Nick Judd

At least when I was working there, Riverdale was a community where real estate ruled. Condo and co-op sales, rentals, new development projects and multi-million-dollar public works projects abounded during my time there, from early 2008 to late 2009, in the wake of New York’s building boom and as New Yorkers began to understand the full extent of the subsequent recession.

The results, from what I saw, were allegations of rampant corruption: Union supervisors taking kickbacks so developers could avoid paying union fees, Department of Buildings regulators who turned such a blind eye that it led to a local scandal involving unsafe construction cranes, and a financing environment that provided ample cash to start building dozens of projects but then left several dormant for years.

Here’s one dispatch from that world, reporting on charges against contractors and public utility officials accused of involvement in a kickback scheme:

Federal prosecutors have charged 11 former Con Edison supervisors with soliciting and taking kickbacks from a contractor to artificially inflate the cost of several construction projects in New York City and split the proceeds. The high-voltage power line now being pulled through the Riverdale- Kingsbridge area may have been one of them.

A Con Ed spokesman, Robert McGee, identified the contractor as Felix Associates, a firm that does gas line and electrical work on construction projects, including the high-voltage power line, and which has had several Con Ed contracts in the past.

Mr. McGee said that agreements with Felix Associates have been terminated. The 10 Con Ed employees still working at the utility when affidavits supporting their arrests were unsealed in mid-January have been fired.

“We don’t expect our employees to take bribes and we don’t expect our contractors to offer them,” Mr. McGee said on Feb. 23.

Oliver Koppell was one of the central characters from my time at The Riverdale Press. I remember him as a straight-talking, cerebral politician who followed his wits and his moral compass wherever they took him, regardless of the impact on his political career. He was a fascinating man to watch. A Harvard University and Harvard Law School graduate, he had helped to author New York’s bottle bill and other significant pieces of environmental legislation decades before I arrived in the state. But he had also decided to buck the odds and take a shot at keeping the post of attorney general, which as chairman of the state Assembly’s judiciary committee he had been given when its previous occupant, Robert Abrams, left the post. He went on to lose the election to Eliot Spitzer, leaving his political career hanging in the wind. Later, he would win a seat in the New York City Council.

Koppell had an opportunity for his second act on the council, but his tendency to speak his piece and do as he thought was right regardless of the consequences — at times contradicting his longtime friends as well as his party, and at times finding himself strange allies for a man with a pretty hefty claim to the moral high ground — again seemed to ruin his political odds. I remember him from my time in Riverdale as a towering figure — he is thin and far taller than six feet in stature — wearing a rumpled seersucker suit, speaking at community events or shaking hands with voters at a local bus stop.

When New York City’s term limits law changed and Koppell was able to seek a third term in office, I wrote about how that changed the political climate for the cadre of ambitious younger men waiting to scrap for the opportunity to replace him.

Here’s what he told me:

“My general health is good, I’m feeling vigorous, I’m feeling I’m contributing to committees,” Mr. Koppell said March 6. “[Asking me to give up elected office] would be like asking a doctor to stop practicing medicine, or an artist to stop painting, or a scientist to stop inventing, or a businessman to stop building a business.”

Koppell’s third term on the City Council is up at the end of this year. I haven’t spoken to him since leaving The Press, but I would be surprised if he left public life entirely.

In the last election I covered for The Riverdale Press, local pol Tony Cassino tried to oust City Councilman Oliver Koppell, who, thanks to a change in New York City’s term limits law, was allowed to try for a third term. In the run-up to the election, I profiled each candidate in turn, focusing on personality and issues. Here’s Tony:

Not every door opens for Tony Cassino, but that doesn’t stop him from trying.

The City Council hopeful went knocking in Kingsbridge on Monday night, continuing his effort to round up votes for the September Democratic primary election.

“This is easy,” Mr. Cassino said as he canvassed a few blocks near the Riverdale Diner. “We’re not asking anybody to sign anything.”

Long independent from the neighborhood’s political establishment, Mr. Cassino has been gearing up for a City Council run since 2007. The former chairman of the local community board and now chairman of one of its committees, the North Riverdale resident has based his campaign on a ground-up approach to government. And he needs it: Without an established organization behind him, he has worked to build a new one for his campaign, issue by issue, doorbell by doorbell.

He sweats the small stuff. And his focus on the minutiae of neighborhood life has garnered him enough support, financial and otherwise, to mount a credible challenge to incumbent City Councilman Oliver Koppell, who has held his position for eight years and earlier served for decades in the state Assembly.

