Ricardo Martinez is a true underdog.

The longtime Bedford Park resident is running for office in the 78th Assembly District (Bedford Park, Fordham, Crotona) against a living legend in Jose Rivera, the well-known patresfamilias of a Bronx political dynasty. He has no campaign money to speak of. And he’s battling bone cancer.

None of that is sapping the enthusiasm from the man everyone knows as “Ricky.”

Despite the cancer treatments, which have dropped his weight from 385 to 194 pounds over the past two years, Martinez says he is gamely knocking on doors, shaking hands at subway stops and building support among constituencies, like the growing Muslim population in the district, he believes have been under-served by the incumbent.

“It’s time for the old man to go,” Martinez says.

In July, Martinez thought he might have knocked Rivera, 75, off the ballot. He filed a complaint with the Board of Elections, saying Rivera had committed fraud by putting Martinez’s name on his own petitions after he explicitly told him not to. While the motion failed to knock Rivera out of the race, it did allow Martinez to stay on the ballot — no small feat considering how many challengers’ petitions are thrown out for technicalities. Martinez says he filed nearly 4,000 signatures, all of which he gathered on his own.

In addition to wanting to see Rivera toppled, Martinez says he wants to show that having a disease like cancer doesn’t preclude someone from chasing their dreams and living a productive life. (Martinez has taken a leave of absence from his job working for the United Nations as liaison to diplomats, although he says he did recently do some work when the ambassador for Malaysia came into town.)

And if the pain were to become too much or his abilities impaired too drastically? “When I can’t do the job, I’ll step down,” Martinez says.

But until then, Martinez is on the grind, working to garner votes on primary day, Sept. 13. He says he’s full of ideas that will put Bronxites back to work and keep streets safe. He wants to put speed bumps on Mosholu Parkway. He wants schools to stay open until 6 p.m. to keep kids from running the streets. He wants to give out laptops to Bronx students. Like the borough president, he says a hotel should be built in the borough and all the jobs should go to Bronxites.

Martinez has worked for global organization, the UN, for 17 years, but his home life has centered around the communities of Norwood and Bedford Park after growing up in the South Bronx. For a while, he lived on Rochambeau Avenue in Norwood, but has spent most of his adult life on the south side of Mosholu Parkway. He’s a regular at Bedford Mosholu Community Association meetings and often shows up at Community Board 7 and 52nd Precinct Community Council meetings.

In late August, Martinez hosted a block party and barbecue on 204th Street and Mosholu Parkway. It’s an annual affair that is tinged with politics. He says some 3,000 people showed up. Rivera, whose daughter recently died of ALS (otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease), did not attend.

By then, the stories alleging misconduct by Rivera’s daughter, Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera, had begun to surface in the New York Post. Martinez couldn’t wait to pounce, hinting that Rivera’s own past might be catching up to him through his daughter. Though there have been reports of Rivera being investigated by authorities, he has never been indicted or charged with any wrongdoing. But that didn’t stop Martinez from piling on.

“The sins of the father shall revisit him,” Martinez said, cryptically, in a phone interview.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.