to endorse Andrew Cuomo for mayor in the Democratic primary.

 

Meanwhile, in early February, at his reelection campaign launch, the assemblymember, along with his allies in the BFRDC, rallied with the club’s slate of candidates for district leader, state committee, and judicial delegates.

 

As broadly reported on page 9 of our print edition dated Feb. 19-March 4, a press release later read, “The Dinowitz Democratic Team is a group of proven and dedicated community leaders, and we’re excited to be running. District Leader Ben Jackson, State Committee Member Michael Heller, and State Committee Member Johanna Edmondson are running for re-election to continue their important work. Virginia Krompinger is running for District Leader to build on her years of community leadership. We’re eager to talk with voters and fight for our progressive values.”

 

As above, collectively, these candidates are known not as the “BFRDC slate” of candidates but as the “Dinowitz slate” or the “Dinowitiz Democratic Team,” a naming convention that perhaps accurately indicates the power one politician holds over an entire club, a club that, as reported, is not without controversy.

 

In the past, as reported, it has backed members of the bizarrely named “Independent Democratic Conference,” a now disbanded group of State Democrats who frequently voted with a then Republican-led majority in Albany, halting the passage of much progressive legislation as they did so.

 

Meanwhile, representatives for the Dinowitz slate said Jackson is a lawyer who “fights corporate fraud and abuse on behalf of unions, pension funds, and retirement systems.” They said he is a longtime Democratic Party volunteer who has “spent more than 20 years helping elect Democrats and strengthening voter protection efforts nationwide, including leading the Party’s voter assistance and protection hotlines in 2016.”

They said he also served on national voter protection teams in 2020 and 2024, work that, they said, “helped more than 70,000 people exercise their right to vote.” They said that since getting elected as district leader in A.D. 81, Jackson has “helped numerous Democrats get on the ballot and win office, organized grassroots canvassing efforts in New York and Pennsylvania, and has led local voter registration and community engagement efforts in the North Bronx.” They said Jackson is a dad and a husband, and he and his wife are raising their two young children in the community.

 

Dinowitz slate representatives said Krompinger is “a strong community advocate, local Democratic leader, and dedicated volunteer” who, they said, is “excited to be running for district leader.” They said for 20 years, Krompinger worked in risk and compliance roles providing services to financial institutions, including regulatory risk and anti-financial crime advisory support.

 

They said she has volunteered with a number of organizations in the community and NYC at-large, including Kiwanis of Riverdale, Youth Leaders on the Move, Harlem Children’s Zone, the NYC iMentor program, various food banks and homeless shelters, and more. They said she is the former president of BFRDC.

 

Dinowitz slate representatives said Heller has been active in the community for many years, having served as the district manager of Bronx Community Board 8, which overlaps with much of Assembly District 81 and Council District 11. They said he is the former president of the Association of Riverdale Co-ops/Condominiums (ARC) and has worked in public affairs at Montefiore/Einstein College of Medicine, Jacobi/North Central Bronx Hospital, and at the MTA. They said he and his wife live in Riverdale, where they raised their two now-adult children.

 

According to the Dinowitz slate, Edmondson is “a community leader, former teacher, and business owner from a proud military family.” They said she’s “dedicated to giving back, believing that we are stronger when we work together.” They said that as the owner of Female Fight Club gym and a Riverdale Main Street Alliance board member, Edmondson “strives to drive positive change in her community.”

 

They said she was awarded the Business Council of New York State’s 2025 MWBE [minority and women-owned enterprise] award, and that one of her proudest achievements was honoring the legacy of Betty and Lloyd Adams of Lloyd’s Carrot Cake café, located in the Fieldston section of The Bronx, by facilitating a street renaming in their memory.

 

As reported, when Edmondson ran as State committeewoman in A.D. 81 in 2024, and won, her campaign had not been without controversy. It stemmed from alleged ballot petitioning at a nonprofit, citing 5912 Riverdale Avenue, the then-location of Edmondson’s Female Fight Club gym, and discretionary funding the Female Fight Club received from the councilman in 2022, 2023, and 2024. Discretionary funding is paid to nonprofit entities from the City’s budget. Meanwhile, petitioning at a nonprofit is prohibited. Read more about the rules here.

