Ruiz for … something

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Israel Ruiz Jr. is running. Just don’t ask him for what — not yet.

The former city councilman and state senator announced earlier this week that he’s registered a campaign committee and is exploring either a run at Maria Baez’s City Council seat or to step into the upcoming fight for Adolfo Carrión Jr.’s seat.

Mr. Ruiz is a veteran of Bronx politics. He served for 13 years in the state Senate, before a federal conviction in 1989 for overstating his assets on a bank loan bumped him from a re-election run. He went on to join the City Council two years later, and would go on to seek public office for the borough presidency in 1997 and again in 2004 to oust state Sen. Efrain González Jr., who lost his seat last year to another veteran Bronx political renegade, Pedro Espada Jr.

“We need to have some dialogue … as to what it is that we expect from the elected officials once they get into office here,” Mr. Ruiz said.

He accused Bronx pols of only taking care of themselves and their families — the same old saw that cut the Bronx Democratic Party in two last year and helped Assemblyman Carl Heastie and his allies engineer Assemblyman Jose Rivera’s ouster as the county’s Democratic boss. But he dodged calling anyone out individually except for City Councilman Oliver Koppell, whom he said should “have known better” than to back Mr. Rivera.

Which office he runs for will depend on where he gets support, he said.

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