Bronx News Roundup, July 6

Weather: Another hot one today, with temperatures in the high 80s and a chance of thunderstorms later. (If you or someone you know needs to get out of the heat, find one of the city's air conditioned cooling centers here).

Story of the Day: South Bronx, One End of the 'Wealth Gap'
An interesting and graphic-heavy feature from this week's New York magazine takes a comparative look at one of the nation's wealthiest Congressional districts--Manhattan's East Side--and the poorest, NY 16, or the South Bronx. Among the not-so-surprising but still-glaring differences are median income ($79,385 vs. $23,073, respectively), a typical family's weekly budget ($2,222.98 vs. $539.50), the number of Starbucks coffee shops (90 vs. 1), and the number of times Mayor Bloomberg visited each district in a year (42 vs. 10).

"Whatever is happening nationwide always manifests itself much more dramatically in the South Bronx. Always has," Congressman Jose Serrano, who has represented this district for decades, told the magazine. "When people are talking about 5 percent unemployment, we may be talking about 10 percent unemployment."

Bronx News Roundup, Oct. 9

Happy Friday, everyone. Let's get to the news as we head into the Columbus Day weekend.

It will be an even-longer extended weekend for the 136 employees of the Stella D'oro cookie factory in Kingsbridge, which closed its doors for the last time yesterday afternoon. The plant had produced cookies in the area for almost 80 years. For more than a year, workers were on strike after refusing to take a significant pay cut. In June, the National Labor Relation's Board ordered the plant to restore workers at their previous pay. The owners responded by selling the company to a snack maker that is moving the company's operation to Ohio.

The Indypendent has some good coverage of the workers' response yesterday. Times' city columnist Jim Dwyer wrote about this earlier this week.

There will be a rally outside of the cookie factory on Boadway at 3 p.m. this afternoon.

On Tuesday, thousands showed up to mourn a Bronx firefighter who was killed fighting a blaze in Yonkers last Friday.

The Bronx Zoo recently opened a new Global Conservation Center.

Gov. Paterson praised the stem cell research being done at the Bronx's Albert Einstein College of Medicine, which is the teaching hospital of the Montefiore Medical Center. He called it the "wave of the future."

The Daily News' says the swine flu disporportionally affects blacks and Latinos. The city's vaccination effort kicked off in the Bronx at Montefiore on Tuesday.

A new group in the east Bronx is keeping watch on distressed homes.

Bronx rapper Fat Joe, who just released his ninth solo album on Tuesday, "J.O.S.E 2," said his career goal remains to produce the best hip-hop record of all-time.

Bronx News Roundup, September 30

Yesterday, the New York Times detailed the conflict between Related Companies and the Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA) over the proposed supermarket at the Kingsbridge Armory. In the article, a representative for Related said that the developer was not going to let the supermarket issue end the plans for the armory, but he insisted that Related would not give in to KARA's demand for a living wage requirement.

Thirsty for a taste of the Bronx? Try Bronx Pop-- Bronx BP Ruben Diaz's soda of choice, according to the New York Daily News. For more information on Bronx Pop, check out our blog posting on the product published two weeks ago.

Last Friday, Stella D'Oro factory workers picketed outside of Goldman Saks, an investor in Lance Inc. (the owner of the factory), and then marched to City Hall in an effort to keep the cookie factory in Kingsbridge. Lance Inc. recently announced that they plan on closing the Bronx factory and moving production to Ohio.

A survey done by the US census bureau found that the Bronx continues to be the poorest urban county in the country. According to the survey, 380,000 Bronx residents live below the poverty line.

Happy Anniversary BronxTalk! The show will celebrate its 15th anniversary next Monday with a special hour-long episode. For more information on the show's history, click here.

Riverdale Pols Say Cookie Company Owes City

Local lawmakers are not letting the Bronx-based cookie factory, Stella D’oro go without a fight.

Congressman Eliot Engel, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz and Councilman Oliver Koppell recently drafted a letter to the New York City Department of Finance, asking them stop the company’s move to Ohio until taxpayers money that was granted to them in the form of a tax abatement is returned.

The three politicians are also requesting the cookie business not be allowed to take plant machinery with them that they say was purchased and upgraded using taxpayer dollars.

“We feel very strongly that the New York City tax payers should not be outsourced to Ohio,” the three said in the letter.

Stella D'Oro was awarded tax abatements under the Industrial Commerical Abatement Program(ICAP).

