WHS Artificial Turf

 

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  Are you ready to financially maintain Eanes ISD as a sports magnet? 

More "facility improvements" that voters did not approve. 


 

In 2006, the Eanes ISD community sent a message.  We voted down the covered football field proposed in the bond by the Eanes ISD leadership in 2006 at a cost of $5.5 million. Unfortunately, although artificial turf was not included in the second bond that did pass (for safety and security) the Eanes ISD leadership "changed the scope" of the 2006 bond and used our public funds to purchase millions and millions (three fields!) of dollars of artificial turf. 

Now Eanes ISD leadership is at it again. 

Funding the wish list ...  this time a new high definition JUMBOTRON.


 Eanes ISD taxpayers are now responsible for the ongoing replacement of artificial turf on THREE sports fields:  Westlake High School stadium and two additional WHS practice fields.  Will this multi-million dollars expenditure occur every 5-6 years?  What is the warranty?  Was the project competitively bid?  And who are the contractors? 

Note: Eanes ISD voters did not approve the installation of millions of dollars of artificial turf on the two practice fields in front of WHS.  The Eanes ISD leadership changed the scope of the 2006 bond after the fact.

U P D A T E:

Just received the following email from a Keep Eanes Informed reader along with this attachment.

From: <Redacted>
Sent: Monday, June 02, 2008 11:42 AM
To: dpharr@austin.rr.com
Subject: Eanes ISD Turf Field Facts

Read on your website the concern about the new turf install at the HS.

Interesting facts:

1.  Southwest Recreation Industries (SRI) installed Westlake HS turf 5-6 years ago with an 8 year warranty.

2.  Dec. 2003, SRI CEO Read Seaton forms Hellas Construction Inc.

3.  Feb. 2004 SRI files bankruptcy and leaves hundreds of school districts without any warranty and some with uncompleted projects.

4.  Early 2008, Eanes hires Hellas to replace HS field turf and installation of turf on 2 practice fields. Hellas provides an 8 year warranty.

Eanes uses “Buy Board” cooperative to purchase turf. However, the turf purchased is not on the “Buy Board” supply list, thereby circumventing competitive bidding laws.

5.  Will Hellas be around in 8 years or will Seaton form another company???

Keep Eanes Informed located the following information regarding this issue: 

It appears that Eanes ISD did replace the artificial turf in 2002.  SRI warranty information posted soon.

In 2003, SRI management changed.  SRI did indeed file bankruptcy in 2004.  Hellas is currently (2008) installing new artificial turf in the WHS stadium (last installed in 02-03) and additionally, on two sports practice fields directly in front of WHS at the cost of millions and millions of taxpayer money.   Hellas warranty information posted soon.

Regarding the competitive bidding process, check this out.  Perhaps there is an explanation regarding the lack of competitive bidding for the artificial turf.  Keep Eanes Informed will continue to seek answers from Eanes ISD that will explain the possible use of a cooperative for this purchase and the associated implications, if any. 

Given the circumstances, question # 5 is certainly valid. 


Documents obtained from Eanes ISD and courtesy of KeepEanesInformed.com ...

How to take care of turf

... or one million ways to void the warranty and spend more money.


National Public Radio

High Temps On Turf Fields Spark Safety Concerns

August 7, 2008.

Audio link: http://www.npr.org/templates/player/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=93364750&m=93364728 

Transcript link: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93364750 June 2008 


       What Would Happen If ... ?


Is High School Football a Public Good?

So, who supports sports on the public dole? It's not just young athletes, their families, and fans; the school system is the biggest winner. When a new sport is added to a school's program, a new dependent constituency is created. Where lacrosse used to be the private responsibility of player and parent, it has become the public good funded by the community's tax dollar. The lacrosse bill is now split between parent and neighbor. And, the threat of withdrawal of the tax-funded, school-district-redistributed, funding source frightens the parents of athletes into action. They rally behind the schools for tax increases, no matter the reason, no matter the amount.

Most of us would never think of asking our neighbors to foot a personal bill. We accept responsibility for car and roof repairs as ours alone. In addition, we don't bang on the door across the street in order to demand a contribution towards our children's figure skating lessons, tae kwon do classes, etc. That which is consumed or used by our families is to be paid from our pockets — the definition of personal responsibility.

Fields of Green - Texas Coaches SALARIES 


   Steamroller Blues 2008

March 19, 2008 - As I stood taking these pictures of the athletic practice field in front of the WHS ninth grade center this afternoon, the lyrics of an old James Taylor song kept running through my mind ...

Well, I'm a steamroller, baby, I'm bound to roll all over you ...

The painfully real visual of a steamroller ripping up a $400K sports field of fancy (and expensive) sod with embedded wiring ... to be replaced with fancy (and even more expensive) artificial turf ($2.5 million of our school dollars) left me feeling as though yet another napalm bomb had exploded (in this taxpayer's wallet). It is hard to comprehend a public school board that is so willing to prioritize something so frivolous, while at the same time willing to remain intentionally indifferent to the discrimination against students resulting from the district's long standing ADA noncompliance. (Note: click here for "before" photos and a 2007 KeepEanesInformed report on this bond expenditure.)

