There will not be a special election for the 11th Council District. At least, not this year.

The Bronx Democratic Party nominated three candidates to the Bronx Supreme Court at a judicial convention on Aug. 8. None of the nominees were Councilman Andrew Cohen, delaying the long-anticipated campaign to succeed the term-limited councilman for at least another year and squashing theories of party orchestration.

Instead, Bronx Democrats nominated Bahaati Pitt and John Higgit to two open seats and re-nominated Wilma Guzman to the seat she’s held since 2006. Gov. Andrew Cuomo appointed Higgit to the New York State Court of Claims in 2018, but he was moved to the Bronx Supreme Court shortly after to serve on an interim basis. Pitt was first appointed a judge by Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2016, serving on the city’s civil and criminal courts.

A former court attorney for the Bronx Supreme Court and a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Cohen long made it known publicly he hopes to become a judge. An apparent play to make Cohen a judge last year was scuttled after media reports indicated the Bronx Democratic Party planned to put former state Sen. Jeff Klein on the court after his primary loss. Party boss Marcos Crespo and other county officials vehemently denied any plan was in the works at the time.

“Trying to put together the slate of judges to represent the Democratic Party in Bronx County is an art form,” Cohen told the Norwood News ahead of this year’s convention. “There are a lot of constituencies that want to be represented on the bench. It’s just not as simple as ‘you, you, and you.’ It doesn’t always come together that way.”

The Norwood News and other outlets previously reported there was a plan afoot to nominate Cohen for a judgeship so Eric Dinowitz, a candidate to replace him and son of Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, would have an easier path to victory in a special election. The Bronx Democrat County Party wanted to avoid the “appearance of impropriety” in the eyes of reformers, one Bronx politico suggested.

Speculation the swap might happen this year instead triggered increased activity from the candidates for the 11th Council District, which includes Norwood, parts of Bedford Park, Kingsbridge, Riverdale, Fieldston, and Woodlawn. Daniel Padernacht and Eric Dinowitz revved up their campaigns despite the nearly two years left until the Democratic primary in June 2021.

The belief inside Padernacht’s camp was the increased activity of the Dinowitz campaign indicated the special election was coming. Dinowitz’s father is Assemblyman Jeffrey Dinowitz, one of the top officials in the Bronx Democratic Party and plays a role in selecting judicial nominees.

Another candidate, Dio Then, announced in recent weeks. Then currently works in the Mayor’s community affairs office, according to his LinkedIn page. He also spent time in Manhattan Councilman Keith Powers’ office and as a tour guide at the Museum of Sex.

“If it comes this year, I’m going to be ready; if it comes next year that would be good,” Cohen told the Norwood News in July 2018. That same month, Padernacht and Dinowitz launched their campaigns.

Cohen told the Norwood News in April 2019 he was considering a run for Bronx Borough President in 2021. Fellow term-limited council members Vanessa Gibson and Fernando Cabrera are reportedly considering a run for the seat. The current occupant of the borough president’s office, Ruben Diaz Jr., is term-limited himself and launched a run for mayor.

Padernacht is a lawyer and a former chair for Community Board 8, where he currently serves as chair of the transportation committee. In 2010, Padernacht challenged infamous state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. in the Democratic primary. He backed out in the days before the election and threw his support behind Gustavo Rivera, who ultimately won.

The younger Dinowitz also serves on CB8 as the board’s aging committee chair, the position Cohen held before he ran for City Council in 2013. Dinowitz is also the Male Democratic District Leader for the 81st Assembly District, which is represented by his father. By day, Dinowitz is a special education teacher in Kingsbridge.

Though the campaign to succeed Cohen will continue, the candidates will have to wait until their regularly scheduled 2021 election to find out who will emerge victorious.

“There is no guarantee the planets are going to line up perfectly that I can work my last day as a city council member and then go to the courthouse,” Cohen said recently. “It may work out that it’s a year earlier, it may work out it’s a year later. I don’t know.”

Judicial Convention
The convention saw the nomination of two candidates for two open seats on the Bronx Supreme Court and Guzman re-nominated to a second stint on the bench, further reflecting the demographics of the borough. On primary day, each Assembly district votes on judicial delegates, who are then sent to the convention to vote on nominees for the court. There were no contested judicial delegate elections in the Bronx this year, according to the state board of elections.

Guzman was first elected to the city’s civil court in 1998 before winning her seat on the Bronx Supreme Court in 2006. She served as president of the Puerto Rican Bar Association, the Latino Judges Association, and President of the Supreme Court Justices Association of the City of New York.

Pitt, one of the two newcomers to the court, served as a law clerk for the Supreme Court and the chairperson of the Black Bar Association of Bronx County. She also chaired Community Board 10’s Youth Services Committee and worked for the Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Division for seven years. Pitt came to the Bronx from Guyana as a child and told Caribbean Life in 2017, “Being Guyanese is one of the most important parts of my identity.”

Before being appointed an acting justice last year, Higgit worked as the chief court attorney for the Bronx Supreme Court and has worked for the New York court system since 2002.

New York’s Supreme Court judges serve 14-year terms and are constitutionally prohibited from serving past the age of 70.

Four civil court judge candidates also ran unopposed in the June primary. They will be on the Democratic ballot in November, and are likely to win given the dominance of the Democratic party in the Bronx. The candidates are: Michael Frishman, Matthew Raso, John A. Howard-Algarin, and Jessica I. Bourbon.

Frishman is a court attorney for Guzman and received his law degree from University of Miami School of Law. He’s heavily involved in the Thurgood Marshall Junior Mock Trial Competition, coaching P.S. 71 to three straight championships. Frishman is also a member of the Ben Franklin Democratic Reform Club, the northwest Bronx political club closely associated with the elder Dinowitz.

Raso is a principal law clerk for Judge Mitchell Danziger, a Bronx civil court justice. He also previously served on Community Board 11 and is a prominent LGBTQ member of the Bronx Democratic Party.

A longtime chair of Community Board 4’s Parks Committee, Howard-Algarin is an associate counsel for Con Edison. Previously he worked for the Manhattan law firm Bamundo, Zwal & Shemerhorn, LLP.

Jessica Bourbon is an assistant district attorney at the Bronx District Attorney’s office. While Frishman and Raso will be running countywide, Bourbon and Howard-Algarin will be running in each of the Bronx’s two municipal court districts.

Bourbon will be running in District 1, which extends from Riverdale to Mott Haven and includes Norwood. District 2, where Howard-Algarin will be running, encompasses the eastern half of the borough from Wakefield to Soundview.

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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.