Let's give this a shot!

Since making the decision to take a break from my weekly column in the Dayton Review, I have been experiencing writer's withdrawal. All of a sudden, the lack of ideas I have had the last year or so has given way to more ideas than I can shake a pen at.  Some folks have encouraged me to start a blog and so, tonight, while my Introduction to Theatre class watched Marlon Brando's Streetcar Named Desire, I am composing my very first blog post.    I am predicting that I won't have to be quite so politically correct with this blog as I felt I should be with the local newspaper.  I guess I'm saying--if my Review columns caused you to raise an eyebrow or two, you ain't seen nothing yet. 

I am going to write my first column on the proposed fence around the Dayton school and playground.   I have five reasons for opposing the fence. 

First, why solve a problem that doesn't exist?  As far as I can tell, there has never been an accident where a school child followed a ball into the street and was hit by a car.  Never.  The chains and the recess monitors are doing their jobs very well.    I've lived across the street from the school for over 17  years now and have never even seen any close calls. 

Secondly, chain link fences are unattractive.  I tore one down in my backyard primarily because it was just so darn ugly. If we absolutely MUST do something about this non-issue, can we at least make it an attractive solution?

Thirdly, the park board is against it. These volunteers put a great deal of time, energy, and their own money into the park board and their wishes should be respected. 

Fourthly, it is expensive and the money could be very easily spent to solve problems that actually exist.

Fifthly, no matter what the school board says, it sure looks like one woman threatened to pull her kids out of SWG if a fence wasn't erected and so, by golly, it was decided to put up a fence.    She attended a few meetings, wrote a letter to the editor (where she quoted me incorrectly, by the way) and got her way.  I have more kids than she does.  Does that mean if I threaten to pull my kids if the school doesn't--for example--sign a contract to keep the softball field in Harcourt for another ten years, that the school will hop right on drawing up said contract? 

That being said, I would still support a fence if a few things could happen.  One--if someone could show me some hard evidence that it is needed (like statistics, etc) then I would certainly change my mind.  The aforementioned woman promised to bring stats to the next council meeting--and then she didn't even come to said meeting, let alone present statistics.  "All the other schools have fences" is not good enough for me at this point.

Two--If the school board and the park board would work together and bring a proposal to the city council. This entire process has been ass backwards.  It started with a woman standing up at council and demanding a fence.  There was no school board representative there.  Then, two weeks later, the school board submitted a building permit to fence in the entire school and park area, with the city paying part of the cost.  No school board members and no lady at this meeting.  We voted it down.  After this, the park board also voted to not erect a fence.

Then, the woman wrote a not-so-nice and not-very-accurate letter to the Dayton Review.  At the next City Council meeting, three members of the school board attended (still no lady) and it was approved for them to fence in their section only, but leave the city section as is.  The school board members agreed to go to the next park board meeting to work on a compromise. 

The concerned woman finally returned to the next council meeting to inquire about the progress of the fence.  We told her to go to the next park board meeting. She did not attend, but several people did stand up at the meeting and voice their opposition to the fence.

It looks like the school will fence in their property for sure and the city probably won't fence in theirs, although this is not 100% certain.  You know--the proposed four-foot fence really isn't that much of a deterrent.  Why not go all the way and put barbed wire around the top?  That would certainly deter bad guys.  Then we could change our city slogan from "Rodeo City" to "Dayton: We fence in our kids like cattle."

Okay, that was snotty.  But, I do want to make the point that the entire "Fencegate" could have been handled much differently from the very beginning--going through established channels--and the hard feelings out there never would have occurred.

Yes--we all want to do what is best for our children and our community. I'm just not sure this is it.