In the News: Bronx Filter Fiasco Reviewed By NY Times...Bronx Pol's $ Frozen

A couple of interesting reads this morning.

The NY Times' Metro reporter Anthony Depalma delves into the sludge of the cost overruns at the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park.

Nothing new or revelatory here: Costs have ballooned from under $1 billion to almost $3 billion; Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz and local advocates say the DEP may have deliberately underestimated the price tag to put the project in the Bronx rather than Westchester; There's a huge hole in ground that wouldn't have been dug in Westchester; DEP says the overruns are due to inflation, skyrocketing construction costs that they couldn't have possibly foreseen; An executive at one of subcontractors (Schiavone, which is doing the tunneling) was indicted for extortion; The project is being looked at by the Comptroller and the Independent Budget Office.

The story does get a quote from indicted Schiavone executive, Anthony Delevescovo's lawyer, who says his client is innocent. And it also points out that, unlike the water from the Croton watershed in Westchester, the city won't have to filter water coming from Delaware or the Catskills for at least the next 10 years.

Also, the Post reports that city has frozen nearly $1 million in city funds that Larry Seabrook, a Bronx councilman who represents Co-op City and the northeast part of the borough, tried to give to a non-profit located across the hall from his office.

That sounds eerily similar to what Bronx State Senator Efrain Gonzalez is being tried for in October. Gonzalez allegedly funneled $423,000 in state money back into his own pockets through three separate nonprofit organizations, one of which, the West Bronx Neighborhood Association, was located just down the hall from his Tremont-area offices and which he referred to as his "other office."

The Seabrook story also comes on the heels of revelations that the City Council has been directing $4 million a year in discretionary funds through phantom nonprofits.

State discretionary funds are now mostly disclosed after the budget comes out and the Council is now looking to overhaul it's own budget process.