BE MORE VIGILANT WITH VICE

Of course it's an outrage that drug dealers and prostitutes are plying
their wares on Schenectady streets at 8 o'clock in the morning, within
sight of schoolchildren waiting for the bus. But there was just one proper
response for city officials who were apprised of the situation at Monday's
City Council meeting: We're outraged, too, and we'll get police on it right
away.

Unfortunately, that was not quite the reaction Olivia Adams - president of
the local NAACP - got when she complained about the situation. Instead,
Corporation Counsel Michael Brockbank asked her to provide names to assist
police, while Mayor Albert Jurczynski and Councilman Frank Maurizio implied
that the problem couldn't be solved unless the city school district
cooperates. Wrong!

The problem is the police department's failure to do a better job
monitoring a neighborhood where activities of this sort have gone on for
years. The department stages periodic crackdowns on the dealers,
prostitutes and johns, then it backs off. Within a few months, the hookers
are out of jail and back on their favorite corners, and new dealers have
moved in to take the old ones' places.

Granted, an apparent streetwalker or drug dealer can't be arrested on mere
suspicion; a case must be made and evidence gathered. But when they're out
on the street in plain view, to the extent that the residents of the
Hamilton Hill and Vale neighborhoods say they are, it's obvious that the
cops need to pay more consistent attention.

And it shouldn't take a call from a school bus driver to get police to take
notice, or an eyewitness to do the grunt work. Not when the activities are
so blatant and residents in the neighborhoods have complained about them
for years.