Koppell logged a solid win against Cassino, who continues in his role managing pro bono work for the New York law firm Milbank Tweed and serves on a number of mayorally appointed boards.

Two of my favorite things to write about, politics and weird news, came together in this old clip from 2009, for The Riverdale Press:

Last December, Riverdale resident Sheran Tavarez parked along Broadway in front of the lane where Forster would empty out to the main thoroughfare — that is, if it weren’t actually a gently sloping hill replete with woods and shrubbery.

But a traffic enforcement agent, perhaps not seeing the forest for the trees, gave her a $115 ticket for blocking the traffic lane.

This story, the second in a series about how the Internet was changing local politics and activism in New York and in the world circa Barack Obama’s 2008 election to the presidency, led directly to my joining techPresident. It was the first time I spoke to NGP Software’s Stu Trevelyan for a story, but wouldn’t be the last. Here’s Ari Hoffnung, then at a still-solvent Bear Stearns and taking his second tilt at a City Council seat:

“Ari Hoffnung can use the same software that Barack Obama can,” Mr. Hoffnung said, marveling. “How cool is that?”

Hoffnung went on to do tours of duty on Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s third re-election campaign and on the staff of City Councilman Simcha Felder. He is now an assistant comptroller for City Comptroller John Liu. One of his rivals in that race, Tony Cassino — who also took a shine to campaign technology — continues in his role as assistant director of public service for the law firm Milbank Tweed, and serves on a number of mayorally appointed boards. One of those is the Voter Assistance Advisory Commission, formed under the newly revised City Charter, which is tasked with reinventing voter education for a 21st-century New York City.

Go on, read the whole thing. You know you want to.

In this 2009 story for The Riverdale Press, I trace the brief resurgence of New York’s Democratic Party in the State Senate — and the resulting influence for the neighborhood I covered, represented by three different state senators — in part to the hot-blooded revenge of Guy Velella, a Republican state lawmaker who by that time had already left politics in disgrace and finished serving time on bribery charges.

I hope you go read the whole thing; it was one of my favorite stories to write. I went on that year to win awards for my local government and political coverage. Here’s the beginning of the story:

Like many tales of revenge, this one begins at a wedding.

The groom was a top political consultant for Guy Velella, a powerful Republican state senator. Riverdale political power couple Oliver Koppell and Lorraine Coyle Koppell, friends of the groom, Norman Adler, were there. So was Eric Schneiderman, a precocious freshman lawmaker in his second year in Albany, determined to engineer an overthrow of the state’s Republican hierarchy.

Many Bronx politicians crack a wistful grin when they talk about that day in 2000, when Mr. Schneiderman, who also represents parts of Riverdale, walked up to the Koppells at the reception. With Mr. Velella in the room, he suggested that Ms. Koppell challenge the Republican in an upcoming election.

The entire city stretched out below the newlyweds as they were feted at Windows on the World, atop the World Trade Center. Maybe it was the rarefied air that spoke of infinite possibilities, maybe it was that the Democrats perceived political opportunities – but whatever the cause, Ms. Koppell agreed to take on Mr. Velella.

Mr. Velella and the Bronx Democratic old guard allegedly had a sort of non-aggression pact. By actively recruiting a candidate like Ms. Koppell, Mr. Schneiderman had violated the unspoken compact.

Although Ms. Koppell’s bid failed, the attempt prompted a campaign of revenge that dramatically tipped the scales of power – not only in the borough, but throughout the state. The violent corrective swings back and forth would stretch over nearly a decade; only now has the beam come to a precarious equilibrium.

Nearly 10 years later, Mr. Velella has served time in jail on bribery-related charges, Mr. Schneiderman has gone from a footnote in the state Senate minutes to the chairman of a powerful committee, and Riverdale has gone from having two Senators to three, all of whom hold considerable clout. This March, as the corridors of power in Albany swarm with lawmakers and lobbyists rushing to pass a budget, those three will have a weighty say in the final product.

Brief footnotes: Schneiderman is now New York’s attorney general. Velella, who suffered from lung cancer, passed away earlier this year.

When FBI and law enforcement officials arrested four hapless, apparently would-be terrorists as they tried to plant bombs in front of a Bronx synagogue one May morning in 2009, I had just packed up after covering a meeting about a twenty-minute drive away.

I was the staff politics writer for The Riverdale Press, a scrappy weekly newspaper in the Bronx known as the only New York City weekly to hold a Pulitzer Prize. When my photo editor called in the tip, I threw my stuff in the back of the aging Peugot 405 my publisher lent out to cover assignments and struggled to work its stick shift with one hand and my cellphone with the other in a mad dash back to Riverdale from the North Bronx.

