Candidate Clinton visits Bronx industry dinner.

She may not be a baseball fan, but Senate candidate First Lady Hillary Clinton learned enough about the Bronx to carry her through a short keynote speech at the 76th annual Bronx-Manhattan Association of Realtors dinner on April 13th.

Still, the word Yankee never left her lips, despite a home game that tied her up in traffic, and the presence of Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer, who received The Distinguished Service Award from the group and sat with her on the dais. She instead tossed in words like "Montifiore," and bemoaned the 170 city schools that are heated by coal powered furnaces, proposing to use Federal bonds to pay for the backlog of repair and construction work.

Mrs. Clinton tried to endear herself by claiming she had actually "looked at some wonderful places in the Bronx" for her new home, and blamed the Secret Service for insisting the family not be near neighbors for her move to the cozy cul-de-sac in Chappaqua.

"They wanted us to live in a tank," she said of the family's protectors. "Next time, when I don't have to please the Secret Service, that pied a terre near the Bronx Zoo has a lot of points." The Senate candidate might have been more believable had she said Riverdale.

There were brokers in the crowd, like Silverman; Rookie of the Year Stephanie Cohen of Sandra Silverman Realty; Realtor of the Year George Bookis of Aztec Realty; and Susan Goldy. But there were many, many apartment building owners, managers and rehabbers like Milbrook Properties' Rubin Pikus; partners Robert Rosenberg and David Diamond; Barry Levites, Gerald Pindus, and Tryax Realty's Michael Schmelzer in the audience.

Dan Margulies, executive director of the Community Housing Improvement Program, founded by owners hoping to "CHIP" away at rent regulations, and Joseph Strasburg, president of the Rent Stabilization Association, were there, representing the 26,000-plus apartment building owners of the city who are worried about Federal rules on lead paint, forced access for telecommunications, outdated depreciation rules, the high cost of oil, interest rates upping mortgage costs, increasing paperwork to abide by new rules, and other problems, none of which Mrs. Clinton thought to mention.

She did mention rents "skyrocketing," but that's a phenomenon passing by these owners. They would be thrilled to have the Rent Guidelines Board vote in June to increase rents by 5 to 7 percent and impose a low rent supplement for apartments renting for less than $500 -- but that might make it hard for their tenants to pay rent. Soon, they must agree to pay metered water rates that could amount to more than $600 per unit, or make flat rate payments of $400 - $420 per unit, and they must also pay the fuel bill and not lose their building to the property tax collectors.

Mrs. Clinton blamed the "skyrocketing" rents for making it very difficult for people to stay in the city and work nearby, suggesting the need for more Section 8 vouchers and blaming Congress for only approving 110,000 of the 150,000 "The President" had asked for.

She didn't touch Section 8 problems, like the lost rent between the application time and the approval time. But the Senate candidate cited "210,000 households" as being on a waiting list for the vouchers, leading her to propose that the Federal government should make triple that number available.

"We need to figure new ways to get tax incentives and credits to developers and we ought to do more to put more people into their own homes - and we can do that with a housing policy for the 21st Century for this country," she said, without expanding on what that policy would entail.

She did get a burst of applause for proposing tax credits for college tuition payments, but that didn't apply to the real estate business, just to the family life of the individuals.

Later, Margulies wondered who had briefed Mrs. Clinton on the group's makeup, since she didn't seem to understand that her audience was not comprised of just brokers.

There were many owners at the dinner, as well as the businesses that service the buildings, such as Stuyvesant Fuel Oil, Kaye Insurance (whose owner helped get a certain intern her job), Metro Pest, US Energy Controls, and Service Directions Laundry. There were reps from lenders like Emigrant Funding Corp. and North Fork Bank, as well as First American and Judicial Title.

Listening to the Senate candidate were attorneys like Novick, Edelstein, Lubell, Reisman, Wasserman & Leventhal; and Jamie Heiberger, who says she has now been sued several times for following New York State law and sending the required Three Day Notices to begin non-payment proceedings rather than Federal 30-day debt collection notices on behalf of owner clients whose tenants failed to pay rent.

It was, nevertheless, a great coup for Sandra Silverman, president of the Bronx Manhattan Association, to have snared the First Lady as a speaker. Marina Del Rey's largest rooms were opened to accommodate the overflow crowd that also included City Council Members June Eisland and Madeline Provenzano; Assemblyman Roberto Ramirez; Tax Commissioner Virginia Gallagher; and Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson.