Carlos Ramos (Photo courtesy of Carlos Ramos)

“My journey was not an easy one,” said Ramos, 40, during a telephone interview Friday. As a teenager, he was sentenced to a short time in prison for a drug-related offense. “Eventually I did some soul-searching and I realized there was more to life,” he said.

Since that realization, Ramos said he has been dedicated to helping others in his community through his involvement in public service initiatives and grassroots organizations. He first became involved with a local Hispanic Democrats club in Westchester in 1998 and has since worked for national campaigns in Florida, Arizona and Pennsylvania before  returning to the Bronx to work for  William C. Thompson Jr., the former New York City comptroller.

It was during the 2009 Thompson campaign for mayor that Ramos said he found the inspiration to step forward as a candidate for the Senate. “There was a guy there helping us every day,” Ramos said. “I was sharing my idea with him that I was thinking about running, and he told me ‘If you run against Ruben Diaz, I promise to give you my last $20.’ ” Ramos said the volunteer was HIV-positive, living in a homeless shelter, surviving off government benefits and hurting because of a lack of political leadership. “The only way you’re going to get some leadership in there is to run,” he said.

Ramos thinks there is currently a lack of political leadership in the Bronx because elected officials have been pushed into office without obtaining the proper skills to lead. He attributes this to weaknesses in the current education system in public schools — one of the top priorities that he proposes to tackle if elected to the state Senate.

“We need to be prepared for all these new people that are moving in and have the proper school system for them,” he said. “And we need to better prepare the next generation of Bronx leaders.”

Job creation and affordable housing are the other big issues for Ramos. Too many residential buildings, he said, are owned by conglomerates who are dealing with the fallout of the recession. “What happens is their problems trickle down to the tenants,” he said. “Sometimes their services are not being met, their apartments are not being painted, or there’s no repairs being done. Many times the tenants don’t even know how to address these problems.”

Ramos says there is a “stark contrast” between himself and Diaz, both in their political ideologies and in their campaign methods. Social media plays an important part in getting his messages across and he thinks that the use of digital technology gives him an edge in fundraising. Diaz could not be reached for comment on the coming election.

Ramos said he received about 4,000 messages, mostly supportive, on the day his campaign went live, and that he has attracted campaign donations from across the United States.

“When we run the campaign, we’re going to have the latest technology to be able to micro-target voters,” Ramos said. “Diaz doesn’t have that advantage. They run campaigns the old-fashioned way.”

In an age where indiscretions by public figures are also amplified by social media and the Internet, Ramos believes that the mistakes of his past will not become an issue. “Many people in my community can identify with some of my challenges, so I’m not even worried about it,” he said. “When I talk to people, I’m very frank about it. It’s not something that I’m hiding. They’re actually glad that I’m doing what I’m doing.”

End of semester examinations and summer vacation aren’t the only things on teachers’ and parents’ minds at P.S. 86 Kingsbridge Heights School in the Northwest Bronx. Prompted by cuts to the state budget leaving the city $5 billion short, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced today plans to further trim the public school system budget.

While schools are not the only institutions affected by the cuts, they are among those that will be hit the hardest, as some 6,700 educators’ jobs will be lost when the measures come into force in September. This number includes 300 teacher’s aides.

On Thursday, teachers and parents enjoying ice cream outside school were just learning about the latest cuts, but the news hardly surprised them.

“The first thing they do is cut services for children and the elderly, it’s very archaic the way they always attack the weakest members of society,” said T. Pannell, who teaches kindergarten through third grade and whose daughter is also in kindergarten at the school. Pannell added she is not worried about her own job and praised the principal of Kingsbridge Heights for his management of the school’s budget, but she said she is more concerned about the broader implications of the trend.

Kingsbridge Heights School is one of the largest public schools in the nation. (Speri/BronxInk)

“It’s not a matter of making cuts but of being more efficient,” she said. “They are all in a ‘this has to go’ mentality, rather than ‘this has to be tightened,’ whether it’s with schools or with public housing.”

Pannell added that concern will grow even further when teachers and parents realize the scale of the cuts.

“Are we going to feel this? For sure,” she said. “But to see how much we are going to feel it we’ll have to wait until September.”

While some cuts seem inevitable, many agree there should be other ways to get around the problem.

“Personally I’d never get into the ‘the sky is falling and we’ll have to have layoffs’ mode,” Dee Alpert, publisher of The Special Education Muckraker, wrote in an e-mail. The website is devoted to special- education issues. Alpert suggested instead that little is being done to ensure greater efficiency. “I’d scream like mad about the well-documented fraud, waste and corruption and demand to know exactly what’s being done to end it.”

Being on the receiving end of the bureaucratic knife is not new to New York City’s public schools, and while many acknowledge that times are hard for everyone, they express concern and frustration that children always seem to be the first to pay the price.

“We don’t need any more school cuts, we have too many kids cramped in these classrooms,” said L. Delacruz, a sixth-grade teacher at Bronx Middle School 206, whose son is a third-grader at Kingsbridge Heights. Delacruz said that teachers and staffers alike are already overwhelmed as it is with one teacher often having as many as 30 students in each classroom. “That’s a lot of kids,” she added. “You can’t get them to learn anything.”

Class size has been an increasingly pressing issue in the city’s overcrowded schools.

“Class sizes are growing at an accelerating pace. Now we face the prospect of losing 6,000 teachers, as the student population grows,” said Leonie Haimson of Class Size Matters, a non-profit dedicated to reducing the number of students per classroom. “Together that is going to mean increases in class sizes to their largest in 20 years.”

Haimson added that the city’s money is wasted on bureaucracy and contradictory measures.

“The Department of Education is spending $5 million on recruiting and training new teachers,” she said. “And at the same time they want to lay off 6,000 teachers.”

Marcus Winters, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, agreed.

“These cuts are particularly problematic in the city, which has spent the last three, four years really hiring new high quality teachers,” he said.

Others turn to those city agencies that were saved from the cuts to try to understand why schools are suffering so badly.

While Bloomberg had originally planned to cut 892 officer positions from the already downsized police department, he decided to leave the police untouched.

“Now the police is not getting cut because of all these terrorist threats,” said Delacruz, who admitted she wouldn’t know where to suggest cuts that would minimize damage to New Yorkers. “We shouldn’t see any cuts at all,” she said.

But the decision to cut teachers over police officers may have less to do with terrorism and more to do with financial interest, some suggest.

“This is a fiscal decision, police starting salaries are just much lower than ours,” said Mary Paranac, a fifth-grade teacher who has been working at Kingsbridge Heights for three years.

Mary Paranac with some of her students at Kingsbridge Heights School in the Bronx. (Speri/BronxInk)

Paranac added that she is especially worried about the criteria for these cuts, a concern raised by many. Some have suggested using test scores to determine layoffs, while others recommend the decision is based on seniority, though both methods leave teachers fearing for their jobs.

“I’m concerned about how this is going to happen,” Paranac said, adding that she thinks the cuts are likely to affect new teachers in the Teach for America program or other young teachers who have been on the job for only one or two years. Like other teachers, Paranac praised the Kinsgbridge Heights principal for his devotion to his staff, but said many Bronx schools are not as fortunate. “I have many friends who are scared about the safety of their jobs,” she said.

Laying off teachers based on seniority may affect the quality of the teaching, some fear.

“I think the research suggests that there is no systematic relationship between experience and effectiveness in the classroom,” said Marcus Winters of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, who opposed cuts by seniority and also suggested that the correlation between class size and quality of learning is not as strong as many believe. “The problem is that we are going to have a reduction in teachers’ quality,” he said.

While some laid-off teachers may be able to find employment elsewhere, many end up leaving education altogether.

“My sister-in-law was a teacher in the East Bronx but she was laid off with the last cuts,” said Esly Griffin, a young mother of two, at Kingsbridge Heights on her way to pick up her 8-year old son. “Now she works in a hotel. But that’s not her job. She went to college to be a teacher.”

Additional reporting by Sunil Joshi and Shreeya Sinha.

“I cry, I pray, but it’s tough,” Addy said. Along with her business partner, Addy opened the store, less than a block away from the intersection of White Plains Avenue and 233rd Street, almost three years ago. She said her rent began at $2,080 and has increased to $2, 165. Hit hard by the economic recession, her business has suffered, and she has yet to record any gains from the store. In the last few weeks she said she has tried to negotiate, but  her landlord, has taken her to court instead.

“I called him, I pleaded with him to come down a little bit,” Addy said. “I said to him, ‘It’s not your fault nobody knew the economy would be like this.’ ” She said her debt to her landlord has climbed to more than $8,000, including costs of maintenance and taxes, which are divided among the five other store owners in this commercial building.

The landlord, Jeffrey Cohen, declined to comment. “That’s between myself and my tenant,” he said when asked about rent disputes with Addy.

Last week, City Councilman Robert Jackson introduced the Small Business Survival Bill, which if passed, would  give business owners like Addy the right of arbitration to more effectively negotiate their leases.

