Helen Foster

Helen Foster, who is contemplating a run for Bronx Borough President, said the last two people who have held that job have divided the borough’s black and Puerto Rican communities.

A story in the Riverdale Review (still not online!) this week quoted Foster’s father, the former Councilman in the area, at a February 7 meeting saying, “The last two borough presidents we've had were not and are not sympathetic to the black community.”  read more »

Gotham Gazette just released a nice analysis of individually sponsored member items from this year’s city budget.

According to the group, the king of member items is David Weprin of Queens, who got $736,500 for his district by funding 31 projects there. Councilman Leroy Comrie, also of Queens, funded 80 projects for a total of $710,857.

The district with the fewest dollars brought into it is in Brooklyn, where the Council’s newest member, Mathieu Eugene funded 10 programs for a total of $46,500. Helen Foster of the Bronx funded just one project, but it was worth $102,187.

The full report is here.

If you're a Democratic elected official in New York, it's no small thing to support a presidential candidate not named Hillary Clinton.

Ask City Council member Helen Foster of the Bronx, who was among the first local officials to support Barack Obama.

Foster chatted with me on the City Hall steps just now about what it's been like to come out -- in opposition to the local establishment -- as an Obama supporter in New York.

“It’s absolutely exciting,” she said. “I have gotten more people coming up to me because they know I have been openly--as people come up to me and say, ‘out of the closet’ with Obama--people are excited. Young, old, you are seeing a swell in New York and I think that it’s a mistake for anybody to write him off in New York City and especially in Bronx County.”

At least there was some pay-off for those who sat through an hour’s worth of people finding 44 ways to say yes.

During today's floor "debate" on land-use changes for Yankee Stadium, Council Member Lew Fidler blurted out: "As a lifelong Democrat, I always found it hard to accept that the Yankees are in fact owned by a Watergate felon." When fellow councilors groaned, he added, "Facts are facts."  read more »

The new Yankee stadium plan passed the City Council subcommittee (3-0) and committee (22-1) today and is awaiting near unanimous approval before the full body this afternoon. Council Member Tony Avella voted 'aye,' changing his mind from when he talked with us Monday for the article in today's paper. It was the Metro-North station that made him do it, he said.

Charles Barron voted nay; Helen Foster will also oppose it before the full Council but she is not on Land Use.

The community benefits agreement was not, Committee Chairwoman Melinda Katz kept reminding members, the issue on the floor, and yet it had a way of creeping into people's endorsements of the project. After the vote, Maria Baez, the "dean" of the Bronx delegation, told reporters that the agreement had not been signed yet but was complete. Final terms: The Yankees will contribute $1.2 million a year (up from $700,000) for nonprofit organizations and for park maintenance, a certain percentage of which must be in Community Board 4; $1 million a year for four years for a job training and apprenticeship program; and 15,000 game tickets to borough residents.

So who will sign this thing, and when? Baez told us Yankees President Randy Levine and Borough President Adolfo Carrion along with some council members, hopefully before the final vote this afternoon. We'd be surprised: in the past, these C.B.A.'s have avoided having any officials' signatures to make clear they are outside the city's land use process.

Outside, as in, being hashed out outside the City Council chambers and downstairs in the private conference room.

-Matthew Schuerman

Some Bronx activists, Councilwoman Helen Foster included, are outraged—OUTRAGED—over the draft community benefits agreement for the new Yankee Stadium, details of which got into The New York Times today. Question is, will anything happen as a result or will it become as much a non-issue as was the C.B.A. for Related’s shopping mall at Bronx Terminal Market? (Via Neighborhood Retail Alliance) -Matthew Schuerman

When the history of American capitalism is written, Bill Gates and Warren Buffett may get the lion's  read more »