Comments on: Rivera Blasts Diaz Sr. In Fundraising Appeal

By: BronxVoter

BronxVoter — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 17:35:00 +0000

Don’t be so quick to make assumptions about Bronx voters and our learnedness. Sure — some will be taken in by Tavarez’s lies and free baseballs –but Rivera is going with win this primary easily.

By: Evelyn

Evelyn — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 13:48:00 +0000

How can you own and profit from a business when you’ve declared bankruptcy? Oh that’s right! You make your wife the CEO. Thanks for the corruption lesson, Manny!

By: ForTheBronx

ForTheBronx — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 03:38:00 +0000

To clarify – I was talking about Mr. Tavarez. I think the fact that he’s only voted once but has the gall to feign he has done anything at all for this community is absolutely dispicable.

By: ForTheBronx

ForTheBronx — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 02:53:00 +0000

What I don’t understand is how he claims to have participated in all of these voter drives but has only voted once in his entire life. The man is 33. How could he sit out the 2000 elections for goodness sakes? Voting is only important to people like him only when it’ll give him a seat of power. It’s absolutely disposable!

By: Civics minded

Civics minded — Fri, 10 Aug 2012 02:50:00 +0000

Someone should also look into this guy tavarez’ finances. He claims to own a sports management company but the address is his home and it seems the company went out of business. No one knows how he makes a living. Maybe a reporter should ask him…While he is on the ballot, his petition carriers actually forged the name of a Rivera staff member who lives in the district. Which is illegal of course. So he forges signatures to get on the ballot and he breaks another law by not filing with the board of elections. Two laws broken before he is even in office.

I thought the Bronx learned from espada, but obviously some people haven’t. Tavarez is either too dumb to be an elected official, or too crooked to be an elected official. Probably a little of both.

By: Michael A. Benjamin

Michael A. Benjamin — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 21:58:00 +0000

The following caution regarding an “outlier” (as Liz terms Sen. Diaz) may be applicable:
“Unless it can be ascertained that the deviation is not significant, it is ill-advised to ignore the presence of outliers. Outliers that cannot be readily explained demand special attention…”

On issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion, Sen. Diaz rightly may be called an apostate. But same-sex marriage and abortion aren’t necessarily tenets determining membership in the Democratic Party.

But I’d prefer to call him “unorthodox.”

By: BronxVoter

BronxVoter — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 16:34:00 +0000

It needs to be said that Tavarez is also acting a lot like Espada. There is still no campaign finance filing — Espada still has not filed many of his and the ones he did file were late. Like Espada, Tavarez seems to think he has to give stuff away to get votes. Espada was well known for his food giveaways. Tavarez is giving away baseballs at playgrounds and churches. Without campaign finance filings, of course, we have no idea who is paying for these balls — just like we had no idea where Pedro got his food.

Another “Friend of Pedro” that Tavarez appears close to (at least based on photos from the Tavarez campaign website) is Bishop Fernando Rodriguez. Rodriguez is a very close ally of Espada’s, even post ouster. He was seen at the Brooklyn courthouse throughout Espada’s trial. Rodriguez is a convict himself — he was convicted of fraud. During the 2010 Primary he also claimed that this 501c3 organization endorsed Espada. That, of course, is illegal. Non-profits are not allowed to endorse candidates.