Bronx News Roundup, Jan. 26

Yup, more snow. A winter storm warning is in effect today until 6 p.m., so bundle up; the weather folks are saying four to eight inches.

President Obama gave his second State of the Union Address last night, one that called for a bipartisan effort to fix the nation's economy and a proposed 5-year spending freeze.

Salon.com has named Bronx Rep. Eliot Engel number three on a list of Congress' "top five biggest aisle hogs"--politicians who stake out an aisle seat before a big speech in hopes of getting a handshake and a few words from the President. Check out this video of the worst offenders through the years:


The family of a 24-year-old Melissa Barthelemy, one of four victims believed to have been murdered by a serial killer on Long Island, say they received taunting phone calls on the woman's cell phone in the days after she disappeared.

Police are searching for a group of ten men who shot up a Melrose street last night, killing a 21-year-old man.

A Bronx woman pleaded not guilty yesterday to manslaughter charges for hitting and killing a woman with her car in Manhattan in November.

A Lehman College student stuck in Chile during protests there this month became the unofficial spokesman for about 1500 other stranded tourists, and earned himself a certificate of appreciation from the U.S. State Department.

Plans to lay seven miles of pipe from Van Cortlandt Park to Hunts Point have been scrapped by the city due to soaring costs. The plan was part of the ongoing Croton Water Filtration Plant project.

A Bronx couple is facing jail time for animal cruelty charges after nearly 100 emaciated cats were found in their artist's loft in Brooklyn. A neighbor told the Brooklyn paper the two were simply trying to care for the neighborhood's strays.

The widow of a murdered Throgs Neck man gave chilling testimony in court yesterday against her husband's accused killer, an alleged mob man.

A mugger tried to steal the cell phone of former Gov. George Pataki's eldest daughter at the Freeman Street subway stop.

The State Senate's Republican majority gave committee chairmanship roles to Jeff Klein and the other members of his Independent Caucus. Klein will chair the Committee on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.

A 17-year-old student at Celia Cruz High School for Music was found dead in the snow on a Harlem street over the weekend. Loved ones of Gregory Willis Jr. say they are baffled by the quiet teenager's mysterious death; autopsy results are pending.

[Editor's Note:] Just a reminder to our readers that the Bronx News Network is in the middle of our annual fundraising appeal. If you value quality local journalism, please consider donating so we can continue to bring you news and features, like our daily roundup or our borough events calendar. More details on how to contribute can be found here. 

Bronx News Roundup, Jan 25

As I'm sure you can see, this never-ending winter has blessed us with more snow this morning. The weather means delays on the 2 line in the Bronx, according to the MTA's website, so give yourself a little extra travel time today if you're taking the train.

Speaking of snow: the City Council held its fifth public blizzard response hearing at Hostos Community College last night, where Residents and Borough President Diaz blasted the city and the Sanitation Department for the slow snow cleanup.

A fire broke out early this morning at three multi-family homes on Arthur Avenue in Tremont, with one tenant taken to St. Barnabas Hospital after going into cardiac arrest.

An NYPD car mix-up resulted in one Norwood resident's arrest--for stealing his own vehicle, the Daily News reports.  Jamieson Prince, 43, is now suing the police department for $1 million.

The driver of a van that flipped over in a fatal accident in September is facing felony charges for driving with a revoked license. The accident killed six people, including the pastor at Joy Fellowship Christian Assemblies in the Bronx, and his wife.

Sen. Jeff Klein and his newly formed Independent Democratic Conference are criticizing the Office of Children and Family Services, which oversees the State's youth prisons, for racking up overtime and compensation claims.

A few Bronx women told the Huffington Post that they think Mayor Bloomberg is out of touch, in response to recent remarks he made about the city's streets being safe for women at night.

Police have identified one of the bodies found near a Long Island beach to be Bronx resident Melissa Barthelemy, 27. Investigators believe a serial killer may be responsible for her death and the deaths of three other woman, who all advertised themselves as sex workers on Craigslist.

As John F. Kennedy High School in Marble Hill prepares for closure next year by the DOE, charter school group New Visions for Public Schools is testing the neighborhood waters. The organization plans to open two new schools on Kennedy's site.

The Wall Street Journal posted this video footage of the explosive excavation of a tunnel at the Croton Water Filtration Plant. The $3 billion project at Van Cortlandt Park has been rife with scandal and delays since it began (here are some archived stories from the Norwood News)



[Editor's Note:] Just a reminder to our readers that the Bronx News Network is in the middle of our annual fundraising appeal. If you value quality local journalism, please consider donating so we can continue to bring you news and features, like our daily roundup or our borough events calendar. More details on how to contribute can be found here.

