Don't try to push Staten Island off on us NYC, we don't want it either:

Staten Island, your status as the forgotten borough is well deserved. You will always be just a New Jersey town chipped off the mainland with a Disney-like transportation system.

But we heartily congratulate your going for the scandal brass ring with gusto. First, you went national with the Oct. 15 ferry crash. You could almost hear the whispers spreading throughout America: Staten Island is still there...

Then, last week, you hit two dazzling shots on goal, pulling down a rare scandal hat trick.

That a fellow firefighter hit Robert Walsh in the face with a metal chair hard enough to put him into critical condition during a New Year’s Eve party at the Engine 151/Ladder 76 firehouse is undeniably sad and awful. But the fact that his fellow firefighters told doctors that Walsh had fallen down a set of stairs is just pathetic. That the stationhouse was stinking of booze when the police got there hours later is doubly so.

From our fallen heroes at the FDNY, you lurched to another nominal pillar of the community: school teachers. And not just any school teacher. Fifty-year-old Staten Islander Dennis Loffredo may have been the best and most caring high school teacher ever, as evidenced by this quote from one of his students: "If you were cutting class or failing, and you hooked Mr. Loffredo up with drugs, he’d let you off or pass you."

Sadly, he will be able to trade drugs for grades no more, as he was arrested with $5000 worth of cocaine and a glock.

Nice going, SI. But you still shouldn’t expect a visit anytime soon.

I'll make a deal, we'll secede from North Jersey, let's say everything south of I-195 and they can inherit SI. They deserve each other anyway.