An aerial view shows the 47-acre Syracuse Developmental Center property in this 2010 file photo. Dick Blume | The Post-Standard

We’re noting some hits and misses in the news recently:

The vacant, blighted Syracuse Developmental Center, 800 S. Wilbur Ave., will finally meet the wrecking ball after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced $29 million in funding to take down the buildings and redo sewers, roads and sidewalks. The site will become a tech manufacturing hub and a mixed-income housing development, via partnerships lined up by Mayor Ben Walsh’s administration.

It’s about time the state stepped in to lift the burden it laid on the city’s shoulders.

The 47-acre campus for people with developmental disabilities was no longer needed when its residents were moved into neighborhood-based community housing in the late 1990s. The state sold the property to private investors -- who didn’t pay their taxes and let the buildings fall prey to vandals. The city seized the property in 2019. Walsh lobbied Hochul for the funding to redevelop it.

We’re excited to see this “jewel” of a site, next to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo and across from PSLA @ Fowler, returned to productive use.

The man accused of raping a student at a Le Moyne College apartment should have been in jail at the time. A chain of errors, misunderstandings or both allowed Jerel Walker to roam free before he was to begin a seven-year prison sentence later this summer.

Onondaga County Court Judge Stephen Dougherty released Walker from jail on condition he stay out of trouble. The very next day, Walker was arrested for violating an order of protection. He should have gone to jail right then — except the court had no record of the conditions of his release in its computer system.

The court clerk saw nothing in the record when Walker appeared before a different judge, Syracuse City Court Judge Vanessa Bogan. According to the court transcript, Walker tried to tell Bogan he was on conditional release but the judge shut him down before he could say something self-incriminating. Bogan set bail at $1,500.

Walker quickly made bail and was released. Three days later, police say he broke into a town house on the Le Moyne campus and raped a student at knifepoint.

“Incomprehensible,” says District Attorney William Fitzpatrick, who is investigating.

The public should be told why the court record was incomplete, why the defendant didn’t appear before the same judge who handled his case the first time, why the prosecutor didn’t know more about the defendant’s history. If not for this confluence of events, the judge might have learned Walker was a candidate for jail, not bail — and a life-altering sexual assault might have been prevented.

The holes in the system that allowed Walker to slip through must be found and closed.

In its haste to react to the racist mass killing of 10 people in a Buffalo supermarket, the New York state Legislature passed a body armor ban that does not outlaw the type worn by the accused shooter.

The idea was to give police a fighting chance to stop an attacker. The security guard at the Tops Market, Aaron Salter Jr., managed to shoot the assailant but the bullet bounced off the steel-plated armor he was wearing. Salter then was shot dead.

The state’s new body armor ban applies to “bullet-resistant soft body armor.” It does not address the sale or use of steel plates or the “plate carriers” that hold them on a person’s body, or armor worn on other parts of the body, according to reporting by the Associated Press.

You’d think the legislators who drafted the bill could have found an expert to inform and critique their work before it became law. But then the Legislature has a history of passing laws first and fixing them later. We’re talking about you, bail reform.

Other flaws in the body armor ban became apparent after it was passed and signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul. For example, New Yorkers are still allowed to own body vests and purchase them in other states, AP reported.

Also, the law reserves body armor for law enforcement and related professions. Photojournalists are petitioning the Hochul administration to include them, since their profession takes them into war zones and other dangerous situations.

Assemblymember Jonathon Jacobson, a lead sponsor of the legislation, told AP he would “be glad to amend the law to make it even stronger.” If only he and his colleagues had done their homework beforehand.

Awards don’t pay the rent, but recognition by our peers in the journalism industry tells us our work meets a high professional standard and the stories we tell resonate beyond our community.

Syracuse.com/The Post-Standard recently won 10 excellence awards given by the New York News Publishers Association. It is among the most competitive of contests because the group only gives out first-place awards.

For the second year in a row, health reporter James T. Mulder was honored for distinguished beat reporting for his coverage of unsafe conditions at Central New York nursing homes, among other stories.

Other winners included Nate Mink for sports writing; Rick Moriarty for business reporting; Tim Knauss for state government coverage; Jackie Domin and the sports staff for sports supplement; Marnie Eisenstadt for community service; Mulder and Michelle Breidenbach for investigative reporting; Christa Lemczak and N. Scott Trimble for multimedia presentation; Eisenstadt again for feature writing; and Marie Morelli for editorial writing.

You can read and view their award-winning work here.

We are proud to punch above our weight in these statewide contests. More importantly, we are proud to produce journalism that serves our readers. Thank you for supporting our work through your digital or print subscription.

Editorials represent the collective opinion of the Advance Media New York editorial board. Our opinions are independent of news coverage. Read our mission statement. Members of the editorial board are Tim Kennedy, Trish LaMonte, Katrina Tulloch and Marie Morelli.

To respond to this editorial: Submit a letter or commentary to letters@syracuse.com. Read our submission guidelines.

If you have questions about the Opinions & Editorials section, contact Marie Morelli, editorial/opinion lead, at mmorelli@syracuse.com

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