Archive for 'Politics'
From the editor: Living wage sold out
Posted on 18. Jan, 2012 by Editor.
The battle to require businesses that receive city subsidies to pay their workers a living wage began with a bang when Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. led a fight to reject the creation of a shopping mall at the Kingsbridge Armory if retail workers weren’t paid enough to make ends meet in this most expensive of cities.
The battle has ended with a whimper.
Continue Reading
Community budgeting nears decision time
Posted on 11. Jan, 2012 by By Alex Robinson.
Delegates study proposals, will select projects to fund Residents are eager to know how their decisions will impact the spending of $1 million in tax revenue this winter in Mott Haven and Melrose. Last fall, City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito announced her constituents would be able to decide how the money should be spent, as part [...]
Continue Reading
How to spend a million bucks
Posted on 13. Nov, 2011 by By Alex Robinson.
Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito slapped an imaginary $1 million on the table and asked her constituents what it should be spent on. “Restoring the parks that are here, basketball courts, and sidewalks in the street need to be fixed,” responded Alice Cerezo, 45, a Mott Haven resident. “I put in for exercise equipment for senior citizens, [...]
Continue Reading
Homeowners fight proposed housing facility
Posted on 03. Nov, 2011 by By Gwen McClure.
A group of Mott Haven residents has organized to protest a proposed housing development for the mentally ill, saying the neighborhood already has far more than its fair share of social service agencies. The group, called Voices of the People, is frustrated with the influx of social service programs, and adds they were given no [...]
Continue Reading
From the editor: Say no to an incinerator
Posted on 21. Aug, 2011 by Bernard L. Stein.
Twelve years ago, a huge crane pried the stacks off the South Bronx Medical Waste Incinerator on the eastern end of 138th Street where it meets the East River. Hundreds of Bronxites who had protested that it was poisoning the air they breathed cheered as the last incinerator in New York City was dismantled. Now [...]
Continue Reading
Sen. Diaz says sex education belongs at home
Posted on 11. Aug, 2011 by Bernard L. Stein.
State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. denounced the Bloomberg administration’s plan to revive mandatory sex education in public schools, saying the proposal violated the right of parents to decide what and how to teach their children. “In matters involving intimacy and human sexuality, parents have the right and the responsibility to be the primary educators,” the [...]
Continue Reading
Remembering a neighborhood activist
Posted on 02. Aug, 2011 by Paul DeBenedetto.
It was 1974, and a group of South Bronx residents were looking for someone to fill a vacant seat on the state Assembly. The pick from the community was nearly unanimous: It would be Evelina Antonetty, surely. But public office was of no interest to the forty-something activist. Instead, she told her supporters to get [...]
Continue Reading
Serrano votes against debt ceiling deal
Posted on 01. Aug, 2011 by Bernard L. Stein.
Congressman José E. Serrano voted against the legislation raising the nation’s debt ceiling, saying the package urged on Congress by President Barack Obama and the leaders of both parties cut necessary programs and failed to raise taxes on the wealthy.
Continue Reading
Engine 60 is saved from the budget axe
Posted on 07. Jul, 2011 by Matthew J. Perlman.
Cowbells rang in the sunlit square in front of the firehouse on 143rd Street and 3rd Avenue on June 29, as chanting residents rejoiced, celebrating the escape of their engine company from fiscal cuts. The city budget had put Bronx fire companies at risk of closure again this year, sparking weeks of protest from worried [...]
Continue Reading
Protesters to city: Leave our firehouse alone
Posted on 06. Jun, 2011 by Matthew J. Perlman.
Losing Engine 60 would imperil Mott Haven, critics say Chanting residents gathered in front of the firehouse on 143rd Street in Mott Haven on June 1, playing drums, hoisting protest signs, and marching against city budget cuts they say could endanger lives. One proposed cut would eliminate Engine 60 from the 143rd Street firehouse, near [...]
