Slippery Slope of Litigation Decommissions Sledding Hills
Snowy hillsides in some New Jersey communities have become only cruel temptations.
Several counties have banned sledding in parks citing liability concerns. Parents in Phillipsburg, near the Pennsylvania border, recently petitioned city officials to repeal the ordinance but failed.
"If someone is getting hurt, they will sue the town," said Joel Kobert, town attorney. "We can't cover the liability insurance; that kind of cost is prohibitive."
Over the years, other Jersey counties, including Gloucester, Camden and Warren, have made public property off-limits to sleds. But many parents and kids in Phillipsburg were unaware of the ban until this year, when they saw new signs warning that disobeying the law could result in a fine.
Kobert said he urged officials to post signs and better enforce the sledding rule after their insurance company paid out thousands of dollars in a sledding-related accident.
-- Michelle Garcia
Some Lawmakers Give an F To 'Health Report Card' Plan
Texas state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte describes herself as "fat and 50," and she hails from the metropolis the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the fattest city in America: San Antonio.
But what Van de Putte, a pharmacist for 25 years, sees at her job in the Alamo City has pushed her to introduce one of the most talked-about bills of this year's legislative session. She wants to require Texas school districts to calculate a student's body mass index, or BMI -- the measurement of body fat based on height and weight -- and provide parents with a "health report card." Similar legislation was enacted in Arkansas last year.
"Parents want their children to succeed academically," she said. "I want that to happen with health."
Van de Putte said she sees overweight children as young as 8 picking up medication for diabetes and high blood pressure, both serious health problems associated with obesity. "I have a 12-year-old [customer] with more blood pressure meds than my mother takes," she said.
Her bill has been criticized by some fellow lawmakers as "too much government," while a spokesman for the Association for Texas Professional Educators said that teachers already are overburdened and that calculating a student's BMI would have "deleterious psychological effects on students."
-- Sylvia Moreno
