Ask the Bronx Borough President: November 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: October 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: September 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: August 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: July 2025

Ask the Bronx Borough President: June 2025

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1030bxaskthebpbblock_2023-10-30-19-35-46

Welcome back to ask the borough president here on News 12. The Bronx as BP Vanessa Gibson is here with us. Once again, you can call in with your questions. It's 718861 6800, but that's not the only way you can ask your questions. You can also head over to our news 12, the Bronx Facebook page and leave us a comment. We have one of those questions for you right now. Let's take a look at that right now. This is from Jennifer. She wants to know borough president. Can we please get more lighting in Bronx Park? I think we, what are we talking? Probably Bronx Park East there we think could be, but we'll check with the Parks department to see what existing lights look like at Bronx Park and see if there can be either uh additional parks uh added lights added into the park or if we can just illuminate the existing one. So it depends uh many of our parks have already had lights replaced um through dot So I have to look and see if they're led lights or there's spotlights. I've seen multiple different lights in different parks and playgrounds, depending on the size. So we'll, we'll follow up and look into it to see what's there. Definitely a good thing to do there. Lighting makes a big difference. Especially when we get into these areas. Lighting on the street too, for sure. Absolutely. Uh, we have another question for you. I wanted to head over there. We, uh, spoke with someone a little bit earlier. They had a question for you and I think you're gonna find this topic is something you've gotten a question about once or twice before. Let's take a listen to that question right now. How many rats all over the place? What could be done? What steps they could take to, you know, make it better? All right. What do we do to make things better with the rats? I know the mayor. I mean, look, we know the mayor's got his hi his initiative going on. The rats are, yes. And we have all the garbage and the sanitation things going on here. But in the long run, we still end up with rats in people's homes, mitigation programs. We have to work with landlords and property owners on how they discard their garbage where the garbage is located or more recycling. We have composting coming to the Bronx in March of next year. The initiative that the rolled out, uh several months ago with the new rats are started in northern Manhattan first. It will eventually get to the Bronx, but I think it's working with Doh. Mh, it's working on making sure we have more services. You know, the challenge with rats is that they feed off of food and garbage. And as long as we have people, we will have food and garbage. So the question is, how do we contain it? How do we make sure that it's disposed of properly? How do we get more trash receptacles that are rat resist? Right. Working with DS Ny, there are a lot of efforts already underway. Uh More garbage pickups, more frequency. Uh working with DS. Ny. Many of the incredible programs that do work like CEO like uh Fed CAPP and Wildcat. They do amazing programs on sanitary services and sanitation and picking up garbage so we can look more into it. Uh in terms of some of the announcement that the mayor has made, a lot of that will be rolled out early next year. Somebody calls us. Does your office get about rats? It's gonna be, it's got to be quite a bit over. I mean, sometimes you, you're the bigger person and you leave because you're just surrounded by rats and that's not acceptable in New York City. But we know that we have a major problem that must be addressed. Well, there's been a lot of money invested in that and there's been a lot of people and more to come. You're right. And there's been a lot of put into that right now. I wanna talk about another investment right here in the borough. Something that you guys announced, I believe it was a week or so ago. Uh $6 million on the way from your capital budget for the Bronx public health facilities. I know people here $6 million. That's great. What exactly is this gonna mean for the Bronx sites who are in need of these services? So we announced with Doctor Mitch Katz from New York City Health and hospitals a few weeks ago with all of our presidents from Jacoby Hospital, North Central Lincoln Hospital. Gotham Morrison and Gotham Bels, a total amount for Fy 20 four's budget that we adopted City Council in June $6 million. Uh We are going to add new hospitals, beds to Lincoln, Lincoln Hospital. We are purchasing a new uh mammography machine, a new MRI machine for Jacoby in North Central transforming the MRI units um and then adding more equipment for the dental unit uh at Gotham Morice, Gotham Belve. Just an incredible investment and that's just the beginning. Uh My commitment as bar president is every year to support the capital needs of our public hospitals because during the pandemic, they serve residents no matter what met them, where they are sacrificed themselves to really make a difference, health care, heroes and Cheryls. And we know that a lot of this equipment is very expensive, it has a useful life. And once that's exhausted you have an old mammography machine and you need to make sure that we are investing in the latest technology because better technology means better services for the patients that we represent. So my goal is to work with health hospitals as well as our private hospitals. We have another announcement coming soon. But this specifically the $6 million was for all of our New York City, uh health and hospitals in the Bronx. Very cool stuff. And like you said, you gotta make sure that the most up to date technology, technology is available for the people here in the borough right now. We, we've spoken a little bit about some of the events and some of some of the things that have taken place uh over the last month here toward the Bronx. Uh I saw you online, get your bike. I, I saw you were very happy. You, you, you chose that. I saw you at the local local. Uh where were you, where did you pick that? You were at a bike shop in Westchester Square? And so tell me, how did it go? How had this, this event is always something so many people here in the borough look forward to. Well, my bike was perfect. I was better prepared. 4500 cyclists that participated from the Bronx across New York City tri state area. Uh The largest free cycling event in the state of New York. Shout out to the Bronx tourism. Council to Suleiman and her team BX CDC to Rob Walsh. We had an amazing, amazing day. It was a Sunday af afternoon. It was fall, it was a little windy and I did the 25 mile again because I'm not yet ready for the 40. And we added a 10 mile ride, family friendly ride. This year. We also included the historic district in Longwood, uh as well as the birthplace of Hip Hop 1520 Sedgwick Avenue and our very own State Park, Roberto Clemente were both added to the 40 mile. We had rest stops at the uh Y MC A in Castle Hill, Pelham Bay Park, Northeast Bronx Y MC. A shout out to everyone for just welcoming us and it was really a great event. But what I wanna encourage is alternative modes of transportation, health and wellness, encouraging bike riding. We had young participants and we had older and the good thing is you could do it with your family, you could do it with your friends. We had black uh girls who bike and I wanna recognize them transportation alternatives who really helped me get to the finish line. And I'm so proud because last year took me six hours this year, 3.5. And I was able to get to the end to the New York Botanical Garden before the program ended. So I was very proud of myself. It was a lot hill, hilly, hilly borough, hilly route. But I love going through sound view through Pugsley Creek, Starlight Park, going through Pelham Bay Park, beautiful historic landmarks in our borough to really showcase who we are as a borough. So many people say there's no better way to see the borough than through. And that was fantastic. Great job. I come up better than half your time. That's pretty impressive, great stuff. All right, we're gonna get to the borough president's health tip and the events that are coming up next month when we come back right here. I'd ask the borough president. So stay with us.

