Editor’s Note: For full disclosure, during this election cycle, Norwood News has broadly covered campaign events which were brought to our attention by candidates who campaigned in our local reporting area of Bronx Community District 7, which broadly covers the neighborhoods of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham, Jerome Park, Kingsbridge Heights, Mosholu Parkway, and University Heights. Additionally, we did also cover Rev. Michael Blake‘s campaign launch in the South Bronx last year as we had a bit more time then, and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s launch, given he is so high-profile and because we had previously reported on his testing of the Bronx waters in 2022.

 

State Sen. Gustavo Rivera (S.D. 33) joined local supporters of mayoral candidate and, according to some recent polls, the frontrunner in the Democratic mayoral race, Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani (A.D. 36), on Mosholu Parkway in Bedford Park on Sunday, June 22, to canvass for his number one mayoral pick, before later heading to Fordham for a separate “No Cuomo” rally. The latter was organized to oppose Democratic mayoral candidate and former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

 

Originally billed as a campaign event together with Mamdani on the final day of early voting, and scheduled to take place at Tracey Towers on West Mosholu Parkway North and Jerome Avenue on the Norwood-Bedford Park border, the event location was abruptly changed closer to the kick-off time and was moved to Mosholu Parkway and East 206th Street.

 

Instead, Mamdani campaigned on Staten Island on Sunday as results at the time showed Staten Island had the lowest early voting turn-out of all five boroughs. The Bronx came in fourth as of the same date.

 

Security at Tracey Towers was unaware any event with Mamdani was scheduled for Sunday, though the rally was probably due to take place outside the 40-story, twin-tower Mitchell Lama building. This, at least, was the approach taken by then-candidate and now-Mayor Eric Adams in 2021, when he also campaigned there.

 

Oddly enough, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz (A.D. 81) also arrived at Tracey Towers with two young men shortly after Mamdani’s campaign rally was due to begin. The assemblyman, who vehemently opposes Mamdani’s candidacy for mayor, told Norwood News, “I’m not here for a meeting.”

 

Dinowitz had released the following statement regarding Mamdani’s candidacy in recent days, although he has not openly endorsed Cuomo to our knowledge. “The mayoral primary has come down to a two-person race between Andrew Cuomo and Zohran Mamdani. Mamdani must not be elected Mayor of the world’s greatest city. He lacks the bare minimum of necessary experience. His platform, which may sound great, is nothing more than pie-in-the-sky promises that could never be enacted.”

He continued, “His proposals lack basic understanding of budgeting and even what the mayor can and cannot control.” He added, “In addition, his continuing fanatical hatred of Israel and his support for BDS, and a ‘global intifada’ is absolutely disqualifying for a person who wants to lead the city with the largest Jewish population in the world outside Israel. Do not rank Mamdani.”

 

It was reported on X that during a podcast interview with The Bulwark on June 17, Mamdani argued the phrase “Globalize the Intifada” was an expression of Palestinian rights and refused to outright condemn it. He has since said that he understands the phrase is interpreted differently by the Jewish population and is discouraging its use.

 

As reported, the assemblyman has been the subject of targeted rallies in the past during which swastikas and other offensive symbols were displayed.

 

 

“There are literally hundreds of little things happening all around the City,” Rivera said of their campaign efforts. “We’re launching a canvass for different parts of The Bronx from here, and this is a group of people who believe deeply that the City needs to move in a different direction.” Rivera continued, “We have somebody [Mamdani] who is laser focused on affordability in the City.”

 

Asked about his “No Cuomo Rally” that he was due to hold later that day along East Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse, where he was due to be joined by the former Congressman for parts of the north Bronx and Westchester County, Jamaal Bowman, Rivera said, “We’re going to get together to actually remind people why they should not rank Cuomo.”

 

Of the former governor, he said, “All the things he’s talking about [now] that he wants to make better, he made worse when he was governor, whether we’re talking about education or housing or transportation, you name it,” he said. “He had power over all of that stuff when he was governor, and he made it worse.”

 

Asked if Cuomo did win, was he concerned that he and his district could be shut out of a Cuomo administration, Rivera replied, “He’s already done that before as a governor. He did that before. I didn’t fear him then. I don’t fear him now and as mayor, it’s a different situation [to] when he was governor.”

Rivera added, “I’m a member of the [State senate] majority. He’s going to have to come to talk to me so I will talk to ‘Little Andy,’ but I won’t have to because he’s not going to be mayor.”

