Thursday, March 16, 2006

SL School Board Rejects Artificial Turf Proposition

A group of SL school district residents want artificial turf on one of the playing fields at a cost of $1.5 million dollars. The board basically said we couldn't afford it this year and refused to put up a proposition to public vote. The artificial turf supporters submitted a petition requesting a proposition be put up for a public vote. However, they did not follow the law closely enough. A school board may refuse to place a proposition on the ballot if the petition submitted to the board is ambiguous. The actual site that the artificial turf would be installed was not specified. This also made the proposition ineligible for State Aid.

Question. If a group of residents were savey enough to know they could submit a petition to get a proposition up for a public vote, how is it they didn't know about the 'ambiguity' clause? It's right there on page 84 of the School Law handbook (28th edition). There are only two sports groups with the will or means to request artificial turf. Football or Lacrosse. Moreover, the football field is probably the only field on which artificial turf could be installed without a lot of drainage work first. So who were the interested citizens?

Lastly, the School Board President didn't have enough time to further research the proposal. In other words, you need to see which way the wind is blowing before you have an opinion.

1 comment:

Brian said...

Artificial turf is horrible to play on. I don't know a single athlete (save field hockey) who would rather play on turf than grass. As a soccer player, I loathe it.