We Deserve a Better Choice
A little more than 300,000 people live in the 33rd Senate District, which includes the entire readership area of the Norwood News.
The incumbent, State Senator Efrain Gonzalez, is charged with stealing more than $400,000 in taxpayer money from nonprofits he controls. Sure, a jury could possibly declare him innocent, when he finally gets to trial, but that doesn't absolve Gonzalez from the sin of setting up and funding ghost groups that do virtually nothing for constituents, wasting precious taxpayer money. Court papers and reporting by the Norwood News found zero evidence of any work the nonprofits have done.
Gonzalez's legal troubles blew a cavernous opening in the usual Machine-erected brick wall protecting incumbents.
If you thought a small army of young, ambitious pols would be jumping through, ballot petitions in hand, you'd be wrong.
Instead, we get Pedro Espada, a former south Bronx state senator, who at least deserves credit for identifying a district where the ethically challenged excel.
Espada heads a group of south Bronx health care centers. Three of his executives pleaded guilty to diverting $30,000 from family care and AIDS treatment programs to Espada's 2001 bid for Bronx borough president (he lost by just a few points to Adolfo Carrion). The state attorney general's office said the health center officials even took food "intended for AIDS patients and [gave] it instead to Espada campaign workers," according to a New York Times report.
In recent weeks Espada has been pushing free food giveaways, including one on Gun Hill Road and DeKalb Avenue in conjunction with his Burnside Medical Center.
What a coincidence that these events overlap with his Senate bid!