“Small businesses right now have no say whatsoever in the terms of their lease, so when the lease term comes up, the landlord has total say,” said Robert Bieder, chairperson of the Bronx Merchants Coalition and a member of the Coalition of Small Businesses. “Simply put:  It is the right to arbitration in the commercial lease renewal process,” Bieder said of the bill’s potential power.

Addy said she wished there had been such a program in place when she signed her five-year lease. Instead, she said, she took the word of her landlord, who ran the shop before her, and convinced her that she would be making a profit that would cover her expenses. With four rows of shelves cramped into just about 120 square feet, the narrow store stocks everything  from underwear to detergent and even traditional clothes from Addy’s native Ghana.

Addy said she had taken out more than $50,000 in loans to keep her business afloat. She works night shifts as a hospital nurse technician so that she can pay her debts.  “My pay was five hundred and forty-something dollars, ” she said of her most recent paycheck. “I took $500 to pay for the merchandise. I don’t have money in the bank. It’s about time we were helped, we put money into this economy.”

Cohen also declined to give his opinion on the new bill or what it might mean for his commercial properties.

Local activists are  already trying to mobilize small businesses to gather enough support for the bill. But this is not the first time the bill has been up for debate.  Last year, District 7 Councilman Robert Jackson brought it to the floor. By the end of  the City Council cycle in December, however, the bill had not been voted on and withered away in the political process.

New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn argued that she could not support a bill that she felt was fundamentally illegal. Last year, Quinn said that forcing landlords to binding arbitration would encroach on their property rights, according to the Downtown Express. At the Bronx Chamber of Commerce’s monthly luncheon in early April, Quinn’s position had not changed. “I can’t say I’ll pass a bill that so many of our staff and our highest lawyers say cannot be legal,” Quinn said. Instead, Quinn said that the council was looking into alternative legislation to protect small businesses in the city.

Jackson said he believed that opposition from the mayor’s office and pressure from the real estate lobby prevented the bill from being passed last year, even though 34 out of 51 council members  supported the bill. “In the last cycle, when push came to shove, there were not enough votes to move it,” said Jackson. “There [was] a lot of pressures put on a lot of people.” This time Jackson intends to build support “from the ground up.”

Steve Null, a former business owner and activist for the Small Business Survival Bill, said the stalling was political. “Our attorney thinks it’s a red herring,” Null said. “It was a last-second move to stop the bill.”

Null said his attorneys had provided Speaker Quinn’s office with the necessary documentation to prove the legality of the bill. He said his calls for a forum to assess legal issues surrounding the measure were ignored.  “They stopped the bill because she does not want to regulate the landlords,” he said.

Some sources alleged that Speaker Quinn may have rejected the bill because it is in her own political benefit to maintain the real estate lobby of landlords. Speaker Quinn’s office responded to this  by reiterating her December 2009 position. “Council Member Jackson’s legislation before the council, while well intentioned, is not within the council’s power,”  Quinn’s office said in a written statement. The statement suggested alternative legislation that would create a unit within the City’s Small Business Services that would assist in lease negotiation.

In an effort to bring attention to the need for such a bill, the U.S.A Latin Chamber of Commerce surveyed 937 Latino-owned businesses in New York City from November 2008 to January 2009. More than half of all businesses surveyed, both professional services, such as attorney and accounting offices, and smaller “mom and pop stores,”  like corner bodegas and hardware stores, complained that their businesses ran the risk of closing because of high rents and operating costs.

Almost three quarters of the small business owners in the survey said they would have to cut back their workers’ hours because renting their storefronts was too expensive.

“The mom and pop stores are at the heart of those communities; they support your Little Leagues, they support your church groups,” said Bieder, who owns Westchester Plumbing Supply with his two younger brothers. “We need to help them stay in business. There are tenants that have been here for 40 or 50 years,” Bieder said. “Now there is a vacancy problem due to lease negotiations. We’re losing about 8,000 a year.”

For now Addy is determined to keep her store open. “It has become a burden on us, but we are going to pay him for five years,” she said.

Thousands of workers and community activists marched to Wall Street on Thursday, bringing Main Street’s anger with bank bailouts to the doorstep of the country’s financial industry.

“We’re hoping to show that Americans are angry at the way the financial industry has abused its power,” said Jordan Estevao, an organizer for the National People’s Action network in an interview after the rally. People who oppose regulation of the banking industry, he said, “are on the wrong side of the fight.”

Estevao estimated they exceeded their goal of 5,000 people for the afternoon’s event. Protestors lined both sides of Broadway and some of the side streets, stretching from Chambers Street to City Hall.

One of the protestors, Eugene Hammond, 65, a resident of the Bronx, said he came out to express disgust after seeing the boarded up stores and scores of people out of work in the neighborhood while big banks got billions in bailout money.

“Working people have been screwed over enormously,” said Hammond, a retired government employee. “People have lost jobs, houses, futures.”

The Showdown on Wall Street was a joint effort of the NPA and union the AFL-CIO. The NPA brings together 25 community organizations from 16 states and has been organizing rallies against banks all over the country, most recently a protest by over 400 people in Kansas City.

On Thursday, many of the protestors came from New York City and upstate New York, and others from surrounding states, such as Connecticut, Massachusetts and Wyoming. A number also came from Brooklyn and the Bronx, linked to organizations such as Brooklyn Congregations United, the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition and Make the Road, as well as local unions and public schools. Members of the Brooklyn-based mock protests group Billionaires for Wealthcare were also in attendance in fake pearls and suits.

The protestors convened in the late afternoon for speeches by religious leaders, union officials and ordinary people affected by banking practices and foreclosures.

“The poor person is poor because the rich person is rich,” said Rabbi Ellen Lippman, of Cholot Elaiyanu synagogue in Brooklyn. “I see those who have been seeking work for months.”

The loudest cheers were reserved for AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who led the crowd in a chant challenging bankers to “fix the mess that you made.”

After the speeches, and just in time for the five o’clock rush hour in the Financial District, the protestors made their way down Broadway towards Wall Street. They filled the barricaded streets for blocks, issuing calls for “real jobs now.” Workers in suits emerged the Chase Bank building, but brushed past the crowd with eyes averted. Other passersby stopped to give the protestors the thumbs up sign.

“We’re spending billions for nothing,” said another protestor, Justyn Brown, 29, an Iraq war veteran who lives in Brooklyn. “Obama should be spending the money he’s spending on the war on veterans. No one is taking care of their well-being.”

Another veteran agreed, “Bank bailouts are like leaving the fox in charge of the henhouse,” said William J. Gilson, 74, because we’re giving them the money to make the same mistakes again.

Many echoed his calls for more regulation, citing the financial regulation bill currently before Congress.

“We’re sick of greed,” said Buzz Roddy, 50, a resident of the Bronx and member of the Actors’ Equity union. “[Greed] has become institutional in America. It’s time for the government to step up and regulate the way things are.”

The next march will take place in Washington in May.. Estevao calls it the “showdown on K. Street.”

“We want to show it’s about people,” he said, “Not fat cat lobbyists.”

Sen. Pedro Espada gives a thumbs up while posing next to his son, Pedro G. Espada. (Photo: Facebook.com)

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo filed another lawsuit against state Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada and his son, Pedro G. Espada, charging them with “creating a sham job training program that cheated workers and shortchanged state coffers.” This lawsuit is the second filed against the elder Espada by the attorney general in just over a week. On April 20, Cuomo charged Espada with using a Bronx-based non-profit health care company as his own “personal piggybank.” Espada responded to Cuomo’s latest attack against him by challenging the attorney general to a debate.

Cuomo’s suit accuses the Espadas of using a for-profit management company to “siphon” taxpayer money from the Soundview health clinic. Soundview awarded Espada Management Co., which is run by Pedro G. Espada, a nearly $400,000 annual contract to do janitorial work. According to Cuomo, workers from Espada Management Co. were “mischaracterized … as trainees” and “paid a fraction of the wages mandated by law.” Cuomo said some of the janitors employed by Espada Management Co. made “less than $70 per week, or the equivalent of under $1.70 per hour.” The attorney general said this arrangement allowed the Espadas to “minimize costs and maximize profits at Espada Management.”

Thursday afternoon, Senator Espada posted a status update to his Facebook page inviting Cuomo to “debate his baseless allegations at any forum.”

Pedro G. Espada also took to Facebook Thursday to discuss the attorney general’s suit. The younger Espada posted an update of his own this afternoon saying that he “just gave my first and only interview to NY 1.” Soon after, when someone posted a comment asking what was said in the interview, Pedro G. Espada wrote that he told the television station, “The truth and nothing but the truth so help me GOD.” As of this writing, both Espadas and the attorney general’s office have not responded to requests to comment on this story.

On Thursday afternoon at the Soundview Health Center on White Plains Road, children gathered for an anti-obesity event where they displayed mounds of sugar and dramatically poured out hundreds of soda cans.

“This is heartbreaking,” cried a tall sixth-grader clutching a can of orange soda. “They told us not to open it, but I really want to drink one,” said another.

