Staten Island Youth Court

I'm in Minnesota visiting my wife's family for the holidays. Before I left for vacation, I managed to sneak away to Staten Island for the groundbreaking of a new courthouse, which was presided over by Mayor Bloomberg and Chief Judge Kaye. If I am not mistaken, the groundbreaking is going to turn out to be Kaye's last public event as chief judge. Aside from my sentimental attachment to Kaye, the reason for my attendance was that the event doubled as an announcement of the new Staten Island Youth Court. Kaye and the local DA (Dan Donovan) both talked about the new initiative, which seeks to build on the Red Hook and Harlem models by handling cases referred by criminal court judges, family court judges, probation and police. We had more than a dozen kids at the groundbreaking. For their trouble, they got special pencils from Judge Kaye and their photo taken with the Mayor. All in all, it was a lovely way to kick off the holiday break. Congrats to Al, Raye, Jackie R., Jackie S., Melissa and everyone else who helped get the youth court going in record time.