July 2, 2010 By Christian Murray
In March, the Sunnyside Post ran a story about the arrest of Daniel Wattenbarger on graffiti charges. (the full story is available at the following link). Yesterday, Wattenbarger e-mailed a detailed response as to what led to this alleged crime. His comments are below.
An excerpt from the original Sunnyside Post article read:
The perpetrator of some ugly graffiti at Sunnyside’s PS 150 has been arrested, according to police.
Daniel Wattenbarger, a 58-year-old male who lives on 41st Street, was arrested on March 23 for painting a message full of expletives on a wall adjacent to PS 150 — for all the students to read. He had been complaining to teachers at the school that the 6-to-10 year olds made too much noise during recess, police said.
Mr. Wattenbarger’s response to the article on comments section
Daniel Wattenbarger says:
First, I am surprised at the attention. One would think that such attention would be paid before such a story is published. I have yet to hear from the reporter who wrote this story and yet my name has been plastered here for something I did not do and something that is not a crime. I cannot go into this further until the case is settled in court. For those who are concerned about the costs, realize that the you are paying for lawyers on both sides of the case.
Let’s however, discuss the issues. I will not indulge in the name-calling of your article though there are several things that could be attached to the practice of your journalism. Also I will not indulge in racist statements as have some of the posters. This is not a matter of race.
It is a matter of the rights of a citizen to not be harmed by the action of government.
To explain this statement. When I move here some 18 years ago. P.S. 150 had roughly half the classrooms it has now and about one-third of the number of students. There are by the statement of the principal some 1,400 children at this school about 500 of which are bused in from other neighborhoods where there are also public schools. In addition the playground, because of the building extension has been reduced to about half its former size.
Let’s look at the problem this causes. The schoolyard has play area for roughly 100 students
at a time, thus it is necessary to have about 14 20 minute recess periods. If you do the math
you will find that what you suggest is a 20 minute recess lasts just short of 4 hours. On normal days this is between the hours of 10 am and 2 pm. On bad weather days it has been known to start as early as 8:15 am. I can get into my apartment, close all the windows, turn on the air conditioner play the stereo loudly and still be overwhelmed by the noise from the playground. I am at the point of the building furthest from the playground.
Please understand that I am not against children playing and I am also not complaining about the children. Children do what they are taught. This makes it clearly the fault of the school administration that this problem exists. First, the plan of the school addition was at best faulty. Logically, the extension should have been built near our building as opposed to its present location. This would have created a multilevel playground bewteen the two building and contained the noise of the added students. It is of note that my building was not contacted for input into the plans. I know because I was president of the building when the extension was built.
Secondly, the school is already overcrowded without the addition of some 20 busloads of students. In addition to piling the extra students into the neighborhood they cause severe traffic jams when school starts or lets out. The school is overcrowded and this is not the fault of the children.
Thirdly, By the statement of the of the principal, the school commissioner of schools for the area and representatives from both the mayor’s office and Joel Klein’s office there are no attempts to control the situation that they have created. The attitude that they take is “We want them to scream on the playground, That way they scream less when they come inside the school” This statement has been repeated to me by several levels of the administration.
The students express it differently. I have overheard many of them say “It’s a playground, we can make as much noise as we want” As chiildren essentially repeat what they here I can only surmise that someone (parents, teachers etc.) has told them that. This is a radical change in the students thought patterns that corresponds with the assignment of a new principal to the school.
The busing and the overcrowding have been problem ever since the extension was built but the noise was never a problem until the the new principal arrived. This new principal has tried, for example, To line up the 1,400 children outside in the playground before school began at 7 am. This practice was only stopped by police action (I.E. even a school has a responsibility to keep the noise down before 9 am) . When I spoke to the principal she basically stated that it was beyond her control. When I suggested that she contact the former principal in regard to the methodology used. She called the police to say I was harrassing her. By her own statement I was never less than polite to her. the problem was that I said things that she disagreed with.
Ultimately this a problem that was caused by the action of government mismanagement and is further exacerbated by the the total disregard of citizens in the neighborhood by the people that we are paying to manage the situation. This was a problem that was managed well for years and now has “blossomed” under the force of new management. It is in short a problem that would not be a problem except for the arrogance of the principal and the mismanagement of the school planning board.
Essentially, the mismanagement has the effect of taking my tax money and using it to run me out of my apartment. The question I ask you is this. Does the government have the right to require me to pay taxes and then use that money in such an inappropriate manner as to make my home unlivable for several months of the year? I personally believe that they have a responsibility to protect my rights from there actions.
This is a far more interesting story than the one that you have written and one you could have written had you done could have written had you only bothered to do some basic research.
By the way the term for such biased reporting is “Yellow Journalism” . I am sure that you have no idea what I mean..
