Why are we still paying Con Ed.

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Con Ed: Why Are We Still Paying Con Ed? By Michael Horowitz BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 25- Management officials now have a new story for the community’s...

Fordham News: Con ed

Fordham News: Con ed: Why Are We Still Paying Con Ed? By Michael Horowitz BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 25- Management officials now have a new story for the community’s...

Con Ed

Why Are We Still Paying Con Ed?

By Michael Horowitz

BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 25- Management officials now have a new story for the community’s merchants.

Can you believe that officials in the Riverbay Corporation’s Finance Department are now blaming Con Edison for the massive electricity-rate hikes that they have been asked to pay in recent months?

That’s pretty startling when you consider the fact that management officials, for years, had told the local community that Co-op City’s cogeneration plant would save the Riverbay Corporation more than $20 million per year be enabling the community to generate electricity without Con Edison.

That narrative changed, early last year, when Riverbay board member Daryl Johnson, an anti-management watchdog on the board who is seeking reelection to a three-year term, revealed that Co-op City had, in fact, paid Con Edison $17 million over the previous two years.

Con Edison, Johnson learned, at the time, was being paid millions of dollars per year to provide backup electricity in the event of a blackout at the cogeneration plant.

“It’s really absurd, under the circumstances, that Co-op City’s Finance Department has the audacity to blame Con Edison for the whopping increases in our electricity rates that were put into effect early this year,” one merchant said. “I’m sitting here wondering what kind of excuses the management of Co-op City is going to come up with the next time that they implement an increase in our charges.

In recent years, Co-op City’s Finance Department has come under attack from the community’s merchants for whopping increases in charges and sloppy bookkeeping.

Last year, the merchants faced whopping increases in charges for commercial real-estate taxes, largely because Co-op City’s Finance Department, for years, had failed to bill merchants for the taxes.

Lou Salegna, the Riverbay Corporation’s comptroller, said, at the time, that merchants hadn’t been billed for the taxes because Co-op City’s computer programs hadn’t included a line for these charges.

To this day, management fails to include the kinds of cost breakdowns for tax and electricity charges that are common in the real-estate industry, an informed source told City News this week.

Dim Bulbs!

Dim Bulbs!

Community Still Getting Con Ed Bill Even though they Spent $90M to Build Own Power Plant

By Michael Horowitz

BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 25- Riverbay assistant treasurer Daryl Johnson startled the community, early last year, with a revelation that Co-op City had paid Con Edison $17 million over the previous two years to help provide electricity to the local community.

Johnson’s revelation was especially striking, since the Co-op City Times and City News had repeatedly reported, in recent years, that the Riverbay Corporation’s cogeneration plant, which cost $90 million to build, had enabled the community to generate electricity without Con Edison.

In recent years, Johnson, who has an extensive background in auditing, has been compiling financial data aimed at bolstering his case that fiscal waste is rampant at the Riverbay Corporation.

Putting this seeming waste into perspective, an expenditure of $17 million represents approximately 17 percent in carrying charges.

Asked to comment on his startling revelation about $17 million in payments to Con Edison, Johnson said, last year, that he was looking into the matter and its implications relating to management, the Riverbay board, and the Co-op City community as a whole.

“We need to investigate about what’s going on in terms of how Co-op City spends its money in this and a wide assortment of other areas,” Johnson stressed, in a telephone interview last year.. “It’s really hard to piece something like this together when you’re dealing with a management that stonewalls you as much as possible.”

Informed observers, commenting last year, stressed that they found it more than a bit strange that Co-op City, which has had a state-of-the art cogeneration plant since 2009, paid Con Edison $17 million over the last two years to help generate electricity for the local community.

One shareholder, upon hearing about the payments to Con Edison, stressed, at the time “I thought we were generating our own electricity. In Co-op City, we seem to be dealing with a bunch of sleazes who think nothing of wasting the shareholders’ hard-earned money. What goes on in Co-op City is enough to make you want to throw up. We don’t get answers from management; all we get is a bunch of bs.”  

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Baby Gorillas Make Their Zoo Debut

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Baby Gorillas Make Their Zoo Debut: Baby Gorillas Make Their Zoo Debut (Photos by Julie Larson) BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 24- Two western lowland gorillas were born at the Wildli...

Baby Gorillas Make Their Zoo Debut

Baby Gorillas Make Their Zoo Debut

(Photos by Julie Larson)

BRONX, NEW YORK, APRIL 24- Two western lowland gorillas were born at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Bronx Zoo. These are the first gorillas born at the Bronx Zoo since 2006.

The Bronx Zoo’s Congo Gorilla Forest is now home to 20 gorillas – the largest group of gorillas in North America. The Bronx Zoo has a successful history breeding gorillas as part of the Species Survival Plan, a cooperative breeding program designed to enhance the genetic viability of animal populations in zoos accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.

The gender of the babies is not yet known. The infants and the parents live with the rest of their troop in the Bronx Zoo’s Congo Gorilla Forest. These are the 14th and 15th gorillas born at this award-winning exhibit and there have been 50 gorillas born at the Bronx Zoo since 1972.

When the babies can be seen by visitors this spring will vary day-by-day depending on weather, temperature, and other environmental factors.

Julia (33 years old) gave birth on March 10 and Tuti (19 years old) had her baby on April 17. Ernie (31 years old) is the father of both babies. Julia and Tuti are both experienced mothers; Julia has successfully reared two babies and Tuti has had one other. Ernie is a first-time father.

  

The gestation period for a gorilla is 8.5 months and newborns weigh approximately 4 to 5 pounds. Gorilla infants are held by their mother for the first four months of their life. Infants start eating solid foods at about 6 months but will nurse until they are 3 or 4 years old. 

Gorillas are the world’s largest primates. Adult males weigh between 350-450 pounds and when standing upright can be up to six feet tall. Adult females weigh between 150-250 pounds and are up to four feet tall. 

Congo Gorilla Forest opened in 1999 on a 6.5-acre footprint in the southwest corner of the zoo. The exhibit is an immersive walkthrough that gives zoo-goers the feeling of being in a Central African rainforest where they can see examples of African biodiversity.  Species include mandrills, okapis, many species of birds and invertebrates, and of course the western lowland gorillas. Congo Gorilla Forest has won many awards for its design, animal habitats, and horticulture. It is also among the world’s first zoo exhibits where admission fees go directly to field conservation efforts in Africa. Since it opened, more than $12.5 million has gone to support WCS’s Global Conservation Programs.

Western lowland gorillas are designated as Critically Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Their natural range spans tropical and subtropical forests in equatorial Africa. They are primarily vegetarian, mainly consuming fruits, plants, and some insects. They spend much of their time on the ground, but are excellent climbers.

The Wildlife Conservation Society saves wildlife and wild places around the globe and in all four of the world’s oceans. WCS works throughout Central Africa to protect gorillas from habitat loss and illegal hunting.

Visit: www.wcs.org; http://www.facebook.com/TheWCS; http://www.youtube.com/user/WCSMedia  Follow: @thewcs.

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Bx. Puerto Rican Day Parade

Bronx News (Bxnews.net): Bx. Puerto Rican Day Parade: PREVIEW OF THE BIG PARADE (Young beauty pageant winners and their parents after the annual contest.--Photos by Miriam Quin) A few dozen y...