Rep. Jose E. Serrano and Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. recalled their boyhoods growing up in the neighborhood, while assuring a hundred-some protesters that they are on residents’ side in their clash with the city over a new jail.
Democrat Luis Sepúlveda won a special election for a seat on the State Senate in the 32nd senatorial district last night, easily defeating his two challengers.
“Rezoning and gentrification are one and the same, and they cause displacement,” said a housing advocate from CASA: Community Action for Safe Apartments. “It hurts my heart to see my community members when they’re crying and have nowhere to go.”
The family is one of a growing number of Honduran immigrants with mixed immigration status who could be split by deportation or return together to a country that no longer feels like home. About 3,000 Hondurans in New York City are under Temporary Protection Status (TPS), a protection from deportation that allows immigrants to work in the U.S. after a natural disaster or armed conflict, according to city data.
Whoever wins the special election will hardly have time to get their seat warm. Another election will follow in the fall, for the two-year term that starts next January.
A citywide government program called Participatory Budgeting allows citizens to vote on how the local council member will spend part of his money – up to $1 million — in the district.
Reaction has been fierce in Mott Haven, where residents have said they will fight the city’s plan to build a jail on the site of an NYPD tow pound.
People displaced by extreme weather events caused by climate change have no legal protections, said an attorney at the Sabin Center for Climate Law. In contrast, the captains of industry whose businesses, environmental experts argue, are at the root of these catastrophes in the first place, receive every possible break.
