for breaking news visit www.timesnewsweekly.com MAY 28, 2015 • times 13 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com MAY 28, 2015 • THE COURIER SUN 23 oped This 1958 photo shows the demise of one of Queens’ most popular restaurants at its time, The Boulevard, formerly located at 94-05 Queens Blvd. At its peak, the restaurant and tavern accommodated up to 800 people at a time and featured a wide variety of musical acts. A four-alarm fire in March 1958 ravaged the building, which was later demolished. An office tower now stands in its place. letters Fed up with trashy tickets In the middle of the night, the Sanitation Department is giving tickets out to businesses and non-for-profit buildings. This has happened several times. When the businesses and a local nonprofit approached and wrote to Environmental Control Board stating this is unfair, they were told nothing can be done about this. This should be a wake-up call to taxpayers. We pay our taxes and the city doesn’t want to put productive policies in place. Maria Concolino, Woodhaven Hard choices in stopping runaway students The Office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation for New York City Schools, in addition to its primary duty of framing and axing low-level educators, performs some admirable work from time to time. They recently released a report noting this year’s big increase in cases involving students who vanished from their schools during field trips. Some broke free of their chaperones or were allegedly abandoned or lost track of on a bus or discharged to an unauthorized adult at the end of the day. To control the worrisome trend of disappearing students, the SCI made some constructive suggestions, such as the installation of many additional door alarms, a big boost in the proliferation of cameras, and intensified training and staffing of School Safety Agents. The door alarms would alert the staff to an escaping child sooner than his absence would likely otherwise be noted, thereby saving precious time. But it would be a limited safeguard, as Fire Department regulations prohibit doors being locked from the inside. Even if you flooded every school with an army of safety agents, deans and administrators, they couldn’t dependably contain kids bent on absconding. The SCI offered some good ideas, but at best, the number of incidents of “disappearing” students A LOOK BACK will level off, despite all the good-faith remedies implemented by Chancellor Farina. That’s because of a practice that is always well-intentioned but sometimes unrealistic. Large numbers of “special needs” students whose disabilities warrant close and continual supervision (that does not mean oppressive or punitive) have been forced into high-register general education classes. Certainly they should be welcomed as full participants in the student community and neither separated nor stigmatized for their special challenges. But how can this be accomplished while minimizing the flight danger to themselves as they get lost in crowds? Ron Isaac, Fresh Meadows ‘Wacky’ toilet paper tax break should be flushed The rational used by Assemblyman David Weprin to justify his proposal to introduce legislation exempting toilet paper from the 8.875 percent sales tax left me puzzled. Weprin claims that “this a quality-of-life issue” and “the tax also disproportionately affects poor people.” Does Weprin know something the rest of us don’t know concerning how poor people “wipe” versus working class, middle or upper income people? How does Weprin propose the state also make up for the lost revenue? Perhaps Weprin should host a charity drive to raise funds or donations for those poor people who can’t afford toilet paper. Maybe his local district office could accept donations of toilet paper to pass on to those less fortunate. Weprin could also ask Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie for a “member item” to support purchasing toilet paper. Weprin could print his name and official state seal on each “sheet” and distribute them free of charge to all those “poor” constituents. You have to ask if Weprin has too much free time on his hands given all the wacky ideas and comments he comes up with. Larry Penner, Great Neck A Look Back Photo courtesy Ridgewood Times archives THE DANGERS OF LONE-WOLF TERRORISM By CITy COuNCILmAN RORy LANCmAN In the years since 9/11, we have worked aggressively as a city and a country to defeat our enemies abroad and protect ourselves from future attacks. Recent tragedies, however, including the Boston Marathon bombing, show that there is a new form of terrorism that we must defend ourselves against. “Lone-wolf terrorism” occurs when an individual who is inspired by a terrorist organization, but is not a member of the organization, perpetrates an attack in their community. We saw this in Queens last year when Zale Thompson charged four police officers, striking them with a hatchet and causing serious injuries. In the months prior to the assault, Thompson had visited hundreds of websites tied to al-Qaeda, ISIS, the al-Shabaab militia and other extremist groups. Thompson researched how to commit violent acts and made posts online attacking American society. Thompson was inspired by extremist groups, but he wasn’t a member of a terrorist organization. Although his actions may seem random, groups like al- Qaeda and ISIS are taking deliberate action to motivate and radicalize individuals like Thompson. Al-Qaeda pioneered this strategy in the late 2000s, when senior al-Qaeda official and U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki wrote in an al-Qaeda magazine, “It is better to support the prophet by attacking those who slander him than it is to travel to land of Jihad like Iraq or Afghanistan.” As Internet access has spread, and specifically with the growth of social media platforms including Reddit and Twitter, radical groups abroad have continued to try to provoke lone-wolf attacks on American soil. ISIS propagates its ideologies through these channels, reaching individuals throughout the Western world and turning them into soldiers for its cause. The group believes that these attacks, which often seem arbitrary and are more challenging to prevent, will terrorize the U.S. to an equal or greater extent than any attacks that ISIS could plan and carry out. Tragically, the group is currently succeeding in spreading its hateful message and mobilizing U.S. residents to attack their own communities. This is an incredibly dangerous approach because, as John Miller, the NYPD’s head of counterterrorism, said, “If the conspiracy to commit a terrorist act is a conspiracy of one, and the planning for that is unsophisticated, doesn’t require a lot pre-operational surveillance and is only happening in the mind of the offender, from an intelligence standpoint, from a prevention standpoint, that’s very hard to detect.” Police Commissioner Bill Bratton is on top of this evolving threat and working to stay ahead of it. But we must ensure that he has every resource necessary to fight this dangerous and growing threat. Commissioner Bratton has requested that 450 officers of the one thousand the Council hopes to add be assigned to the NYPD’s counterterrorism unit. As the city budget moves forward, it is imperative that we ensure the appropriate funding for this is allocated. We must combat this threat before it is too late. City Councilman Lancman represents the 24th Council District, which includes all or parts of Briarwood, Fresh Meadows, Jamaica and Jamaica Estates.
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