Harris Clean-up Costing Other Parks

Construction at Harris Field, this October (file photo by Layza Garcia)

Editor's note: this article is from this week's Norwood News, our special 2010 year in review issue, which hits the streets today.

By Alex Kratz

There’s a new twist to the saga that has become the remaking of Harris Field in Bedford Park.

Last year, the Norwood News uncovered the Parks Department’s finding of heavy lead contamination underneath the soil at Harris, which caused delays and cost the city $5.2 million to mitigate.

While the city searched for a company to do the clean-up work, residents continued to use the contaminated site, but it wasn’t until a decomposing dead body was found inside the park’s weak fencing in July that the Parks Department got serious about keeping people out.

Now apparently free of contamination, construction of the new ball fields has re-started and Parks is hoping to complete them in time for youth baseball leagues to start using this spring.

The twist is that it is now clear how the problems at Harris are affecting other parks that were in line to receive funding from the Department of Environmental Protection, which injected more than $200 million in capital funding for Bronx parks in exchange for taking public parkland (in Van Cortlandt Park) to build the Croton Water Filtration Plant.

Regatta Park, which sits on the Harlem River and is more of an idea than an actual park, was supposed to receive $1.6 million to help transform it into something public and usable. But now, the clean-up at Harris has sapped all but $93,000 earmarked for the project.

Councilman Fernando Cabrera is working with the DEP, Parks Department and the Department of Transportation (which currently controls the Regatta Park space) to see if they can still get the project going forward.

Bronx News Roundup, Dec. 28

Police have arrested a man in connection with the murder of Betty Williams, a Bronx woman whose body was found stuffed inside a suitcase on a Harlem Street on Dec. 22. Hassan Malik has confessed to the crime, but claims Williams attacked him first, the police say. 

Police are still hunting for the boyfriend of a Kingsbridge Heights woman who was murdered back in August. Consumed by a jealous rage, Hector Ramirez allegedly stabbed Elia Zamora to death as their young son looked on. The case was recently featured on America's Most Wanted.

A 20-year-old Harlem man was shot dead in Williamsbridge on Sunday night.

PS 83 recently donated 500 lbs of food to the 49th Precinct's annual food drive.

Syracuse and Kansas State are gearing up for the inaugural Pinstripe Bowl football game at Yankee Stadium this Thursday. Syracuse's coach, Doug Marrone, grew up in the Bronx and attended Lehman High School, so the game is a homecoming of sorts. Yankees president Randy Levine says the match-up could boost the city's economy by $30 million.

Critics of the Croton Water Filtration Plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park say they're not surprised by allegations of corruption. One contractor plead guilty to fraud last month. Another is under investigation.

Riverdale (and everywhere else for that matter) was hit hard by Sunday's snowstorm, as these photos on  the Riverdale Press' website illustrate. Click here for photos BxNN readers sent in. State Sen. Ruben Diaz, Sr., meanwhile, has slammed Mayor Bloomberg and the city's lacklustre clean-up effort.

Bronx News Roundup, Nov. 30

The Daily News' Patrice O'Shaughnessy says troubling questions still remain in the death of Billy Murphy, a homeless man who died in Norwood back in August. Police insist his death was an accident, but those who knew him aren't convinced. For more on Murphy's life and death, check out this Norwood News story and BxNN post.

A burglary at Our Lady of Refuge School in Bedford Park on Sunday may be connected to a string of recent break-ins at Bronx churches.

A construction firm working on the delayed and over-budget Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park lied about hiring minority subcontractors.  To atone for the fraud, Schiavone Construction has agreed to pay a $20 million fine. According to the Daily News, the firm was ratted out by a Gambino mobster.

In his weekly column, the Daily News' Bob Kappstatter gives some ink to a campaign aimed at encouraging readers and advertisers to boycott the Riverdale Review, a weekly paper published by Andy Wolf. Tony Cassino, a lawyer and politico who has often come under attack in the Review, insists he's only a bit-player in the effort, and that parents angry at Wolf's coverage of Riverdale schools are the ones driving it. For some background on the campaign, here's a Riverdale Press article. It seems a pretty balanced take on the situation considering the two papers rarely see eye to eye. For more, here's Cassino writing about the campaign on his blog, and here's Wolf hitting back at his "anti-first amendment" critics. 

A Bronx man has been charged with stealing $5 million from Columbia University.

State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. was a no-show at yesterday's special session in Albany.  Espada, who leaves office at end of the year, was the only absent Democrat.  According to The Times, he cited a family emergency. Yesterday, Espada's staffers were mum on his whereabouts.  Gustavo Rivera, the man who will take ownership of his seat in January, was in Albany yesterday, where he voted on the Senate Democratic leadership. 

A 15-year-old Bronx boy drowned on Sunday after drifting into the deep end of a hotel swimming pool in Pennsylvania.

