Shooting the breeze with an assault pen

If numbers won't lie to do our bidding, we must either reinvent mathematical truth, or else reassign public policy makers to duties less controversial than the sanctioned highway robbery of law-abiding New Yorkers.

They're the ones picking up the tab for the prodigal sponges.

Among the freeloaders are the bearers of "ghost license plates,” who are costing the city $200 million annually in lost revenue. The government recoups the deficit by ensuring that innocent people make amends for the guilty.

The scofflaws are very ingenious. They find many ways to tamper with their plates to avoid bridge tolls and speed cameras. They know how to dodge images, crease the metal so that a number or letter is creased or hidden, or put correction tape or white-out over it, or hitch a rig to the rear. 

These moochers should apply to the Secret Service, which is seeking to up its game.

Regrettably,  some apologists for the equalization of privilege consider the phrase "law-abiding taxpayers" to be code for suburban supremacists. But subsistence workers from all communities are punished for the delinquency of others. Their measly monthly social service benefits have taken a hit this summer, because the shortfall of funds must be diverted.

The city will never be foreclosed. But it will be wiped out. Who is stopping our leaders from taking the leap from lip service to public service?

Added to the sacrifice of revenue due to ghost license plates, is the disastrous toll from turnstile jumpers and bus fare evaders, which steals from the peoples' treasury a conservatively estimated $700 million annually for successive years. And though the debate over the sticker shock associated with being a sanctuary city is up in the air, the $5 billion liability for the affirmation of humanitarian principles is down to earth like a thud.

Another body blow to the economy is the evacuation of many large commercial establishments, including major chain and box stores, because they cannot sustain the massive shoplifting, which is no longer a police matter and is, in effect, endorsed by district attorneys and countenanced by politically appointed judges. Struggling stores that remain must jack up the prices, which most hurts our poor communities.

Pillaging is on a grand scale, and uncontained opportunistic parasitism is bedeviling and demoralizing our town. Security guards are still hired, but they are now just props and window dressing. If they try to stop a looter, they're fired. The honor system is a laughingstock.

The cowardice and ambitiousness of legislators, district attorneys and judges, who are in the business of selective ingratiation, are threats to civil order and social sanity. 

They reserve their wrath for homeowners who put out their garbage a few days early, swept away gum wrappers dropped by passersby an hour earlier. And mercy for a man suspected of screaming antisemitism and stabbing his victim almost to death. He was charged with criminal possession of a weapon and assault. Maybe a count of attempted murder was not appropriate because the suspect's alleged weapon had a GPS that would steer the blade away from vital organs.

New York may survive and rebound, because it has so far just leased, not sold its soul. But in recent years, we have been taking two steps backward for each step forward, instead of the other way around. To keep pace with even this halting progress, the city must make changes in hiring practices on the highest level.

A few weeks ago, Laura Kavanaugh surrendered her curiously appointed position of FDNY commissioner. She had no qualifications for the job. We can conjecture what her mysterious credentials may have been. 

Contributing factors for her departure, however, may have included her alienation of rank-and-file firefighters. Her unpopularity may have been fueled by her efforts to redress alleged discrimination in hiring and promotion and reputed culture of an inhospitable work environment for women and minorities.

She has been replaced by Robert Tucker, the CEO of a private security company who also was never a firefighter, although he seems to be sort of a groupie, hobbyist and aficionado. There is a pattern of hiring kingpins who are out of their element.

Jessica Tisch is the commissioner of Sanitation. We know how she got the job, but we can rhetorically ask why. She has zero prior experience in the realm of her leadership. Was it an engineered coincidence that her mom is a former chancellor of the New York State Board of Regents and her pop an heir to the Loews Corporation, and head of the Tisch family's holding company, which according to Crain's New York Business "has interests in oil and drilling, insurance and hotels and had $13.5 billion in revenue in 2015.” 

There should be a law requiring all agency heads to be picked straight from the rank and file. No exceptions. 

The city should also make widely available, and in plain language, the rules of the bidding process in relation to construction materials and other contracts. Let's put to rest those nasty innuendos about donors and payoffs.

And just to stay on topic: does anybody know how to get the job of commissioner of jurors? And why has the payment for a day of jury duty remained the same since Millard Fillmore's presidency?  

It's $40. Given that the minimum hourly wage is $15, a full day's pay should be at least $120. I guess that's what people snookered into deciding the fate of their peers are deemed to be worth.

In recent days, New Yorkers have lost one of our few reliable sources of local news: WCBS. Just when I was hoping for an expose of the city's new public bathroom initiative, which aims to get rid of the mugging parlors, shooting galleries and pathogen hothouses, and replace with them facilities equal to the standard of a city hospital operating room. 

Their place on the dial is now ESPN New York, so now the hooliganism that will be covered will be in the hockey rink and off the streets. It was a business decision of Audacy, which also owns WINS, which continues to barter the world for 22 minutes of our attention.

Not much of a bargain for us. Maybe Audacy should change its name to Audacity.