Brynwood Partners, the Connecticut-based private equity firm that purchased Stella D’Oro from Kraft in 2006, announced earlier this month the sale of the pastry label to Lance Inc., prompting the relocation of production, including the machinery at the Bronx plant, to Ashland, Ohio. The move is set to take place in October.

The letter also references the end of 10 month-long employee strike that came to a close in July after the company was charged with unfair labor practices. Engel, Dinowitz, and Koppell believe the closing of the bakery may have been in retaliation, saying the workers' "sense of justice was short lived."

"We should not be sending our jobs and tax money to Ohio," said Engel. "Brynwood Partners made a coldy calculated that they wanted to break the Union," he added, "and when they lost a National Labor Relations Board decision, they decided to sell out. "

The lawmakers are demanding a temporary restraining order against the sale until the Department of Finance enacts "'claw back' procedures to recoup the tax abatements," that they say "have not been expended in a way beneficial to New York City."

They additionally requested that Lance Inc. be informed of their intentions.

Councilman Koppell hopes the city gets involved.

“It’s a longshot but we’re trying it," he said.

Bronx News Roundup, Sept. 11

We'll start this dreary Friday off with some politics as we approach the last weekend before the Sept. 15 primary.

Big profile of 14th District Councilwoman Maria Baez in the Times. Headline: "Often-Absent Bronx Councilwoman Fights for Political Survival." The article then starts off with the story of how Baez, owner of the worst attendance record in the City Coucnil, missed 24 consecutive meetings in the spring of 2008. During that time she spent at least a week in Puerto Rico with her daughter and her daughter's fiancee.

She charged the $3,100 trip to her state campaign committee and said she was meeting a fund-raiser there. But there are no contributors from Puerto Rico listed in her campaign finance reports.

This is also the time when Baez says she was missing Council meetings because of an illness that she won't discuss. Baez says the illness affected her in 2008, but the article goes on to say that she only attended 58% of her Council meetings in 2005.

Times' reporter Ray Rivera calls Baez, "the rarest of the rare, a City Council incumbent in danger of losing her seat." In the last 20 years, incumbents have won 97% of Council races.

Some commentary on Baez and the 14th District Council race in the Village Voice. And here's some more from Liz Benjamin about the race, including Al Sharpton's endorsement of Fernando Cabrera. Yudelka Tapia is also in the three-headed race.

In other news:

The fallout from the Stella D'oro cookie factory closing is that hundreds of local Bronxites will be looking for work when the plant closes after this month.

Neighborhoods in the growing north Bronx says they need rec centers.

Bronx News Roundup, September 9

Yesterday, after multiple failed negotiations over the past year, Lance Inc., a food company, bought the Stella D'Oro brand. Lance Inc. plans on moving Stella D'Oro cookie production to a plant in Ohio from the local Bronx plant in Kingsbridge.

Unfortunately for workers at the Kingsbridge plant, the purchase of Stella D'Oro ends their year-long strike against the brand's previous owner, Brynwood Partners, and they are now without jobs. Read the Norwood News article about the strike here.

Police reports show that two Bronx narcotics police officers did not investigate a tip-off about a reported drug den in Parkchester. After the officer's failure to investigate the tip, a man was fatally shot outside of the supposed drug den.

The family of Verda Henry, a life-long Bronx resident, is suing a New Rochelle nursing home for neglecting to provide adequate care and not properly treating an infected bedsore that led to Henry's death in 2007.

Yesterday, the trial began for a Bronx man, Tryone Simmons, accused of invading a Yonkers home and raping a woman in 2007. The trial is currently taking place at the state Supreme Court in White Plains. Simmons faces a sentence of eight years in prison for his crime.

Bronx News Roundup, Aug. 21

The Bronx Open - an annual tennis tournament in Crotona Park - starts on Monday. More than 30 of the world's top 100 women will take part. This year, there's no men's side of the draw. The event is free, except finals day on Aug. 31 which costs $10. The New York Junior Tennis League will provide free tennis throughout the week. Here's Adi Talwar's photos from last year.

The parents of a young boy killed by a van last summer as rode his bike to school are suing the city for $10 million.

Could the Stella D'Oro cookie factory in Kingsbridge stay open after all? The current owner, who has been threatening to close it after losing a labor dispute, may have found a local buyer.

Today's New York Times carries an article adapted from Constance Rosenblum's new book, Boulevard of Dreams, a history of the Grand Concourse.