The youngsters’ reluctance to pour the soft drinks into a storm drain in the clinic’s parking lot mirrored the hesitation of the adults to comment on the Espada scandal.

Inside, the waiting room was packed with patients. David Collymore, medical director of the Soundview Healthcare Network, sat in his small office surrounded by papers. On the wall hung a plaque from Senator Espada honoring Collymore for his dedication to quality health care for the local community. Collymore said the day’s anti-obesity event was “a clear indication that we will not let the negative press of the past week prevent the hospital or its staff from serving its patients.” When asked if he thought Espada’s business practices were draining resources from the Soundview health programs, Collymore said, “absolutely not.”

Additional reporting by Astrid Baez.

See what patients at one of the Soundview clinics had to say:

Attorney general Andrew Cuomo’s lawsuit charges Espada with “siphoning” $14 million from Comprehensive Community Development Corporation, also known as “Soundview,” a company that provides low cost health care services to patients in the Bronx from five locations. Espada founded the company in 1978. He is currently Soundview’s president and chief executive officer.

Nineteen current and former Soundview employees are also named in the lawsuit including seven of Espada’s family members. Cuomo’s lawsuit alleges Espada and his relatives received vacations and lavish compensation packages through Soundview. The senator’s contract with the company included a $9 million severance bonus. Espada is also accused of using his corporate credit card for campaign expenses and personal expenses including $20,000 bills at two sushi restaurants.

Espada was elected to represent the 33rd District in 2008. In order to serve in the Senate, he is required to live within the district. Espada’s benefits at Soundview included $2,500 monthly housing allowance for a co-op apartment at 325 E 201st St. in the Bronx. During the two years Espada has maintained his apartment in Bedford Park, various residents of the building have spoken to news outlets claiming he does not live there. In the past, Espada’s response to these allegations has been that he divides his time between his home in the Bronx and his office in Albany.

Espada is also listed in the public phone directory as a resident of 115 Beechwood Road, a leafy cul-de-sac in Mamaroneck, with his wife, Connie, and their children. The home is located near the two sushi restaurants, Toyo Sushi and Red Plum, where Espada allegedly used his Soundview credit card to purchase meals. Peter Chen, the owner of both restaurants, said the Espadas visited Red Plum “probably once a week” and ordered takeout from Toyo Sushi “three or four times a month.” Though he said he couldn’t recall if they had a favorite dish, Chen said the Espadas were “average tippers.”

In 2004, Sandra Love and three other Soundview officials plead guilty to charges that they diverted money from Soundview to Espada’s political campaign. Espada and Love were previously acquitted on similar charges in 2000. According to Cuomo’s lawsuit, all four Soundview staffers who were convicted of criminal charges were retained by the company and two of them were named to the company’s Compliance Committee. Love’s son, Jerry Love Jr., was hired by Espada in 2009. Love Jr. is named in the current lawsuit.

Records show that the senator’s political action committee, Espada for the People, paid $1,265.82 to Soundview in December 2007. The senator did not respond to messages left at his offices in Albany and East Fordham Road as well as calls made to his addresses in the Bronx and Mamaroneck asking for an explanation of these charges to Soundview and the attorney general’s allegations of misconduct. An intern at Espada’s Bainbridge office said he had “no idea” where the senator was and that he last saw him in Bainbridge “a couple weeks ago.”

But Espada did appear on NY1’s “Inside City Hall” show on Thursday to defend himself against the charges. He said there was no intention for him to receive the $9 million severance bonus and that the case was “politically motivated.” Espada stated he has no plans to resign from the senate while he fights the lawsuit. On Friday morning, he continued his counter attack on MyFoxNY.com. “This is a witch hunt by the prince of darkness himself,” he said, referring to Cuomo.

Lourdes Espada, the senator’s daughter-in-law, is also named in the attorney general’s suit although her husband, Pedro Gautier Espada, is not named. One of the allegations against the senator is that Soundview awarded a $400,000 yearly janitorial contract to a management company run by his son. On Wednesday night, Gautier Espada posted a message on his Facebook profile that said: “Who ever thinks that the liberties and freedoms we enjoy as Americans are free has never paid and must walk through life with blinders on. The truth is, those principles that our union uses as it’s foundation are very expensive. They have been paid for in blood. sacrifice, sweat and tears. Today I keep my head up knowing that someway I have paid a small price in maintaining the very principles of our existence.”

The note has since been deleted. Gautier Espada has not responded by e-mail requests seeking further comment on this story.

*The 33rd District includes the neighborhoods of Kingsbridge, Kingsbridge Heights, Bedford Park, Van Cortlandt Village, University Heights, Fordham, Tremont, East Tremont, Norwood and Mount Hope.

]]> http://bronxink.org/2010/04/23/7246-for-pedro-espada-accusations-swirl-as-patients-wait-and-watch/feed/ 0 http://bronxink.org/2010/04/15/6986-tenants-speak-out-on-canceled-section-8-vouchers/ http://bronxink.org/2010/04/15/6986-tenants-speak-out-on-canceled-section-8-vouchers/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 23:00:45 +0000 Alice Speri http://bronxink.org/?p=6986 Lachonnz Morton said she has lived in the same apartment, on McClennan Street in the South Bronx, for 33 years. She moved there from Virginia when she was 22 and raised her daughter and three nieces and nephews there. Morton, who suffers from diabetes and can’t work, lives on Social Security. She says she could be evicted any day.

Morton is one of thousands of New Yorkers who are at risk of losing their homes since the city announced, late in 2009, that it would terminate its Section 8 voucher program, a federal assistance program for low-income families that subsidizes housing in the private market. On Thursday, she was one of a handful of women with similar stories, taking their plight to a public hearing with New York Senators Daniel Squadron, Pedro Espada and Tom Duane. Thursday was the third hearing since the vouchers termination was announced, but the first to involve state officials.

“My rent is $900 a month and my social security is $873,” Morton said, barely holding her tears.

Had the vouchers program not been canceled, she would have had to pay $241 and the rest would have been subsidized by the state. Though Medicaid and food stamps cover many of her other expenses, Morton said she can’t make ends meet. She went to the hearing wearing an “I Love The Bronx” T-shirt, accompanied by her elderly mother and Legal Aid lawyer.

Lachonnz Morton does not want to leave the South Bronx, her home for the past 33 years. (Speri/Bronx Ink)

“My rent is more than my check, what am I supposed to do?” Morton told the legislators.

Morton said she was forced to quit her job in a nursing home for health reasons. She spent years waiting for her Section 8 applications to be approved then years fighting a legal battle against her landlord, who she said refused to take the vouchers even though the law mandates it.

Already $7,000 in debt on her rent, Morton had finally won her battle with her landlord when on December 30, 2009, she received a letter from the New York City Housing Authority notifying her that money had run out and the vouchers she held in her hands were no longer valid. If the program were to start again, she could reapply, she was told.

Morton accumulated debt in the years she spent applying for the vouchers and then trying to convince her landlord to take them. She says her landlord wants her out because he could earn much more from the rent-controlled apartment if she moved out.

“I’m not denying that I owe, I just don’t have it,” she said, adding that all her savings won’t amount to more than $1,500. The vouchers would have helped turn things around, she said.  Morton is still trying to grasp the bitter irony of her situation having lost a hard-fought battle at the end.

“Do you know how long it took me?” she said.

Some 2,589 families who already held vouchers were immediately affected and many of them are at risk of joining the lines of New Yorkers without a home, speakers said.

“I know a girl in the Bronx who had just moved into an apartment and immediately had to move out,” Morton added.

More than  8,000 more families who would have been eligible for the vouchers could also lose out, as the New York City Housing Authority announced it is not processing any new applications. The vouchers were especially aimed at  helping the elderly and the disabled, and they were often the only opportunity for women victims of domestic violence to move out of abusive homes.

The state senators were sympathetic to the tenants, calling the termination of the vouchers an unacceptable shortcoming by government officials.

“The fiscal crisis is not a reason to fail people,” said Bronx-raised Senator Espada.

New York Senator Pedro Espada (right) listened to testimony and called for "creative solutions" to the housing crisis. (Speri/Bronx Ink)

The senators questioned representatives of the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) and  criticized them for what they said was a slow and inefficient response to the fiscal crisis. However, OTDA officials pointed to the city as holding the  ultimate responsibility for the outcome.

“Every time we lose a housing program it’s a struggle for all of us,” OTDA Deputy Commissioner Russell Sykes said, admitting to some shortcomings on the part of his office but generally eluding questions.

“I have no idea if you care or not, all I know is what you haven’t done,” Squadron responded, calling the OTDA “evasive” in its responses and stressing that the hearing was not meant to be a stage for finger pointing between agencies but to try and work together to find a solution.

“Your government has made a promise to you and then it has taken it away,” Squadron then told the women who had shared their stories. “We will do all we can to make good on that promise.”

The program is currently $46 million short, though some suggest that resources could be more efficiently reallocated from other housing programs.

