‘Cold and Heartless’

It’s hard to see any good reason why Community Board 1 voted against honoring Staff Sgt. Jimmy McNaughton. The Tribeca-based city transit cop was deployed to Iraq with the US Army when a sniper killed him in 2005 at the age of 27. His family and friends hoped to add the ceremonial name “James McNaughton Way” to West Broadway between Lispenard and Canal streets. And things looked good when a CB1 committee OK’d the change.

But the full board nixed it last month, 21-12, supposedly because it opposes “co-namings,” and the extra signs might be confusing — though such co-namings haven’t caused confusion before.

McNaughton’s parents are heartbroken. “It was a slap in the face,” his stepmom, Michelle, told The Post. “I don’t think they cared. They were cold and heartless.”

“Tell us the real reason,” asks his dad, Bill, who suspects board members may be anticop or anti-military.

Transit Police Officer Brian Kenny, who worked with McNaughton, notes that the sign would hang over the stairs to a station whose officers thought they were part of the neighborhood. “Jimmy’s a hero. He’s our hero,” said Kenny. “And generations of future police officers who entered the subway to go to work at Transit District 2 would know that his fellow officers did not forget him.”

Adding a couple of signs on a single block really doesn’t seem too much to ask.