Greg Ruben: The dramatic battle over LA's next swing set
"This is just so wrong"
A short video, via Twitter.
There’s a proposal to add two swings and a slide to a local park in LA. Neighbours are vehemently opposed.
Controversy over a swing set may seem ridiculous, but it’s predictable. Making a decision on a hyper-local basis like this is like holding a mini-referendum. And in a referendum, the status quo usually wins. Nearly every referendum and plebisicite held in Canada in the last 150 years has failed. (I can only think of three exceptions: Prohibition in 1898, conscription in 1942, and the Vancouver Olympics in 2003.)
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Coal Harbour Elementary School. Just as opponents of the swing set argue that coyotes roaming the park might attack children, opponents of the Coal Harbour school argued that children might fall into the water.