 

Rivera concluded, “Trump and his administration are attacking the City and the State, and we have to stand up and defend it, that’s what we have to do. I don’t trust Cuomo would do that. He would just try and cut a deal and that means throwing people under the bus.”

 

Marcelo Lopez from the Unity Democratic Club also weighed in on why he opposed Cuomo for mayor. “I worked in a nursing home for 12 years and when he cut Medicaid, we took no raises. That’s who got hurt by it too. When COVID happened and we had to deal with bodies piling up and a makeshift morgue because the funeral home couldn’t fill people up fast enough, my best friend has a list of everyone who passed away during COVID because he forced us to take patients.”

 

He added, “We weren’t ready. We were not given guidance by the State on how to deal with these patients. That is why we say ‘no’ to Cuomo because we have all suffered, the families of these people suffered, us who work in this industry and broke our backs, we have all suffered and we need someone new.”

 

We also met up with Rivera later for the “No Cuomo” rally in Fordham and he talked to Norwood News about Cuomo and the Moreland Commission which, according to Columbia Law School, had the double mandate of investigating corruption and recommending reforms to New York State’s ethics and election laws.

 

The commission released the first of two planned reports which focused on campaign finance reform and the state board of elections at the end of 2013, and then things went quiet. The New York Times later reported that Cuomo’s office had interfered with the commission’s work, prompting a federal investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara ’93.

Again, Rivera gave examples of why he opposed Cuomo, saying, “Whether it was the Moreland Commission to find public corruption and when it was getting closer to him, he said, ‘Stop it, we’re not going to go further with it.’ So, he’s a dude who….  Anything you can name, whether it’s education, whether it’s transportation, whether it’s housing, he actually harmed the people of the City of New York.”

He continued, “He harmed them with his actions and I know this because I was there. I fought him tooth and nail every time that I was there so this effort that he has of trying to make some type of political recovery, no. He is an abusive bully, somebody who does not deserve to be in public service.”

 

Rivera said he had spoken to four people [earlier that day] who were going to become Cuomo voters and when he reminded them of “some of the stuff Cuomo had done,” they reportedly said, “I can’t vote for that guy.” He said he replied, “I know and you shouldn’t.” He added, “And that’s what we’re here to do today.”

 

He continued, “This is a guy who cut Medicaid every single year that he was the State governor. This is a guy who took money from the MTA to fund all sorts of things like an upstate ski resort. This is the guy who sexually harassed at least [11] women who we know of and then is using public dollars, something like $16 million dollars [inaudible] to attack those women who are accusing him of sexual harassment, even seeking their gynecological records.”

 

He concluded, “I really think even though we were only there for an hour, an hour and a half, it was successful because it was about [reminding] people of who Cuomo actually is. The reason I’m against Cuomo is because I know who he is. I know what he does because I know what he did when he was governor because I was there.”

 

Cuomo had campaigned in the South Bronx in recent days with the mother of Lesandro “Junior” Guzman-Feliz, a 15-year-old NYPD Explorer who was tragically killed as a result of gang violence in 2018 in Belmont. Cuomo came with tough-on-crime messaging, showing prior tweets by Mamdani in which the assemblyman had called to defund the police. We asked Rivera if Mamdani was still in favor of this approach.

 

He said, “Let’s be clear. What my No. 1 ranked candidate Zohran Mamdani and myself support is a better distribution of our funds and resources. We both know how police officers play an important role in maintaining safety in this city, but we also know that we currently ask police officers to do too much.”

 

He added, “Instead of being social workers, substance abuse specialists, and mental health first responders, we should let police be police, and hire people trained in those other fields to do those jobs. We must also invest upstream in our communities by funding programs that provide support to our youth like after school programs and parks.”

 

We reached out to Cuomo’s campaign for comment on the points raised by Rivera. We did not receive an immediate response.

 

As reported, Mamdani, had previously campaigned in the Norwood section of The Bronx on Sunday, May 25, alongside Rivera, members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), Bronx Youth Impact, and other volunteers.

Primary Election Day in New York is Tuesday, June 24. Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. Early Voting runs from June 14- 22. To be eligible to register to vote, a person must be a U.S. citizen; be 18 years old on June 24; a New York State resident for at least 30 days before the election; not be in prison for a felony conviction; not be adjudged mentally incompetent by a court; and not claim the right to vote elsewhere. The last day to register to vote in person was June 14. Applications to register to vote by mail should also have been received by June 14. For more information, click here.