By Dennis Kaiser
Dana Point News
Following the commotion on the Dana Hills High School campus this week, officials are pleased to learn
the local schools will get a School Resource Officer. The Dana Point City Council on Tuesday voted to
spend $83,259 on the officer and other programs as part of the Citizens Option for Public Safety (COPS)
program. (When a non-profit tried to set up a homeless shelter in Dana Point, in 1991, the City spent over
$10,000 shutting it down, and they flatly refused to consider allowing any social services for the homeless
from locating inside the City Limits. But they have no compunction about spending $83,259 on
police services, which are only necessary because they did not handle the problems of the community before they
became a law enforcement problem. Editor).
"Dana Hills High School supports the concept of the resource officer on campus," said the school's
principal, Kay Rager, in a prepared statement to the Council. "We appreciate the tremendous support we
receive from the city of Dana Point and the Sheriff's Department. A resource officer would only enhance
this relationship."
The state funds will be added to the supplemental law enforcement service fund and includes the
following enhancements to the Dana Point Police Services:
-School Resource Officer ($41,750). The full-time deputy will serve the three public schools in Dana
Point. The purpose will be to interact with students, assist in their education, and provide a positive role
model. (What "positive role model" would that be, that it is okay to inform the authorities on your friends
and family? Editor).
-25 Laptop computers for use until mobile data terminal becomes available ($23,500). This will
supplement the system while the city waits for the countywide 800 megahertz emergency radio system to
become operational. (A radio system that is only necessary because the police want to be able to
exchange information that the public cannot listen in on using an ordinary Radio Shack police scanner.
Editor).
-Drunk driving enforcement ($5,000). The money would fund a sobriety checkpoint and several roving
patrols throughout the holiday season. In the past this was done with DUI grant funds, which are no
longer available. (Did it ever occure to anyone that arbitrary police checkpoints are exactly consistent
with fascist police state policies? It should cause everyone to pause, when a city government lays out
holiday plans for its citizen's that include encounters with "roving patrols." Editor).
-All Terrain Vehicle ($6,000). The new vehicle would provide the police with the specialized ability to
patrol areas that are inaccessible to regular patrol cars, such as special event venues, without reducing the
force levels on the current police patrol on the beach.
-Drug Court funding ($2,000). The court supervises non-violent felony drug defendants that offer an
intensive "rehabilitation" program. (Isn't it ironic that the term "rehabilitated" was once used for
Communists who were purged, but who were eventually allowed to wield power again, because they had
been "rehabilitated" by the elite Party members who controlled the whole country. As the War on Drugs
takes on the dimensions of a pogrom against the weak and defenseless, conducted by the powerful and the
strong, and the political prisoners it generates fill our prisons for the "crime" of illegal drug possession,
use or sale, the comparison of U.S. society with totalitarian societies will become more obvious.
Editor).
-Remodeling/renovation of City Hall ($5,000). The plan is to make the Police Services more user-friendly
for the public and consolidate the deputies with the senior volunteers, to enhance the department's
policing program. (The City Hall building was purchased by the City Council for $1 million over its
appraised value. When the Mildred Rose Memorial Foundation, Inc. tried to establish a homeless shelter
in the City of Dana Point, the City Council was boasting about a $5 million surplus they had
accumulated. The Council spent more for the leather chairs in the Council Chambers, than it has on charity;
and the Planning Department has waged a ruthless campaign to
keep non-profits from locating in Dana Point, chasing off three since the Mildred Rose Memorial Foundation, Inc.'s
shelter was forced to close, all at great cost to the taxpayers of Dana Point. Ultimately, good government involves addressing
social issues, including crises, rather than avoiding them, and when you add the additional offense of a
government actually expending resources to shut down non-profit social services, that are meeting actual
needs, it is unforgivable. Editor).
The following letter came from a Senior who currently attends Dana Hills High School, which also
appeared in the Dana Point News:
What is the definition of school? The definition of school as stated in the American Dictionary is "place
for instruction." The American Dictionary does not state the meaning of school as "place of institution."
That is what attending school feels like. With 12 foot chain link fences and guards with video cameras,
Dana Hills hardly feels like a place you would want to further your education.
As a senior at Dana Hills, I walk through those front doors every morning wondering whether or not I'm
going to be harassed for the way I look. I think that it is absolutely ridiculous that the administration and
the attendants at my school concentrate more on how the student body looks rather than how we are
performing academically.
Granted, a little bit of discipline for those scantily dressed freshmen is good, but this is going way
overboard. A friend of mine was sent home because he had on rainbow colored (shoe) laces. Whatever
happened to freedom of expression? Students at Dana Hills High are not free to wear or look the way they
want. Doesn't that violate one of our Amendment rights?
Why are teenagers constantly the victims of oppression? Students can't wear a shirt of a popular band
because it has a pair of scissors on it, and scissors "promote violence." Go figure!
It absolutely outrages me that the schoolboard makes the decisions on what we can wear and what we
can't. What we wear has nothing to do with how well we are able to learn. Why don't they look at the
drug problem, or the fact that our school is overcrowded because it was built to hold 1,800 students but
now there are 2,500 that crowd the halls. My point is if the administration would stop concentrating on
keeping us locked in school like it's some kind of concentration camp, and made us feel that we are
actually all individuals, maybe we would all not want to rage against the machine, and leave campus at
every chance we get.
Danielle Sena