The women's basketball coach at Hostos Community College is hoping that four-year colleges begin to take notice of the team's talented players.

Cathleen Black, the city's new schools chancellor, visited PS 109 in Morris Heights this morning. Black was officially hired yesterday.

A pizza delivery man was struck and killed by a car in Riverdale last night as he crossed the street. The driver remained on the scene and wasn't charged.

The family of a Bronx teen shot in the face by a police officer last year is suing the NYPD. The cop lied about what really happened, and had no reason to shoot, the family contends.

Some Bronx organizations which received tax breaks and bonds from the city's Industrial Development Agency in order to boost the local economy, have actually shed jobs, not created them. 

The Rockefeller Center's annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony will be held tonight.  This year, the tree came from the garden of a Bronx fireman who lives upstate.

Bronx News Roundup, Nov. 24

Two construction companies responsible for some of the state's largest public-works projects, among them the Croton Water Filtration Plant in Van Cortlandt Park, are under federal investigation. The feds suspect the contractors evaded laws that they hire a certain percentage of subcontrators owned by minorities or women. The long-delayed and massively over-budget water plant (photos here), is one of the most controversial construction projects in Bronx history. Click here for some background.

Cathleen Black, Mayor Bloomberg's Schools chancellor pick, suffered a set back yesterday when the state's education commissioner, David M. Steiner, expressed doubts about her readiness for the job.

Co-op City's board of directors have voted to remove a board member from one of the complex's coveted townhouses. Leticia Morales was improperly bumped up to the top of the waiting list, the board determined.

A pregnant Bronx teen is suing the city and the NYPD. Stephanie Badillo claims she was handcuffed and strip-searched by cops who mistook her for a drug dealer.

An off-duty Bronx cop who was arrested for drink-driving on Monday, repeatedly smashed his car into the back of a pick-up truck.

Fifteen corrections officers were injured after a fight broke out at Rikers Island.

Aaron Davis, a former owner of the Morris Park Boxing Club, talks about boxing, his old club (which burnt down last year), and the new one he's opened near Westchester Square.  The story and audio slide-show is by Graham Kates, a former Norwood News intern and author of the BxNN's The Yankees, Unobstructed column. 

Thanksgiving is the busiest time of the year for workers at the Hunts Point Produce Market, the largest wholesale food distributor in the country. (On a separate note, the market's future remains uncertain, with businesses threatening to move to a cheaper site in New Jersey.)

Immigrants in the Bronx are getting in the holiday spirit.

A Bronx-based trash collecting company says chef Gordan Ramsey owes it $25,000.

And finally, a tour of JFK's childhood home in Riverdale.

Bronx News Roundup, May 4

Adolfo Carrion, the former Bronx BP who moved to Washington last year to take a job as Obama's urban czar, is returning to New York to work as a regional director for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  The move, which is considered a step down, has some observers scratching their heads.

Last year, jurors on felony cases in the Bronx found defendants guilty 43 percent of the time. In the rest of the city, this figure is above 70 percent.  There are a number of theories as to why this might be. 

Police have released photos of a suspect wanted in connection with the shooting of a man in Mott Haven.

A Bronx woman won the Long Island Marathon on Sunday. Lilia Britez, a 28-year-old who grew up in Paraguay, has only been running seriously for two years.

NY1 recently toured the water filtration plant that's being built in Van Cortlandt Park.  Alex Kratz of the Norwood News went on a similar tour last month. 

A Q & A with State Senator Eric Schneiderman, who's hoping to become New York's next attorney general.

Councilman Jimmy Vacca sat down with Streetsblog recently for a conversation about public transport and safer streets. (Vacca is the new chair of the council's transportation committee.)

Westchester Square merchants says traffic agents are taking up precious parking spots in the neighborhood.

A Bronx firehouse celebrated its 100th anniversary on Monday. 

Convicted thief Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, the grandson and chief-of-staff of Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, has been mocking an adversary on Facebook for being disabled.  Arroyo (the grandson, not the assemblywomen) recently pled guilty to stealing $200,000 from a non-profit.  His sentencing is scheduled for June. 

Inside the Bronx's Biggest Construction Project

[UPDATED, Monday, April 19] This is Bernard Daly, the man who has managed the building of the Croton Water Filtration Plant for the city's Department of Environmental Protection since day one. This morning, Daly took me and some other media folks on a tour of this massive $3 billion undertaking.

Yes, the project is vastly over budget and hasn't delivered Bronxites with the amount of jobs promised to them when the city pitched the community the plan to take over a huge chunk of Van Cortlandt Park and use it for a water filtration plant. But this tour was designed to show people what they're getting for that $3 billion, which will be paid for through a 12.9% hike in water rates this year and probably near that amount in the years to come.

