Bronx News Roundup, Tuesday, June 7

Weather: Hot, topping out in the upper 80s. Possible thunderstorms later tonight, with temperatures spiking into the mid-90s tomorrow.

Story of the Day: 17-Year-Old Arrested with Stolen Property, Police Say Suspect Responsible for School Burglaries
Police may have caught a break in their efforts to stem a rash of computer burglaries at Bronx schools and churches. Yesterday, police said they had arrested 17-year-old Pedro Delacruz on Jerome Avenue and charged him with possession of stolen property and burglary tools. According to the Daily News, police said Delacruz started his crime spree in January when he broke into St. Ann's Church in Norwood and spent the next five months burglarizing various public and private schools in the Bronx and Manhattan, including All Hallows High School, PS/MS 280, Cardinal Hayes High School and the latest, PS 73, where a total of 77 laptops were stolen. Delacruz has not been convicted of anything, but police say he was in possession of keys to PS 73. They believe he may be part of a larger burglary network.

Quick Hits:
Although David Yassky, the chairman of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, said he liked Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr.'s taxi hailing plan for the outer boroughs, others aren't convinced, including Fernando Mateo, who represents the New York State Taxi Federation.  

More on the drastic Tracey Towers rent hike proposal, which we reported on last week.

You know that nasty black smoke that billows out of apartment buildings? A new study says its due to dirty boilers, mostly in rent-regulated apartments in the Bronx and Manhattan.

The Bronx is about to get a new Young Democrats Club.

Movies Under the Stars kicks off in the northeast Bronx this Friday.

With approval from the City Planning Commission, the Westchester Square Business Improvement District is one step closer to becoming a reality.

Speaking of Westchester Square, Owen Dolan Recreation Center is getting a $5 million facelift. 

The new child health center in South Bronx, recently opened by the Children's Health Fund and the Children's Hospital at Montefiore, is focusing on preventive medicine.

The Bronx Chamber of Commerce and NYC Housing police put a smile on the face of 10-year-old boy who witnessed his father's murder in the Castle Hill Houses.

A South Bronx brownfield is now home to a new affordable housing complex. La Terreza was presented with an award for its effort to turn formerly contaminated land into quality housing.

Bronx News Roundup, Dec. 10

Good morning and a happy Friday to everyone!  On to the Bronx stories we've conveniently compiled for you, our lovely readers.

Our Lady of Refuge Church, one of several Bronx churches victimized over the past month, has received more than $10,000 in donations after being burglarized two weekends ago.

Bronx Councilman James Vacca chaired a raucous transportation committee hearing on city bike lanes yesterday. It featured strong arguments both in favor and opposed to Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan's push for more bike lanes. “Nobody disagrees that using more bicycles is a good thing, but in a city where traffic is horrendous and finding a parking space is difficult, bike policy is all about trade-offs," Vacca said, according to the Times.

A handful of state senators -- including Bronx amigos Pedro Espada Jr. and Ruben Diaz Sr. -- did not show for a big vote on the fate of Off Track Betting. the Times-Union opines. Espada's been absent since losing his re-election bid in the September primary.

Richard A. Falkenrath, a former counterterrorism official with the NYPD, is now fighting a Riverdale school that he says is disrupting the neighborhood with its traffic and construction plans.

A pregnant Bronx teacher suffered a miscarriage after being pushed to the ground while trying to break up a fight at the school she works at, Explorations Academy, a small high school on Boston Road and E. 173rd Street.

A dozen of the 21 schools, more than half, added this year to the city's list of failing schools are in the Bronx.

Columbus and Global Enterprise high schools are two of the Bronx institutions the DOE wants to close our reorganize.

The Bronx Chamber of Commerce will distribute some 500 toys and gifts collected at its annual holiday party.

The Van Nest community is looking to save St. Dominic School from closure.

The John F. Kennedy Knights hoop squad pulled out a win last night despite missing two key players who are academically ineligible.

Well, This Should Be Interesting ....

The Bronx Chamber of Commerce just sent out a release announcing honorees for their Oct. 1 banquet.

The Related Companies, which wants to redevelop the Kingsbridge Armory, is receiving the "Visionary Award," presumably for their work on the Gateway Mall just south of Yankee Stadium.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz will be a special guest. Diaz recently recommended that the City Planning Commission vote against Related's proposal to the Armory into a shopping mall, primarily because there's no Community Benefits Agreement was in place.

Last night at Fernando Cabrera's "victory" party at Maestro's (there is still some recounting to do as previous reported), Diaz told us he hasn't heard anything from Related and that there's been no dialogue. Well, maybe there will be some dialogue at the banquet.

Should be interesting ...