“This is not acceptable in the richest state, in the richest country in the world,” said Judith Goldiner of the Legal Aid Society, who spoke at the hearing and advised on a number of possible solutions.

Goldiner also criticized the New York City Housing Authority for its failure to intervene in the issue and invited the present elected officials to exercise their leverage at the city level.

Morton says that without Legal Aid and her family’s support, she would have been homeless. She remains skeptical as no specific promises came from the meeting.

“They are talking a good game, but I need answers,” Morton said. “They are saying they are sorry but that’s not solving my problem.”

Morton said she lives  in fear of being evicted. Though she said her family is supportive, she doesn’t want to impose on her daughter, who is married with a child.

“I’m scared to go anywhere else, this is all I know,” she says of the place she has called home for two thirds of her life. “I’m just waiting for that knock on my door.”

A man places a candle in memory of the subway blasts victims outside the Lubyanka Subway station, which was earlier hit by an explosion, in Moscow, Monday, March 29, 2010. Two explosions blasted Moscow's subway system Monday morning as it was jam-packed with rush-hour passengers, killing at least 37 people, emergency officials and news agencies said. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

By Sarah Butrymowicz and Jennifer Brookland

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon, less than 48 hours after suicide bombers attacked a Moscow subway, it was business as usual at Premiere Food, a Russian grocery  in Pelham Parkway. Customers took their time browsing the pickles and fresh baked bread, sometimes stopping to read the signs in Russian for bass lessons or apartments for rent, or to pick up a newspaper.

Although many of them have lived in this country for years, they were still following the news of the attack. But with miles and sometimes years between them and their homeland, they also viewed the situation with perspective.

Although no group has claimed responsibility for the Monday attack that killed 39 and injured more than 80, Russian authorities suspect Muslim extremists from the Caucusus region, an area that includes Chechnya. Chechen rebels carried out terrorist attacks against Russian civilians as recently as November 2009, bombing a passenger train traveling between Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Tensions between Muslim Chechen separatists and Russian nationalists go back decades, if not centuries, and both sides have committed atrocities.

“Both of them are right, both of them are guilty,” said Vladimir, a Russian customer who did not want his last name printed.

While critical of the government, people were compassionate for those who were killed or injured. “It’s awful for people,” said Alexandra Ablavsky, who left Russia in 1989. It’s “like I’m here but my heart is there.”

But no one viewed the Russian government as a victim; many customers acknowledged that it had long fueled the conflict. Shop owner Alex Porokhin wondered if Russian military officials even had a reason to prolong the clashes with Chechnya, lining their pockets with money meant to finance the campaign.

Svetlana Prokhorov, who has lived in the United States for 15 years, thought Russia should take a political lesson from the most recent attacks about its relationships with the Muslim world and America. “The government has to understand who is their friend,” she said. “They smile to America but give a hand to Iran.” She couldn’t understand why Russia would continue to support a Muslim country when Muslims were suspected of continued attacks. Prokhorov also worried people would retaliate unfairly against innocent Muslims in Russia.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin used harsh rhetoric Tuesday to decry the terrorists, promising that the government will “dredge them from the bottom of the sewers” and destroy them.

Russians in the Bronx believed him.

“Forget about justice in Russia,” Porokhin said. “If the government promises to find someone, they will find someone.”

Even if Putin tracks down the terrorists responsible for Monday’s attacks, Ablavsky was doubtful that it would resolve anything. It’s a “big problem,” she said, comparing the situation to the protracted conflict between Israel and Palestine. “It will be for a long, long time.”

By Wanda Hellmund

Outside the hearing on budget cuts in City Hall

AIDS is on the rise in the Bronx, the borough with the highest prevalence of HIV infections in the state. “We are the epicenter of the disease,” said Sean Barry, 28, co-director of New York City AIDS Housing (NYCAH).

And critics fear that the City’s new proposed budget cuts will make things even worse for the many Bronx residents suffering from the disease. Part of the cuts are programs by HASA (HIV/AIDS Services Administration), a government-run program providing benefits to people with HIV/AIDS.

Sojourner McCauley, Coordinator of Community Services at the Bronx Aids Services (BAS) said that the proposed budget cuts would have a drastic effect on BAS’s work. “We would have to cut back on case managers and discontinue many programs,” McCauley said. “With the result that the quality of life for many would drop, the engagement in medical services would drop and I fear that the numbers of HIV infected people would go up.”

According to McCauley, Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed cuts will cause a proportional decrease in quality of life for the 45,000 people currently on HASA programs in New York.

The combination of poverty and HIV makes the disease ever more dangerous, because people with HIV are dependent for successful maintenance on a consistent program of medication and nutrition, which is easier to manage when they have a place to live. Wanda Hernandex, 47, board member of New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN) and Bronx resident who has lived with Aids for 15 years says her living conditions have improved drastically because of HASA, which provides food stamps and access to better housing. “It’s a crutch people fall on – an important one,” Hernandez said.

But the New York City budget cuts, announced in January, put many of these programs in danger of being discontinued. The Mayor proposes cutting $6.5 million from the HASA programs this year, another $8 million over the next few years and an additional $8 million out of supportive housing programs. According to the NYCAH, these cuts would decrease the number of case workers by 35%, reduce supportive housing contracts, and cut funding for food and nutrition by 50%.

“We understand the need for budget cuts in times like these,” said Barry. “But what the mayor proposes is disproportionate. We would support a cut of $2 million. That’s where we have to draw a line in the sand.”

Councilwoman Annabel Palma, along with supporters from New York City AIDS Housing and Housing Works, both organizations dedicated to end the dual crisis of AIDS and homelessness, opposed the mayor’s budget cuts vocally on March 8th at City Hall.

“What the mayor proposes is simply illegal,” Diana Scholl from Housing Works said. “It is against the disability act.  It’s just really shortsighted.” If the cuts are implemented in July, as planned, she anticipates devastating consequences for the Bronx, not just for the individuals who live with the disease but for the community as a whole.

Barbara Brancaccio, a spokesperson for the Bloomberg administration, responded in an email to BronxInk: “These reductions will not affect the City’s commitment to providing reasonable access to benefits and services to eligible clients of HASA.” Brancaccio did not specify what support under the new budget would look like.

Right now, 45,000 low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS and their families rely on HASA for support and benefits, and to them the fear of losing that support is real.

James Dean, 57, a Brooklyn resident who has been living with the disease for ten years, is afraid of how the cuts might impact  him and the HIV community – or as he calls it his family.

“Where would homeless people with HIV go?” Dean asked. “They have no where else to turn to.”

For Dean, HASA helped him get back on his feet when no one else did. “My family didn’t have the means to help me financially,” he said.

He lost his business in building maintenance because his illness made it impossible for him to continue work. HASA helped him get an apartment, one of the biggest hurdles for many living with AIDS. Legally, landlords cannot let the illness affect their decision, but for many it is a real problem finding a place to stay.

Because of HASA, Dean is now living a good life despite his illness. But without HASA this might have not been the case, and he worries for people who are in the same situation he was in a few years ago.  “Without HASA, many people with AIDS are just going to be without support out on the streets,” Dean said.

HASA also offers mental-health services that could be cut altogether under the new budget, even though it is an important part of the support that people with AIDS need. To Dean and Hernandez, emotional support is as important as medical one. Hernandez and Dean like most people on HASA, do not have to worry about medication costs because they are covered by Medicaid. But with no guarantee of housing and support services, they face an increase in the emotional burden and stress that comes with the AIDS diagnosis.

According to a study published in the February issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the suicide rate amongst HIV-infected individuals is more than three times higher than rates of the general population.

“It used to be a death sentence,” Hernandez said. “But it doesn’t have to be. Things like HASA help you realize that. That’s why HASA is so important it can save lives.”

Hernandez and Dean have experienced first-hand how much the projects helped them live a good life with HIV. And now they want to make sure that others can too. “HASA helped me turn around my life for the better despite the disease,” Dean said. “I would hate see other people get denied access to that support.”

The allegations that Gov. David Paterson lied about scoring free tickets to the 2009 World Series fueled the chatter of the day on Thursday, and in the borough where the Yankees earned the World Championship, some weighed in on the convergence of sports and politics, and the soaring price of Yankee tickets.

Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, a Democrat, is a baseball fan who said that he had attended one of the World Series games and that he had paid his way to attend. But Dinowitz, who says that “everybody should pay for tickets,”  agreed with countless Yankees fans who complain that the price of tickets puts the Bronx Bombers’ games out of reach for many.

Yankee Stadium -AP

“That’s another reason why I don’t go to too many games anymore,” he said. “When I was a kid you could get tickets at the bleacher for $1.”

Former Yankees public relations director, Marty Appel, said 30 years ago a box seat cost $3.50.

“The price jump has been enormous, but it really suggests that baseball does a better job of marketing itself and is more attractive,” he said.

