Tag Archives: Bob Kappstatter

5.30.14 — Bronx News that Matters

30 May

Busy day, but here are a few articles that quickly got my attention this morning:

Bronx Times editor Bob Kappstatter reports on why the borough president is not participating in The Bronx’s Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday.

This Capital New York article reports that Gov. Cuomo may “declare the Senate Coalition,” that is the Republicans partnering up with the Independent Democratic Conference (which Bronx Sen. Jeff Klein leads), a “failure.” That’s because he wants them to pass legislation for “a publicly financed campaign system for statewide candidates,” and that’s not happening. Will this help Oliver Koppell’s challenge against Klein? We’ll see what Cuomo actually does.

Juan Gonzalez of the Daily News reports on how much more public dough Donald Trump is getting from the city for his Bronx golf course compared to all the others.

Bronx Times editor Bob Kappstatter reports on why the borough president is not participating in The Bronx’s Puerto Rican Day Parade on Sunday.

And this is relevant to every neighborhood in the city: The New York Times reports on legislation the City Council is pushing forward to avoid traffic deaths.

 

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5.29.14 — Bronx News that Matters

29 May
Clinton pic Marison

Students of the renewed DeWitt Clinton High School on Mosholu Parkway. Photo by Marisol Diaz/The Riverdale Press

The Riverdale Press reports on DeWitt Clinton High School’s comeback.

A new chair of Community Board 9 in the southeast Bronx is only 31, the youngest in the city. But the Daily News reports that generally there are very few young people — particularly teens — on the Bronx’s 12 community boards. None of CB 11’s board members are under 45, for example.

The Daily News reminds readers that Bernie Madoff’s so-called Ponzi scheme, a financial earthquake, led to Yeshiva University losing $110 million back in 2008, and that fiscal tragedy is a big part of the reason Yeshiva is partnering with Montefiore to run the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

A new retail plaza is headed for the borough’s “Hub” in Melrose by the end of the year, reports the Daily News. It will feature Metropolitan College’s Bronx campus, a Fine Fare Supermarket, and Vista Optical. (No link.)

In one of the borough’s most competitive state Senate primaries, on May 22 the Ben Franklin Democratic Club in Riverdale starkly backed incumbent Jeffrey Klein – A Democrat but co-founder of the Independent Democratic Conference which often collaborates with the Senate’s Republicans — over Oliver Koppell, a former Councilman and long-term member and organizer of that very club.

Speaking of which, in his BoroBeat column, Bronx Times editor Bob Kapstatter credits club president Ellen Feld for “keeping the pandemonium” at the Club’s significant session “to a manageable level.” Kapstatter also reports Gov. Cuomo naming BP Ruben Diaz, Jr. as a co-chair of his re-election campaign.

Community Board 7 is pushing for a store in the Fordham Road D-train station, reports the Norwood News.

Jarrett Murphy, editor of City Limits, takes a look at the city’s rat battle.

The New York Times reports on Lincoln Hospital’s emergency room, probably the city’s busiest.

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Kappy on ‘Snooki’

16 Aug

Bronx Times editor Bob Kappstatter  pours some column ink in honor of the lawmaker he famously labeled Snooki a while back ..

Who wudda thunk it!

When we slapped the Snooki tag on absentee Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera a few years ago, we never figured the “girls just wanna have fun” moniker would apply to a tabloid scandal, complete with Naomi looking alluring in a black clingy thingy and “the top of her lacy red bra,” as the Post described one photo, along with smootchy shots with “boytoy staffer” Tommy Torres on her now-deleted personal Facebook page .

But while her personal life IS nobody’s business, it raises two serious questions about her judgement as an elected official:

For the rest, here’s the link.

For the paper’s drier, fact-focused report, go here.

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Seabrook Convicted; Scramble to Replace Him Begins

26 Jul

Council Member Larry Seabrook, the veteran east Bronx politician who also had stints as assemblyman and state senator, vacated his City Council seat after being convicted of fraud today. The trial was the second for Seabrook, as the first ended in a mistrial last fall.

