No Place to Play

Now-a-days concerned parents are worried about their children falling into the wrong things in life, such as gangs and drugs.  When a public facility closes its doors that leaves the children with no place to play other than the back alley or in a small back yard.  Programs that should be operative because they help the children grow and get ride of some extra energy in sports, are abandoned with the end result that again, the children have no place to play.

The interesting thing about this is that people already pay for parks and park programs through their taxes.  In some places in the United States it's lumped together in a property tax and in others, it gets registered with the property tax but under its own separate line item.  Here is Cook County, the Chicago Park District is a legal taxing body so they can increase the cost of taxes anytime they feel like it.  Yet, there is nothing in the law that says they must provide anything - like a park for the children to play.  You might like to look at this link to see more about the disparity.

A fairly well-off business owner decided to help the children.  He set-a-side a portion of his building and made it into an indoor field so that the children can play basketball, volleyball and soccer.  The alderman did not want that to happen so, it didn't.  The alderman involved is Ray Suarez.

As is guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States, the children, accompanied by their parents, decided to exercise their first amendment rights.  Here is a photo shoot of the event.

To see a full blown picture, click on the image.