Daly -- pictured standing in a pipe that will one day pump clean, filtered water into city homes -- says the project is about 60% complete and should be done sometime in 2012.

I took some video, which we'll try to get up in the next few days and we'll have more details in next week's edition of the Norwood News. But my first impressions are that this an enormous and incredibly complex project. In fact, it's the biggest municipal construction project in New York City history [Update: I guess I was wrong about this, but the contract awarded to Skanska for the actual construction of the plant is the biggest single contract the city has awarded, according to Daly.] . There are somewhere between 1,300 and 1,400 workers on site every day. Sand Hogs, carpenters, electricians, crane operators, masons, steel workers, safety guys, security, spotters. Really, it's impressive, which I think was the point of the tour.

This project has been criticized before it even began and has been plagued by missteps and miscalculations that have enraged the surrounding communities and the activist watchdogs holding the DEP's feet to the fire.

But in the end, Daly -- a relentlessly enthusiastic and energetic man who obviously loves his job (the guy relishes the monthly DEP community meetings, which other DEP officials have treated like trips to the dentist) -- remains optimistic about how it will be received by the community. "I think people are really going to appreciate it," he told me. We'll see. Click on the "read more" for more photos inside, outside and on top of this behemoth.

Dinowitz Blames Filtration Plant Problems on Bloomberg

[Updated, Nov. 3, 12:56 p.m.]
Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, one of the most outspoken critics of the city's plan to build a an enormous water filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park, says the construction delays, cost overruns and other problems associated with the Department of Enviornmental Protection's project should fall on the shoulders of Mayor Bloomberg.

Bloomberg is up for re-election tomorrow.

The DEP met with members of the filtration plant's monitoring committee and local residents last Thursday at the Amalgamated Houses. Deputy Comptroller John Brown was also on hand to discuss his office's audit of the project, released in early September, that highlighted the problems with the project.

Most notably, the report said the original estimates for the project were so completely innaccurate that it calls into question whether the project should have been sited on public parkland in the first place.

By all accounts, residents at the meeting expressed a great deal of outrage and dismay at the Comptroller's findings.

Here's Dinowitz's complete release:

The meeting that the five community members of the Croton Facilities Monitoring Committee (CFMC) held in the Amalgamated House’s Vladeck Hall on Thursday, October 29 illustrated conclusively that the water filtration plant boondoggle that is costing taxpayers unnecessary billions and is being grossly mismanaged by a secretive NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is one of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s worst failures.

At the meeting, Deputy Comptroller John Graham explained that the recently released audits by Comptroller Bill Thompson found that the DEP could not account for the astronomical rise in costs as compared with their original budgeting for the project. Many who attended spoke emphatically that the comptroller’s findings definitively support their long-held claim that the DEP cooked the books in order to see to it that the plant was built in Van Cortlandt Park and to create a lucrative bonanza for contractors and engineers while sticking everyday New Yorkers with an outrageous bill.

Specifically, the comptroller reported that the DEP failed to account for a cost escalation rate above those substantiated by industry indexes such as the Engineering News-Record Construction index of 5.04%, or the Handy-Whitman Index of Public Utility Construction of 5.73%, or the Prevailing Wage Rates of 4.7%.

I agree with the Comptroller: “(The DEP’s) Underlying estimate was unreliable and lacked sufficient documentation to substantiate its accuracy and completeness.” The still unanswered question of why they did it and who benefited from it was also raised at the meeting, but not surprisingly, though DEP and contractor representatives were present, they did not participate in the discussion. What is clear is that we all need to continue our due diligence until the truth is definitively known.

Though not an official CFMC meeting, the gathering was a clear statement to Mayor Bloomberg’s DEP that a majority of the seven-member committee is fed up over the unexplained costs, debilitating and expensive construction delays, and ongoing DEP stonewalling and lack of transparency as indicated in the comptroller’s audit. It was made clear that at the next CFMC meeting, scheduled for Thursday, November 5 at 7:00 p.m. at the DEP office at 3660 Jerome Avenue, the comptroller’s report is going to be on the agenda and Mayor Bloomberg’s DEP is going to have to attempt to justify their actions and also change the opaque processes which contribute to the scandal on a daily basis.

Since its establishment by the City Council in 2004, the committee charged with monitoring this project was manipulated by the DEP, thereby hampering its work. However, in 2007 after my office reported that the DEP’s explanation rate for the cost escalation was not correct and that DEP’s stated justifications were invalid smoke screens, the committee finally stood up to then-Commissioner Emily Lloyd, and voted to ask for the audit. In a pathetic and obvious attempt to avoid inquiry, though the report was issued almost two months ago, the DEP has balked at scheduling meetings of the CFMC until after the mayoral election.


