DATE: Saturday, September 6, 1997           TAG: 9709060002

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Opinion 

SOURCE: Kerry Dougherty 

                                            LENGTH:   76 lines

QUACK, QUACK. CITY COUNCIL'S AT IT AGAIN THE CONTINUED SNIPING AT THE SCHOOL SYSTEM AND ITS SUPERINTENDENT THROUGHOUT THE SCHOOL YEAR BY PEOPLE WHO OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER IS TIRESOME.

Newspapers just aren't as much fun to work at as they once were.

For instance, you never hear of reporters betting on who can sneak a bizarre phrase into the paper anymore.

It used to happen a lot.

At a paper I wrote for in the mid-1970s a group of reporters would select a weird phrase that would ordinarily never be found in a newspaper story. They'd circulate the phrase to colleagues and then there would be a newsroom-wide race - unbeknownst to editors - to get it into print.

The most memorable phrase I can still recall was ``nibbled to death by ducks.''

Dozens of reporters at that paper repeatedly attempted to inject this stupid saying into stories, only to have it penciled out by cranky copy editors.

Finally, an enterprising writer (not me) put the phrase in a subject's mouth by inquiring during an interview, ``Would you say that was a lot like being nibbled to death by ducks?''

The person being interviewed thought that expressed his feelings succinctly: ``Yes, it was like being nibbled to death by ducks,'' he replied and, voila, there it was, in the paper through a direct quote.

I thought this week about calling Virginia Beach School Superintendent Tim Jenney to ask if he felt like he was being nibbled to death by ducks after a member of City Council posed a question to city staff concerning some mysterious ``redecorating'' going on at the School Administration building.

``Is the school administration building being redecorated? Was this budgeted? How much is being spent and what is the funding source?''

You'd have thought that City Council would have enough to worry about with weighty issues like how to outlaw the dangerous practice of pizza being sold by the slice along Atlantic Avenue. But apparently Council members have found time to peer into the school administration building windows after hours to see just how lavish the digs are becoming.

So troubled were they by the prospect of money being spent on frills that several city officials faxed me copies of the question, hoping to stir up trouble. I love trouble, so I promptly phoned the school administration demanding to know what sort of renovating they were doing on my dime.

For the inquiring minds on Council, here's the answer. It appears that the redecorating amounted to painting hallways that hadn't had a fresh coat since 1977, replacing stained ceiling tiles that had been in place since the same year, updating some lighting fixtures, replacing carpeting held together at the seams with duct tape, redoing the staff kitchen (including purchasing two refrigerators), buying some furniture for the lobby and adding a public address system.

The princely sum for these improvements? About $50,000.

The money to pay for it came from a line item in the school plant division's budget earmarked for the school superintendent and the School Board.

I don't mind City Council keeping an eye on school spending. That's part of its job. But this kind of micromanagment and the accompanying innuendo is ridiculous. The curious City Council member could have done what I did on the telephone without making a public spectacle.

It's bad enough that city and school officials go to war every spring during the budgeting process, but the continued sniping at the school system and its superintendent throughout the rest of the year by people who ought to know better is tiresome.

Here it is, the first week of school. Administrators are trying to get 77,000 kids into their classrooms on a $411 million budget and they're being hounded by City Council about the price of carpeting.

But there is an upside to watching public officials who so enjoy picking on the schools.

I've waited 21 years to get ``nibbled to death by ducks'' into print. Now, thanks to this recent display of pettiness by local politicians, I finally got my chance. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

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