A slippery saliva slope
It is clear that Seattle Parks and Recreation has an excess of employees and time [“No more spitting, smoking at parks?” page one, Jan. 15]. I realize that not much is happening in our parks during this dark and wet time of the year; no flowers are growing, no grass needs mowing and no baseball games are scheduled. But give me a break!
Is the city paying its employees to fret about spitting? Is the city really OK with its employees standing around engaging in informal discussions about spitting and is the city not embarrassed that it is has a department head conducting a formal analysis? Is Eric Friedli, the manager of policy and business analysis, facing a shortage of serious issues that really need analyzing?
I would love to see an account of the number of employee hours that have gone into the spitting issue. Oh but that’s not the end, we’ll need a trained enforcement team to identify spitters then ban them from parks. And then we’ll need an appeals process because not all spitting is equal and that will need analyzing too — I personally think that when a bug flies into my mouth, it’s OK to spit it out.
— Boyd Brakken, Seattle