LAURELS & DARTS- Opinion from the Editors: Tuesday, November 19

DART to the VANDALS who’ve gouged the paint and slashed the tires of dozens of cars in Bay Ridge over the past month. On Sunday morning, residents woke to find 32 vehicles parked along Shore Road had been damaged overnight. Hector Vargas told CBS New York, “There’s about a couple thousand dollars’ worth of damage just to my car alone.” Despite a temporary light erected by the NYPD and stepped-up police patrols along the park, the vandals continue to strike. “It’s really frustrating,” Bay Ridge resident Gale Young told Brooklyn Reporter. “We shouldn’t have to worry that parking on the streets means that we have to have slashed tires.”

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LAUREL to the roughly 150 CITY COUNCIL STAFFERS moving to unionize for higher wages and increased worker protections. According to a recent analysis by the Eagle, at least 81 district staffers earn less than $36,000 in base salary. New York City Council members voted in 2016 to raise their own salaries by $36,000. While staffers have been trying to unionize for years, this recent push was triggered last month when Council Member Andy King was suspended — rather than removed — for, among other transgressions, retaliating against a staffer who accused him of sexual harassment. “We are left to wonder, what, if anything, constitutes treatment unacceptable enough to elicit removal?” the organizers wrote in an open letter. 

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DART to New York City’s SCHOOL CHOICE SYSTEM, which stokes cutthroat competition among parents to secure admission for their children at one of the city’s elite public high schools, creating a cottage industry of expensive consultants and extracurricular academic advisors that are totally out of reach for low-income families. One local admissions consultant charges $200 for her newsletter, the New York Times reported. Another charges $240 an hour to help middle school students build an academic portfolio and dispense admissions advice to parents. The system that creates a market for these services is the most complex in the country, with more public schools in New York City pre-screening incoming students than in any other city nationwide, giving the privileged a serious edge and fueling dramatic racial segregation and wealth disparities in the city’s schools. 

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 LAUREL to NYPD officers MICHELLE SCHACK and partner GULREJ NANDHA, who, through quick thinking on Friday, were able to locate a missing, suicidal mother and prevent her from killing herself and her baby. The incident began when a worried grandmother in Canarsie contacted the police about text messages she’d received from her daughter, who was suffering from post-partum depression, saying she planned to kill herself and the 6-month-old infant. Schack and Nandha were able to track the mother’s vehicle to the Verrazano Bridge, leading them to suspect she might be on her way to the family’s home in the Poconos. On a lark, Schack began calling gun shops along the route, asking shopkeepers to look out for the pair. Shortly after hanging up with Pocono Mountain Firearms in Scotrun, Pennsylvania, owner Michael Conforti called back and told the officers, “they’re here,” the Post reported. Conforti was able to stall the mother, who was attempting to purchase a handgun, until local police arrived and brought the mom and baby to a hospital. Both are safe.