Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer.

Forget conflicts, water treatment facilities and Second Avenue subway lines, the Yankees make momentary fence menders. Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer was among those on hand for the Yankee sweep at the Stadium, and when we ran into him the following evening at the Building Congress dinner, he told us Mayor Giuliani actually invited him to the parade and ceremony at City Hall.

But was he riding in the parade? "That's for the players," he said. Ferrer, former acting Queens West President George P. Aridas, who now works for Albanese Development Corp., and Public Advocate Mark Green launched into a discussion of the surgical ball skills of Throwmeister Mariano Rivera, MVP of the World Series.

Council Member Kathryn Freed, also at the Grand Hyatt for the construction industry fete, is now beginning her run for Public Advocate for 2001. That's a lot of handshaking and fund-raising between now and then. Expect to get hit up by many candidates and real estate PACs because local race money gets quadrupled.

Freed, who reps Downtown Manhattan, scoffed at the notion of commercial rent controls, an idea again being stirred by local merchants outpriced for city storefronts. "That's never going to happen," she said, heading off to chat with Building Congress Prez Richard Anderson and developer Vincent Albanese.