Paterson may face criminal charges after the State Commission on Public Integrity ruled that he lied under oath about soliciting five free tickets, which had a face value of $425 each, according to The New York Times. The case was turned over to the Albany County prosecutor’s office and the state attorney general for further investigation.

Dinowitz addressed the political firestorm currently surrounding Paterson.

“I think that the governor should do his job,” Dinowitz said. “He hasn’t been accused of any crimes or hasn’t been indicted. There’s a lot of talk, and I don’t think someone should be hounded from office simply because there are accusations out there.”

Twenty-five-year-old Yankees fan, John Stover, bartends at the Yankee Tavern and says Paterson’s actions were unfair.

“You see it time and time again,” Stover said. “People use their positions to get things for free. I don’t have anything against the guy — I don’t really follow his policies. It’s not the first time somebody’s done it.”

Several other local politicians said they didn’t go to the World Series games.  State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr., who is a Pentecostal minister, said: “I don’t like baseball. I go to church.” City Councilman James Vacca’s press officer told the Bronx Ink, Vacca “would not go if he was given tickets. He’s not a baseball fan.”

State Assemblyman Michael Benjamin said he had watched the games at home on television. Chuckling over the phone, Benjamin said his office sometimes gets calls from constituents hoping to get free tickets.

“We have to write back saying, ‘No, Assemblyman Benjamin is unable to procure tickets for the World Series Games,’ ” he said. To those really persistent fans, he said he is more direct: “Those are the sorts of things that get officials in trouble.”

The ticket scandal comes in the wake of a damaging report by The New York Times that revealed that the governor might have intervened in a domestic abuse case involving a top aide, David Johnson, who attended the World Series game with the governor.

On Thursday, Paterson’s communications director Peter Kauffmann, resigned. In a statement he said, “As recent developments have come to light, I cannot in good conscience continue in my current position.”

On Thursday night, the Rev. Al Sharpton was scheduled to meet at Sylvia’s restaurant in Harlem to discuss with other politicians the governor’s political future.

Paterson also got some support from a small group of African-American law enforcement officers who gathered in Harlem to defend him today.

Red Sox fan Joseph Palladino joked that the Yankees might be behind the mess surrounding the governor, but later took on a more serious tone about what Paterson’s latest problems say about ticket pricing in professional baseball.

“Is this another sign of pricing out the lower and middle classes?” he said. “Do you need to know someone to get a ticket?”

State Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr. speaks during a Senate session on Sept. 10, 2009. Photo: NYSenate.gov

State Sen. Ruben Diaz Sr., a Democrat from the Bronx, responded to the news that Gov. David Paterson, a Democrat, is abandoning his re-election bid with some harsh words for the governor.

Paterson’s announcement came after a report in The New York Times that the state police had pressured a woman who was pursuing domestic violence charges against one of his top aides and that the governor had contacted the woman. In a phone conversation this afternoon, Diaz said the questions raised by the Times article reveal that Paterson is a hypocrite who will “drag down the state Democratic Party.”

Diaz pointed to Paterson’s criticism of State Sen. Hiram Monserrate, who was expelled by the State Senate after being convicted of slashing his girlfriend in December 2008. Paterson publicly supported Monserrate’s expulsion. Today, Diaz said, “While Governor Paterson was criticizing Hiram, he was protecting and covering for his staff, and I think this is hypocritical.” The governor’s political downfall, Diaz said, should serve as a warning “to those who went after Hiram Monserrate like Governor Paterson did.”

By late Thursday evening, Paterson’s deputy communications director, Marissa Shorenstein, had not responded to a request for comment on Diaz’s statements.

Though they belong to the same party, Paterson, Diaz and Monserrate have a contentious relationship. In June last year, Monserrate and Pedro Espada Jr., a Democrat from the 33rd District in the Bronx, formed a coalition with Republicans in the State Senate who voted to strip Democrats of their majority in Albany. Diaz abstained rather than voting with Espada and Monserrate, but he showed his support for the effort by staying during the vote when almost all of the other Democrats walked off the Senate floor. Diaz and Monserrate have also clashed with the governor over their opposition to same-sex marriage, which the governor supports.

Now that Paterson will not be seeking re-election, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is expected to win the Democratic Party’s nomination in the fall. Diaz said of Cuomo:  “Well, it seems like people like him… the Democratic Party has no other choice now, he is the candidate.” Asked if he was considering making a run for governor with Paterson out of the running, Diaz laughed and said, “Get out of here. Bye, take care.” Before hanging up, he added:  “I’m already elected to the Senate. Governor is too big for me, I’m just running for my re-election to the Senate.”

Additional reporting by Ian Thomson

New York State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. (right) lets Francisco Garabitos (left) address the press after interrupting a protest. Garrabitos who spent time in the rubber room said, "I don't like people talking about teachers without listening to the teachers." (Mamta Badkar/The Bronx Ink)

A yellow school bus pulled up outside 501 Courtlandt Ave. at noon today. Instead of students though, it carried New York State Senator Rubén Diaz Sr., Assemblyman Marcos Crespo, members of the New York Hispanic Clergy Organization and concerned parents. The group got off the door of a Bronx rubber room.

Created as part of a contractual measure to prevent the arbitrary dismissal of teachers in city schools, these centers serve as temporary reassignment for teachers awaiting disciplinary action. About 100 teachers are believed to show up here five days a week, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. They are assigned to rooms in which they do not teach. They get holidays off, including the snow day yesterday, and an hour for lunch, but only a handful stepped outside in the presence of the reporters.

Today, about 25 protesters rallied to cries of “let’s close the rubber rooms,” to draw attention to the strain the reassignment centers place on city funds.

“At a time when we’re looking at severe budget cuts, why is the city continuing a process that is throwing money down the drain when the money is so desperately needed in our classrooms?” Crespo said.

The New York Post recently revealed that teachers in the rubber room had been waiting up to seven years without stepping foot into a functional classroom, though still earning publicly financed salaries. State Senator Ruben Diaz Sr. objected to the system, which he said wastes city money and leaves teachers hanging in the interim. One teacher who did not wish to be identified said he was sent to a reassignment center for being caught driving under the influence of alcohol.

“If they are guilty they should be expelled, if they are innocent they should be put back in the classroom, but they cannot continue paying 660 teachers for sitting down and doing nothing,” Diaz said. “I’m asking our leader to allow me to submit and pass in the Senate legislation to end this parasite.”

As many as 660 teachers are believed to be in limbo across 12 rubber rooms in the city while they await the arbitration of their cases. For some, like Francisco Garabitos, the wait is too long. He quit in July 2009, a few months after he was arrested on accusations that he had falsely claimed to have planted a bomb at New Millenium Business Academy Middle School. Garrabitos said he spent $10,000 suing the Department of Education.

“The assumption is that if you’re in there, you’re guilty,” Garabitos said. “The teachers deserve due process, too.”

In a press conference today in the Bronx, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Sen. Jeffrey D. Klein announced the introduction of a law that would forbid New Yorkers from carrying a gun while intoxicated.

“If you’re too intoxicated to drive a car, you are obviously too intoxicated to be carrying a gun,” Bloomberg said.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg and State Senator Jeffrey D. Klein proposed ban on “Carrying While Intoxicated”

Hailing the law as “life saving” and “common sense,” Bloomberg called on legislators and Gov. David Paterson to support the initiative, stating that New York is hardly the first state to enact this law. If passed, the law would make New York the 21st state to prohibit carrying a gun while intoxicated, citing it as a Class A misdemeanor punishable by one year in jail and a $10,000 fine. According to the mayor, the law would apply the same standards and tests that are currently in place to prevent and punish drunken driving.

Bloomberg and Klein denounced the mix of guns and alcohol as deadly. “The time is now for us to get serious about penalties for those who choose to carry a gun while intoxicated,” Klein said.

The announcement comes a little over a week after the mayor touted the success of the guns-for-cash program in the Bronx. Gloria Cruz, the Bronx chapter leader of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, praised the mayor’s announcement, calling it a step in the right direction. Cruz, whose 10-year-old niece was killed in 2005, left her job in corporate America and devoted her time to getting guns off the streets.

Some Bronx residents agree. Tony, a car-washer at Hand Wash in Bronxdale who refused to give his last name, shares Cruz’s sentiment, stating that anything that can be done to restrict the use of guns was good for the Bronx. “It’s logical,” he said of the mayor’s plan. “You can’t drive drunk, you shouldn’t be carrying a firearm when drunk either.”

Tom King, president of the New York State Rifle and Pistol Association, opposes the plan, saying that New York State has enough gun-control laws. “Legislators should worry about enforcing laws that are already in the books,” he said. King described the mayor’s crusade as cracking down on legal and lawful gun owners, rather than cracking down on gun violence. “This is just another move on the mayor’s part to get his name in the papers,” King said.

Officials assured New Yorkers that the bill would not be in violation of their Second Amendment rights. Instead, these rights would now come with greater responsibilities. “This has nothing to do with the Second Amendment and everything to do with public safety,” said John Feinblatt, the mayor’s criminal justice coordinator. “This is a way to prevent accidents from happening that can’t be taken back, or a death that should’ve never happened.”