The Press would go on to win first place the Suburban Newspaper Association’s breaking news category for our team coverage of that bombing. I covered the news on our blog and in news alerts to subscribers the night of the attack and after an early morning press conference the next day, as well as continued to contribute stories from federal court in Newburgh, N.Y., to our coverage. The four men would go on to be convicted, well after I left The Press in 2009.

Bombing attempt foiled at Riverdale Temple

Four men were arrested in connection with an attempt to plant what they believed to be car bombs in front of Riverdale Temple on Independence Avenue on Wednesday night, according to eyewitnesses and a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

‘Petty criminals’ behind bomb attempt met in prison

Rapid arrest culminates year of patient planning

The arrest was violent and quick and its organizers managed to keep it a secret, even to police at the 50th Precinct. Capt. John D’Adamo, the Precinct commander, told The Press that he was the only one at the Kingsbridge stationhouse who was informed of the operation. It had been developing for many months, but the captain did not learn of it until the day before, according to a law enforcement source.

Community has history as target

When law enforcement officers shattered the window of an SUV on Independence Avenue the night of May 20, the shards left on the ground spread out like a puzzle.

Governor answers prayers for temple security

Accused temple bomb plotters plead not guilty

Onta Williams, in a red T-shirt, was still as Mr. Snyder said he had a video recording in which the alleged bombing conspirator drew a map of Stewart Air Force Base, which they allegedly planned to attack. In the recording, Mr. Snyder said, Onta Williams labeled the base as “ground zero.”

No bail, yet, for bomb plot suspects

NYPD Emergency Services Unit officers waited nearby Wednesday night as the men planted what they thought were explosives outside the temple and the Jewish center, Mr. Kelly said. When the men returned to their sport-utility vehicle and got behind its tinted windows, police approached in an armored vehicle called a BearCat, shattered the windows — because the windows were tinted and the officers could not see what was going on inside — and made their arrests, said Mr. Kelly.

Williams’ family says Feds put him up to it

“Of course they were entrapped. My son, he takes mass transit, he doesn’t have a vehicle, he doesn’t drive, he doesn’t even own a bicycle. How could he obtain the resources to pull this stunt off?” asked David Williams III, Mr. Williams’ father, as he stood outside the federal courthouse in White Plains on June 5. His son had just made a brief court appearance.

Lawyer questions sanity of her client

Mr. Payen, wearing jeans and a black tank top at his arraignment in the White Plains federal courthouse’s largest courtroom, gave the audience in the room an embarrassed smile when his pants fell down. He hadn’t been allowed a belt and had to hold them up with his cuffed hands.

Bomb fear proves unfounded

The commotion on West 239th Street comes nearly two months after four men were arrested just a few blocks away, between Riverdale Temple and Riverdale Jewish Center on Independence Avenue, and accused of attempting to detonate explosives in front of both institutions as well as fire surface-to-air missiles at military planes on a Newburgh, N.Y. Air National Guard base.

In Temple terror case, motions give clues to strategy

Lawyers defending the four men accused in the alleged attempted bombing of two Riverdale synagogues seem to be preparing to argue that the government entrapped their clients.

 

Here’s me from 2007, writing in Hudson County’s own Jersey Journal:

A kamikaze squirrel fell from the sky and detonated a Bayonne woman’s car Wednesday, police said yesterday.

Lindsey Millar, 23, and her brother, Tony, 22, were both home Wednesday at about 12:45 p.m. when they suddenly noticed Lindsey’s car burning outside their 42nd Street home.

Tony Millar said yesterday that firefighters told them it was the work of a buck-toothed saboteur that had been gnawing on power lines connected to a transformer above the 2006 Toyota Camry.

“The squirrel chewed through the wire, was set on fire, fell down directly to where the car was,” Tony Millar said. “The squirrel, on fire, slid into the engine compartment and blew up the car.

“They’re always coming around here chewing through the garbage,” he added.

Tony Millar says his sister’s car was fully insured.

“It’s something to laugh about once she has a new car,” he said. “It’s not funny yet.”

Police said there were no injuries – except, that is, for the squirrel, which is dead.

The Millars’ home is decorated for Halloween, complete with a tiny plastic tombstone on their front lawn. Tony Millar said the family will consider dedicating the tombstone to the squirrel, who was not named.

Oddly, the item I wrote appeared day-of on the NJ.com blog under my editor’s byline, but I get appropriate credits in this related post.

[Jersey Journal, Oct. 19, 2007]

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