20 THE COURIER SUN • MARCH 12, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com editorial letters sun WWW.COURIERSUN.COM 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, Eric Jankiewicz, Salvatore Licata Cliff Kasden, Samantha Sohmer, Elizabeth Aloni Cristabelle Tumola Demetra Plagakis Warren Susman Celeste Alamin Maria Valencia Daphne Fortunate 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 Office Manager President & CEO Vice President Schneps Communications, 38-15 Bell Blvd., Bayside, NY 11361 718-224-5863 • Fax 718-224-5441 Sales fax: 718-631-3498 www.couriersun.com editorial e-mail: [email protected] for advertising e-mail: [email protected] Entire Contents Copyright 2015 by The Courier Sun All letters sent to THE COURIER SUN 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. No such ad or any part thereof may be reproduced without prior permission of THE COURIER SUN. 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 COURIER SUN within five days of publication. Ad position cannot be guaranteed unless paid prior to publication. VIctoria Media Services 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 Courier SUN 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. IDENTIFY THIS PLACE Go to www.queenscourier.com and search “Identify This Place” to find out where this is VISIT QueensCourier.com FOR MORE STORIES Muni-meter mess all winter long Have any of our elected officials paid any attention to the conditions of the munimeters as a result of this difficult winter? Many of them in Queens, and, I would guess, in the rest of the city, are virtually unreachable due to the pileup of snow and ice that surrounds them. Trying to obey the law by depositing payment in one of them requires drivers to risk life and limb just to reach them. Whose responsibility is it to clear the snow from around the meters so you can access them? In many instances, you have to walk a half a block or more to get to an area with a curb that is cleared of snow just in order to get on the sidewalk, then walk back to the meter and do the same thing in reverse to get back to your car. All the while, of course, you are walking in the street and not on the sidewalk. Apparently, it is no one’s responsibility. This is an inexcusable oversight given the conditions we have experienced this year. Alternate side parking has been canceled many, many times this winter, yet we still have to feed the meters. When the city cannot or will not provide a safe way to use them, they should cancel the requirement to use the meters as well. Irene Bernstein-Pechmeze Whitestone Are charter school finances mismanaged? Charter schools “receive a billion dollars in taxpayer funds and we don’t know what’s going on,” notes City Councilman Daniel Dromm. How does the New York Charter School Center respond to this observation? With denial? With evidence? Neither. Its CEO James Merriman charges Dromm is the teacher union’s “attack dog.” Whether he is or not cannot be objectively ascertained and isn’t the point anyway. What should be the point is whether there is any actual basis for what Dromm said. As it turns out, there is. The New York Daily News, which by no stretch of the imagination could be called an “attack dog” for the teachers union, reported that an analysis done by state auditors since 2002 has revealed, in their words, “probable financial mismanagement in 95 percent of the charter schools examined.” The charter school folks have neither contradicted nor even expressed concern about this finding. We must not treat charter schools as sacred cows as they are quite profane and more reminiscent of bull. For example, should a money manager who has lately contributed more than $400,000 to pro-charter groups be entrusted with the care of public pensions such as the $54 billion pension for civil employees? According to state records, such an individual and his spouse also gave in excess of a half-million dollars to candidates and party committees. Private school pushers, no less than public school promoters should worry about the sordid implications of potential evidence of charter school shenanigans. But the charter school disciples will always believe what they want to believe no matter what. Ron Isaac Fresh Meadows Won’t excuse mayor’s lateness Mayor Bill de Blasio was a half-hour late on Saturday for the Rockaways St. Patrick’s parade. The habitually late mayor gave another excuse for being late that sounds to me like a lot of blarney if you ask me, not to mention disrespectful to all those who showed up on time for the parade. Now if I was late like that I would have been fired years ago. I’ve worked for Northeast Plumbing in Great Neck and now in Mineola for over 35 years and still counting. I have been on average 15 minutes early and that is in bad weather and 30 minutes in good. I have painfully bad knees and now cancer, and still get to work on time. Now if I can do that, then why can’t Mayor de Blasio get to where he has to be on time? Mayor de Blasio please tell me, because inquiring minds need to know. Frederick R. Bedell Jr. Glen Oaks Village Shine more than light on the NYS Pavilion For decades, millions of New Yorkers have passed the New York State Pavilion and, with long or short glances, watched it slowly decay before their eyes. Many young residents have a hard time imagining what this ruin of the 1964-65 World’s Fair looked like in its glory, because they’re so used to seeing this rotting tower and tent every time they pass it on the Long Island Expressway. Once, the pavilion featured stainless steel space needles resembling UFOs, stained glass panels covering the Tent of Tomorrow and an incredible New York State roadmap tile lining the tent floor. Thousands of people would mill about, taking it all in. As with many things in life, we don’t always realize what good we have until it’s long gone. In recent years, many Queens residents longed for some way to revive the New York State Pavilion and restore to it even just a fraction of its former self. Since taking office, Queens Borough President Melinda Katz has campaigned for reviving the pavilion, even though the cost to fully restore it — and repair the damage wrought by decades of neglect — runs into the tens of millions of dollars. Even if Katz is successful in achieving that goal, it will no doubt take years for such a restoration to take place. In the interim, a group of electricians and preservationists are working to freshen up the pavilion’s look, even if that improvement is only visible at night. The New York Daily News reported crews are “experimenting with ways to use LED lights in blue, green and red to light up” the pavilion. The pavilion’s towers were previously covered in blue lights 15 years ago as part of an art project. Certainly, this new light project will give the New York State Pavilion a more enhanced look once the sun goes down, but what can be done about making the pavilion look better when the sun is up and shining on the rust? There is clear value in restoring the New York State Pavilion and transforming it into a historic tourist attraction for Queens residents and visitors alike. The observation towers offer a panoramic view of the borough and the Manhattan skyline in the distance; the Tent of Tomorrow could serve as a new venue for concerts and other cultural events. More than 2,500 people came to the pavilion nearly a year ago just for a brief tour of the ruined landmark. Imagine how many more would show up if that landmark gets a second chance at glory. This opportunity may not present itself again; it’s time to restore the pavilion.
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