As we mentioned in yesterday's roundup, City Council candidate Yudelka Tapia's campaign manger, Onix Sosa, has been hired by Pedro Espada, the ethically challenged state senator and majority leader. When asked about this yesterday morning, Tapia hadn't heard the news. Later, her communications director sent out press release saying she's parted ways with Sosa because she "felt that the job Sosa took was not consistent with the message she is trying to communicate to the voters of the 14th District." Tapia campaign is staffed by volunteers. In fact, Sosa was the only one on the payroll, Tapia said. She's hired a new campaign manager, a former volunteer.

Bronx News Roundup, July 28

Yesterday, Bronx Supreme Court Judge Joseph Dawson voiced his opinion that defendants in his courtroom should wear respectful, professional attire during their cases.

Early this morning, four men attempted to rob the home of Ivy Skeffery on Bussing Avenue in the Bronx. Skeffery shot two of the invaders leaving one dead. The other invader is in stable condition at Jacobi Hospital. Police are still investigating the shooting.

The City Council is considering putting a ferry service in place around New York City. The ferry service would have eight potential stops in the Bronx including Orchard Beach, Yankee Stadium and Ferry Point. The plan for the ferry is scheduled to be discussed in Riverdale on Thursday.

Bob Kapstatter of the New York Daily News sees the City Council District 14 race between Baez and Cabrera as a problem for Assemblyman Carl Heastie. Heastie supports Cabrera, but if Cabrera looses the primary election, Kapstatter believes Heastie could be challenged by other district leaders for supporting a losing candidate.

This past weekend, building began on a home for an injured G.I. on Sampson Avenue in the Bronx. The house for Robert Reyes will have renovations that will allow Reyes to live functionally, all provided by volunteers, donors and government grants. The Norwood News wrote a story about Reyes and some of the efforts to help him last spring.

This week, the Stella D'Oro union plans to protest outside of Barclays, a shareholder of Lance Inc. who plans to buy the company. The union fears that the production of the cookies would be scattered across plants all over the United States and Canada instead of remaining at the one Bronx-based plant that is now in operation.

Bronx News Roundup July 16

Tonight, Bronx pols will gather at Marina del Rey for the annual Bronx Democratic County Committee dinner.

A Daily News columist questions the rational behind putting a big box supermarket in the Kingbridge Armory.

Bronx BP Ruben Diaz, Jr. is looking into allegations that his office's economic arm - the Bronx Overall Economic Devolpement Corp - mishandled funds from the Gateway Mall's Community Development Agreement.

In a case that's generated more media coverage than most murders, a Bronx girl has pled guilty to roasting to kitten to death in a 500-degree oven.

Six Bronx men have filing a lawsuit against the NYPD for allegedly being beaten and unjustly arrested by the police after they had called 911 for a friend of theirs.

Two people were killed and one injured on Tuesday night in a traffic collision between a cab and SUV at the Laconia and Waring Avenues intersection in the Bronx.

City Island residents are trying to get the police to pay attention to prostitution in their community.

The union that represents workers at the Stella D’oro cookie factory in Kingsbridge has filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board, in an effort to prevent the factory's closure.

Compiled by Ashley Villarreal and Idalmi Acosta

Ruben Diaz on Cookie Factory's Impending Closure

Earlier this afternoon, Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. released this statement:

It is unfortunate that Brynwood Partners would move so quickly to close its Kingsbridge plant, simply because a labor dispute did not go its way. Stella D’oro has been a Bronx institution for decades, providing thousands of jobs to Bronxites over the years. Its closure would signify a sad end of an era for our borough, and my office will do everything it can to prevent this hastily made decision and keep Stella D’oro, and the much needed jobs the factory provides, in Kingsbridge.

The factory is slated to close in October.

Bronx News Roundup July 7

The owner of Stella D’oro, the cookie factory in Kingsbridge, will close the plant permanently in October, after deciding it's no longer profitable. The decision comes just days after a judge ordered the company to rehire 130 striking workers, and pay them a couple of months of lost wages.

Police are hunting a man who sexually assaulted a teenage girl in Fordham last Friday.

This fall, the city plans to open a "Family Justice Center" in Concourse Village to help domestic violence victims rebuild their lives. It'll be located in the same building as the DA's office.

Liz Benjamin has the latest on the bickering and finger-pointing in Albany.

State Senator Jose M. Serrano has an op-ed in the Gotham Gazette in support of arts education, which he fears will become "the next casualty of the Albany war."

A look at what Burnside Avenue's commercial strip has to offer. If community leaders get their way, a Business Improvement District (or BID) will be created on Burnside in the not too distant future.