Primary day is Sept. 15

By N. Clark Judd

Oliver Koppell, seeking his third consecutive term as Riverdale’s City Councilman, marched from one end of the district to the other on Monday, accompanied by bagpipes.

Tony Perez Cassino, the man seeking to replace him, spent his Labor Day campaigning, too — visiting parks, pools and shopping districts throughout the district.

On Tuesday, Sept. 15, Democratic voters in the 11th City Council District — from Riverdale to Spuyten Duyvil and east to Bedford Park, Norwood and Woodlawn — will pick one of these two men to be their next City Council member, pending a general election in November.

Mr. Koppell, 68, and Mr. Cassino, 44, are dramatically different. One is a product of Riverdale’s Democratic Party apparatus, a public servant with decades of experience but a willingness to make politically inconvenient allies that has cost him more than one setback. The other built up his political base in the last five years as a leader on the local community board by paying attention to local issues that others seemed to have overlooked — and with the help of friendly relations with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrión Jr.

Koppell’s focus

Mr. Koppell, a supporter said recently, believes his primary job as a City Councilman is to “make laws.”

But district needs play a greater role than they do at the state level, Mr. Koppell says.

“You really need to be a pothole councilman to do the job right,” he said.

Mr. Koppell has not had a clear answer this year when asked what projects he would take up or continue if he had four more years in office. Perhaps the largest case of unfinished business is the question of a complex adjacent to the Kingsbridge Armory. The National Guard is still using that complex, but he is trying to help broker a deal in which the Guard would relocate and the complex would come available as a possible site for two schools.

He thinks Riverdale is the way it should be, and would focus on keeping the neighborhood as it is.