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1030bxaskthebpcblock_2023-10-30-19-39-47

Welcome back, everyone. We wrapping things up right here on, ask the borough president with BP Vanessa Gibson. But first, we've got to get your health tip for the month, what we got. Yes. So November is American diabetes month. And many of, you know, this is one of the leading causes of death right here in our borough. Many residents live with diabetes every day and while there's no cure for diabetes, it can be reversed if you decide to change your lifestyle. So we're encouraging Bronx sites to practice uh healthy eating, uh, visit our farmers markets for fresh produce as well as staying physically active. You can walk, you can ride your bike, you can run, you can jog more walking up and down steps. I find to be very, uh, uplifting and monitoring your blood sugar is super important. Uh, diabetes is something that we are working closely on. We're gonna be working with many of our advocates in the uh health care sector to talk about how we can do more around diabetes. Absolutely. I'm sure we'll see a lot of events coming up here this month. You also have a couple of other events that are happening this month you wanna tell us about, right? Yes, for the month of November on Tuesday, November 4th. We are celebrating Puerto Rican Heritage Month, Viva Puerto Rico Tuesday, November 14th at 5:30 p.m. at Monroe College. And also on the same day, Tuesday, November 14th, we're joining with the New York City Department of Health and mental hygiene and we are hosting a virtual naloxone training. We want to look at expanding opportunities for people to get access to naloxone because as we have seen it does prevent an overdose death. And that's what we wanna do, keep people safe. So it's going to be virtual at six PM and you can use the QR code to scan and register to that. You can join us. We encourage everyone, health care professionals, those in the uh academic sector, uh average everyday residents, everyone. We want to be a part of this. So Tuesday, November 14th 6 p.m. our virtual naloxone training. Good to know there. All right, BP. I'm gonna try to get at least one question in for you tonight. Here I wanna go to the phone. So we got Nancy joining us from Throgs deck. Nancy, thanks for calling in. We're really up against it here. So if you ask your question quickly, that'd be great. OK. Thank you for taking my call. Uh I have a, I live in um uh the corner of Davis and Harding Avenue and there's a bus stop right there and there is no, uh, nowhere to sit and no protection from the elements and I was hoping something can be done about that. Thank you, Nancy. Yeah, absolutely. So you got the exact bus stop there. So we'll reach out to New York City transit and see if we can make a request to install uh, bus shelter and seating because that doesn't always happen. Yeah, you need to have that. Absolutely there. Otherwise you, it's not really a bus for uh old residents that need to sit those that have mobility issues. You know, parents with young Children, you should be able to sit as you're waiting for the bus. So we'll look into it and make the request. Absolutely, Nancy. Thank you for calling in and we'll make sure that exact information gets right here to the B P's office. Uh Big Day tomorrow. Halloween. How long has it been? What are you doing? I have a few events that are Halloween related, but I'm still working. You gonna dress up? Uh I'll see maybe little red riding hood, a bat woman. You gonna do costume changes or are you just gonna stick with, stick with one for the day? I don't know. Ok, this weekend we had a lot of Halloween events over the weekend. So tune in tomorrow for Halloween to see what we'll see how the BP celebrates Halloween. Everybody makes sure. Yes, exactly. Be safe. Celebrate Halloween safely here across the borough. Make sure you follow all the rules that you're supposed to and make sure you do everything safely. We wanna make sure everybody has a great time out there. I wanna thank everybody for, uh, calling in writing in your questions tonight. Borough president. Thank you so much for being here with us once again and we'll see you again next month as we get ready. We'll be getting ready for the Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah Kwanzaa. Every, wow, it's just gonna be here before your holiday season is here. It's gonna be here before, you know, and you'll be talking about all sorts of events, I'm sure next month. All right. Well, BP, thank you so much for being here with us and again, thank you all for watching tonight here. Ask the borough president on news, the Bronx. We'll see you next month.

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News 12's Kurt Semder sat down with Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson to answer your questions in this month's edition of Ask the Bronx Borough President. 

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