When it comes to guns, Bloomberg’s message is simple, if you’re going to drink, don’t leave home with it.

Eddie Marrero and Evelyn Rivera still keep a package of union-made Stella D'Oro breadsticks. They say they'll never buy Stella products again. Photo by Connor Boals

There is only one difference: the unmistakable scent of baked goods in the oven.

“I used to get that aroma here,” said Eddie Marrero, a 30-year veteran of the plant, who lives blocks away in an apartment on Bailey Avenue. “When I’d go out on my terrace, I could tell what they were baking.”

On October 8, 2009, the employees of Stella D’Oro went to work for the last time. About 140 employees, including Marrero, lost their jobs when the 78-year-old plant closed down for good. The closing came in the wake of a protracted dispute between the unionized workers and the current ownership that led to a lengthy labor strike. It left many workers–who felt like Stella D’Oro was family–unmoored in the weeks before the holiday season.

Marrero, 50, said he started with Stella as a production packer in 1979. By the time the factory closed, he was a foreman baker who oversaw the ovens, the production lines and checked for quality control.

“It’s not like a chocolate chip cookie,” Marrero said of the challenge of baking quality Stella D’Oro treats. “One day the breakfast treats can come out looking like crap.”

Marrero’s live-in girlfriend Evelyn Rivera, got a job as a table packer two years ago, after she was laid off from her position as a clerk on Wall Street.

Rivera began by working the overnight shift, packing snacks into trays alongside five to 10 other women from 11 p.m. to 8 a.m.

“I was used to paper work,” she said of the aches that came with manual labor. She pulled her finger back as if squeezing a gun to demonstrate how the muscles in her hand would freeze up from the “trigger finger” she developed packing up to 10,000 cookies a day.

“It’s an art,” she said, “It’s not like “I Love Lucy” when they got jobs at the candy factory.”

Marrero said that a Stella D’Oro job was one of the best jobs to be had in the Bronx.

“Nobody is going to find a job like Stella D’Oro,” he said. “It was the only job in the Bronx that started you off at $14 an hour.”

Marrero said he was making $21 and hour when the factory closed, coming out around $65,000 a year. Rivera, who began at $14 an hour, was on her second raise, making $16 an hour.

Now, Marrero is “semi-retired,” still waiting for $7,000 owed to him from a National Labor Relations Board ruling against Brynwood Partners, the company that purchased Stella D’Oro two-and-a-half years ago. His son, Eddie is 23 and attends John Jay College where he studies criminal justice. Marrero covered his tuition until this year, now his son is taking care of his education through loans.

Rivera’s daughter, Rosa, is 19 and a senior at John F. Kennedy High School. Come January, both mother and daughter will be students when Rivera goes back to school to get study medical coding in pursuit of a job in a medical billing department.

For nearly 80 years the Stella D’Oro Cookie factory churned out its trademark cookies, breadsticks and pastries that are distributed nationwide.

The bakery’s iconic treats trace their heritage to Joseph Kresevich, who emigrated to the United States from Trieste, Italy in 1922. Ten years later, he and his wife Angela established Stella D’Oro, Italian for “gold star,” in a small shop on Bailey Avenue in Kingsbridge.

Although Stella D’Oro’s cookies were based on the Italian pastries that Kresevich remembered from his homeland, they quickly became cross-cultural snacks.

The Stella D'Oro factory at the corner of 237th Street and Broadway has been empty since the brand was purchased by Lance, Inc. and moved to an Ohio factory

The factory’s neighborhood was largely filled with Jewish families, and the fact that the pastries were often made without eggs or butter meant that they were suitable for kosher customers. A particular favorite was the company’s Swiss Fudge cookies, which many Jewish consumers dubbed “shtreimels,” after the round fur hats that are traditionally worn on the Sabbath by Hasidic Jews.

In 1992, Stella D’Oro was purchased by Nabisco, which subsequently became part of Kraft foods. In 2003, Kraft began experimenting with cheaper ingredients, ultimately dropping the “pareve” kosher designation from its label. This led to an immediate uproar among the Jewish consumers who formed the bulk of the company’s customer base. Kraft quickly changed back to the original recipe and re-instituted its kosher certification.

In 2006, Kraft sold Stella D’Oro to a private equity firm, Brynwood Partners for $17.5 million, a significant reduction compared to the $100 million price tag Kraft paid for the brand. Soon thereafter, Brynwood attempted to cut employee health and retirement benefits and proposed ending pensions in exchange for establishing 401(k)s.

“A 401(k) can go in a blast,” Marrero said. “That ain’t no pension. If I live up to 100, I’m going to be getting that.”

Marrero said that the pension plan he is on was a “golden eighties” plan which a worker qualified for after 15 or twenty years of service and then it paid out double the amount for every year worked.
On August 13, 2008, 135 employees, all members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 50 went on strike because of the demands the new owners had brought to the table. The Local 50 is a small union, with membership around 1,000 workers, so the a support group, the Stella D’Oro Solidarity Committee, consisting of community members, labor activists and union members

According to the committee, Brynwood’s wanted to slash wages as much as 25 percent, impose “crushing” premiums to the health insurance plan, eliminate holidays, vacation and sick pay and do away with extra pay for working Saturdays.

Marrero said the message he was hearing from Brynwood was that they didn’t have the money to pay for these things anymore. This confused Marrero because he never saw any cutbacks on production.

“As soon as we were baking them, they were going into the trucks.” He said. “There was always work, we could work as long as we wanted.”

Marrero said he would often work 40 hours a week, plus 11-12 hours in overtime where he was paid time-and-a-half.

The union, which had represented the workers since the early 1960s, rejected the new company’s demands and began picketing. Brynwood immediately replaced them with backup workers that they had already gathered.

Every day when the replacement workers emerged from the factory for a shift change, they were met with angry heckling.

“Scabs!” the crowd roared.

“I was going to get into a fight with a few of them,” Rivera said.

This was Rivera’s first strike. Marrero had previously been through four during his tenure at Stella D’Oro.

“I learned so much from it,” she said. “I never thought I would go on strike.”

Rivera said that she is thankful to have been on strike. It was a pivotal experience, where she gained knowledge and friendship.

“When I was out there in the strike, I got to know everybody. We got to know each other much better. It was a friendly atmosphere.” She said.

“The strikers figured it would be two weeks,” said Micah Landau, a community supporter and graduate student at CUNY. “Then it started getting cold and it went from August 13 to October 13.”

Landau said that Brynwood Partners intentionally created unreasonable demands to bust the union.

“These guys, they provoke the strike, and its because they weren’t interested in negotiating,” he said. “It was like a siege. They were trying to starve people out.”

The plight of the workers attracted the attention of many in the world of New York City politics and activism. Marrero said that nearly every New York City politician came out and show support at one time or another, all except for Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

“You have all these politicians but you only have one emperor,” he said of Bloomberg. “He’s still ignoring us.”

The tiny factory sparked a reaction from labor groups across New York, the country and even beyond the borders of the United States. On the day the factory closed, US Senate candidate Jonathan Tasini, Assemblyman Michael Benjamin, Assemblyman Jose Rivera and Billy Talen all marched with about 50 former employees outside the factory on the day it was finally closed

Talen, better know as “Reverend Billy” is a bouffant-adorned performance activist who runs the Church of Life after Shopping, a performance group dedicated to fighting the evils of capitalism. Reverend Billy performs “exorcisms,” preaches revival-style sermons and pops up on cable news with color commentary any time that capitalism is under examination. The Reverend, who was also the Green Party candidate for New York City mayor, dedicated his latest sermon to the plight of the Stella D’Oro workers.

“The Stella D’Oro factory bakery was the backbone of this community,” Talen said. “It’s very sad.”

Talen wasn’t the only anti-capitalist rabble-rouser to come to the aid of the workers. In September, the union workers asked Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, to purchase the factory and fund a Kingsbridge worker’s cooperative through Venezuela’s own oil and gas supplier, CITGO. Chavez took them seriously.

Chavez, who was in New York City for the 2009 United Nations General Assembly, told the UN, “One of [the workers] said to me, ‘Why don’t you buy the company?’” I said, ‘I’m going to look into it.’”

“We could turn it into a socialist company if Obama authorizes me,” Chavez said. “The company can be bought and handed over to the workers.”

Chavez was no stranger to the Bronx. In the winter of 2005, according to the New York Times, he provided 8 million gallons of discounted heating oil to thousands of low-income residents in the South Bronx.

Brynwood rebuffed Chavez’s offer. The company never answered any calls made on his behalf.

With only 135 union members from a small union that only had 1,000 members total, the workers needed help from outside the union to have any chance, Landau said.

Landau was working as a staff reporter for the United Federation of Teachers when he traveled to Kingsbridge to cover the strikers in December 2008.

“They’d been on strike since August,” he said. “They were like starving to death on the picket line. It was like watching people die.”

