Towel-Snapping Brutes

Critics charge that the city’s chronic lifeguard shortage is its own doing:

Bullies conduct the testing for lifeguard positions at city beaches and pools, said parents of kids who claim they were humiliated by City Department of Parks and Recreation workers.

An ad hoc committee has been formed to get the City Council to investigate the allegations. Committee members say abuses include grown men cursing at young girls, testers purposely failing swimmers who met qualifications and closed-door trials out of public view.

. . .

The committee report recommends that training and testing be expanded beyond the department’s 59th St. pool in Manhattan. It also suggests open testing and improvements in recruitment efforts.

The committee additionally called for the ouster of Peter Stein, president of Local 508, the lifeguards’ union. The committee charged that Stein has run the lifeguard program for decades as his own “little fiefdom.”