30 THE QUEENS COURIER • DECEMBER 3, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com editorial THE QUEENS PUBLISHER & EDITOR 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 CLASSIFIED MANAGER CONTROLLER PRESIDENT & CEO VICE PRESIDENT VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS BOB BRENNAN ROBERT POZARYCKI AMY AMATO-SANCHEZ NIRMAL SINGH ALAN SELTZER STEPHEN REINA RON TORINA, JENNIFER DECIO, CHERYL GALLAGHER ANGY ALTAMIRANO, KATRINA MEDOFF, ANTHONY GIUDICE ANGELA MATUA, ALINA SURIEL CLIFF KASDEN, SAMANTHA SOHMER, ELIZABETH ALONI ANGY ALTAMIRANO DEMETRA PLAGAKIS CELESTE ALAMIN MARIA VALENCIA VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS 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 offi ce telephone numbers, where available, as well as affi liation, 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 fi ve 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 QUEENS 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. SNAPS QUEENS Ginny the labradoodle resting after a long Thanksgiving weekend. Photo by Katrina Medoff Send us your photos of Queens and you could see them online or in our paper! Submit them to us via our Instagram @queenscourier, Facebook page, tweeting @queenscourier or by emailing editorial@queenscourier.com (subject: Queens Snaps). How should U.S. respond to the Syrian refugee crisis? “We should help refugees.” Amiri Ponce “We should allow refugees in, but only after they go through background checks. Closing borders will help ISIS to do propaganda.” Michael Russo “Refugees don’t deserve to live in camps. We should aid them in any way possible.” Jonathan Balos “We should allow refugees in to the U.S., but not add troops immediately.” Samantha Llanos BY IRENE SPEZZAMONTE “They should let them in only if they do a lot of background checks on them.” Zach Srubinski street talk “We should help refugees, but only after we solve own our problems. How are we supposed to offer a house to someone if we are not able to provide one to our citizens?” Jackey Cheng “They should add troops over there. We need to help other countries to stay united. It wasn’t just an attack to the French, but to the entire world.” Sam Marbella “Background checks are the best solutions.” Nicole Tooker Bayside plan’s defeat doesn’t meet reality They got what they wanted, but at what price? After months of public protests and political pressure, the opponents of a proposed high school at the site of the former Bayside Jewish Center succeeded in convincing the School Construction Authority (SCA) to put the project on ice. In a statement, the SCA admitted that it was “unable to reach a consensus with Bayside residents and local elected offi cials on our proposed development for a new high school in their neighborhood.” The authority further stated that the proposal won’t move forward, but that it wasn’t entirely giving up on building a new high school in northeast Queens. And the authority cannot afford to give up on this project, because the public schoolchildren in the area depend on it. School District 26 is among the most overcrowded public school districts in New York City. According to a 2013-14 Department of Education report, the city must create 6,273 new school seats, but only had 924 new seats in the plans for development by 2024. Most of these seats are needed for children currently attending elementary and middle school who will undoubtedly move on to public high school. If there are no new high school seats created in District 26, where will these kids go? Does anyone really believe that busing potentially thousands more children to and from high schools outside the district each day is a viable option, and any better than building another school in this district? The high school plan at the former Bayside Jewish Center may be dead, but the reality is that northeast Queens desperately needs more high school seats. We need to make more room — and fast. Can’t close door on community press What good is a community meeting if the local press can’t be allowed to attend it? Recently, one of our reporters attempted to cover a meeting of the community advisory board for The Verve, a hotel-turned-homeless shelter that recently opened in Long Island City, only to be turned away. The Department of Homeless Services cited the board’s bylaws in explaining that meetings of the advisory board were “subject to the Closed Meeting Rule” in order “to protect the integrity of these meetings, as well as the protection and privacy of our clients.” The press is sometimes known as the fourth estate, an unoffi cial ombudsman that often points out what’s going on in government — good or bad — free of government infl uence. The press also advocates for those who are disadvantaged and lack the voice needed to bring attention to a problem or a concern. Of course, it’s quite diffi cult for a free press to report on conditions at a homeless shelter — or what the city or the shelter’s operator is doing to keep the shelter in good shape — if the press is barred from attending a so-called “community advisory” meeting about the shelter. Meetings of the community advisory boards for shelters, much like community boards and police precinct councils, should be open to the public under the city’s Sunshine Law, which is designed to shed light on city government and prevent misdeeds and corruption.
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