But Thursday’s history-making meeting proves that no matter how much the Mayor controls the Manhattan media, the people of the Bronx must continue to stand strong in the pursuit of truthful information from City Hall and diligence over the administration’s ongoing attempt to hide from scrutiny.

I applaud the work of the community members of the Croton Facilities Monitoring Committee, and look forward to its next meeting on Thursday, November 5 so we can hear what the DEP has to say.

[Editor's note: It should be noted that the DEP says it cancelled the last two CFMC meetings at the request of CFMC members. The September meeting was cancelled after members found out that a presentation and discussion of the Comptroller's audit was not on the agenda, according to two committee members and the DEP. The October meeting was cancelled because at least one of the members could not attend the meeting, according to CFMC Chairman Greg Faulkner and the DEP. This note was changed and clarified from the original.]

Filter Plant Cost Overruns: Either Incompetence or Lies, Comptroller says

Yesterday, at a lunchtime press conference downtown, Comptroller Bill Thompson re-confirmed long-held suspicions by local watchdogs and activists that, from the beginning, the Croton Water Filtration Plant project has been, and continues to be, a huge, money-eating distaster.

Thompson's office completed two separate audits on the project, one concerning the pace of the project and another concerning the cost of the project.

"What we found was an embarassment," Thompson said, calling out the succession of commissioners at the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Mayor Mike Bloomberg for their roles in mismanaging the project.

Thompson, a Democrat who is running for mayor, said the cost of the plant's construction will exceed $2 billion, more than double the original estimate included in the DEP's final Environmental Impact Staement (FEIS). If you include all the other costs associated with the project, the total pricetage is nearly $3 billion.

This isn't exactly news. We've been reporting this fact for two years. But what is interesting is how wildly innaccurate and vague the FEIS was in the first place. When asked about some of the numbers included in the cost estimates, DEP officials simply could not explain how they came up with them, said Deputy Comptroller John Brown.

Brown said the estimates in the FEIS were "deeply flawed."

The agency also changed its story as it attempted to defend some of the audits findings. For example, Brown said that when the Comptroller's office first asked DEP officials about how they came up with the cost of the plant and why its so much higher than the estimate, they said the estimate was based on just 30 percent of the completed design, which is a low percentage. Then, when the auditors went back to them to say that explanation still didn't make up for all the extra costs, the DEP responded by saying, actually, the estimate was based on just 10 percent of the design.

Even given this explanation, Brown said there are still hundreds of millions of dollars in rising costs that the DEP couldn't expalin.

Bronx Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, a long-time and vocal critic of the filtration plant, went a step further, saying at the press conference that the DEP deliberately "low-balled the estimate at Van Cortlandt Park" and inflated the cost of building it elsewhere in order to sell the project to the public.

Thompson let Dinowitz do the accusing, but said it was the result of "either incompetence or lies," adding that he believed that, in either case, the DEP "misled the public." Dinowitz said it was probably "incompetence plus lies."

"This is the biggest boondoggle in the history of New York City, and we've had plenty of boondoogles in New York City," Dinowitz said.

The DEP has blamed the cost overruns on inflation and escalating construction costs, which were not figured into the agency's calculations. They've also said the original design estimates for the plant were conceptual so they could compare the costs of building at different sites.

But the DEP should have included inflation in its estimates, as well as a range of cost estimates based on design changes that may occur. Brown said all city projects normally include inflation and re-design cost estimates and that the filtration plant should not have been any different.

Thompson said the city might face up to $10 million in addition fines because the project won't be completed by the federally-mandated deadline of October 2011. The audit said the project wouldn't be completed until April 2012.

His office offered 16 recommendations as to how the DEP could remedy the situation, including seeking a waiver for any potential penalties due to delays, immediately completing any outstanding designs and awarding contracts for reamainign off-site work, incorporating a construction schedule to meet certain deadlines and overseeing the work of consultants who do any future cost estimates.

Outrage at DEPs Plan to Use Blasting at Jerome Park Reservoir

It was a packed house last night at Scott Tower where nearly 50 residents gathered for the Croton Facility Monitoring Committee Meeting.

The biggest issue at the meeting was the Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) proposal to use blasting to remove a rock as they build a shaft to connect a water tunnel from the reservoir to the filtration plant at Van Cortlandt Park.

Last fall, DEP officials proposed using this blasting method, but backed off after community outrage led to residents, with support from Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, filed a lawsuit. But last night, DEP was again proposing to use blasting, saying their current method of hoe-ramming is taking too long and is not an efficient method for the size of the rock.

At the meeting, DEP officials presented their proposal for Phase Two of the construction project and also presented an abbreviated version of a “tech memo,” which they say provides detailed information about blasting. The DEP did not bring copies of this memo, and instead directed residents to the DEP website to view the 80-plus page document. (We are still searching for the document online.)

