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QC03262015

30 The QUEE NS Courier • MARCH 26, 2015 for breaking news visit www.queenscourier.com editorial letters IDENTIFY THIS PLACE Go to www.queenscourier.com and search “Identify This Place” to find out where this is THE QUEENS Victoria Schneps-Yunis Joshua A. Schneps Bob Brennan Robert Pozarycki Amy Amato-Sanchez Nirmal Singh Graziella Zerilli Stephen Reina Ron Torina, Jennifer Decio, Cheryl Gallagher Liam La Guerre, Cristabelle Tumola, Angy Altamirano Katrina Medoff, Salvatore Licata, Anthony Giudice Cliff Kasden, Samantha Sohmer, Elizabeth Aloni Cristabelle Tumola Demetra Plagakis Louise Cavaliere Celeste Alamin Maria Valencia Victoria Schneps-Yunis Joshua A. Schneps Publisher & E ditor Co-Publisher Associate Publisher Editor-In-Chief VP, Events, Web & Social Media Art Director Assistant to Publisher Assistant Art Director Artists Staff Reporters Contributing Reporters Web Editor Events Manager Senior Acc ount Executive Classified Manager Controller President & CEO Vice President Schneps Communications, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 •  Fax 718-224-5441 www.queenscourier.com editorial e-mail: editorial@queenscourier.com for advertising e-mail: ads@queenscourier.com Entire Contents Copyright 2015 by The Queens Courier All letters sent to THE QUEENS COURIER should be brief and are subject to condensing. Writers should include a full address and home and office telephone numbers, where available, as well as affiliation, indicating special interest. Anonymous letters are not printed. Name withheld on request. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR, AS WELL AS OP-ED PIECES IN NO WAY REFLECT THE PAPER’S POSITION. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of THE QUEENS COURIER. The publishers will not be responsible for any error in advertising beyond the cost of the space occupied by the error. Errors must be reported to THE QUEENS COURIER within five days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. Schneps Communications assumes no liability for the content or reply to any ads. The advertiser assumes all liability for the content of and all replies. The advertiser agrees to hold The Quens Courier and its employees harmless from all cost, expenses, liabilities, and damages resulting from or caused by the publication or recording placed by the advertiser or any reply to any such advertisement. Public corruption shouldn’t pay off Current ex-convict Gary Heyward provided drugs, prostitutes, weapons and alcohol to convicts in prison. How was he able to do this? He was a corrections officer! Now after serving 20 months in jail and profiting from a book written about his escapades, he is once again employed by the City of New York. But that’s not all. This despicable, corrupt human being who was once a law enforcement officer was able to roll his pension over into his new city job! How is this possible? He should lose his pension, be fired and be forced to forfeit any profits from his book — a book of stories written when he was breaking the law while being paid by the citizens of New York. He should be looking for a new job, right next to the person who hired him and the person who OK’d his pension. Robert LaRosa, Whitestone Offering kudos to cancer caregivers I would like to thank the doctors, nurses and the entire urology staff at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset, where I was operated on for an aggressive form of prostate cancer on March 12. Now I would also like to thank Dr. Gary Goldberg of Advanced Urology of Manhasset for his saving hands. He operated with the aid of a robot know as “Da Vinci.” I had an aggressive prostate cancer and was very nervous about the outcome. It was a good thing I had gotten tested last year. Now there is a test known as the PSA and can save lives. This year, it is expected that 30,000 men will die of this disease, which is curable when caught early. Meanwhile let me give a shout out to nurses Carolyn, Zerena and Rose who aided in my recovery process and took me a step in the right direction. Their help was a mixture of help, concern, good humor and a polite disposition. As a patient, I tried not to be a pain, knowing they had patients who were far sicker than I was. These nurses work hard and try to help the many who are under their care. I even found a man who cleaned the bathrooms and the room and we talked and he showed concern on how I was feeling. When I was discharged he wished me the best and that my healing would go well. As time goes on I will think of my stay at North Shore Hospital in Manhasset as being God sent. Now for that I say to all that helped me, “Kudos!” for the caring and doing all you could do for me. Frederick R. Bedell Jr., Glen Oaks Village Inside ‘complex’ Bayside kindergarten proposal The proposed