On the last day of June, the sidewalks of Kingsbridge Road were filled with happy merchants, face-painted children and clowns with balloons.

It was the scene at the first annual Kingsbridge Road Kickoff, which aimed to attract shoppers and local residents with discounts and free samples from various neighborhood stores.

Two Bronx politicians are picking up the torch from the living wage campaign that was at the heart of last year's battle over the Kingsbridge Armory.

City Council Members Oliver Koppell and Annabel Palma - both of the Bronx -introduced the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act on May 25, a bill that would require most development projects receiving city subsidies to pay workers eventually employed there a living wage - $10 an hour with benefits or $11.50 an hour without.

Parents and advocates have been trying for years to have new school space built at the Kingsbridge Armory Annex, a cluster of buildings on West 195th Street, between Jerome and Reservoir avenues.

For that to happen, however, the building's current tenants - the National Guard - would have to move. Local organizers have suggested what they see as a perfect new home for the military units: a now-vacant building in Wakefield known as the Muller Army Reserve Center.

We are pleased that Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. has assembled a strong team of well-known professionals and community leaders to serve on a new Kingsbridge Armory Task Force.

We hope they can quickly come up with some creative ideas that break the tiresome mold of cookie-cutter malls that don't offer the community anything it really needs and do little to lift workers into even the working class.

A tremendous public resource like the Armory should fulfill myriad public needs.

Retail does not have to be excluded entirely, despite the collapse of the Related Companies proposal in the City Council. The beauty of the Armory's half-a-million square feet is that it can accommodate so many critical community uses like recreation, entertainment, job training, small business incubator and youth development. Stores can be part of the mix, too. Many of these ideas have been on the community's drawing board for years.

There have been many Kingsbridge Armory task forces throughout the years, and this one has no real authority aside from the bully pulpit. But maybe that's a good thing.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz, Jr. and City Councilman Fernando Cabrera announced a big-name lineup to serve on a task force that they hope will generate a new plan to put the massive and long-vacant Kingsbridge Armory to use for the community.

As the Bronx deals with a slow economy and constantly changing demographics, few family owned businesses withstand the test of time. The Perista Coffee Shop and Restaurant on Kingsbridge Road is a notable exception.

As a child, I always heard my mother call herself the lioness and her children were her cubs. I am now a parent and see myself in the same light as she did. So now, as a parent leader of the Education Committee of the Northwest Bronx Community & Clergy Coalition (NWBCCC), I fight for my children's right to the best education and for the rights of kids in my community. School District 10 is the third most overcrowded district in New York City. The recent report from the city comptroller, "Underprepared for Overcrowding," lets us know just how much we need new schools - Bronx primary schools are 112 percent over-capacity. Yet 1,703 seats were slashed from the previous capital plan, and the current plans to build new schools fall short of the number of seats needed.

I write in response to Don Bluestone's op-ed ("What We Lost in Defeat of Armory Proposal") in the Feb. 11 edition of the Norwood News.

Surely everyone realizes that defeating "The Shops at the Armory" is a bittersweet victory. Sweet in that our City Council voted as we the voters asked them to, as they did not when they voted on the filtration plant and the new Yankee Stadium; bitter, in that we are back to the drawing board in our 10-year effort to have the Armory appropriately developed.

Now that the dust has settled and everyone is celebrating the wonderful victory over the evil developer who was about to be given such a wonderful resource that we had such great use of - The Kingsbridge Armory - I find myself asking, "What has been lost and what has been gained?"