 

The Female Fight Club first launched as a nonprofit during the pandemic in July 2020 at Edmondson’s Lakeview Place home, owned, according to property records, by Martin Edmondson, in the Fieldston section of The Bronx. The 5912 Riverdale Avenue location, in the North Riverdale section of The Bronx, was later opened on Sept. 8, 2021.

As above, laws prohibit petitioning at non-profits for political purposes. In 2024, in the lead-up to the primary, when Norwood News investigated the alleged petitioning, and reached out to Edmondson for comment, her representative/spokesperson, who also represents the assemblyman and the councilman, did not address the discrepancy directly in his on-the-record remarks.

 

Instead, he attributed the query to both racism, because Edmondson is a woman of color, and “Trump-like misleading attacks.” The entity which raised the alleged petitioning as a point of order was the Unity Democratic Club, whose members were running rival candidates for the above-referenced positions in the 2024 Democratic primary and, as reported, are running another slate of candidates this year.

 

After the primaries in 2024, in a subsequent letter to the editor to Norwood News, which we did not publish because we had not received the appropriate back-up documentation from New York State Division of Corporations to support it, Heller, Edmondson and others said there are two entities/arms to the Female Fight Club, a nonprofit and a for-profit.

 

According to various documents, Female Fight Club NYC Inc., which launched in July 2020 with the Lakeview Place address and is sometimes listed as Female Fight Club Foundation Inc., is the nonprofit. FFC  NYC 19, first filed with the NYS Division of Corporations in July 2022 with an initial address at 5912 Riverdale Avenue, and a later address at 5900 Riverdale Avenue, is the for-profit. As above, the physical location at 5912 Riverdale Avenue opened in July 2021.

 

Meanwhile, city council discretionary funding records show $5,000 being paid each year to the nonprofit with the Lakeview Place address in 2022 and in 2023, and a further $5,000 being paid in 2024 to the apparent for-profit, with the 5912 Riverdale Avenue address. Click here for screenshots from the City government’s discretionary funding tracker which lists the addresses.

 

Furthermore, as reported at the time, the address listed on the Female Fight Club website was 5912 Riverdale Avenue, and it was referred to as a nonprofit. It made no reference to a for-profit entity until the matter regarding alleged petitioning was raised during the 2024 Primary season. The Wayback Machine tool, which tracks changes to a website over time, showed that additions to the website’s coding were later added to make this distinction. The formatting was a little off, suggesting the correction had been made hastily.

Furthermore, an extract from the nonprofit’s 990 tax return filing for 2021 reads, “This organization generated $34,936.13 from donations for their wellness and fitness classes with qualified instructors. The organization in return had operating expenses of $28,615.26. Advertising $585.41, Bank Fees $150.0 Office Expense $634.72, Rent $16,743.78, Repairs $9,707.50, Utilities $793.84.”

 

If the nonprofit is located at Edmondson’s Lakeview Place home, owned by Martin Edmondson, it’s not impossible of course but it would seem a bit unusual that Johanna Edmondson would have needed to pay rent of $16,743.78, as listed in the 990 tax filing for the nonprofit in 2021.

 

In August 2024, the physical gym moved from 5912 Riverdale Avenue to 5900 Riverdale Avenue, according to the attached announcement on Instagram, and a new fitness center is now located at 5912 Riverdale Avenue.

 

According to NYS Division of Corporations, the Female Fight Club Foundation, the nonprofit, filed a certificate of Incorporation dated July 2, 2020, and an amended Certificate of Incorporation dated Aug. 13, 2024, two months after the June 2024 primary, and around three months before the general election in 2024.

Meanwhile, FFC NYC 19, the for-profit corporation, filed a certificate of Incorporation dated July 25, 2022, and a bi-annual statement dated July 12, 2025. 

Polls are open on Election Day from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. To find your polling site and more, visit the New York City Board of Elections website at: www.vote.nyc/elections.