Bronx News Roundup, June 23

Weather: Foggy and 71 degrees at the moment, with scattered thunderstorms predicted.

Story of the Day: Kemba Walker Ready for His NBA Close-up
Soundview native Kemba Walker, who was launched into basketball stardom after leading his UConn Huskies to a national championship this spring, is expected to be a lottery pick in tonight's NBA draft, telling the Hartford Courant that he's "excited, nervous, ready." He could join any of five teams--Charlotte, Detroit, Toronto, Sacramento and Utah. "It's a dream come true no matter where I am selected," Walker told the paper.

"The Bronx, and all of New York City really, will smile knowingly and burst with pride," tonight, the NY Post's Steve Serby writes. Good luck, Kemba!

Quick Hits:

In other news related to talented Bronx athletes: North Riverdale Little Leaguer Sean Gallagher, 9, pitched a perfect, 8-inning game last week. 

Law Student Recounts 'Depressing' Day at Bronx Polling Station

This past election day, Jose Roman, a law student at Ohio State who grew up in Mount Hope, volunteered at a local polling station.

Roman, a former contributor to the Mount Hope Monitor, was stationed at I.S. 117 Joseph H. Wade on Morris Avenue, where he saw illegal electioneering and encountered unhelpful staff. For his election law class, he wrote about his experience, and what he thinks the Board of Elections should do differently to make the process easier for voters, and ultimately more democratic. 

Roman recently posted his essay on Room Eight, a politics blog. You can read it here.

Things Going Smoothly At Local Polls

Polls opened this morning at 6 for today's general election, and things seem to be going a lot better than they did during the September primary, when a new, scanner-based voting system caused confusion and minor chaos for voters and poll workers alike (Mayor Bloomberg called the Board of Election's performance that day a "royal screw-up.")

"The first time, it was crazy," said Enrique Cruz, a poll coordinator at St. Brendan's School on East 207th Street in Norwood. Things today, he said, are much better. Voters and workers are more familiar with the new machines. "So far, everything is going fine."

The scene at St. Brendan's was fairly quiet, with just a handful of people there to cast their ballots. One of the site's four scanner machines was down, but Board of Elections officials were on their way to fix it. Poll workers were running low on pens to give out (the new ballots require voters to fill in their choices by hand, like a high school scantron test) because voters kept taking off with them, Cruz said.

Voter turnout was steady this morning at the Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, on DeKalb Avenue.

There was a bigger crowd at Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, on DeKalb Avenue, and workers there agreed that things were running much more smoothly than they did in September.

"This is much, much better," said poll coordinator Marie Sparks, who said the site has been busy all morning, the turnout steady. By noon, about 60 people had cast their ballots. "And it's still early," Sparks said. "We've still got nine more hours to go."

Workers at both sites expect things to get busiest around 5 or 6 p.m., as people are coming home from work. Polls close tonight at 9.

Mayor Bloomberg, meanwhile, is checking up on potential polling problems via twitter, asking voters to tweet their experience and tag them with the hashtag #nycvotes. You can always go the tradtional route, too, and report any problems by calling 311.

Has anyone voted today? What was your experience like? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

Bronx News Roundup, Nov. 2

Happy Election Day, everyone! Make sure you head to the polls today and vote. Here's a roundup of who's running in the Bronx and elsewhere. Now on to this morning's Bronx headlines:

Roberto Huie, a senior at the Eagle Academy for Young Men in Tremont, has been accepted into the prestigious West Point Military Academy.

Family and friends mourned yesterday at the funeral of 17-year-old Luzbenet Ramirez, who was found murdered in a Longwood apartment last week. A 40-year-old man has been arrested in connection with her death.

Catch up on your Bronx political news--including Nelson Castro's unpaid parking tickets and more on the future of the Muller Army Reserve Center--in Bob Kappstatter's weekly column. 

Rangers CEO Chuck Greenberg called Yankees fans an "embarrassment" during a radio interview yesterday.

Things are working out well in Morris Heights, where a residence for the mentally ill and chronically homeless was first met with neighborhood protests. Community Board 5 member Bernice Williams said last week that the center's residents are "very good neighbors." 