Soon he went from writer to community organizer, steering the community outreach and working to make sure the plight of the Stella D’Oro worker was getting attention from the media and the rest of the labor world.

“I had just wanted to write about this thing,” he said. “I ended up getting involved to the point where the newspapers wouldn’t let me write about it anymore.”

Landau has since moved to Chicago, passing the torch to Rene Rojas, 37, a PhD student at New York University.

“The support committee itself is no longer functioning,” Rojas said. “I don’t think there will be a set of demands for Stella D’Oro anymore. The fight has shifted to getting the right severance package.”

After the strike was ended by a National Labor Relations Board ruling, Rojas said, the court ordered a new severance package for the workers. Now, Brynwood Partners is trying to revert to an older, less generous package that existed before the ruling.

“Right now I would say I’m too old to go look for a job,” said Emelia Dursu, 58, who worked at the factory as a table packer, placing cookies in trays for 20 years. She said she began working at the factory in 1979 after she immigrated to the New York City from Ghana. She has three children, all of them grown. “I’m going to wait and live on the little bit that I have and depend on my children to survive until my pension is around 2012 or 13.”

Mike Filippou, who worked as a lead mechanic at Stella for over 14 years and orchestrated much of the rally efforts is taking classes to become a certified mechanic so that he can pursue work at a Wonderbread factory in Queens which is a member of the Local 50 Union.

“I would say the majority of workers still have not been placed in jobs,” said Rojas. “It’s easier for those like Mike who have a certain skill, but the more unskilled workers will have a lot of trouble.”

While losing the security of a full-time job in an economy where opportunities for work are not bountiful is a hard blow to suffer, many of the workers mourn the loss of the family atmosphere at the plant.

“It was a job you were able to live off of,” Marrero said. “But it was also family-oriented.”

Marrero has the scar to prove it. Beneath his faded blue New York Giants t-shirt is a faint 6-inch scar running up his left side from when he donated his kidney in 2000 to Jerry Fleck, a fellow Stella worker who had worked with Marrero since 1983. Fleck is godfather to Marrero’s son.

“This is how we were at Stella D’Oro,” Marrero said.

Marrero said that losing his job didn’t affect him greatly as he had qualified for his pension and had already been planning to retire at 55. For now, he plans to get his commercial driver’s license with hopes of driving a school bus, giving him plenty of time for fishing, a favorite hobby of his.

As for the future of Stella D’Oro in their new home, Rivera is confident that Lance will get its comeuppance for moving the factory.

“It’s not going to work out for them,” she said. Stella D’Oro can only be made in New York. It can only be with New York water.”

The new jail is proposed for the parking lot of the Vernon C. Bain center, a jail on a barge. By Alex Berg

From the second Lisa Ortega discovered a proposal for a new jail in her Hunts Point neighborhood three years ago she has been fighting it. Now that Bloomberg has appointed a new corrections’ commissioner, she is eager to find out what’s next.

But information about the status of the proposal has become even more difficult to obtain since September.

“It’s not going away. It’s not going to disappear,” said Ortega. “Whenever there is no news that means that things are brewing behind closed doors.”

The new jail was proposed for Halleck Street in the parking lot of the Vernon C. Bain Center, an 800-bed men’s jail on a barge adjacent to the New Fulton Fish Market. It would have 1,200 beds and cost $650 million, said Jaime Stein, an Environmental Policy Analyst at Sustainable South Bronx.

“We’re the poorest congressional district,” Ortega, the head of Rights for Imprisoned People with Psychiatric Disabilities, said. “We’re lacking in so many things that it’s actually ridiculous to put in a jail.”

The proposal for the jail is currently undergoing an environmental review to assess the impact a new jail would have on the surrounding area. The assessment will result in a document for the Department of Corrections and will pre-empt a public hearing about the jail. However, the time frame for the environmental review, and subsequent hearing, is unknown, said Craig Chin, a spokesman for the Department of Buildings and Construction. The Department of Corrections could not be reached for comment.

This is worrisome for Ortega, who espouses the maxim “No jails here. Not nowhere,” and was once incarcerated herself. Her organization is part of Community in Unity, a coalition of organizations opposed to building the new jail, including the Bronx Defenders, Critical Resistance, Sustainable South Bronx and about 15 others. Since 2006, Community in Unity has resisted the construction of the jail through meetings and rallies, and continues to meet every month.

However, the coalition has been unable to meet with the new corrections commissioner, Dora Schriro, who replaced former commissioner Martin Horn in September. Though the coalition has met with Horn in the past, Schriro has refused to meet with them, Ortega said.

Today Ortega said she believes that the proposal, which was initially for a 2,000 bed-jail on privately owned land in Oak Point, is moving forward behind closed doors and that Schriro may be meeting with Bronx politicians.

“I think this is bullshit. The community doesn’t know,” she said.

In the past, Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Hunts Point councilwoman, and Jose Serrano, 16th District Representative, have vehemently opposed a jail in Hunts Point, which is also home to the Bridges Juvenile Center. A spokesperson from Senator Jose Serrano’s office said she had not heard about the jail proposal. Last summer YourNabe.com reported Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. opposed the jail when he was an assemblyman. Now borough president, he could not be reached for comment.

Stein said she was concerned a Uniform Land Use Review Procedure, a process that publicizes plans for the city’s land, would be approved over the holidays. The procedure calls for public hearings and many advocacy organizations would not have a presence due to the holidays.

“They know that we’re keeping our ear to the ground. You sort of hear that they try to do these things,” Stein said.

Community in Unity opposes placing the jail in Hunts Point because it will not effectively confront the cause of crime and perpetuates a cycle of incarceration. The money could be better spent on other needs in the South Bronx, like childcare centers, housing and job training programs, Ortega said.

“Our ideology is just this: we don’t really believe that jails are productive,” Ortega said. “The Bronx is heavy in people who are recovering. Jail just doesn’t cut it. I’m a recovering addict, 19 years sober. The system didn’t do anything.”

The proposed site in the jail barge’s parking lot was originally swampland, which may not be suitable for a building. The lot is currently blocked in with fences and barbed wire, in the shadow of the impending light-blue barge and surrounded by empty lots, auto shops and industrial plants.

There is already two detention facilities in Hunts Point. By Alex Berg

“We need a better use for the land and there are so many good uses you could put waterfront property to,” John Robert, Community Board 2 district manager, said.

Those in favor of the jail have said it will generate jobs and think that the Bronx should provide a jail for its own inmates who account for 22 percent of Rikers inmates while the population of the Bronx accounts for only 15 percent of New York City, Robert said.

The proposal, which has evolved over the last three years, was initially part of a plan conceived by Horn to construct jails in every borough to shorten the commute to jail for families and lawyers, and for inmates going to and from borough courts. The new jail would also replace some units at Rikers Island, the city’s main jail with less than favorable conditions.

Community in Unity first learned about the initial Oak Point proposal in 2006. Over the next two years, the coalition staged protests, rallies and meetings to fight the proposal and in 2008 the original proposal was withdrawn.

In a 2008 statement to the New York City Council Committee on Fire and Criminal Justice Services, Horn said that a new proposal was downsized at the behest of Bronx elected officials and community members. In the statement, he said that Corrections would additionally consider removing the jail barge altogether.

Ortega said she is concerned Community in Unity will not be able to repeat this success because the new land is city property.

Instead of building new facilities altogether, some organizations believe Rikers should be rehabbed and transportation to get to and around the island should be boosted, said Maggie Williams, who worked at the Bronx Defenders Voter Enfranchisement program.

“Instead you would invest into busses that would go from the boroughs to Rikers. Busses on Rikers do not come frequently,” Williams said. “The conditions on Rikers are abysmal. We need new structures.”

Still for Ortega, jails don’t solve anything.

“We’re saying ‘look there’s a lot of things we want,’” she said. “Give us due process and we can have a community meeting to figure it out.”

On mayoral election day, polling stations in the South Bronx bared little resemblance to one year ago, when feverish crowds turned out to vote in the presidential election.

That was then, when upwards of 2.6 million New Yorkers voted in the presidential election. On November 4th of this year, the New York Times reported only 1.1 million New Yorkers came out to vote, according to the city’s Board of Elections.

I conducted exit polls at about six polling stations, along with other BronxInk.org reporters who were stationed all over the Bronx.

The Mott Haven Community Center, at 3^rd Ave. and 143^rd St., had the most consistent stream of voters. Still, voters were scarce enough that poll workers were able to escort them, one by one, from the street into the center. That was while other poll workers smoked cigarettes and relaxed outside.

According to one poll worker, two of the three voting machines were broken anyway. Even so, there were no lines, no complaints.

During the chilly hour I spent standing outside the center starting around 7:45 a.m., few more than eight people showed up to cast their votes.

“I believe in the process and I want my vote to count,” said Roxanne R., a 40-something year old nurse who refused to give her last name. Roxanne was one of the few and the proud who voted at the community center, in part because she felt it was her duty as a member of the community.

Her attitude was not common.

