Show up or boro prez will call

Community Board 8’s poor attendance at various committee meetings this past year hasn’t gone unnoticed, especially when it comes to the man who put them there: Bronx borough president Ruben Diaz Jr.

Diaz told CB8 chair Rosemary Ginty he expects the members he’s appointed to the quasi-governmental body to participate in all the meetings they’re scheduled for, or he’ll be having a talk with them.

“We have a few occasions where we didn’t even have a quorum for anything to get done at some of our committee meetings,” Ginty said during an executive committee meeting last week. “That can’t happen.”

CB8 absenteeism even caught the attention of the media last April when the board could barely muster a quorum of its total membership to hire Michael Heller as its district manager. Heller won the necessary votes, but announced his retirement from the position late last month.

And speaking of Heller’s retirement …

CB8 seeks DM for HQ

The search for a new district manager for Community Board 8 already is underway, with help wanted ads in local newspapers, and a definitive timeframe on when a replacement for the retiring Michael Heller will be found.

The board is accepting applications for the job that paid Heller $75,000 a year until Sept. 28, and expect to have all applicant interviews done by Oct. 9. The executive committee could receive a recommendation by the search committee by Halloween.

Heller plans to step down in November.

Klein: No more sex offenders in shelters 

The city’s homeless services department is not doing enough to make sure the people they bring into their shelters are safe for the surrounding communities. And three Bronx lawmakers want something done about it.

State Sen. Jeff Klein joined Assemblymen Michael Benedetto and Mark Gjonaj to demand the city department remove all registered sex offenders from family shelters. Klein claims he has found nine high-level sex offenders living at separate Bronx family shelters, up from three found in a 2015 study.

“It’s unthinkable that the same sexual predators are able to coexist with the vulnerable children living inside the city’s family shelters,” Klein said, in a release. 

Klein is pushing legislation that would ban high-level sex offenders from living in any temporary emergency housing or homeless shelters that also house families with children. 

None of the offenders Klein identified were found in the greater Riverdale/Kingsbridge area.