A 30-year-old Bronx man drove the wrong way on I-81 in upstate New York this weekend. He faces traffic-related charges.

State Assemblyman Michael Benjamin has proposed legislation to put the Board of Elections under mayoral control, following the firing of Executive Director George Gonzalez last week.

Bedford Park Seniors Test New Voting Machines

A woman at the Bedford Park Multi Service Center feeds her test ballot into a new scanning machine, which the Board of Elections will use for the first time this year (Photo by Jeanmarie Evelly)

Voters hitting the polls in state elections this fall won't have any levers to pull this time. The State Board of Elections has traded in the old machines for a new voting system, debuting in New York on Sept. 14 during the Democratic primary.

The Bedford Park Multi Service Center for Seniors hosted a demonstration this morning to teach seniors how to use the new machines. Voters are given new paper ballots to fill in by hand, using a pen and coloring in a bubble for the candidate of their choice, much like a high school standardized test. They then bring their ballots over to a scanner and insert them into the machines to cast their votes.

The changes were put in place to comply with a federal law enacted after the confusion of the 2000 election, and New York is the very last state to make the switch. Still, patrons at the Bedford Park Center were resistant to the change.

"I'm afraid of computers," said Millie Gilliamsen. "But I'll adjust."

Primary Petitions Due Today

Candidates vying for a spot on the primary ballot this fall have a deadline to meet today. Petitions, or voter signatures of support, have to be filed with the Board of Elections office by the end of the day.

Legislators and legislative hopefuls had the last five weeks to collect signatures--a daunting task, considering the signatures must be from voters registered with the candidate's respective party and who live in their district. Congressional candidates need 1,250 valid signatures, state Senate candidates need 1,000, and 500 are required for the state Assembly.

Here's a little update on how the candidates in the 33rd Senate race fared:

We already know that incumbent Pedro Espada's filed his petitions--he did it very publicly at a press conference at the Bronx Board of Elections office on Monday. He said he had 10,000 collected.

Fernando Tirado told us this morning that he's already filed over 1,000 signatures. He declined to give a specific count, but said he had enough to "cushion" the potential signatures that could get thrown out by the BOE.

Kingsbridge attorney Daniel Padernacht said he filed his on Monday and had more than 4,500 signatures.

Gustavo Rivera's count was 6,250, according to campaign advisor Elizabeth Lorris Ritter.

Speaking of Rivera: City Hall News reported this morning that Gustavo took a spill while exiting a bus on the Grand Concourse. Ritter confirmed as much, saying Rivera lost his footing last Wednesday, tripping down the bus stairs and landing face first on the sidewalk. He went to the emergency room at Montefiore to get patched up, she said, and is fine, with the exception of some bruises and "quite a shiner."

Bronx News Roundup, April 1

Spring is back! Enjoy the day and some Bronx news:

Tenants of 2710 Bainbridge Ave. plan to file a lawsuit against  landlord Frank Palazzolo in housing court tomorrow in effort to get the building into better hands. Palazzolo was rated as one of the "10 Worst Landlords" by the Village Voice.  (If the name sounds familiar to readers of the Norwood News, it's because of our 2002 coverage here, here and here. Also we have a reporter at a rally in front of the building right now.)

The city's decision to use federal stimulus money to build a parking garage at St. Barnabas Hospital may remove more than the problem of an overcrowded parking lot. A doctor's union has filed a lawsuit against the city claiming that the project would do the opposite of what the stimulus money is meant to do and will eliminate permanent jobs instead of creating them. The Tremont Tribune published a story about the parking garage in February.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. cheers on Bronx residents to complete census forms so that the Boogie-Down can be tops in Census form returns.

The Jewish Association of Services for the Aging received $10,000 in federal funding from Rep. Joseph Crowley toward the Grandparents Connection Program in Co-Op City.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and other local Community Board officials are holding a rally on Monday to protest Mayor Bloomberg's proposed 2011 budget cuts that they say will greatly affect community boards and the services they provide.

Political parties are preparing for a showdown in the selection of the next executive director of the city's Board of Elections.

