22 THE COURIER SUN • JULY 23, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.couriersun.com editorial 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 CRISTABELLE TUMOLA, ANGY ALTAMIRANO, KATRINA MEDOFF ANTHONY GIUDICE, ANGELA MATUA, ALINA SURIEL CLIFF KASDEN, SAMANTHA SOHMER, ELIZABETH ALONI CRISTABELLE TUMOLA DEMETRA PLAGAKIS WARREN SUSSMAN CELESTE ALAMIN MARIA VALENCIA VICTORIA SCHNEPS-YUNIS JOSHUA A. SCHNEPS 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 SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE CLASSIFIED MANAGER CONTROLLER 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: editorial@queenscourier.com for advertising e-mail: ads@queenscourier.com 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 offi ce telephone numbers, where available, as well as affi liation, 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 fi ve 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. “Should minimum wage be increased to “Yes, because of infl ation.” James Lana BY BROOKE RUTMAN “Yes, it’s 2015. It should be there by now.” Adriana Balsamo “Yes, living in New York is expensive. It’s kind of hard to survive on minimum wage.” Bryan Wong “Defi nitely, the cost of living goes up and everyone has to keep up. $15 is not 30 grand.” Leslie Ducena “No, people who are older and work at night deserve it. They should make more, not the people who are making minimum.” Micaela Aguirre “$15 sounds about right. The cost of living keeps going up.” Patricia Rivara street talk ““Yeah, more money is always better. Younger people should be making much more.” Antonella Toro “Yes, I work in a restaurant and I help manage it. I make $11 an hour and we work hard.” Michael Constantinou $15 an hour for all workers?” SNAPS QUEENS Astoria Park Photo submitted by Johnny Makkar 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). High-speed window dressing If you live in a New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) building and your toilet isn’t working or if the elevator’s stuck again, don’t worry about a thing. At least you’ll soon have broadband Internet. The city proudly announced last week it would be installing high-speed Internet at NYCHA buildings, starting with the Queensbridge Houses in Long Island City. It’s a well-intentioned plan designed to bring technological upgrades to low-income New Yorkers and all the advancements that come with it. “One in three, almost 33 percent, of our poorest families do not have Internet access,” Mayor Bill de Blasio pointed out. But the Queensbridge Houses, along with many other NYCHA buildings, have many more pressing problems that have been well documented in the media, ranging from crumbling infrastructure (many of these high-rises were constructed more than 60 years ago) to rampant crime. The de Blasio administration, to its credit, is working to make life a little better for those who have the least in this city. While expanding technology to NYCHA buildings certainly will help bridge the technology gap, the city must not forget its responsibility to provide its tenants with the proper upkeep of their apartments. No resident of a public apartment building should have to deal with chronic plumbing or heating problems, or broken elevators that force residents to climb many steps, or keeping out criminals who endanger everyone by their presence. If the city forgets its obligation to NYCHA tenants, then this Internet upgrade is nothing more than high-speed window dressing. Keeping Queens plugged in This week’s heat wave brought power outages and voltage reductions that again reminded 21st-century Queens residents of the power grid’s troubling dependence on 19th-century technology. As temperatures soared into the 90s on July 20, Con Edison dropped voltage in south Queens communities; the reduction aimed to reduce strain on the local power grid as crews repaired equipment and thousands of residents turned on their air conditioners and fans. There were isolated outages in Queens, but up to 19,000 Staten Island customers lost their power Monday due to heat-related problems. One commonality between Queens and Staten Island is its residential neighborhoods, which are largely powered by overhead lines hoisted onto wooden poles. That may have been cutting-edge technology about 150 years ago; today, it’s a prolonged heat wave or a major windstorm away from disaster. With more electronic devices than ever before, with an increased reliance upon air conditioning during these hot summer months, Con Edison must do more to upgrade its utility infrastructure. Modern utility lines capable of handling the heavy load must be installed across Queens — and placed underground as much as possible (it reportedly costs up to a million dollars per mile to place utility lines below ground). Queens must always be plugged in to the rest of the world, but it needs the proper tools to stay charged.
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