Residents again expressed their frustration with the lack of transparency and demanded that DEP submit a supplemental environmental impact statement (EIS) as blasting would be a deviation from the original EIS, which states that no drilling or blasting would take place at the reservoir.

DEP official, Angela Licata, said that the use of blasting was a minor change and referred to the Environmental Conservation Law that states that a supplemental EIS must be submitted if changes are made that affect the environment. Licata said that this will be a construction changes that would not affect the environment, and therefore DEP would not submit a supplemental EIS. She explained that, although hoe-ramming was not listed as a method, it was listed within the document as equipment. Licata responded to several audience members who shouted that DEP was lying and admitted that DEP could have done a better job of informing the community.

“I don’t think we did a very good job of describing hoe-ramming [in the original EIS],” she said.

If DEP uses blasting, it will be in the second phase of the project, which could start as early as September. Phase Two is expected to last three months. Since school will be in session, DEP is planning to blast before and after school hours, but officials explained that blasting would only last several seconds, once or twice a day, three to five times a week, compared to hoe-ramming, which is a constant sound throughout the day. (Apparently, the Bronx High School of Science has been complaining about the noise levels of hoe-ramming and DEP has agreed to work around the school schedule.)

When pressed by one Scott Tower resident, DEP officials said they would be happy to place a vibration monitor in the building to measure the effects of blasting, which DEP says will be minimal at worst and unnoticeable at best.

Anne Marie Garti, president of the Jerome Park Conservancy asked if there would be water in the reservoir during blasting. DEP officials said that although they don’t like to do it, they may have to keep water in the reservoir.

At the end of the meeting, the committee voted to propose that DEP conduct a supplemental EIS. The committee said this would alleviate the concerns of the community as the EIS is a formal process and DEP’s tech memo is not.

DEP officials projected that construction will last until 2012. The next meeting will take place in May.

Bronxites make a stink about water rates but wonder if the Water Board is really listening

Reporting and Opinion by Gregory Lobo Jost

Two members of Mayor Bloomberg's Water Board sat mostly silent in the auditorium of the Bronx Library Center on Kingsbridge Road yesterday afternoon. Their executive director (and acting DEP Commissioner) had left before even the first testimony was heard to attend to something that must have been very important upstate. (One wonders if they planned the hearing in the Bronx for that time so Mr. Lawitts could be a bit closer to his meeting 100 miles north of the City). The impending 14% water rate increase kept those in attendance agitated and the two board members mostly silent, save the new board chair Alan Moss's (in photo at center) recollections of growing up on Pelham Parkway to open up the hearing. Most of the talking by anyone on stage was done by the hearing officer (in photo at left).

Meanwhile, the same two City Council members from the Bronx once again attended the hearing. Councilman Koppell focused his testimony on how DEP could shrink the size of the hike by assuming a better collection rate, given the powers bestowed upon the agency by the City Council to sell water liens on multifamily properties and turn off service for delinquent single family homeowners. Councilmembers, of course, feel duped into giving DEP such powers since it is hasn't resulted in lower rate hikes like they were told. And since we are in a deep recession with the City's jobless rate spiking and foreclosures continuing to stay at or near all-time highs, collections will likely not improve; with each new double-digit water rate hike and the worsening of the City's economy comes the realization that many are unable to pay any of their bills, or must at least make the difficult decision between paying the mortgage, property taxes, heating oil, Con Edison, or water bill -- which would you choose? (UNHP's analysis last year showed 15-20% of homeowners at least one year delinquent on their water bills were already in foreclosure.)

Councilman Vacca made his points about how ironically conservation of water leads to higher water rates, and how the rates are really a hidden regressive tax that subsidize the City coffers. He focused on how DEP's budget continues to grow, while every other City agency must make drastic cuts. He implied that the Mayor may even encourage DEP spending increases because the more the agency pays in debt service on capital projects, the more money goes into the City's budget in the form of a rental payment.

Testimony was also heard from environmental groups who (rightfully) continue to harp on the poor decision making regarding the filtration plant, and from a private affordable housing owner and manager who warned of the toll these repeated increases will have on low income renters in the form of reduced services.

Three members of University Neighborhood Housing Program (including myself) testified as well. Included in my testimony was the suggestion for the Water Board to get a proportional cut of alternate side parking ticket revenue since, according to the Independent Budget Office, water rates subsidized street cleaning to the tune of $30 million last year. While somewhat in jest, I used this point to illustrate how the Mayor avoids raising taxes by bilking water rate payers to pay for City services.