It was the third conviction of a Bronx lawmaker in the last four years, beginning with state Senator Efrain Gonzalez who, like Seabrook, also formed nonprofits to serve as self-serving siphons. And, of course, former State Senator Pedro Espada, who sent Gonzalez packing in a 2008 primary and then was defeated in 2010 by Gustavo Rivera, was convicted for embezzlement in May.

Bob Kappstatter gives us the first rundown of  candidates expected to make bids this fall to take Seabrook’s place. Mayor Bloomberg is expected to order a nonpartisan election for Nov. 5. Even if Seabrook had been acquitted, term limits would have ended his time in the Council next year.

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Kappy’s Back!

11 May

Bob Kappstatter, the veteran Daily News bureau chief and gossip-loving political columnist, is back in the game after being downsized last year after 40+ years at the tabloid. Now the editor of the Bronx Times (owned by Rupert Murdoch like so many other outer-borough weeklies these days), here’s the second edition of his revived Boro Beat column (couldn’t locate the first one — maybe Rupert can help upgrade the site:-) Kappy was good enough to cool his heels in between gigs on Bronx Matters contributing a couple of juicy, exclusive items (here and here). We’re glad he’s back on the weekly hunt and shining his unique spotlight in Boogie Down’s back rooms.

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Kappstatter Nabs New Gig Editing Bronx Times

20 Apr

From the Facebook page of former Daily News Bronx Bureau Chief and must-read political columnist Bob Kappstatter …

Okay, it looks like the cat’s out of the bag before the official press release.
Yes, I am now the editor of the Bronx Times and the Bronx Times-Reporter, two weekly newspapers and their website covering a major swath of the Bronx, and part of Rupert Murdoch’s group of metro area weeklies.
Basically, I’ll be doing what I did for 16 years as Daily News Bronx bureau chief, and working with a great staff to make the papers and their website dazzle and be a prime read.
Founder and Publisher John Collazzi will now focus more on the business side while I have my fun on the editorial side.
And look for the old political/gossip column fairly soon, after I get settled moving in.
Goodbye Mort Zuckerman, hello Rupert Murdoch.

Kappy wrote a couple of terrrific columns for Bronx Matters during the interlude. We’ll miss him here but glad we’ll be reading a lot more of him soon.

-Jordan Moss

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Peter Rivera’s New Job and the Race He Leaves Behind

25 Mar

By Bob Kappstatter

The long national nightmare, as they say, for Bronx Assemblyman Peter Rivera finally ended on Saturday when Gov. Cuomo named him new state labor commissioner.

Assemblyman Peter Rivera

The announcement came at the annual Somos El Futuro winter conference of the state Assembly/Senate Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force, where Rivera is an elder statesman whose appointment can’t but help Cuomo solidify his Latino support.

Rivera, according to all reports, has pretty much been searching for a new paycheck outside the state Assembly for a number of years now, while still hedging his bets over running for another term or for a judgeship.

Before his new state gig, Rivera’s last hope was reported to be a run for the plum job of Bronx Surrogate, whose office doles out assignments (and fancy fees) to party-faithful lawyers to handle the estates of persons who die without wills.

Although Rivera was saying as late as Friday that he was weighing a run for Surrogate, that dream pretty much crashed and burned recently when the Bronx Democratic Party’s non-partisan judicial screening panel put the kibosh on it, labeling the attorney and former assistant Bronx D.A. “unqualified.”

Not that he would have received party backing in the judicial primary (Dem Party Boss Carl Heastie reportedly already has a favorite candidate) or might have survived his next Assembly primary race, with the opposing candidate already backed by a powerful local state senator.

Although baseball and politics ain’t over ’til it’s over, a number of Bronx political insiders say attorney and party operative Luis Sepulveda now holds the winning edge to fill Rivera’s 76th Assembly District seat in Parkchester/Castle Hill/West Farms/Van Nest.

His nearest challenger in the Democratic primary is Rivera’s longtime chief of staff, Danny Figueroa, who only recently began to plow the district for votes – and name recognition.

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