vision2020
RE: Moscow 2002-13: A Parent's Concerns / Questions
Sorry (or not) to go over the "one post a day" suggestion ;-)
If you really *do* understand the concern, then just delete the rest
:-) Otherwise, here goes a scenario . . .
Let's say a citizen calls in a complaint about a child's attire. When
arriving to investigate, the police officer sees a young girl in a shirt
(s)he thinks violates the ordinance because too much is showing under
her arm. Not as improbable as one might think; I've seen many shirts on
young girls that would appear iffy.
My understanding of the ordinance is that what's allowed to be seen in
public is determined in relationship to the areola, which would *not* be
visible. (I missed the carwash, so I've yet to see a female in Moscow
in public with areola visible, and I've lived here since 1988.)
A citizen has made a complaint, the officer witnesses what (s)he thinks
is a violation.
How would the officer determine that there was, in fact, a violation
without determining where the top of the areola is on a specific
individual?
To complicate matters further, whether a female child is subject to this
ordinance depends on whether or not she's begun menstruating. How will
that be determined?
These are some of the questions parents want answered, and these
questions deserve to be answered.
Now, perhaps these questions don't matter if the officer is going to
just write the citation with no investigation, and then leave it to the
courts to sort out. Is that what will happen? How would the courts
then make a determination without evidence?
Perhaps these questions will be non-issues as well if there's a
"hands-and-eyes off" policy with respect to young girls. Is that the
case? And, if it's the case, then why wasn't the law written to exclude
minor children?
My experience has been that a significant number of parents who didn't
really think about the ordinance one way or another now have serious
concerns about its implementation with respect to our minor daughters
and the level of intrusion to which the most private parts of their
lives are now open. And, a fair number of folks who supported the idea
of doing *something* about the topless carwash are very unhappy with
what the City Council did.
Mr. Steed, I don't see that questioning and understanding how the
real-life implementation of this misguided ordinance is going to impact
our daughters is anything like yelling, "Fire!" in a crowded theater.
Everyone in the community *should* care about the answers to these and
similar questions because our youth are among our community's most
precious and vulnerable treasures. Even if one doesn't care about the
needless potential harm that could be done to our daughters, then one
should care about this issue because it will be our tax dollars that
will pay monetary damages if Moscow should be sued over how this
ordinance is implemented with respect to our daughters.
Saundra Lund
Moscow, Idaho
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good people to
do nothing.
Edmund Burke
-----Original Message-----
From: WMSteed@aol.com [mailto:WMSteed@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, August 16, 2002 5:33 PM
To: sslund@moscow.com; vision2020@moscow.com; steveb@moscow.com;
jmack@turbonet.com; peg_hamlett@msn.com
Cc: jmhill@moscow.com; johnguy@moscow.com; mtethoma@moscow.com;
comstock@moscow.com
Subject: Re: Moscow 2002-13: A Parent's Concerns / Questions
In a message dated 8/16/02 10:35:16 AM, sslund@moscow.com writes:
<< Exactly *how* will an officer determine that a violation has, in
fact, occurred? Will the police be requiring our daughters to take off
their shirts, leotards, or bathing suit tops??? If so, who will be
present? >>
Huh? And I thought the ordinance had to do with what was showing in
public,
not what could be shown. This strikes me as a "yelling 'fire' in a
crowded
theater" type question.
Walter Steed
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