Special Election Date Set for 80th Assembly Seat

By DAVID CRUZ

Governor Andrew Cuomo has marked April 24 as the day a special election will be held for the vacant 80th Assembly District seat that covers Norwood.

The seat was held by Mark Gjonaj, a Democrat, who relinquished his seat after he was voted Councilman for the East Bronx’s 13th Council District in November.

Some possible names floated to fill his seat include Gjonaj’s former chief of staff, Nathalia Fernandez and Lorraine Cortés-Vázquez, a veteran political operative whose résumé includes serving as the former secretary of state for New York.

Cuomo has also called a special election for the vacant senate seat once held by Ruben Diaz Sr., who represented the 32nd Senate District before he was voted Councilman for the 18th Council District in Soundview. Well before Cuomo made the announcement, Assemblyman Luis Sepulveda of the 87th Assembly District, announced he would vie for the seat.

The election is one of eleven seats currently up in the State Legislature. The special elections are scheduled three weeks after the Legislature is expected to pass the budget.

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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.