Where does path of least resistance lead?
In giving its blessing to its football coach for drug testing of his football team, the high school board took the path of least resistance. A blessing is certainly better than a poke in the eye. But it falls far short of decisive action.
What the board has done is cut Coach Butch Cattolico lose to sail unchartered waters. If he hits stormy seas, he's on his own.
From a legal viewpoint, one could argue that the board simply found a way to let the coach have his way and still leave itself an out. One could even admire the strategic maneuvering; certainly, in our litigious times, avoiding trouble rather than confronting it head-on might be considered a virtue.
On the other hand, the board is the school district's policy-making body. By offering its "blessing--not a policy" decision, isn't the board, in fact, shirking its responsibility?
The board did approve of parents, students and administrators getting together to look into the drug problem. The danger here is that too often referring a problem to further study is simply a way to avoid dealing with the issue indefinitely. One has to wonder: How much talk is required to realize there is a problem?
Did board members miss all the recent stories in the national media quoting research that shows teen drug use has doubled in the past four years? Did they fail to draw conclusions about research that shows drug use is starting much younger and that teen attitudes about drugs have become increasingly cavalier?
Was everyone asleep when Community Against Substance Abuse reported two years ago that Los Gatos High School is a national leader in substance abuse?
Talk is good, but talk is cheap.
This summer, a group of parents woke up and realized that actions speak louder than words; the football coach got the message, and he proposed an action he thought would make a difference.
What he got from the school board was a lukewarm blessing. The path of least resistance is a trail that meanders aimlessly and goes nowhere.
Sidewalk solutions
Last week, a man representing a sidewalk cleaning service strolled into a shop along San Francisco's trendy Union Street with a simple solution to a common problem. The Union Street Association had sent him, he told a shop owner, to ask her to buy into a plan to keep the busy sidewalks clean.
He quoted her $20 for a monthly steam cleaning. She agreed in the blink of an eye.
In Los Gatos, the local association of downtown merchants is, at best, in limbo. That leaves no organized body to even complain about the dirty streets.
Judging by the recent flurry of letters to the editor in this newspaper, however, downtown visitors have not failed to notice--or be dismayed by--the filthy sidewalks.
In the face of inaction by merchants, who are responsible for keeping their sidewalk space clean, the town could step in, hire someone to do the work, and bill the merchants. But officials complain they don't have funds to do the collection.
How much derision does our downtown have to take before the merchants, the town or both move the problem up the priority list and just deal with it?
This article appeared in the Los Gatos Weekly-Times, September 11, 1996.
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