co-location of 124 kindergarten students from P.S. 24 at P.S. 107 poses more complex issues than were stated in The Courier’s March 12 article. The traffic situation at P.S. 107 has been a major safety issue for years. The neighborhood can not safely accommodate the volume of cars and buses at drop-off and pick-up times. There is very often damage to parked vehicles from cars trying to squeeze past each other on avenues and streets that are too narrow, kids crossing between cars that are gridlocked in intersections, and double, sometimes triple, parked cars blocking driveways and keeping people from going into and out of their homes. It is near impossible for emergency vehicles to get down some of the surrounding streets in a timely manner in the event of an emergency. Adding several more buses and many more cars to an already dangerous situation will only make matters worse. Another issue is the alarming lack of adequate security guards. With enrollment at almost 1,000 students there is only one full-time security guard. Considering incidents the past few years involving a student who brought his father’s gun to school and a disturbed person who tried to enter the school and instructed their dog to attack the security guard, it is becoming obvious that one full-time guard and a guard who is sometimes floated to work at other schools is not enough to protect students and faculty at a large building with many entrances. Concern over incoming kids affecting the “culture” of our school was taken very much out of context. Some parents wanted to know how the parents of P.S. 24 children would be involved in P.S. 107 and the PTA. Our PTA works very hard and sponsors great events for our kids. We certainly wouldn’t look at a group of kindergartners and tell them they could not participate in these events. Since the city continues to shuffle students around like playing cards instead of taking a more long-term approach to the issue of overcrowding, there is really no choice but for parents to be skeptical as to whether or not the best interest of our children will really be served with half-planned proposals. Kimberly Scott, Bayside parent Close up the cocklofts now! How many more tragic fires must happen in Queens — how many more families must have their lives upended — before the state government gets its act together to make homes safer? The four-alarm arson fire on March 18 in Woodhaven gutted eight attached homes. The damage was done through flames shooting through the cocklofts, small spaces above the top floor but below the roof of each home. For many of the older attached dwellings in this borough, the cockloft is the only breach in the firewall — and in the event of a fire, it can become a superhighway for flames, spreading from one building to another within seconds. Cocklofts contributed to another tragic fire just two years ago in Middle Village, when six attached homes were heavily damaged by a quick-moving inferno. That blaze injured 11 firefighters and displaced dozens of people. The newer housing stock in Queens is built to better protect neighboring structures from flames. However, something must be done to protect the older, still viable housing stock in Queens that include these dangerous cocklofts and are ticking incendiary devices just waiting to go off. State Senator Joseph Addabbo and Assemblyman Joseph Lentol of Brooklyn previously introduced state legislation designed to help homeowners properly and safely seal off cockloft space. These property owners would be eligible for special tax credits to defray construction costs associated with such a task. This legislation passed the state Senate but never made it to the Assembly floor for a vote. In failing to pass this bill, the state government is effectively playing with fire by allowing the cockloft problem to fester without a solution. This structural flaw is a threat to thousands of homeowners in Queens — and the firefighters who respond to cockloft fires — that shouldn’t be taken lightly. We urge our readers to contact their local assembly members and state senators and ask for their support of the reintroduced cockloft repair tax credit bill (A.669/S.3005). But we also urge those property owners who have cocklofts in their dwellings and the means to make the repairs not to wait for the state government to act. Homeowners must also learn from the tragic lessons from Saturday’s fire in Midwood that claimed the lives of seven young children. Reportedly, the home lacked working smoke detectors that could have saved their lives. We urge everyone reading this editorial to make sure their smoke detectors have fresh batteries, are working and are near bedrooms. Take steps to protect yourself, because the lives and homes saved may very well be your own.


QC03262015
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