UNHP's outreach coordinator, Jumelia Abrahamson, pointed out to the two present members of the Water Board that "the only thing that has gone up faster than the water rate over the past few years is the foreclosure rate." When this rate increase goes into effect, water rates will have gone up 60% in just four years, and will have more than doubled since 2001. To make matters worse, Councilmember Vacca pointed out that DEP is projecting double digit rate hikes for the next few years as well.

While legitimate suggestions were made on how to shrink the size of this year's increase, it is unlikely the Water Board will take any immediate action. Members who took the Mayor to task on the increase last year are no longer on the board.

Meanwhile, the results of the rate study commissioned last year are yet to arrive, meaning the Water Board does not have any recommendations about improving the structuring of the rate system that it will likely take seriously. If that's really the case, then the most useful suggestion of the afternoon may have come from Community Board 7 District Manager Fernando Tirado, who in the last testimony of the afternoon urged those in the audience to remember this rate increase when it comes time to vote in the fall.

The Daily News also covered the hearing.

New from the Norwood News

Check out all the new stories from the Norwood News, out on streets and online now!

Crime is down, but hotspots remain hot in the 52nd Precinct.

The constantly evolving plans at the Croton Water Filtration Plant project, including a dramatic design change, may have led to the projects soaring price tag and could lead to unforeseen environmental impacts.

More than a thousand people attended the parish of St. Brendan's 100th year anniversary mass.

A glimpse at the bowling renaissance at Clinton High School.

In an online exclusive this issue, our Inquiring Photographer asks locals what they're doing on election night.

Plus, our 2008 voter's guide, expanded Neighborhood Notes and our Out & About arts and entertainment guide.

Bloomberg Out of Touch on Water Rates

Opinion by Gregory Lobo Jost
Our billionaire mayor once again shows how out of touch he is with reality by crassly dismissing calls to provide immediate relief to water rate payers. When asked about the calls by City Council Members Gennaro and Weprin for the City to return a portion of the rental payment to rate payers, Mayor Mike brushed off the entire issue. So reports the Daily News,

"They spend the money on real projects which we need," Bloomberg said of the city's water system Monday. "From what I can tell, they do it reasonably efficiently, and this [rental relief] seems to me to be a brouhaha about nothing from a couple of people who want to run for higher office."

While some of the elected officials making this point are running for higher office, that doesn't make their point invalid. In fact, those who will be sticking around in public office during the coming years realize that the problem of incresing water rates will only get worse. The easiest route for Bloomberg is to ignore the problem and let the next Administration deal with it -- so much for our visionary Mayor planning ahead to 2030! What about 2010?!?

Significant side point: The Mayor probably wasn't thinking about the filtration plant where costs have skyrocketed when he made his "reasonably efficiently" comment. (By the way, the parks improvements that were part of the deal Bronx politicians made to allow the construction in Van Cortlandt Park aren't being paid for out of the Parks Department budget -- they are coming from rising water rates!)

While the Water Board is also holding hearings this week (last night in the Bronx and tomorrow at 5:30 in Manhattan), they will argue that all that they actually have little control and our points should be made directly to the Mayor's office. Since the Mayor's office isn't holding public hearings on the topic, though, advocates will continue to press major points of reform with the Mayorally-appointed Water Board. Hopefully they will have the wherewithal to take our case to the Mayor, or resign in protest of what's going on -- but I wouldn't hold my breath on either count.

Meanwhile, the Independent Budget Office released a report on the water rate increases this week, although they focus entirely on short-term relief. A better comprehensive look at the system can be found in the Urban Prospect (entitled Liquid Assets), released today by the Citizens Housing and Planning Council.

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.

Comptroller to Audit Filter Plant Cost Overruns

The Riverdale Press reports that City Comptroller William Thompson will indeed audit the cost overruns of the filtration plant project in Van Cortlandt Park. In February, the filtration plant monitoring committee voted to ask the city and state comptrollers, as well as the Independent Budget Office, to look into the project's massive cost overruns. So far, the IBO and city comptroller have agreed to audit the project, which is being handled by the city's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

The cost of the plant is now triple the original estimate and recently an executive at one of project's primary contractors was indicted for extortion in connection with organized crime syndicates.

Heading Off the Next Round of Double-Digit Water Rate Increases

Summit in the Bronx brings together nonprofit, public and private sectors to discuss overhauling the way the City pays for water

In anticipation of the next double-digit water rate hike expected to be announced Friday morning, advocates, researches and City watchdog agencies will come together this Thursday to discuss ways to overhaul the way we pay for water in New York City. Currently, water rates cover much more than the cost of water in and sewage out of their homes—they also cover all of the ballooning capital costs at the filtration plant being built in the Bronx and the UV treatment facility upstate, not to mention a hefty rental payment that will subsidize City coffers by more than $8 billion between now and 2036, according to an estimate by the NYC Comptroller’s Office last fall.

