Common sense needed

To the editor:

 Here's four examples from the first 2026 Chief (Jan. 2) that show the shortage of common sense and/or common decency.

     "Transit unions secure protections against bus lane fines" shows that it was necessary for the legislature to pass and the governor to sign legislation to enforce both. Writers of parking tickets needed a law to tell them that transit employees sometimes need to park in bus lanes to deal with bus-related issues.

     Then nurses had to authorize a strike. They demand safe staffing levels, protection of health care for the vulnerable, improved workplace protection against violence, safeguards in using sometimes unreliable artificial intelligence and fair wages and benefits. If management was decent, they would agree.

     Next is the issue of departed Fire Department of New York (FDNY) Commissioner Robert Tucker, who was superbly exposed by Emergency Medical Service (EMS) union leadership in their Community Op-Ed. Tucker had no experience in any city agency, yet phony critics of his successor, Lillian Bonsignore, have the gall to complain that she has no firefighting experience. No, she only has more than three decades in the FDNY EMS where she rose to the rank of Chief.

     I'll admit that until recently, I was blissfully ignorant of Tucker's existence. But when he used his differences with Mayor Zohan Mamdani on Israel as reason to resign, I wondered what the mayor's refusal to blindly support war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu had to do with firefighting. All I would say to Tucker is good riddance!

     Finally, from an even greater than usual Ron Isaac column, the woman who did not cancel a doctor's appointment she no longer needed because it was free must have a boring life if she could not find a better way to spend her time.

Richard Warren