Restrooms

Just when you thought the Internet provided every possible information service, along comes Runpee.com. The website lists current movies in theaters, and suggests points in the action during which you could quickly run to the restroom without missing anything substantial. For example, let's say you're watching "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" and feeling the need.

Construction is scheduled to begin early next month on new restrooms on the west side of Central Park near the sports activities area. Public Works Director Ismile Noorbaksh said work on the new facilities is expected to be completed by early May. The City Council awarded a $73,940 contract for the restrooms to Lloyd Engineering Corp. of Placentia. Nine other bids were received, the highest being $121,500. Noorbaksh said the city had estimated the construction cost would be about $85,000.

A long-proposed project for Central Park will probably move forward next week, when the City Council expects to approve a construction contract for new restrooms at the facility. City Manager Daniel E. Keen said that if the council approves the contract at its meeting Tuesday, work will start in early January. Completion would be by late spring, in time for softball league and other games in the park, Keen said.

What Shakespeare is to the theater, John Javna is to the latrine. Since 1988, his Bathroom Readers' Institute has been publishing books specifically designed for folks with, um, a little extra time on their hands, if you get our drift. As literary genres go, it's an odd one.

Unisex restrooms may be coming soon to a service station near you. The state Senate approved legislation Thursday that would allow gas stations in rural areas to maintain one public restroom for both men and women as long as it had a lock on the door. Sen. Maurice Johannessen (R-Redding) said his bill would save service stations money.

After years of asking the county for the money, Mayor Duane Schuster was notified this week that the city is getting $50,000 to help build new restrooms in Central Park. Public Works Director Ismile Noorbaksh said the addition will be on the northwest side of the park, where there are no facilities now. "There is a restroom now on the south side of the park, adjacent to the recreation building," he said.

Take a buddy to the restroom? In adult school? In high school? Just ask the question and the response from students at several Valley middle and high schools is virtually the same: No way. You're kidding. "It's embarrassing. The other person is going to be like, 'Hurry up; I want to get back to class,' " said Araceli Navarro, 16, a Reseda High School junior.

The one thing that teachers, students and parents could all agree on in a recent survey was the condition of student bathrooms--they're gross. But one student and his father decided not to stop with just complaining. Victor Soltero and his son, Victor Jr., 8, teamed up to take back the restrooms at Strathern Street Elementary in North Hollywood. At the grand opening of the cleaned and repainted bathrooms Friday, celebrated with a school assembly program, the Solteros' volunteer work was honored.

Students in the Los Angeles Unified School District, from pre-kindergarten through adult school pupils, will be asked to take a buddy to the bathroom under a new safety policy approved Monday night. The system was proposed by Board Member Barbara Boudreaux in response to the rape of a kindergarten pupil two weeks ago in a bathroom at 66th Street Elementary School in South-Central Los Angeles.

What price graffiti? At Locke High School, it's a bronze-colored token that has little monetary value but plenty of worth to students who need to use the bathroom. School officials recently installed special locks on restroom doors that can only be opened with special tokens. Administrators laud the extra security as a hindrance to vandalism, but some students complain that the policy is ineffective and inconveniences the majority of students who don't deface the facility.