On Monday, Fernando Tirado, Community Board 7's district manager, formally announced his decision to run for State Senate in the 33rd Senate District. In doing so, Tirado joins a crowded field that now includes four Democratic contenders trying to unseat the district's current senator, Pedro Espada, Jr., in the September primary.

While Pedro Espada fends off multiple law suits, Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter, the Fordham Hill activist taking Espada on for the 33rd Senate District seat, is gaining momentum, picking up a big labor endorsement and scheduling fund-raisers with deep-pocketed Democratic donors.

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Things are heating up in the State Senate race for the 33rd District-the seat currently occupied by Democratic majority leader Pedro Espada, Jr.

Borough presidents may not have as much power as the city comptroller or Council speaker, but you wouldn't know it from the scene last week at the Evander Childs High School campus where those officials and many, many more - including two former Council speakers and former borough president Fernando Ferrer - turned out for Ruben Diaz, Jr.'s debut State of the Borough address.

Alba Vazquez immigrated to America in 1977 from her native Uruguay, where a military dictatorship had seized power a few years prior. She settled in the Bronx with the hopes of building a safer, more prosperous life for herself and her young family.

On Monday, she spoke in support of bill which would guarantee decent wages and benefits to cleaners, security guards, and other building service workers at new commercial and residential developments financed by city tax-dollars, and at buildings the city leases from others.

Fernando Cabrera's inauguration last Wednesday night at Bronx Community College played out like a star-studded spiritual revival, complete with song, dance and plenty of prayer, as a small army of politicians lined up to congratulate and predict a bright future for the Bronx's newest City Council member.

Several hours earlier, another event of perhaps equal importance, involving the Councilman's staff, his new district office and a distressed young homeless couple, unfolded to less fanfare.

Fernando Cabrera's inauguration last Wednesday night at Bronx Community College played out like a star-studded spiritual revival, complete with song, dance and plenty of prayer, as a small army of politicians lined up to congratulate and predict a bright future for the Bronx's newest City Council member.

Several hours earlier, another event of perhaps equal importance, involving the Councilman's staff, his new district office and a distressed young homeless couple, unfolded to less fanfare.

Less than 18 months ago, Fernando Cabrera was a college professor living in Westchester County who spent his spare time leading the Morris Avenue church he founded two decades ago.

On Jan. 1 he will become a New York City councilman and recently, weeks before officially taking office, he played a central role in helping to stop one of the biggest development projects in Bronx history.