Bronx News Roundup Oct. 17

Yesterday, an autistic Bronx toddler was left alone on a school bus for six hours, outside P.S. 194 on Waterbury Avenue in the east Bronx. The bus driver and a school matron have been charged with endangering the welfare of a child. Just last month, another bus driver was suspended without pay for dropping off a five-year-old boy two miles from his Eastchester home.

Rose Donaghey, an 88-year-old waitress who works at the Wicked Wolf on East Tremont Avenue, is in the news again. Earlier this month she was profiled in the Daily News. The "lively octogenarian" has been working as a waitress for the past 50 years.

The trial of a Bronx man accused of murdering six men in the 1990s, begun yesterday in Manhattan's state Supreme Court. Prosecutors say Fausto Gonzalez was a motorcycle obsessed hit-man whose modus operandi was pass his victims on powerful Honda Fireblade, shoot them dead, and then speed off. Gonzalez, who's already serving a life sentence for a separate murder, is pleading not guilty.

The Times has some exhaustive coverage of yesterday's term limits hearing at City Hall. See here and here. They're also live blogging today's hearing. An hour or so ago,
Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz alluded to State Senator Efrain Gonazalez's recent primary defeat, in his argument for extending limits. "I’ve always been opposed to laws that enforce term limits. They are profoundly undemocratic," Markowitz said, according to The Times. "We have methods to apply term limits, they’re called elections. Look at the most recent elections: Two veteran state senators were defeated in elections in the Bronx and Brooklyn."

Bronx Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, on the other hand, argued against an extension. “Although I remain personally opposed to term limits, it is my opinion that it would be wrong to circumvent the results of the 1993 and 1996 referendums in which the voters of our great city both affirmed term limits and rejected any attempt to alter them,” Diaz said, according to The Times.

Diaz, it should be said, isn't affected by term limits because he's a state official. But he's running for Bronx borough president and could suddenly face a powerful opponent - Adolfo Carrion - if the current laws are changed. Carrion, the current BP, is a candidate for comptroller. He's yet to say if he'd seek another four years as BP, if allowed to run again. But he does favor a term limit overhaul. A few minutes ago, his office fired off a press release detailing Carrion's testimony at today's hearing. He said: "I support extending term limits, not because Michael Bloomberg wants to run for Mayor again, but because it begins to move us back toward responsible governance and representative democracy, which should continue to be the foundation of American democracy."

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that Diaz has previously said he'll step aside if Carrion does indeed run for a third term. We shall see.