Bronx News Network

Co-op City Strike Ends

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Maintenance workers in Co-op City are back at work today after a weeklong strike at the sprawling 35-building housing complex.About 500 workers will return to their jobs while union officials continue to bargain with the buildings’ management company, RiverBay Corporation, according to a statement released yesterday. The strike began last Tuesday after the workers’ current contract expired, and union and management officials were at a standstill over wage and health care negotiations.In the meantime, garbage piled up outside the massive complex, which houses some 50,000 residents.”The men and women who keep Co-op City running deserve quality health care and a fair wage just as of Co-op City residents deserve top quality service and maintenance—not the mounting piles of garbage and reduced services that they’ve been forced to endure for the past week,” said Kyle Bragg, Vice President of the service employees local union 32BJ,

Bronx News Network

8th Annual Bronx International Film Festival

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Save the Date!The Bronx Stage & Film Company presents the 8th Annual Bronx International Film Festival, at the Lovinger Theater, at Lehman College, starting a week from tomorrow and running from June 17-19.Nearly 20 independent films, from near and far, will be presented. Kicking off the festival will be “Special When Lit,” a UK documentary, which rediscovers the game of pinball. Following it will be another UK film entitled “My Kidnapper,” a documentary directed by Mark Henderson, a man who was held hostage while visiting Colombia. The documentary takes you back to Colombia to revisit the place where he and three other hostages, lived out their worst nightmare.Within the three days, shorter narratives like “Penny and Charlie” and “Tick” will also be shown. All the films come from a variety of places, including the U.S., Canada, Turkey, Norway and France.All screenings will begin at 8 p.m. General admission is $5 per night.

Bronx News Network

Bronx News Roundup, June 9

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Here’s your daily dose of BX news around the Web:State Senate Majority Leader Pedro Espada has had it with Governor Paterson’s proposed budget cuts and is threatening to refrain from voting on any future budget extenders. Paterson needs every Democratic vote in the Senate to solve the budget crisis. Read more here.The Daily News takes a look into the mixed hertitage restaurant, Coqu

Bronx News Network

Join Us Wed. for BxNN Happy Hour at Bronx Ale House!

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Join BxNN at the Bronx Ale House on Wed., June 9 from 6 to 8 p.m. With $20 admission you’ll get a free beer, free pint glass happy hour specials and free appetizers.Support local community news and raise that pint glass with our editors and reporters to celebrate the Tremont Tribune’s 1st anniversary. Ale House is located at 216 W. 238th St. (right off Broadway). Please RSVP to Ivonne Salazar at isalazar@mpcbronx.org. We look forward to seeing you there!

Bronx News Network

Affordable Housing Project Aims For Six-Figure Incomes

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The 5 million square feet of new apartment space that the city wants built on the Queens side of the East River will include 3,000 apartments of affordable housing, according to a request for proposals released this week by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development.The proposed complex at Hunter’s Point South is “in accordance with the Mayor’s New Housing Marketplace Plan, which responds to the changing housing needs of New York’s communities by committing to the new construction or rehabilitation of 165,000 housing units by 2014,” the RFP reads.But in an illustration of the complexities underlying “affordable” housing, most of the city-subsidized units at Hunter’s Point will reserved for families making more than the average city family. Sixty percent of the 5,000 apartments at Hunter’s Point South are supposed to be affordable; the rest are market rate. But two-thirds of the affordable housing being constructed there will be reserved for people making between 81 percent and 165 percent of the area median income, or AMI. For a family of four that income range translates to $63,000 to $130,000.One-third of the affordable housing will be available to families making less than 80 percent of the AMI, or $63,000.The city will subsidize all the “affordable” units, and those units are required to be affordable permanently. If a developer wants to build more than the required 3,000 affordable units, the RFP states, those units “should be skewed toward the upper tier in furtherance of this project’s middle income goals.”Area median income is defined by a federal government formula, which yields an estimated median of $79,200 for a family of four.

Bronx

Question Facing Beeps, Public Advocate: To Be Or Not To Be

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The New York City Charter Revision Commission meets Thursday night to hear testimony about whether borough presidents and the public advocate should vanish or get more power.The hearing at 6 p.m. at Staten Island Technical High School, 485 Clawson Street, is the third in a series of five “issues forums” where the 15 commissioners are hearing from experts on topics where charter changes are possible. Forums on term limits and voter participation have already been held. Sessions on public integrity and land use remain. Testimony on Thursday will be heard from Baruch College Professor Doug Muzzio, Hofstra Law School’s Eric Lane, former chair of Manhattan Community Board 2Manha Brad Hoylman, former deputy mayor and current CUNY official Marc V. Shaw, and Gerald Benjamin of SUNY New Paltz. Public comments will be taken after the experts have testified.