Riverdale Report
By Robert Press
BRONX, NEW YORK, February 4- Friday afternoon City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (the current leading candidate for mayor in 2013) came to Louie's Dale Dinner located on West 231st Street in the 11th council district to endorse the candidacy of Andrew Cohen for the 11th City Council seat that will be vacated at the end of the year by term limited Councilman G. Oliver Koppell.
This was an informal chat of friends over coffee to which the press was invited to cover and ask a few questions after Speaker Quinn's endorsement of 11th district candidate Andrew Cohen. Speaker Quinn said that she first met Mr. Cohen in 1997, and the two have remained friends since then. Quinn said it was important to have someone such as Andrew Cohen as the local councilman, because of Mr. Cohen's community record as a member of Community Board 8, other volunteer community work, and his fine law background which is exactly what is needed in someone you want to be as your council member. Quinn continued that it is important to be able to get out in the community to do constituent work such as Mr. Cohen has done, but that he can also do the job that is needed at City Hall.
In answering questions Quinn and Cohen said that it is important to support the local merchants, and that is one reason for the endorsement here in this diner on a local merchant strip. As to my question on her thoughts on which of the two proposals that she wanted to see be placed in the Kingsbridge Armory, Quinn said that she was not fully clear on the Young Woo plan. She added that she wants to consider what Councilman Cabrera (whose district the armory is in) thoughts on the armory plans were. On a question of bringing back the idea of “congestion pricing” Quinn said that she supports the idea, and that New York City will need to have additional revenue streams. 11th council candidate Andrew Cohen in a previous interview with me said that he is opposed to congestion pricing. This endorsement was by Speaker Quinn of the candidacy of Andrew Cohen only, as there was no cross endorsement of Quinn by Cohen or anyone else. You can go to my blog at www.100percentbronx.blogspot.com to read more on the endorsement, and see photos of Speaker Quinn and 11th council candidate Andrew Cohen.
11th council candidate Andrew Cohen has already been endorsed by the four local elected officials current 11th councilman G. Oliver Koppell, Congressman Eliot Engel, State Senator Jeff Klein, Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, and the local Ben Franklin Democratic Club. As of now there are two other announced candidates in the 11th council district race, Cliff Stanton and Shelly Kelling.
I was able to catch Speaker Quinn before she got into her car to leave, and asked her if the recent conviction of former Councilman Larry Seabrook had her office under investigation. Quinn replied that was done with a while ago, and nothing has come of it. My sources tell me that there may soon be something coming out of that Quinn investigation soon.
The MTA held a public meeting last week on not cutting back, but increasing train service. The Irvington (Yonkers), North Riverdale, and Spuyten Duyvil stations are to have added non peak train service. In the past trains have passed through the three stations leaving up to one hour between non peak train service. The proposed additional service is to have a train now stop at the three stations at least once every half hour as ridership has increased on the Hudson line of Metro North. No one at the hearing had any thing negative to say about the increased service, but several speakers asked the MTA to increase the rush hour service that has left train platforms and trains packed as one person said “the sardine packed subway”. Several homeowners did ask the MTA to do a study if there will be any added traffic or other effects on the quality of life issues surrounding the stations.
While 48 seats were set up for the public it seemed that there were more MTA police and personnel present at the hearing. You can go to my blog to read more and see photos of the K-9 unit that was on hand, and the many empty seats.
Beautiful Wave Hill is open even though there may be snow on the ground, and you can check the latest listing of events going on at Wave Hill on my blog.
If you have any comments about this column or would like to have an event listed or covered in this column or on my blog you can e-mail us at 100percentbronxnews@gmail.com or call 718-644-4199 Mr. Robert Press.
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