A decaying senior-citizen housing complex originally sponsored by two of the most powerful lawmakers in the South Bronx has been threatened with a shutoff of its power because of an unpaid bill of $63,241, The Post has learned.
A Con Edison notice to the management firm at Judge Gilbert Ramirez Apartments at 455 E. 138th St. warns that power to common areas of the 97-unit building will be shut off on April 28 if the bill – and an $8,695 security deposit – aren’t paid.
“What am I supposed to do, use a flashlight to get around?” said an elderly tenant sitting in his wheelchair outside the apartment complex.
The outstanding electric bill is only one of several problems facing the complex, which also owes the city’s Department of Environmental Protection a staggering $273,000 in unpaid water bills going back to 2005, according to DEP records.
The complex is is one of two senior-citizen developments sponsored by the South Bronx Community Corp., a not-for-profit organization founded by Assemblywoman Carmen Arroyo and once headed by her daughter, Maria del Carmen Arroyo, now a City Council member. Both are Democrats.
Maria del Carmen Arroyo said the building is facing financial struggles because of rising costs and lagging rent subsidies from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Arroyo said she expects a payment plan to Con Ed will be worked out.
“It’s not going to happen,” she said of a shutoff.