THE BRONX — Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. this week plans to attack President Donald Trump and discuss waterfront development at his annual upcoming State of the Borough speech.
The 2017 address will take place at 11:30 a.m. Thursday at John F. Kennedy High School, which was damaged in a gas explosion roughly two years ago.
The borough president will use the speech to discuss a wide variety of topics, including the need to protect the city's vulnerable populations — namely immigrants — from Trump and the ongoing development of the borough's waterfront, according to officials from Diaz's office.
Diaz will specifically focus on a request for expressions of interest that the state put out in December for a 12.8 acre site at Harlem River Yards, a large stretch of land by the Willis Avenue Bridge along the water.
Although waterfront development has sparked gentrification fears among some Bronx residents, Diaz plans to present this request as a good opportunity to bring economic development and economically diverse housing to The Bronx.
The borough president also intends to criticize the city's decision to put $170 million into renovating the Horizon Juvenile Center by The Hub, part of its plan to move 16- and 17-year-olds off of Rikers Island. Diaz maintains that it is not sensible to pour so much money into a detention facility while nearby schools suffer from a lack of funding.
Diaz plans to discuss mental health as well in the speech, which will be his eighth since he took office in 2009.
The speech will be broadcast live on Bronxnet and streamed through Facebook Live at www.facebook.com/bronxbp.