Espada Holds Court in Lofty New Office

Pedro Espada Jr. eats biscotti at his new district office near Fordham Road

Pedro Espada Jr.’s new district office, eight months in the making, sits seven floors above the street in a swank office building near Fordham Road. It’s beautiful. New carpeting, new paint job. Giant photos of the controversial Bronx State Senator adorn the back wall. One shows Espada wearing a suit and over-sized red boxing gloves.

It’s a fitting image because the pugnacious Espada – his ringtone is “Eye of the Tiger,” a song made famous in the “Rocky” films – literally fought his way into this office, forcing a leadership struggle between political parties by offering his allegiance to both Republicans and Democrats in exchange for what he calls long-needed Senate reform. After a month of gridlock, accusations and headlines, Espada emerged victorious, for the time being.

He managed to secure a position as the Democratic majority leader, a beefed up staff and two district offices, including the one on Fordham Road and another he says will open someday on Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood.

But Espada’s victories have come at a price.

He’s facing increased criticism and scrutiny on a number of levels. The Bronx District Attorney is investigating whether Espada’s primary residence is actually in the Bronx. The Attorney General is looking into whether he used his healthcare nonprofit for political purposes as well as if he lied about whether he lied on grant he applied for with the state Health Department.

Local housing advocates say he turned their back on them regarding a series of tighter rent regulation laws that he ignored as chairman of the senate’s housing committee. In early August, after Espada negotiated his new majority leader position, his son was hired for a specially created $120,000-a-year job in the State Senate and then fired days later amid accusations of nepotism and the fact that he wasn’t actually showing up to the post.

On Monday, Espada fired his deputy chief of staff after a NY Times reporter told him that the new hire had a long, troubled history as a building manager. On top of that, the new Bronx Chamber of Commerce recently turned down nearly $2 million in member item (discretionary) funding from Espada, who is now scrambling to find other groups to fund with the money.

Earlier today, Espada invited the media to check out his new digs and talk about anything and everything. He spent much of the hour and a half defending his actions and thwarting allegations of misconduct.

He called the investigations “politically motivated” and adds that he’s been under some kind of investigation for 15 years and has not once been convicted of any wrongdoing. (Though he has been reprimanded and fined and three of his employees were sent to prison and then rehired.)

Espada went to great lengths to dispel the notion that he’s in the pockets of the landlords and big developers who have contributed tens of thousands of dollars to his campaign coffers. (The money he’s received from landlords and developers pales in comparison to his colleagues, he said.) He does not support the tightening of rent regulations, something landlords adamantly oppose, that would protect tenants, including the repeal of vacancy decontrol, a hot button issue that local tenant advocates say would protect hundreds of thousands of affordable housing units in the city. Instead, Espada said he wants to focus on creating more incentives for developers to construct affordable housing.

As for the nearly $2 million in discretionary funding, which Espada said he originally wanted to give to two newly created nonprofit groups headed by executives at his Soundview Health Care Network, the senator said his staff is now researching other groups to fund.

Since February, Espada has been trying to secure this office space in the Fordham Plaza building. He said Senate Democratic leaders were holding up the funding for it – he says it costs around $3,500 a month -- in another politically motivated move. But, after the leadership struggle, which he calls a “31-day impasse,” Espada got what he wanted.

Sitting at one of the desks in his new office was Espada’s son, Pedro G. Espada, who apparently has some time on his hands after resigning from his senate job a few weeks ago. Asked if his son was now employed by the district office, which is forbidden under state rules, Espada just laughed and said Pedro G. was simply a volunteer. “We’ll let the NY Post write that story,” he said.

Adolfo Staying Far Away from Dem Leadership Struggle

We spoke briefly with Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion last night at the Marina Del Rey in Throggs Neck where the Bronx Chamber of Commerce was having its sixth annual banquet.

We asked him if he had anything to say about the battle underway for the leadership of his party. He threw his head back and laughed robustly. "Absolutely nothing," he said, finally, still smiling.

"I've always allowed the political battles at the county level to be handled by its chairman and the people who are interested in that," Carrion said. "I'm only concerned with moving the Bronx in the right direction. We all need to focus on deliverables for families who live in [the borough on issues like] education, health care, economic opportunity and housing production."

So, it sounds like that unlike virtually every other elected official and active Democrat in the borough, it's a good bet Carrion won't be at the Paradise this Sunday for the big party showdown.
We also asked Carrion if he still wanted to be comptroller, what with the economic meltdown on Wall Street and all that. Not unpredictably, he said the crisis "presented an opportunity for leadership [and] for smart investment."

Update: Turns out Carrion will be in Florida campaigning for Obama the night of the big showdown back home.