WWW.QNS.COM RIDGEWOOD TIMES FEBRUARY 13, 2020 13
LETTERS AND COMMENTS
WHAT’S NEXT
FOR NEW YORK
CITY TRANSIT
AUTHORITY?
It will be interesting to see if the
next New York City Transit Authority
president will be successful in following
up on preserving both funding and
implementation of projects and programs
championed by Andy Byford’s
Fast Forward: The Plan to Modernize
NYC Transit subway and bus system.
Let’s hope that $19 billion worth of
funding support in the current $51
billion MTA 2020 - 2024 Five Year
Capital Plan remains in place. We will
have to wait and see if the $19 billion
balance of funding needed to complete
this plan will be approved in the next
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
2025 - 2029 Five Year Capital Plan.
We will also have some clues about
what the future holds when the MTA
gets around to releasing the updated
MTA 2020 - 2040 Twenty Year Long
Range Capital Needs Plan.
It was supposed to be released by
the end of December 2019. I wonder
if the MTA has delayed release of this
key document until it has been preapproved
by Governor Cuomo’s offi ce,
before it is seen by the public?
Larry Penner,
Great Neck
SNAPS
NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD TAKES FLIGHT AT QUEENS BOTANICAL GARDEN
PHOTO SUBMITTED BY CATHERINE GOODE
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OP-ED
The nightmare of
rezoning Rikers
BY JIM QUINN
At the surface, Mayor de Blasio
and the City Council’s
ill-conceived plan to rezone
Rikers Island looks like it’s merely
an environmental pipe dream, but
in reality it’s a looming public safety
nightmare.
Their quest to close Rikers
reached fever pitch last week when
the city hastily
threw together a
sham publ ic
hearing on their
proposal to rezone
Rikers into a public
space, thereby
prohibiting any
land on the island
from being used
as a detention
facility. The flash
hearing lasted less
than an hour, was
called with little
public notice and
included no speakers
outside of the mayor’s office,
except me.
The goal of the hearing was to
win the endorsement of the Queens
borough president, yet not a single
other candidate in the race bothered
to show up concerning one of
the most consequential issues currently
facing our borough. It’s an
important reminder of the key role
this job does play in helping to enact
— and in this case, block — important
policies affecting residents.
The plan to close Rikers Island is a
mistake on so many levels — public
safety, logistics, financial, community
cohesion and logic, to name just
a few. In order to accomplish their
goal, the city has to reduce the jail
population to 3,600 — and keep it
there forever. You see, there are no
plans to deal with a possible uptick
in crime. They are building just
3,600 jail beds in a growing city of
8.5 million people. By prohibiting
jails on Rikers, the city would have
only three options if crime and the
prison population goes up: They
can build bigger jails on the four
selected sites, build new jails on
new sites around the city, or they
can continue the current practice
of releasing defendants back onto
the streets solely to keep the population
down.
The recently enacted “bail
reforms” were designed to reduce
the population on Rikers to allow
for smaller community jails, by prohibiting
judges from setting bail on
hundreds of crimes, or considering
a defendant’s danger to the community
or risk of offending when setting
bail on the few cases left where
that is an option. Literally hundreds
of career criminals were released
from Rikers starting in November
of last year. Drug dealers, burglars,
robbers and a whole host of petty
thieves and career misdemeanor offenders
were released without bail
and with little supervision.
So how is that going? Predictably,
crime overall in the city is up 11
percent year to date over last year.
Car theft is up 67 percent; robbery
is up 32 percent; burglary is up 15
percent; and petit larceny is up 9
percent. Frighteningly, shootings
are up 21 percent, and shooting
victims — 95 percent of whom are
people of color — are up 30 percent
over last year.
And yet, the city persists in
spending nearly $9 billion — almost
$3 million per cell — to build new
jails in communities that don’t want
them. All this while people live in
NYCHA housing infested with mold,
peeling lead paint, mechanical
problems and heat and hot water
breakdowns.
There is another option that the
city refuses to even consider — using
the current space on Rikers to build
a world-class jail. The 415 acres of
land there could be made into a jail/
re-entry facility that would combine
the need for public safety with upto
date programs and facilities that
would truly serve to rehabilitate
defendants while keeping the public
safe. Yet, pressed by radical activists,
the city is continuing with this wonderful
sounding, but totally irresponsible
plan to close Rikers. They
are missing an opportunity that will
be lost forever by banning detention
facilities on Rikers while at the same
time putting future generations at
needless risk and burdening them
with a billion dollar a year debt load.
It doesn’t get any more irresponsible
than that.
Jim Quinn served 42 years as
Queens assistant district attorney
and as executive assistant DA under
former DA Richard Brown. He
is a candidate for Queens borough
president.
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