Community leaders , firefighters and City Island residents rallied again yesterday against the closing of Ladder 53 and other firehouses throughout the city. According to Bloomberg's proposed budget cuts for the 2011 fiscal year, nearly 20 firehouses would be shut down.

A look into why "Morrisania Air Rights" housing project on Park Avenue, was given such an unusual name.

14th Election Results Won't Be Certified Until Thursday

The Norwood News is on deadline tonight and hoped to be able to declare, once and for all, who had officially won the the 14th District Council race.

Last we heard, challenger Fernando Cabrera was up on incumbent Maria Baez by 69 votes following an initial recount.

Alas, it was not meant to be. News reporter Molly Ryan found out earlier today that the Board of Elections will not certify the results until at least Thursday.

Earlier this morning, BOE spokesperson Valerie Vasquez-Rivera said the board would meet at 1 p.m. and that they would make a decision on certification by 3 p.m. But when Ryan called back at 3:30 p.m., Vasquez-Rivera (the wife of Baez-ally and Council majority leader Joel Rivera, in case you were wondering) said the board is still waiting for any snail mail absentee ballots to trickle into their offices and would make another certification call on Thursday.

In order to count toward the election, absentee ballots would have to be post-marked by election day, which was last Tuesday, Sept. 15.

So, rest assured, 14th Council District absentee voters in the heart of the Congolese jungle or rural Nepal, your vote will be counted.

Update: BOE spokesperson Valery Vasquez-Rivera just called us to point out that the Board's priority at yesterday's meeting was to certify the leaders in the public advocate and comptroller's races since there is a runoff for both planned for next Tuesday. No other close Council race, even one in Queens where the incumbent is ahead by only 5 votes, was certified yesterday. Stay tuned.

The Intricacies of the Board of Elections Vote Counting Process

As I mentioned in my previous post, the Board of Elections is currently obtaining the official voter statistics for the primary elections through recanvasing the polls and opening and validating paper ballots.

Here is some more information about how the process goes down:

Usually, the Board of Elections waits two weeks to open absentee ballots. However, because of the run-off elections scheduled to be held in two weeks, absentee ballots are being opened and counted today.

Along with absentee ballots, the bipartisan Board of Elections officials are also counting other paper ballots (such as emergency ballots and affidavits) and the votes in polling machines.

While these votes are being counted, in contested races it is most likely that election lawyers will be watching the process like hawks. It is usually hard for election lawyers to challenge absentee and polling machine votes, but they are ready to pounce on all affidavits.

Affidavits are filled out at polling sites when a voter has a problem such as not finding their name at the registration table. While the bipartisan Board of Elections officials determine whether an affidavit is valid, election lawyers can challenge their judgment and argue over illegible signatures, forgeries, etc. Arguments over these affidavits could possibly be sent to court.

Valerie Vasquez-Rivera, a Board of Elections spokesperson, is hopeful that the process will be complete by September 21 and the election results will be certified by Board of Elections commissioners by September 22. However, if candidates in close races such as in the 14th district are willing to hire election lawyers and argue over the process, it could take longer.

Neil Rosenstein, an election specialist for New York Public Interest Research Group, says that New Yorkers should not be so anxious about obtaining official election results. "We seem to be obsessed with this need for instant gratification," he said. "Elections are meant to best represent the will of the people and sometimes that takes a little bit of time."

Will Board of Elections Discuss Bx Dem Battle at Meeting Tomorrow?

As Liz Benjamin of the Daily News Poltiicker blog reported on Friday, Stanley Schlein, the lawyer for the group of Bronx pols who have claimed victory in their bid to replace Jose Rivera as county leader, has filed “general objections” to Rivera’s certification of his own victory with the Board of Elections. This is the latest salvo in a battle that may end up in court.

Now, we’re wondering whether any of this will be discussed at a meeting of the Board of Elections’ commissioners tomorrow. We spoke to both Bronx commissioners (there is one Republican and one Democratic commissioner from each borough, though Queens currently has two vacancies), Nero Graham (the Democrat) and J.C. Polanco (the Republican).

Neither knew whether this issue would come before the commissioners tomorrow, but it’s hard to imagine there won’t be at least some discussion of it.

Stay tuned.