24 THE COURIER SUN • DECEMBER 3, 2015 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.qns.com editorial sun WWW.COURIERSUN.COM 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 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. 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 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 operating 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. This will allow the press to keep tabs on how homeless shelters are serving the people who need the most help and rightfully expose any maltreatment experienced. Stopping state corruption for good One corrupt politician down, one to go. A federal jury found former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver guilty on all counts in a corruption case over unlawful payments he accepted from a cancer research fi rm and real estate developers in exchange for political favors. That’s just for starters, of course, because Silver’s one-time counterpart in the state Senate — former Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos — stands also on trial in a federal corruption case of his own, also for accepting illegal compensation for political favors. They were, a little more than a year ago, two of the state’s most powerful politicians. If Skelos is also found guilty, he and Silver might wind up being bunkmates at a federal penitentiary. Part of New York’s corruption problem is that the job of a state legislator itself is considered part-time. This allows legislators to pursue other jobs away from Albany to supplement their income — and too often, unscrupulous lawmakers have used their part-time jobs to bankroll their full-time pursuit of cash by unlawful means. State lawmakers should support a constitutional amendment to make legislative posts full-time gigs with a salary comparable to that of the New York City Council. It should be made clear to every lawmaker now and in the future that they have just one job: to serve the people of their district and the people of New York State. Such a measure should hopefully prevent another Shelly Silver or Dean Skelos from taking advantage of the good people of New York State, and the power entrusted to them.
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