Bronx Politics: Party at Gustavo's Place

Bronx State Sen. Gustavo Rivera moved into his new office at 2432 Grand Concourse last week. Tonight, he's inviting the public to attend an open house at the office from 5 to 8 p.m. (Photo by Adi Talwar).

Editor's note: This story first appeared in the May edition of the Mt. Hope Monitor.

Like every New York state senator, when 33rd District representative Gustavo Rivera moved into his local office, he received two flags – the stars and stripes of the United States of America and the goddesses of Liberty and Justice of New York state – as well as a copy machine and a dated set of rectangular office furniture.

“They [senate administrative staffers] told me they only had rectangular furniture,” said Rivera’s communications director Conchita Cruz, sitting in the new office on the fifth floor of the Poe Building on the Grand Concourse, across from the Loew’s Paradise Theater. “But they said they had received a lot of requests for oval tables.”

Four Months Into Job, Sen. Gustavo Rivera to Move into District Office Next Week

[UPDATE: Cruz wanted to respond to this post by sending over a statement:  "Senator Rivera is excited that the New York State Senate has finally approved the lease for his permanent office. The office was identified in December and the process of approval began in January. This lengthy process that Senator Rivera and his constituents have experienced is a very tangible illustration of the need to reform the way business is done in Albany." Cruz also said she was told by a staffer for senate Democrats that there other legislators who are still trying to secure office space. She added that while she and Rivera have worked from home, Rivera's team has either worked from the senate offices at 250 Broadway or the mobile office locations. For constituents, I've posted those mobile office hours at the bottom of the post.]

Looks like the Gustavo Rivera Watch will come to an end next week when the 33rd District state senator begins the long-delayed move into his new district office in the Poe Building on the Grand Concourse, just south of Fordham Road. (The address is 2432 Grand Concourse for those looking to Google map it.)

Conchita Cruz, Rivera's communications director, said final approval just came through this morning and that the state senate would be shipping furniture to the office on Tuesday.

Rivera is the only state senator without a district office. For the past three and a half months, when he hasn't been in Albany, he's been working out of his Kingsbridge-area apartment or downtown at the state senate offices near City Hall. His staff has been holding mobile office hours at various locations and working out of their own homes.

Cruz has said the delay wasn't some nefarious plot by the Republican majority, but rather just typical Albany bureaucracy slowly working its way toward accomplishing something as simple as approving and signing a lease on a district office. (It remains unclear which explanation is a sadder illustration of Albany's problems.)

In any case, Cruz said they will probably hold some kind of ribbon-cutting ceremony or open house in the next couple of weeks.

As for the Gustavo Rivera Watch, a count-up that somebody launched a few days ago, starting the clock from the day he won the primary seems slightly unfair. Technically, Rivera's been office-less for 111 days so far. Not as bad as his predecessor, Pedro Espada, Jr., who didn't open an office -- it turned out to be just outside of the district and was his "majority leader" office -- until he was nine months into the job.

In the meantime, below are Rivera's mobile office hours, which Cruz said they are committed to keeping for the next couple of weeks:

--Monday: 10-2pm, Mosholu Montefiore Community Center, 3450 DeKalb Avenue
--Monday: 1-5pm, Asm. Castro's Office, 2175 Jerome Avenue, Suite C Bronx, NY 10453
--Tuesday: 2-6pm, Councilman Koppell's office - 3600 Waldo Ave.
--Wednesday: 10-1, 2-4, CB 7 Office, 229A E 204th St
--Thursday: 12-5 CB 6 1932 Arthur Avenue, Room 709

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.

Espada Says District Office Opening 'Imminent'

State Senator Pedro Espada's PR guy Steve Mangione says his boss is expecting to pick up the keys to his new district office on the seventh floor of Fordham Place (at 400 E. Fordham Road, which may or may not be in his district; we'll have to get a ruling on that soon)sometime this weekend.

In an e-mail, Mangione writes that "Sen. Espada said the keys to the district office will be turned over by the building's management company this weekend, making the opening imminent."

This sounds a little more concrete than past promises from Espada's camp, but we'll wait to see if it indeed comes to fruition.

Espada is the only New York Senator without a district office.

The controversial new majority leader has been angling to secure office space at Fordham Place since February. Reportedly, Senate leadership balked at giving him the budget to afford rent at Fordham Place, which was estimated to be close to $100,000 a year.

Apparently, now that he's majority leader, a concession he negotiated following a month-long defection to the Republican party, Espada is getting what he wants, including flashy new digs in a newly-renovated office building (but not a job for his son who recently resigned from a plum $120,000 gig with the State Senate).

Stay tuned.

Angry Bronx Protesters Ask: "Que Pasa Espada?"

Almost a hundred New York City residents gathered today to rally against State Senator Pedro Espada outside what is said to be his District Office on the corner of Fordham Road and Webster Avenue in the Bronx.

Community members held signs and shouted chants to ask Espada, whose last name means 'sword' in Spanish, to not stab them in the backs when it comes to affordable housing.

In Espada's district alone, 77,000 rent-regulated apartments face future destablization if the state decides not to repeal vacancy decontrol laws. (The legistlation to end vacancy decontrol is sitting on his desk as head of the Senate's housing committee and may not see the light of day now that the Senate is no longer functioning.)

