Cuomo’s peddling dope policies
BROOKLYNPAPER.COM
COURIER L 36 IFE, DEC. 6-12, 2019
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MTA negligence, inspection fl aws led to
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Years of negligence and “serious fl aws” in inspection techniques
led to the high-profi le, partial ceiling collapse in the
Brooklyn Borough Hall station last year, according to a new
audit.
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Perhaps nothing demonstrates
the far-left insanity
of city and state Democrats
more than their just announced
priorities to expand
drug needle exchange sites
and eliminate receipt paper,
while ignoring wide-spread
calls, including from district
attorneys, to make modest
changes in the dangerous
bail reform law that takes effect
in less than a month.
According to a decree
from Governor Cuomo, new
needle exchange sites, or the
more politically correct offi -
cial “Secondary Syringe Exchanges”
for drug addicts
will open throughout rural
parts of the state.
Similarly, City Hall has
brought needle disposal bins
for addicts to 14 Bronx parks
that essentially turned the
play spaces into city-sanctioned
shooting galleries. Indeed,
since the disposals arrived
in the meadows, data
from the Department of Parks
and Recreation shows that
during the program’s fi rst
six month period last year
some 66,656 needles were discarded
within the parks. But
just 11 percent- or roughly
7,300- of those needles made
their way into the bins, with
the rest falling to the ground
around them, turning the
parks used by law-abiding
residents and children into
minefi eld littered with used
drug paraphernalia.
This was after Mayor de
Blasio wanted to make us
the fi rst place in the United
States to open tax-payer
funded “Supervised Injection
Facilities” to allow addicts to
inject heroin and other drugs
with sterile syringes under
medical supervision. Thankfully,
this plan was blocked.
All three of these city and
state examples show the misplaced
priorities of today’s
New York Democrats. Rather
than using taxpayer funds
on actions that condone drug
use, these fi nancial resources
should be used to help break
the addict’s dependence on
drugs. They need help, hope,
and rehab, not policies that
make it easier to continue
their addiction.
It was also reported last
week that the City Council
will take up legislation to ban
receipt paper, and require
businesses to recycle receipts
in order to save the world. As
Council Speaker Corey Johnson
said last week, “We will
work with businesses and
consumers to cut out paper
receipt waste and protect the
planet.” This is the same farleft
mentality that will have
us paying more for bags at
stores next year.
Apparently, these policies
are more important
than modest changes to the
“criminal bill of rights” or
bail reform law that begins
January 1. There are plenty
of fl aws in it that should be
addressed but the most obvious
one is the removal of a
judge’s discretion to release a
defendant back on the streets
or not. Specifi cally, as the
law stands now, if someone
has a long rap sheet, including
serving time for a violent
crime, and then is collared
for aggravated assault, robbery,
drug dealing, burglary
or countless other crimes
they must be released with a
simple promise to return to
court.
Modifying this law to give
judges discretion to protect
innocent residents from career
criminals is more important
than opening new
needle exchange sites or banning
receipt paper. This common
sense change deserves
strong support from city and
state lawmakers, but to most
Democrats today, the safety
of law abiding New Yorkers
takes a back seat to the
radical left environmental
and criminal justice reform
agenda.
This is why New Yorkers
are done a dis-service when
one party controls 48 of the
51 New York City Council
seats and also dominates Albany
with complete control
of the Executive and Legislative
branches. They can push
their agenda without serious
opposition.
While Democrats focus
on banning receipt paper
and expanding needle exchange
sites for addicts to
satisfy their boisterous farleft
base, we have far more
serious problems that should
be addressed. In addition to
the dangers of the impending
bail reform law, our public
housing is falling apart
and the New York City Housing
Authority seems helpless
to fi x it; the homeless crisis
continues; our subways are a
mess; and our public hospital
system is bleeding billions of
dollars.
The insanity continues.
Bob Capano has been an
adjunct political science professor
at the City University
of New York for over 15 years
and has worked for Republican
and Democratic elected
offi cials in Brooklyn. Follow
him on twitter @bobcapano
THE RIGHT
VIEW
Bob Capano
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