Bronx News Roundup, March 27

We'll start with the economy.

Though Wall Street was on upswing, the latest labor numbers show that New York City continues to lose jobs at a startling rate. The state labor department said the ranks of the city's unemployed has swelled to 355,000 people, with the Bronx being hit the hardest. The unemployment rate in the Bronx last month was 10.8 percent, compared to 8.8 percent in Brooklyn and 7.7 percent in Manhattan. Overall, the city's unemployment rate is 8.1 percent.

[It's important to note that those percentages only include those who are actively seeking employment, which leaves a whole population (which the government doesn't track) of the borough's jobless.]

The owner of an Arthur Ave. bakery, Walter Galliano, was charged with cheating his workers out of $350,000 in pay. In the same Times story, it says Alex Moreno, the owner of a Getty gas station on Jerome Ave. was also charged with shortchanging his workers, sometimes paying them as little as $4 an hour for 12 hour shifts.

Yesterday, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer proposed some ways to keep mayoral control with the city school district, but offer parents more of a say.

This is interesting because Bronx Assemblyman Ruben Diaz, Jr., who is expected to win the special election for borough president on April 21, expressed his support for Stringer's plans, which would put control of local education councils into the hands of the borough presidents' offices, in an interview yesterday. (More on this interview next week.) Bronx Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz is expected to introduce the legislation on the state level.

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein says city education jobs may have to be cut if the state doesn't pony up more money, or a fairer share, of the federal stimulus money that is being filtered through Albany.

A Bronx mom is suing the city over contamination found at PS 178.

Two weeks after receiving a heart transplant, five-month old Adrien Flores was release from Montefiore hospital yesterday. (More on this later.)

Good Day for Dinowitz

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz is being honored tonight at Manhattan College for his work in passing legislation to combat human trafficking. The Norwood News wrote an editorial about Dinowitz's role in 2007.

Also, according to the Daily News, Dinowitz will soon be introducing legislation that would put Community Education Councils under the jurisdiction of borough presidents rather than the Department of Education and the Bloomberg administration (the story is not on-line yet but we'll post it when it is). The idea is to give the Councils more independence from the DOE so they can better hold the school system accountable.