Bronx News Roundup, July 1

Happy July, all! Here's what's happening in the borough this first day of the month:

The BoogieDowner blog raised questions yesterday about senate candidate Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter's work history and wonders how she can continue to receive disability payments while campaigning full-time. The post includes a response from Pilgrim-Hunter's campaign. Pilgrim-Hunter is one of four candidates challenging incumbent Pedro Espada, Jr. in the race for 33rd Senate District seat. A robust and heated debate is developing in the comments section of their post.

The NYOFCo fertilizer plant in Hunts Point is finally leaving the neighborhood--much the delight of residents who've been plagued by the plant's foul-smelling odors for years.

A Bronx car theft ring was broken up by police and the Attorney General's office yesterday, with 17 people arrested on felony charges.

More troubles for the Arroyo clan: an aide to Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo has been accused of posing as a police officer and robbing a Bronx home in May (Arroyo's grandson, Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, was sentenced to a year in jail this week for embezzlement).

Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez donated $250,000 to Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center to construct the hospital's new children's outpatient center.

Two of the four pianos placed at various Bronx sites as part of the "Play Me, I'm Yours," public art project were damaged this week. 

Co-op City workers ratified a new four-year contract yesterday with management company RiverBay Corp. (disputes between the two resulted in a week long, garbage-filled strike at the enormous housing complex last month, as sanitation crews there stopped collecting trash).

Police are looking for a 13-year-old runaway and her baby, who were last seen in Soundview yesterday  morning.

There's a damper on graduation festivities at John F. Kennedy High School, as the school's principal faces accusations that he misused school funds.

State tries anew to cut NYOFCo's stench

Under a cloud of uncertainty about its future following the loss last month of its contract with the city, the embattled sewage-to-fertilizer company NYOFCo now faces a new challenge: around-the-clock scrutiny of its odor by an independent team of engineers.

But at a public meeting at the Point CDC on April 29, skeptical residents and advocates angrily questioned the engineers and state officials about the new strategy.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation imposed the new requirement on NYOFCo, making it pay for monitors who will measure the smells within a mile of the plant on Oak Point Avenue.

Opponents of NYOFCo said awful smells reach far beyond that area, and objected that no public outreach has been planned to alert the community to the new way to complain.

Get the story in The Hunts Point Express.

City cuts ties with NYOFCo

NYOFCo, the sewage processing plant with the candy-striped smoke stack that has afflicted Hunts Point residents with sickening smells for the last 18 years, has lost its contract with New York City.

The plant’s closing may not be far off.

But in a defiant statement, the company said it would keep operating, and warned that without the money it earns from the city, it would not be able to make changes that would curb the odor from the plant.

Read the whole story in The Hunts Point Express.

New issue of the Hunts Point Express

The August issue of The Hunts Point Express has just hit the streets, with stories about opposition to efforts to open a strip club, an explosion that has closed the controversial plant that converts sewage to fertilizer, a unique health program that trains “barefoot doctors,” the running battle over a proposal to tear down a highway, the new playground that kids designed, Majora Carter’s latest venture, and the Secretary of the Treasury’s visit. Get your free copy at libraries, community centers and other gathering places in Hunts Point and Longwood or visit www.huntspointexpress.com.

New issue of the Hunts Point Express

With a special report on the largest food distribution center in the world--the three Hunts Point markets--the March issue of The Hunts Point Express has hit the streets.

The paper also reports on:

• Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's suit to stop the sickening stench from a fertilizer plant;
• the neighborhood institution on the front lines in the war on obesity and diabetes;
• the scarcity of daycare for working parents and its consequences
• break-ins plaguing area businesses
• and new scholarships that could provide up to $50,000 to eight college-bound high school students.

Find The Express at local community centers, clinics and some stores and on-line at www.huntspointexpress.com

Cuomo sues over stench in Hunts Point

The state attorney general Andrew Cuomo has filed suit in State Supreme Court in the Bronx against the company, whose distinctive red and white smokestack has drawn community anger for years. The suit, announced on Feb. 5, against both the New York Organic Fertilizer Company and its parent company Synagro Technologies charges that the odors are a public nuisance that disrupt the life of residents, schools and libraries and nearby Barretto Point Park.

For the full story, see The Hunts Point Express.