Despite improved collections and enforcement practices taken on by DEP in the past year, including lien sales and shut-offs, double-digit rate increases are expected each year for the foreseeable future. The problem is much bigger than the so-called deadbeats who aren’t paying their bills. DEP’s capital construction plan is the second largest in the City after the Department of Education. But unlike DOE, there is no outside funding to subsidize the cost of the water projects – most federal support has dried up, even as mandates have increased.

These huge increases in the cost of water disproportionately affect lower-income neighborhoods, and our City’s affordable housing stock, much of which was renovated with City funds starting during the Koch administration. Ironically, Mayor Koch’s enormous (and successful) 10 year housing plan announced in 1986 was in large part possible because it coincided with shifting the capital costs of the water system onto rate payers, freeing up money to rebuild the City’s devastated neighborhoods. Nearly 25 years later, rising water and sewer costs threaten the same housing preserved by Koch’s plan.

On hand to discuss the impacts of the water system on affordable housing and conservation efforts at the Water Rate Reform Summit at Fordham University on April 10 will be Marcia Van Wagner, Deputy Comptroller for the NYC Comptroller’s Office, Preston Niblack, Deputy Director of the City’s Independent Budget Office, Harold Schulz, Senior Fellow at the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, Dart Westphal, Executive Director of the Mosholu Preservation Corporation, and John McCarthy, Executive V.P. and Chief Operating Officer of the Community Preservation Corporation. Bronx nonprofit University Neighborhood Housing Program will convene the summit as part of their work on the impact of water rates on affordable housing over the past twenty years.

The report, entitled "Water and Sewer Rate Reform Summit: Can NYC achieve affordable water rates, promote conservation, and control capital costs?" is posted on UNHP's website.

Contact Information: Jim Buckley jim@unhp.org or Gregory Lobo Jost gjost@unhp.org, 718-933-3101

Bronx Leaders Discuss Filter Plant Problems Tonight

Tune in to Gary Axelbank's show BronxTalk PrimeTime (Bronxnet, Channel 67) at 9 p.m. tonight as Father Richard Gorman and Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz discuss the latest incriminating revelations from the city's Croton Water Filtration Plant project in Van Cortlandt Park.

Last Thursday night, the city's Department of Investigation said it was still looking into whether organized crime figures influenced the siting of the project after an executive from one of the project's contractors was indicted along with more than 60 members of the Gambino crime family.

The show will then be re-broadcast throughout the week.

UNHP Responds to DEP’s 18% mid-Year Water Rate Proposal

DEP’s threat to go to the Water Board for an 18% mid-year rate increase has placed the cost of water in New York City back in the spotlight. City Hall and DEP are apparently hoping to get the City Council to enact legislation to allow the sale of stand alone water liens to bolster revenues from water bills. (Currently, water liens can only be sold if there is an accompanying tax lien.)

Everyone interested in maintaining a safe water supply that is affordable to all New Yorkers should take advantage of the opportunity offered by this political gamesmanship to publicly raise the real issue: the cost of water is out of control and threatens the economic futures of many New Yorkers.

Water bills currently pay for (1) the operation of the system, (2) the debt service on bonds for capital projects related to water and (3) a rental payment to the City of New York. Better collections will help DEP’s financial picture, but other steps must be taken. For instance, the Water Board’s rental agreement with City could be re-negotiated. Few people know that the Water Board’s rental payment this year is $154 million; reducing or eliminating that payment would be a big help this year for the Water Board budget.

Additionally, DEP’s capital budget needs to be examined to determine the necessity of certain projects, the timing of projects and the real costs of projects in construction. For example, the filtration plant in Van Cortlandt Park started out as a $1.2 billion job and now the costs are estimated to be $2.8 billion.

The importance of preserving the infrastructure to maintain an ample source of clean water is obvious. But the existing housing stock is an equally important part of the city’s economic infrastructure. Neither can be replaced and both require long-term capital investment. The housing infrastructure’s capital needs will be starved by the cumulative effect of water rate increases that are now being forecast.

We urge the Mayor and City Council to work with the community to develop a comprehensive answer to the water issue.

Jim Buckley, Executive Direcor
Gregory Lobo Jost, Deputy Director

Bronx News Roundup Sept. 28

The Times has finally written about the exploding costs of the Croton Water Filtration Plant being built in Van Cortlandt Park. They've come to the story a little late - the Norwood News ran a similar piece last November - but it's good to see this important issue getting some much needed coverage.

There was an attempted murder-suicide in Kingsbridge Heights yesterday.

More on the new Yankee Stadium parking garages.

The gap between the health of rich New Yorkers and those living in poverty is widening, according to a new study.

Bronx hip-hop pioneer, Afrika Bambaataa, is one of the nominees for the 2008 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.