Five blocks south of the community center at the Judge Gilbert Ramirez Apartments, there was one voter over the span of 40 minutes. She declined to speak with me.

This scene repeated itself at four other polling stations, where there were either very few voters or none at all. By noon, I spoke with 11 voters in total. Eight voted for former Comptroller Bill Thompson, two voted for Mayor Michael Bloomberg and one refused to identify who she voted for.

BronxInk.org’s Bronx-wide exit polls reported Bronxites voted for Bill Thompson 2-1, most of them motivated against the mayor’s bid to overturn term limits.

“We have to get Bloomberg out of office,” said Natasha Spivey, a 40-year-old administrative assistant who voted at P.S. 154 on 135^th St. “He bought his term limit.”

But perhaps the underwhelming voter turnout parallels the candidates’ absence in the Bronx.

As I walked along 3^rd Avenue from 149^th St. to 135^th St. and up various cross streets, I saw only two campaign posters. They were signs for Thompson. One was crushed in the street outside the Mott Haven Houses, a housing project.

Teresa Hargraves, a 60-year-old who voted at P.S. 154, said she though both candidates neglected the Bronx during the campaign.

Hargraves was right. On election night, BronxInk.org reporter Maia Efrem asked the Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. if Thompson came to the Bronx during the campaign. Diaz said he did. Once.

When I called Thompson’s press contact to verify how frequently he campaigned in the Bronx, I was told at the time there was no one in the office that knew (Mayor Bloomberg’s Bronx office did not return my call or email).

At the end of the day, Mayor Bloomberg beat out Thompson by less than five percent. It’s difficult not to consider how the election might have been different if more people voted. Or if the candidates had treated the Bronx like the rest of New York City.

Until I moved to Manhattan in August, I lived most of my life in an upstate city that most people have never heard of. But after yesterday’s election, people around the world know the name of Watertown, the heart of New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Depending on which report you read, the vote was either a referendum on President Barack Obama or the right-wing of the Republican Party or even the star power of Sarah Palin and Rush Limbaugh, who sang the praises of the Conservative Party candidate, Douglas L. Hoffman.

But forget the pundits for a moment. If you want to understand what really happened in Watertown, take a look at the scalpers hawking Yankee tickets in the Bronx or the street vendors selling knockoff watches, sunglasses, and handbags nearly every day on the streets of New York City. Those are scams, as I quickly learned when I arrived. So was this election – right up until the moment when the votes were counted.

The Republican Party, with its sights set on luring the conservative right, tricked the district out of a qualified moderate candidate. The scam might have worked, but the voters were savvy. In the end, the seat went to a Democrat for the first time in a century.

The results might have surprised some people who associate anything north of the Bronx with right-wing gun nuts. But the 23rd is very different from what New Yorkers might imagine. It covers 13,000 square miles of rural farmland, the Adirondack Mountains, hundreds of small communities, and one large Army base. At first glance, it couldn’t be more different from my current beat, the three-square mile 16th District in the Bronx, the poorest district in the nation. But these two areas – 320 miles apart – actually have something very important in common. They both are home to many people who need government support to survive.

I grew up in a yellow house in Watertown, the district’s largest city with a population of 27,000. We had a big back yard and friendly elderly neighbors who fed their leftover meatloaf to my chocolate lab. But just a short drive away were the rolling hills of some of the most fertile dairy farms in the country; which depend on federal milk subsidies to stay in business.

The race for the 23rd began in June when the popular longtime congressman, John M. McHugh, was selected by Obama to become the Secretary of the Army. We in the North Country were happy for him. At the same time however, we realized that we had lost our influential voice in Congress and that the looming special election would be a challenge. Over the years, McHugh has been a champion for the North Country in securing much needed federal dollars that have kept the region alive.

Local Republican Party leaders selected Dierdre  Scozzafava, a state assemblywoman, to run on the Republican ticket. The Democrats chose Bill Owens, a lawyer from Plattsburg. Scozzafava, well-versed in local issues, had  a 150-year history of Republican control on her side. Then the street peddlers with the $20 Rolexes came to town.

National Republicans saw the pro-choice, pro-same-sex marriage Scozzafava as too moderate to support and cut her off from the party. They chose Doug Hoffman, an accountant with no political experience who lived outside the district to run on the Conservative Party line, financed by the Republican Party. Hoffman campaigned on conservative federal issues such as small government, anti-abortion and anti-gay rights and failed a Watertown Daily Times local issues quiz. Republicans attempted to fool voters by placing Hoffman in a shiny box wrapped in big-name conservatives, like Sarah Palin, thinking he would be an easy sell.

But the Republican Party tried tricking the wrong voters. Although the district was red for many years, red is not what makes people in the North Country tick. We’re mostly moderates with a core that is uncomfortable with extremism, on either side. We’re dairy farmers, mechanical tradesmen and generally middle of the road hard-working people.

These moderate values cause voters to vary their support between local and national elections. Locally, moderate Republicans hold office, because North Country residents vote for like-minded people, who happen to call themselves Republicans. Local races are focused on issues most important to the community.

But for years, the North Country also supported a very liberal Democratic senator, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and last year, Obama carried the district.

The ultra-conservative party saw the district as an opportunity for a litmus test to prove they could shove an unknown into the race and win an election. But Scozzafava foiled that plan by dropping out on Saturday and endorsing Owens, the Democrat, on Sunday; because he is moderate and can better represent the district.

In the final weeks, both parties pulled the stops and got every big name they could to stump for their candidates. The day before the election, Vice President Joe Biden attended a rally at Watertown’s largest community center for Owens. And the same day, Republicans brought in Big from the country music duo Big & Rich who sang Hoffman’s praises alongside Fred Thompson.

In the end, my fellow voters in the 23rd voted for the person they thought would best represent them. He may be a Democrat, but he’s really one of us.

Bloomberg gives his victory speech at midnight, after a very close election. Photo by Leslie Minora

by Leslie Minora and Matthew Huisman

Mayor Michael Bloomberg celebrated a surprisingly close win over his rival William Thompson for a third term Tuesday night at the lavish Metropolitan Ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel in midtown Manhattan.

Bloomberg narrowly edged out Thompson by only 50,000 votes, with more votes going to his challenger than polls had predicted. Unofficial results showed the mayor won by a 51 to 46 percent margin, with a light turnout of more than 1.1 million New Yorkers going to the polls.

In his victory speech, Bloomberg tried to put uncertain voters’ minds at ease. “Conventional wisdom says that historically third terms haven’t been too successful,” Bloomberg said from the ballroom stage. “We’ve spent the past eight years defying conventional wisdom.”

He added, “If you think you’ve seen progress over the past eight years, I’ve got news for you. You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

The mayoral victory party was a carefully choreographed and obviously expensive event at the Sheraton on 53rd Street and Seventh Avenue, an appropriate finale to his record $90 million bid for re-election.

Waiters in starchy suits served mini-burgers, mini-hot dogs, and chicken fingers on silver platters, while the open bar kept the guests supplied with Brooklyn Lager—all in keeping with the New York food theme. There was even Amstel Light for the financial investment crowd and mini-veggie burgers for the non-meat eaters. It was a people-pleasing event that catered to a crowd very diverse in age, background, and profession.

One retired construction worker originally from Ecuador, Alberto Pedro Savinovich, 86, who has worked for all three of the Bloomberg campaigns, said this party was the nicest of all.

Bloomberg supporters chanted "four more years" throughout the night. Photo by Leslie Minora

The ballroom walls were covered in blue with star shapes reflected by lighting. Accents of red and white completed the patriotic theme. Jumbo screens in each corner set on a loop showing Bloomberg high-fiving and smiling at people of all colors, shapes, and sizes. New Yorkers filled the soccer field-sized room as a full band played crowd favorites like “Celebration” and “We Are Family”.

Speakers took the stage periodically, drawing larger and larger crowds as the evening progressed. Like fans waiting for the headliner of a concert, supporters anxiously awaited the arrival of their rock-star mayor. Positions near the lectern were highly coveted by both press and party-goers. Elbows were thrown and spots were saved as the night drew on.

At about midnight, Jimmy Fallon, host of “Late Night,” introduced the newly reelected mayor to screaming supporters. In his 20-minute speech, Bloomberg promised to create more jobs and small businesses, improve schools and make New York City more environmentally friendly. Bloomberg also said that while the entire country is suffering from the recession, New York City is doing its best to recover quickly.

“We have come so far in these past years by staying united, and that’s how we’ll climb out of this national recession–together,” Bloomberg said.

“I think he’s a uniter, not a divider, said Scott Weinberg, 28, who is a bus boy and a registered Democrat. “This is the guy that’s really going to bring the city together.”

Throughout the party, supporters stressed their personal reasons for attending. “For right now, he has proven that he is the best man for the job,” said Carmel Geoghean, 27, who works in advertising. “He knows what New York needs.”

One Bloomberg supporter summed up the celebration: “This is probably the hottest party in New York City tonight,” said Mark Robinson, 45, a campaign volunteer.