Blaz snow job has NYers fuming
Brooklyn: Plows were going up and down McDonald Ave. every 10 minutes, but up toward Windsor Terrace the streets were a complete mess — like a hockey rink. This storm was handled poorly. Harve Kaye Bronx: Why no word from Mayor de Blasio when the snow started falling around 10 a.m.? His first week on the job, he was all over TV, telling us to stay indoors. Now, he’s hibernating!
Cindi C. Williams
Manhattan: So the mayor is judged by his response to snow — what a crock. He goes on what the forecasters predict, and even then no one knows exactly what Mother Nature will do next. Nature will win every time. All humans can do is to do the best we can. Stop nitpicking the mayor’s response — it makes all of you look stupid. Henry Correa
Bronx: Where are the snow plows of yesteryear? Maria Bonsanti
Too little, too late
Manhattan: Heckuva job, Bill. Apparently, a couple of days’ warning about the incoming storm was not enough for late-rising Mayor de Blasio to get the salt spreaders and plows out for a snow storm — which started at 8 in the morning — to prevent a gridlocked city by early afternoon. It wasn’t until the evening that the first plow arrived on the scene on the Upper East Side. Acting Sanitation Commissioner John Doherty — a Bloomberg holdover whom de Blasio has yet to reappoint or replace — had a lame excuse about how the plow trucks were stuck in bottlenecked traffic. Excuse me, but the unplowed streets were what caused the congestion in the first place — adding untold tortuous hours on the road for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.
David Siskind
Double standard
Staten Island: I am having a hard time understanding Mayor de Blasio’s decision to keep schools open during the snow storm. Did he really think children were desperately in need of education, or was his decision based on the federal money the city only receives when students are in school? He issued a report that the streets were not safe and warned everyone to stay off the streets and in the same breath he said the schools would be open. So the streets weren’t safe for adults, but were just fine for little kids? Another typical politician!
Carol C. Sarlo
Cuomo’s correction
Bronx: I’m so happy to see the smackdown from Gov. Cuomo to Mayor de Blasio on funding for pre-K (“Special K,” Jan. 21). I also like the fact that the state will monitor the program so it is not merely a baby-sitting service. So many times, the money for these programs gets into the hands of the wrong people, and everyone involved has family members on the payroll. Barbara Boyle
A better investment
Middle Village: Before spending extra cash on pre-K, why doesn’t Gov. Cuomo restore the bridge and tunnel tolls to what they were when he came to office?
Robert Leavy
Pay up, Bill!
Staten Island: If Mayor de Blasio wants to help alleviate the extreme economic disparities in New York City, one thing that would be very effective — and also benefit the economy — would be doing the right thing by New York’s civil service workers. Mayor Bloomberg refused to bargain with them in good faith — or at all — leaving almost all of our roughly 300,000 city workers without a contract for years. The cost of living has gone up, even if their salaries have not. Giving them appropriate wages would not only be just, but also good for the economy. All those workers with some extra money in their paychecks at last will produce so much demand that it will create jobs. Joann Olbrich
Workers before wives
College Point: Mayor de Blasio: Before letting your wife hire a six-figure staffer, you should be settling contracts with the city workers who have been working without one. They deserve it.
Betty Faller
Chirlane’s pricey staff
Manhattan: To Voicers Andrew Marron and K. Sherlock: You’re absolutely right that voter polls proved New Yorkers didn’t elect the mayor’s wife to have a role in City Hall policymaking. Yet not only is she taking one on, but, even while her role remains undefined, she has hired a former Al Sharpton aide, Rachel Noerdlinger, for a $170,000-a-year job as her chief of staff. What happened to Mayor de Blasio’s promise to move people up from poverty? Instead, our first lady is hypocritically spending taxpayers’ money for one salary that could easily have employed four out-of-work summa cum laude college graduates eager to move into the middle class. Shame!
Lataesha Tyson
Any more jobs there?
Manhattan: I am looking for a job as an aide to Chirlane McCray’s staff, now that I see how well she is paid — almost as much as the mayor makes. I have a master’s in journalism from Columbia, and I also do fashion design and makeovers. I’m looking to break out of poverty, but it’s so hard in this city. I find the fact that the job does not define duties or responsibilities, and the fact that McCray doesn’t know yet what she will be doing, very exciting.
Jasmine Williams
Disgusting for good
Jersey City: I pray Voicer Sandra J. Smith never sees a loved one suffer a horrible death from cancer or emphysema in order to learn how truly “disgusting, exploitive and insensitive” her response to the effective antismoking ads was. For far too long, the networks refused to run these ads, which actually might cause a youngster to rethink his first cigarette, in deference to timorous sensibilities like Smith’s. And that deference killed thousands. Those of us who have lost loved ones to tobacco-related illnesses — or seen them still living but struggling for each painful breath — cheer every one of the new ads. Smith should be ashamed of herself, though I doubt she has a clue as to the actual effects of her “good taste.”
John Esche
Watch out!
Flushing: Welcome to New York. Please stay in your lane, and if you walk outside the lines, you may end up face down, bloody and in the backseat for a free tour of our lovely city — even if you’re 85 years old. Robert McCorey
Record time
Staten Island: Congratulations to the Department of Transportation. It has now taken 455 days and counting to fix the five escalators at the Whitehall Ferry terminal. That’s 45 days longer than it took to build the entire Empire State building. How proud DOT must be. Jeff Kelly
Jersey pride
Brooklyn: Will someone please tell me why people keep saying that the Super Bowl is being played in New York? The last time I looked, MetLife Stadium was in East Rutherford, N.J.
Norma Joseph
A simple traffic fix
Flushing: After the recent traffic deaths on the Upper West Side, the Daily News is calling for “building a turnaround at the end of 96th Street to go east” (“A turn for the worse,” editorial, Jan. 22). But there is an easier and less costly solution to at least part of the problem. Two of the three pedestrians recently killed there were struck by turning vehicles while in the crosswalk. This can be prevented by having three tiers of lights, instead of the current two. First, pedestrians would cross in all directions. Then cars going east and west would have the light, and then cars going north and south. This way, no vehicles would ever be in motion when pedestrians have the crosswalk. It would also speed traffic, since vehicles wouldn’t have to wait for pedestrians to cross before making a turn. And this would not require construction of any kind, just reprogramming traffic lights. Chaya Wiesman
Redemption & Mother Cabrini
New Milford, N.J.: What a shame that the Catholic Church, with all its riches, would let a wonderful school like Mother Cabrini close. Maybe it’s time that the church started to give back to its youth as a response to all the wrongs in its past, and save an institution that works with the young women of the future to become strong and powerful. Monica Poveromo