Norwood News

Grandiose.

That’s the word Ruben Diaz, Jr. uses to describe his plans for the Bronx if elected borough president.

The 36-year-old Diaz, a Democratic state assemblyman from Soundview for the past 12 years (at 23, he was, and remains, the youngest person ever elected to the Assembly), says people often use the word negatively when he starts getting excited about his ideas to make the borough the “green” building Mecca of New York, a major player in the film industry or an international destination for hip-hop fanatics.

“A lot of people look at me when I’m passionate about this stuff,” Diaz says. “People say to me, ‘Well, isn’t that grandiose?’ And my response to that is, ‘So what? Why not?’”

His only opponent being a Republican east Bronx district leader, Anthony Ribustello, who has raised just $200 (as opposed to Diaz’s $279,680) and is best known for a recurring role on “The Sopranos,” Diaz is considered a lock to become the next Bronx borough president following a nonpartisan special election on April 21. (In perhaps a sign of the inevitability of Diaz’s ascension, he has turned own hundreds of thousands of dollars in public matching funds from the New York City Campaign Finance Board, though he’s eligible to apply for it again if something unexpected happens.)

Asked if Ribustello had a chance at an upset, Assemblyman Jose Rivera, a Democrat, said, “Sure. If you believe in lightning striking.”

Barring that, Diaz is likely to replace former Borough President Adolfo Carrión, who left for a job in Washington as President Obama’s new director of urban policy.

Dressed in a dark suit and groomed immaculately, Diaz sat down for an interview with the Norwood News last week.

While he says Carrión and his predecessor, Fernando Ferrer, both helped elevate the profile of the borough, Diaz, speaking without a press aide (which many politicians bring along to interviews), said he thinks he can be the type of leader to take the Bronx to the next level. He even has a slogan for it.

“From ruins to revitalization to leading the nation,” Diaz says. “Sounds kind of corny, but that’s what we’re trying to do.”

‘We shortchanged ourselves’

During his seven-year tenure, which coincided with a citywide construction boom, Carrión pushed development throughout the borough. But that development often didn’t benefit local residents as much as it should have or could have, Diaz says.

He pointed to the handling of the Yankee Stadium community benefits and project labor agreements, which critics panned for being less substantial than they could have been.

While not willing to single out Carrión, Diaz said, “I thought that we shortchanged ourselves, and I say that collectively, as elected officials in the community, in terms of community benefits agreements,” Diaz said, adding, “I think we could have done better.”

Specifically, Diaz said he thought the elected officials could have fought harder for more than the $850,000 a year for local community groups and $150,000 worth of tickets for local residents.

He also said city and elected officials didn’t do well in preparing Bronx businesses and workers to get contracts or jobs associated with the new stadium, both during and after construction, something he wants to focus on as other projects come through the pipeline.

Once relegated to the sidelines on these big-ticket projects, Diaz says he will be an aggressive advocate as borough president.

One of those projects will be the new shopping mall being created at the Kingsbridge Armory by the Related Companies. Related recently received $17.8 million in tax breaks from the city to subsidize the project. The Kingsbridge Armory Redevelopment Alliance (KARA), a coalition of local groups, residents and unions, criticized the tax breaks because Related had yet to sit down to negotiate a community benefits agreement (CBA).

Working with community groups

Diaz says he wants to promote business, including the use of tax breaks and other subsidies, but he wants to do it in a way where the community has a say, something he says he’s done through working with South Bronx community groups, including Nos Quedamos, Sustainable South Bronx, ACORN and Mothers on the Move.

“Normally what you got in [Soundview] is you got activists there who felt like elected officials weren’t speaking for them or even listening to them and were cutting their own deals,” Diaz said, speaking of the neighborhood he represents and where he lives with his wife and two teenaged children. “We changed that paradigm in the Soundview section of the Bronx and you’ll see that throughout the Bronx, as borough president, we’re going to change that as well.”

Diaz said he sat down with Related six weeks ago to talk informally about their Bronx projects, including the Armory and the Gateway Center Mall at the Bronx Terminal Market.

While still mastering the details of the Armory project, Diaz said the controversial tax breaks Related were awarded by the city are usually in place before a CBA is negotiated. He said there had been some “level of miscommunication” among KARA, Community Board 7 and Borough Hall about how to proceed in creating a CBA.

He said he wanted to speak to all the stakeholders. “What I want to do moving forward is, I want to listen to groups like KARA, I want to listen to the community board, I want to listen to everyone, as well as Related and see how we can get the biggest bang for our buck,” Diaz said.

Bruce Berg, a political analyst who heads Fordham University’s Political Science Department, said little is known about Diaz’s policy record, mostly because of the highly secretive legislative process in Albany.

But the borough presidency, Berg says, isn’t as much about policy as it is about personality.

“The borough presidency is not an office, on its own, that will give you political clout,” Berg said. “It’s about taking what the office gives you and moving it.”

Aside from his role as advocate, Diaz said he plans to use the capital funds allotted to him in the capital budget to create affordable housing, revitalize libraries and inject money and resources into community boards so they can better grapple with the challenging land use issues that come before them.

To create jobs, Diaz wants to promote “green” building through tax rebates and invest in a hip-hop museum, an idea he proposed to Carrion that hasn’t gotten off the ground. He also wants to explore big infrastructure projects like putting a second level on the Cross Bronx expressway, which he says would not only create jobs, but free traffic and reduce air pollution. Diaz says he has the personality and connections to make these projects happen.

To reduce violence, which he says overwhelming affects black and Hispanic males, Diaz, a father of two teenage boys, says there needs to be a major psychological shift in how young men are raised and how they handle disputes.

“That’s something intangible, it can’t be legislated,” Diaz said.

You could call it grandiose.

Ed. note: For more on Diaz and his interview with the Norwood News, visit bronxnewsnetwork.org next week.