Friday, July 30, 2021 | Seaside Signal | SeasideSignal.com • A3
Title IX: School district has several options
Continued from Page A1
complete this work.”
Federal issues
In 2012, Anderson and
John Nicolazzi, another par-
ent, fi led a lawsuit in fed-
eral court alleging the school
district failed to permit girls
from participating equally
with boys.
The lawsuit claimed that
female students didn’t have
comparable athletic facil-
ities as the boys, that they
were unable to participate in
team sports and that they had
been excluded from the high
school’s athletic program.
The
school
district
assigned baseball teams to
practice and play games on
“excellent artifi cial turf fi elds
while requiring that female
softball teams to practice
and play on soggy, poorly
maintained fi elds that force
female teams to practice in
a gym and to forfeit post-
pone games and/or travel
to other districts to play
because the district’s fi elds
are unplayable.”
That case was dismissed
after a settlement in 2014.
Terms of the settlement were
never publicly released, but
the school district responded
by adding lights and building
a softball diamond at Broad-
way Field.
Those steps did not
change the inequities, Ander-
son said, and even with
lights, conditions for girls
hardly improved.
“If I didn’t sue them
in federal court, that fi eld
would not be here right
now,” Anderson said. “They
spent over $28,000 to build
that, and built a Title IX non-
Photos by R.J. Marx
ABOVE: Randy Anderson points to discrepancies between
Broadway Park playing facilities. LEFT: Turf at the softball
fi eld poses a tripping hazard for pitchers.
compliant fi eld. The girls are
plopped on the football fi eld
as an afterthought. It’s legal
size, but they have to set up
their own fencing. If you
look, the boys have fencing
set up, permanent fencing set
up all the way around.
“See the foul pole? Boys
have foul poles, permanent
foul poles. Girls don’t. They
have to wheel in portable
foul poles. The wheels don’t
work. They have to set up
their own fencing.”
Dissatisfi ed with con-
ditions at the softball fi eld,
Anderson fi led a civil rights
complaint in March 2019.
The Offi ce for Civil Rights
followed up.
“They spent two days
up here, went through all
the facilities, all the play-
ing fi elds,” Anderson said.
“They did interviews with
coaches, players and staff .
They came to their determi-
nation about the softball fi eld
because they found discrep-
ancies, disparity between the
girls softball and the boys
baseball, and now the district
has to do something.”
According to fi ndings
accompanying the agree-
ment, the Offi ce for Civil
Rights said “softball athletes
indicated that pitchers would
get their foot caught in a hole
in the pitching circle and that
athletes had to avoid a hole,
used for the football goal
post, located on the third
base line to avoid injury.”
The infi eld did not have
a softball pitching circle
permanently marked, and
according to the softball ath-
letes and the softball coach,
they were responsible for
spray-painting the pitching
circle.
As Anderson described,
softball athletes and the soft-
ball coach set up and broke
down temporary outfi eld
fences for practice and com-
petition — fences which
often fell during games. The
softball coach and softball
athletes reported having to
roll temporary, heavy foul
poles out, and described the
wheels “not working well.”
While the baseball teams
practiced during softball
games, softball teams were
prohibited from practicing
during baseball games.
In addition to Broad-
way Field, the junior varsity
softball team used Wahanna
Field, but only sparingly
because of its poor condition.
“The infi eld dirt was hard
and uneven, with no mark-
ings for a pitching mound,
foul lines, batter’s box, or
other markings of any kind,
and the grass outfi eld was
muddy and uneven,” accord-
ing to a letter from the Offi ce
for Civil Rights.
The Offi ce for Civil
Rights concluded that the
softball fi eld, as compared to
the baseball fi eld, “may result
in the denial of equal oppor-
tunity to female athletes.”
During the investigation,
the school district expressed
interest in resolving the com-
plaint. “OCR agreed that the
complaint is appropriate to
resolve prior to the conclu-
sion of the investigation,” the
letter said.
Several options
The school district has
several options, Anderson
said, from tearing down the
boys’ fi eld, modifying it with
a portable mound or build-
ing another softball fi eld. His
preference, he said, is “right
here, right here on the boys’
baseball fi eld.”
If the school district
moves the girls’ fi eld off
Broadway Field, then they
increase the distance for girls
to the new batting practice
facility. “And now the boys
would have the advantage,
short access, to where the
girls would have to travel,”
Anderson said.