Residents say Espada has not been sympathetic to their needs and now that Espada has sided with Republicans, residents say he has "sold out" his community.

"I am here in solidarity with the community of the Bronx and with Latinos, asking that Senator Espada be more responsible!" shouted Ramona Santana, a member of the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition.

Santana said leaders from her organization, as well as others, have repeatedly asked Espada to hold a community hearing on rent regulation issues in the Bronx, but it has never materialized. One instance that stood out in particular, she told reporters, was when Coalition members waited for over an hour in Albany to hear statements from Espada, but he never showed.

"He has refused to look in the face when we asked for a public hearing and now what he has given us is a sword in the back," said Santana.

At one point last month, during a press conference led by tenant advocates, Espada vowed to address all the rent regulation bills (including the repeal of rent decontrol) by the end of the legislative session, toward the end of June.

On Tuesday, Joseph Strasburg, the head of the leading landlord lobbying group, the Rent Stabilization Association, which is adamantly opposed to the repeal of rent decontrol or any other rent regulation laws, was delighted to hear

Despite what Espada claims on his Senate Web site, the spot for the protest, 400 E. Fordham Road, is not the location of his district office, at least not yet. He is the only New York lawmaker without a district office, or even a local phone number for residents to call.

In addition, the Bronx DA is looking into whehter Espada actually lives in the district he represents. Espada's real residency is said to instead be in Mamaroneck.

Esperanza Vasquez, who spoke to reporters at the curbside press conference, said the Bronx needs a representative who knows what is happening in the community and is accessible.

"We need a leader who actually does lead us," Vasquez said. "(A leader) who lives in the Bronx and thinks about Latinos, and thinks about the conditions in which we are living in our housing and thinks about the state our schools are in."

Shahid Van, a Bronx resident, said what Espada has been doing is not legal. "New York politics is in crisis," he said. "Espada is a corrupt politician--a textbook corrupt politician."

Fordham Place Building Manager: Never Heard of Pedro Espada

This is the office building, Fordham Place (400 E. Fordham Road), that State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr. claims is home to his district office, at least on his Web site.

But that simply is not true, said the building's manager, Todd McGaughey. In fact, McGaughey said he'd never spoken to the man or even heard of Espada until seeing his name and face plastered all over recent newspapers.

This is all despite the fact that Espada has been claiming he's been in negotiations with the building's property managers for months now.

About a month ago, Espada's press guy, Steve Mangione, told me the problem with getting a district office up and running was with Senate officials who weren't signing off on Espada's plan for new digs.

Today, the NY Times reported that Espada was asking for $100,000 a year (more than twice the amount allotted for New York City senators) for rent for his district office and the Senate had rejected him. It was one of the reasons Espada defected to the Republicans, along with the Democrats' refusal to sign off on his earmarks (known as member items), which Espada reportedly was directing to nonprofit groups of his own creation. So, now, as Republican, maybe he'll have a district office. But it hasn't happened yet.

If that sounds familiar, it's because the man Espada supplanted in the 33rd Senate district, Efrain Gonzalez, recently pleaded guilty to bilking the state for hundreds of thousands of dollars, by funelling state money, through member items, into two nonprofit groups he created. That money then ended up in his own pocket.

More on Espada's District Office

Lots flying around Bronx papers and the blogosphere about State Senator Pedro Espada, Jr.'s district office, or lack thereof.

Here's what we know, courtesy of Espada's press guy, Steve Mangione (who also does PR work Espada's South Bronx healthcare centers).

Espada has negotiated a lease with property managers at 400 E. Fordham Road, a newly remodeled building near Webster Ave., which also houses Sears and a fitness center, Mangione says, and the senator will hold a ribbon-cutting ceremony to open the office in mid-April.

Calls to property managers to confirm this were not returned yesterday, but we'll keep trying.

More on why it's taken so long in the next issue of the Norwood News, which hits streets tomorrow morning. We'll preview the Web version of the issue here tomorrow morning as well.

Espada Yet to Open District Office

By the time new State Senator Brian X. Foley, a Democrat from Suffolk County, was sworn in on Jan. 7, he'd already opened a district office.

In a statement released earlier that week Foley said:

I am excited to move into my new office... I promised the residents of the 3rd Senatorial District that my staff and I would work hard for them from day one – and we have kept that promise.

Most of New York's newly elected state senators (there are seven in all) were similarly punctual and organized, meaning constituents, right off the bat, had somewhere to go to access services and air concerns.

Two senators, however, even deep into January, have yet to follow suit. One is Roy J. McDonald (Republican - Rensselaer/Saratoga); the other, the Bronx's Pedro Espada Jr., whose focus has likely been elsewhere in recent weeks (here and here).

According to staff at Espada's Soundview Health Center, a district office is in the works but it won't open until next month. In the meantime, residents in need of assistance can call the health center at (718) 378-1465, or the senator's Albany office at (518) 455-3395.

[Update, 4:40 p.m. Espada says he's currently looking at office space in the newly renovated Sears Building on Fordham Road, but that nothing's been finalized.]

Reporting by Ariel Elghanayan.