My regular Monday op-ed schedule resumes, with a look ahead to tonight’s public meeting on the future of Coney Island that manages to avoid using the term “shell game”:

The announcement reads “community information session,” but “Fireworks at Coney Island tonight!” might be just as appropriate. After all, tonight’s public meeting at Lincoln High School on the city’s rezoning plan for Brooklyn’s summer playground is a do-over: The last time the city tried this, in November, state Sen. Carl Kruger bused in so many bewildered Brighton Beach residents to testify against the plan that the police shut the whole thing down.

It was only the latest twist in the yearlong circus that began when Joe Sitt, the developer who’s bought up large swaths of Coney (including the land under Astroland amusement park), threatened to raze everything in sight if the city didn’t let him build condos on the boardwalk… [read more]