The park district, which
maintains Broadway Field,
is aware of the agreement,
executive director Skyler
Archibald said.
“We have had ongoing
and productive conversa-
tions with the city and school
district regarding this,” he
said. “We will continue to
work with them to determine
the best way to move for-
ward and I am optimistic for
a great outcome for our com-
munity and athletes that use
the Broadway Field.”
‘I THINK MY FIRST
THOUGHT WOULD BE TO
REMEMBER THAT THE
HOMELESS COMMUNITY,
BOTTOM LINE, THEY ARE
PEOPLE. THEY MAY HAVE
BEEN YOU, OR YOU, OR ME — ALL
DESERVING THE SAME BASIC
LEVELS OF RESPECT.’
Seamus McVey, homeless advocate
DINING
on the
City Councilor Tita Montero, Nelle Moff ett and Rick Bowers at the homelessness forum.
Homeless: ‘No place to put anybody’ NORTH COAST
Continued from Page A1
Seamus McVey addresses the forum. McVey facilitates a recovery
clinic working with addicts, the mentally ill and homeless.
guess what. There are just
no places right now. ... When
they do come open, they go
very quickly. There’s just no
place to put anybody.”
Some homeless are work-
ing, and their transition to
housing should come fi rst,
Moff ett said. “One strat-
egy is to house the easy
ones, low-hanging fruit, so
to speak, get the people who
are not crazy, not addicted,
that are working,” she said.
“Let’s get them housed, and
then work on the next group
of people and we can solve
the problem for them.”
“Everybody loves to live
on the beach, but it’s not
cheap to live at the beach,”
Bruce Rosebrock, a resident,
said. “I’m in favor of transi-
tional housing. If you’ve got
taxpayer money or donor
money, they want to see some
success with their money.
But how do you make that
work? I think the average
person has a good heart, but
we don’t all have bottomless
pocketbooks. To see success,
the community wants to see
results.”
Changes to city ordi-
nances removing panhan-
dling laws or sleeping in
vehicles could decriminalize
homelessness and ease the
burden on law enforcement.
A limit on the number of
vacation rentals in the com-
munity could also be enacted
to free up available housing.
Kathy Kleczek, who
serves on the Planning Com-
mission, suggested a food
and beverage tax to take the
burden off local taxpayers.
“We’re tiptoeing around the
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E
RIL Y’
S
Putting a face to the
homeless in Seaside and fi nd-
ing adequate shelter for them
was one of the goal’s of the
meeting. Nelle Moff ett and
Rick Bowers, who founded
Friends of the Unsheltered,
moderated the event.
The event followed four
previous sessions focused
on fi nding answers to the
complex web of need and
resources for the city’s
unsheltered.
“I think my fi rst thought
would be to remember that
the homeless community,
bottom line, they are people,”
Seamus McVey, who facili-
tates a recovery clinic work-
ing with addicts, the mentally
ill and homeless in Seaside,
said. “They may have been
you, or you, or me — all
deserving the same basic lev-
els of respect.”
Not having a place to go
or access to resources are the
biggest issues, McVey said.
“Agencies in the area are not
set up to help those actively
on the street,” he said.
A lack of housing avail-
ability throughout Clatsop
County makes matters more
diffi cult.
“We have the ability to
help people get into hous-
ing, deposits, sometimes a
few months rent — the trick
is to fi nd a place,” Cheryl
Paul, a homeless liaison with
Clatsop Community Action,
said. “And for most of the
programs, the trick is, they
need to fi nd a place. And
systemic issue,” she said. “It
would be a great idea to fi nd
a diff erent source of how to
fund our infrastructure. We
need a tax from those who
come to visit, who have the
money in their pocket.”
The tax, like the pro-
posed 5% food tax in Cannon
Beach that could go to voters
in November, is a valuable
means of raising funds for the
community, Kleczek said.
City Councilor Tita Mon-
tero, who helped organize the
homelessness forums, said
the next step is brainstorm-
ing. “You put all those ideas
out there, no matter how
crazy they are,” she said.
“You don’t say ‘no’ to any-
thing, you don’t judge any-
thing. You get it all on the
table. And then you start sort-
ing through, ‘Where can we
do this one, where can we do
this one?’
“If you don’t do anything,
you won’t get anywhere,”
Montero added. “At some
point, we have to take that
step of faith and say, ‘We’re
going to try this.’ And we’re
going to see what happens.”
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