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.