A Victory Parade While Our Schools Fail.....Are You Kidding Me?

Today the LA Times wrote a piece about how the City of Los Angeles is planning on throwing a parade to congratulate the Lakers on their 15^th NBA Championship.  This is a time honored tradition and even though the City and, in fact, the entire State is on the verge of financial collapse, apparently some things just can’t be sacrificed.  Don’t get me wrong. I love the Lakers as much as the next Angelino. What I don’t love is seeing our schools spiral down the drain because we can’t afford to fund them – yet $1,000,000 is somehow found so that the City can throw a parade.

 

Mayor Villaraigosa is quoted as saying that not having a parade would be “untenable.” Untenable. Funny, it’s not untenable to be Mayor of a city with a less than 50% high school graduation rate.  It doesn’t seem to be untenable to be looking at millions in municipal budget cuts which will leave hundreds, if not thousands, unemployed.

 

According to the LA Times, the team and the City will split the hefty $2,000,000 bill.  Apparently the team has worked to keep costs down by planning a somewhat shorter parade and deciding against a weekend celebration. But let’s be clear, The Los Angeles Lakers are a for-profit organization.  And it seems that those profits are pretty big. As much as I admire their cost cutting efforts, I really can’t feel good about this.

 

I am the first to admit that perhaps I don’t understand the full picture and maybe this money is coming from somewhere else. I truly hope it is because the idea of spending a million bucks to hold a parade for a for-profit sports team when our schools are failing and teachers are losing their jobs seems irresponsible. And that’s the nicest thing I can think of to say about it.

 

I’m struggling to figure out how the need of sports fans to celebrate their team’s victory outweighs the needs of children getting a decent education. One million dollars pays for 10 to 15 teachers.  It pays for classroom supplies for the entire district.  It pays for elementary schools to provide science for the students.  How can it be that a parade is more important than this?

 

If Mayor Villaraigossa finds the very idea of not spending $1,000,000 of taxpayer money on a parade untenable, I think that the school district should change priorities make each school a basketball league.  That way there might be some hope of getting some support for them.

 

Victoria

 

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