The Visalia Times Delta Editorial- Wednesday 2/7/07
SENIOR SQUARES

This is the text- Please Visit VisaliaTimesDelta.com for a Thank You- Buy A subscription-Etc.!!!!!!!
Rick

"Now they've done it. The folks at City Hall have ticked off the senior citizens.

Over square dancing.

Sometimes government bureaucracy doesn't know when to leave well enough alone. Make that most of the time.

You know that old joke: "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help"? The folks at the Visalia Senior Center aren't laughing.

Only in government could people look at a perfectly unbroken situation and rush to fix it. And then charge us for the repairs.

For 15 years, seniors have been square dancing without a license at the Visalia Senior Center, which is owned and operated by the city of Visalia. It's an informal thing. They clear the dance floor and get an hour's exercise. The dancers pass the hat for the caller. For 15 years, the dancers, the callers, the Senior Center and the city were all happy with this arrangement. Nobody got hurt. Nobody sued. Nobody complained.

It was too good to last.

The city of Visalia learned about this unregulated square dancing and said, "This shall not stand." The city's recreation department jumped in to right this wrong. The bureaucrats cited the usual excuses: liability, insurance, attorneys ... "What if somebody gets hurt?" Blah. Blah. And blah.

They even had the nerve to say that they were worried that somebody might be earning a dollar on city property without paying income tax on it. Oh, the horror. Since when it is the city of Visalia's responsibility to be the police for the IRS?

One of the bureaucrats told the Times-Delta that these square dancers must be treated like other recreational athletes. You know, they're all pretty much the same: soccer players, softball players, tennis players, square dancers ...

Don't these people ever listen to their own nonsense?

So now the senior square dancers, a few dozen old timers just trying to enjoy their golden years while they still can dance, will be pushed into the same boat as the other recreational athletes. They'll need to be registered, numbered, provide an emergency contact, all the usual rigmarole. The city made the square dancers sign waivers, presumably releasing the city of liability should they break a bone during the execution of an allemande, or strain a muscle from laughing too hard.

And taking up a collection for the caller? No good. He will have to become a city employee and be paid by check from the city of Visalia, which will then deduct income tax, Medicare tax, California SDI and Social Security, so in his retirement he can be pushed around by government bureaucrats trying to squeeze another dollar out of him.

The seniors, of course, will have to pay for all this help they're getting from the city of Visalia, to the tune of $2 a person a week. Or maybe they'll have to rent the hall from the city. One thing is certain: It's going to cost them. That's what they get for daring to have fun without a license.

The square dancers have already lodged their protests, bless their hearts, and we wish them luck on their suicide mission. The city says it is working on a solution the dancers can live with.

Here's a suggestion for City Hall: Table it. Or give it some further study. Forever. Lose it under a pile of paper. Say it was somebody else's idea and the somebody else was fired.

It ought to be interesting to see if our local public servants can set aside their compulsion to control everything they already don't have their hands on and just let "we the people" be. But we're not holding our breaths. "