I could sit here and write paragraphs and hundreds if not thousands of words as to why we not only deserve but NEED better representation in the South Bronx.
But I won’t.
Instead, I’ll provide all the information that’s out there for you in one concise posting so that you can come to whatever conclusion that you may. Read all about it folks. Oh and to quote Maria Del Carmen Arroyo’s official website: Service with a passion is her motto. “Our people deserve no less”. Perhaps we should heed her words and make sure she’s not re-elected because “less” is already representing us.
***
HEAT FROM the slush fund scandal may have made it tough for Bronx Councilwoman Maria Del Carmen Arroyo to steer taxpayer cash to relatives through dubious nonprofits, but she’s still finding ways to line her family’s pockets.
Arroyo put her husband on her campaign payroll — paying him $15,000 from her campaign funds for “consulting” over the past six months, records show.
Her husband, lawyer Ricardo Aguirre, has gotten the vast majority of the $21,173 she has spent so far on her reelection.
***
City Council members and staffers yesterday predicted that Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo could be the next member of their body indicted in an ongoing “slush fund” probe that just snared fellow Bronx Democrat Larry Seabrook.
“Everybody I spoke to today thought she was next,” said one council member, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Another said, “Everybody’s speculating [about Arroyo]. There’s lots of talk.”
And a third council member noted that after Seabrook’s arrest on federal charges Tuesday, city Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn said the probe is not over.
Arroyo, who refused to answer questions yesterday, is a member of a powerful political family whose members have close and complicated ties to several nonprofit groups that have received taxpayer funds at the behest of her and her mother, state Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/bronx/bx_councilwoman_eyed_as_next_fed_w3Dzg9A0ba1WZOf8xgdBcN
***
In the Bronx, you could take your pick, but in this case it seems South Bronx Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo and her mama, Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo, have been pumping taxpayer bucks into the South Bronx Community Corp., which employed Maria’s sister Iris and Iris’ politically ambitious son Richard Izquierdo, now abuela Arroyo’s chief of staff and apparent successor-in-training.
***
A mother-daughter pair of Bronx pols got free airfare to Puerto Rico with cash stolen from a nonprofit controlled by a relative, prosecutors charged Wednesday.
Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo and her daughter, City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, got the free flights.
The check writer was Richard Izquierdo Arroyo, the assemblywoman’s grandson and the councilwoman’s nephew.
Izquierdo Arroyo was charged with stealing more than $200,000 from SBCC Management Inc., a Bronx group that’s supposed to manage low-income apartment buildings.
He also spent $3,800 of SBCC’s funds to install a new floor in his grandmother’s Assembly district office and $9,000 for illegal donations to her campaign, prosecutors said.
***
Last week, tenants at a run-down 145-unit apartment building for seniors in the South Bronx cut a cake to celebrate their new owner, a Manhattan-based nonprofit housing group that had just bought the property’s foreclosed mortgage for $1, promising to make $8 million worth of desperately needed repairs.
And they gathered to breathe a sigh of relief that City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo failed in her efforts to deliver the seven-story property—known as Borinquen Court—to a politically connected team that did not have the experience needed to operate it, according to federal housing officials.
By inserting herself into the situation, Ms. Arroyo upended a process established by federal law that gives local government agencies, such as the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the power to ensure that certain distressed buildings go to qualified buyers. When properties like Borinquen—built in 1979 with a loan from a federal housing program—go into foreclosure, the city typically works with tenants and advocates to choose a nonprofit group committed to preserving the property. In this case, they chose West Side Federation for Senior and Supportive Housing, a 35-year-old nonprofit that focuses on Manhattan but has a presence in the Bronx.
Read more: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110306/REAL_ESTATE/303069977#article_tab
***
Had enough? I know I have.
