Score one for Ritchie
State Sen. Patty Ritchie (Republican. St. Lawrence County. Won the seat from Democrat Darrel Aubertine) scored one for the little guys this week.
Thursday her office sent a press release, wonderfully titled title “Wiffle Ball, Red Rover Not Dangerous” that said new detailed rules would cripple local rec programs with added staff expenses.
She pressed NYS Health Commissioner Nirav Shah to back off on new rules for local summer recreation programs.
He did, yesterday.
Here’s the AP story this morning:
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) _ State health officials have yanked a set of proposed guidelines for what were initially deemed risky day camp games like tag, Red Rover and kickball.
Health department spokeswoman Claudia Hutton says the rules and lists of games and activities were sent out to municipalities and other camp operators under the previous administration.
She says that after a review spurred by a lawmaker’s questions Friday and subsequent news reports, they’ve been judged too detailed and amount to micromanagement.
Hutton said Tuesday that the department will continue gathering information during a comment period that ends May 16 and will formulate new safety regulations that are broader.
The regulations are required under a 2009 rule meant to close a loophole in the law that allowed indoor day camps to operate without the same state oversight applied to outdoor day camps.
Don’t you love it?
Ritchie says she’s glad things turned out this way:
“I’m very pleased that the Health Department has agreed to take a new look at what summer activities pose a ‘significant risk’ of injury to children,” said Senator Ritchie. “At a time when our nation’s number one health concern is childhood obesity, I am very happy to see that someone in state government saw we should not be adding new burdensome regulations by classifying tag, red rover and wiffleball as dangerous activities.”
“My concern from the beginning has been that New York State should not be adding new costly mandates on villages and towns that threaten these recreational programs,” Senator Ritchie said. “I am glad New York’s children can continue to steal the bacon, and play flag football and enjoy other traditional rites of summer.”
Tags: politics
I have only one thing to say. I am glad I am not a kid today. If you wonder why kids don’t play outside like they did in the past, much of it has to do with making everything that was fun boringly safe.
First we hear that kids are too obese and don’t get enough physical activity, then we hear that physical activity is too dangerous for kids! No activity is 100% safe! Accidents happen no matter what we are doing. Most of us past a certain age spent hours playing those games.
There are perfectly legitimate things a government can do. When they do batsh** crazy things like this, it undermines the credibility of all government action and gives ammo to those who want to put said bureaucrats out of a job. Maybe the bureaucrats should think and use a little common sense before enacting these regulations… if they want to keep their job.
Yeah, but at least they backed off on this one. The system worked.
Yay for big government! That’s just what NY needs.