The 'Think Safety' sign in front of this construction site certainly doesn't seem to illustrate our school board's sense of priorities for our district's children. I doubt another Astroturf practice field is a taxpayer priority. If safety is truly a concern, our bond money would be better spent on providing access to basic needs .... safe exit during fire drills, access to playgrounds and bathrooms.  'Think Safety' would be a decision to spend our bond money on ADA compliance;  a decision that safeguards children and reduces our district's risk of an costly lawsuit that could result in the loss of federal education funding. 'Think Safety' would be a decision to provide equal access to all facilities and a quality education for every child attending school in Eanes ISD.   - Susan Bushart

Here  goes: click here, turn up your volume and join me as we continue to sing the Eanes ISD 'blues'  ...

Spring 2008 - Eanes ISD is now installing artificial turf on these two sports PRACTICE fields located directly in front of WHS. Surprised?  This expenditure represents a "Change in Scope" (superintendent-recommended and board-approved) to our original bond package that (when passed) DID NOT INCLUDE artificial turf (read more here ... Note:  According to a March 2007 Superintendent's Recommendation to the Board: 

"The preliminary estimated cost to add turf ($1,020,000) and lights ($100,000 to $250,000) to practice fields 1 and 2 is a range of $1,120,000 to $1,500,000. More information is needed regarding specifications for the lighting to determine a more accurate cost estimate.

This estimate does not include the additional 2008 replacement of artificial turf in the high school stadium.  This artificial turf was last installed 5-6 years ago.  Does turf have a 5-6 year life?   Click here to view the Westlake High School artificial turf installed by Eanes ISD in the high school stadium in 02/03 as part of a multi-million dollar renovation including a $500K Jumbotron.  That turf is now in a landfill somewhere ... replaced just 5-6 years later.  And we are at risk of laying off teachers? 


MARCH 2007

  How Many Months?

Bond Priorities Update - 3/20/07 - Warning!  Pay for the fields and then KEEP OFF! Eanes ISD Board just authorized the expenditure of millions of our tax dollars to "change the scope" of the 2006 Bond Program and "authorize artificial turf and lights for Westlake High School ATHLETIC PRACTICE FIELDS."  See more below ...

Here are the design options for the "Multipurpose Practice Fields" rendered by a tax-funded architect.  Sound familiar?  Like the "Multipurpose Activity Field" (actually a Covered Football Field) turned down by the voters?  Perhaps Eanes ISD will try to cover the fields in a future bond?  Review the superintendent's March 19, 2007 recommendation (approved by the Eanes ISD board) stated as a "Change in Scope of 2006 Bond Program and Authorize Artificial Turf and Lights for Westlake High School Practice Fields One and Two."

READ MORE HERE:  "Bond Priorities" page here and more information on the 2004 bond construction audit here.


MORE ARTIFICIAL TURF PHOTOS HERE.


Link:  Serious Questions that require answers ...

(health, environmental, cost concerns about artificial turf) 

Temperatures on artificial fields have been documented to be upwards of 86.5

degrees (F) hotter than natural grass fields under identical conditions. For example, at

one location, when the natural grass surface temperature was 93.5 degrees (F), the

measured artificial field temperature was 180 degrees (F).


Posted on KeepEanesInformed - April 10, 2008

While aware of the health risk, EANES ISD is installing artificial TURF on the two additional Westlake High School sports PRACTICE FIELDS ...

 

 

Click here:  

 

Click here: 

Field of Nightmares Link to full article here

Can playing sports on artificial turf kill you? As the debate rages on, parents need to hear the story of one young Texas athlete who’s lucky to be alive.

IT HAPPENED ON THE MOST ordinary of plays. Sixteen-year-old Boone Baker, playing wide receiver on the Austin High Maroons junior varsity last October 7, sprinted a quick five yards before turning and snagging a short pass from his quarterback sometime in the second half of a Friday night game against archrival Westlake High. Immediately after Boone caught the pass, he was tackled, hard, with his left shoulder crashing into the artificial turf of Chaparral Stadium. He remembers feeling a burning abrasion on his shoulder when he got up, but he shrugged it off and returned to the huddle.

As football games go, it was a mundane moment, with nothing to presage the medical nightmare that three months later would almost cost Boone his life and temporarily rob him of his mobility and his eyesight in one eye. On that seemingly insignificant play, this strapping, 176-pound, six-foot-two-inch teenager unknowingly joined the swelling ranks of athletes—from the National Football League to high school wrestlers—plagued by a new killer “superbug,” a pernicious staph infection that mimics the flu, races through the body with lightning-quick speed, and resists normal penicillin-based antibiotics. Known as MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), this bacterial infection first emerged in hospitals five years ago, attacking vulnerable postoperative patients with compromised immune systems. But in the past two years, MRSA has made its deadly presence known in the community at large, with athletes being a prime target, since the bacteria thrives in steamy settings like locker rooms and enters the body through nicks, abrasions, and cuts.

...Westlake athletic director and head football coach Derek Long acknowledges that the school once scrubbed down its field following a staph outbreak (not of the MRSA variety), in 2003.

Texas-sized MRSA problem with prep football turf

April 19, 2008 - TRENTON, New Jersey (AP) - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is looking into the possible health hazards of lead in artificial turf installed at schools, parks and stadiums across the country.   Two fields in New Jersey were closed this week after state health officials detected what they said were unexpectedly high levels of lead in the synthetic turf and raised fears that athletes could swallow or inhale fibers or dust from the playing surface.  Link to Article Here

art.field.ap.jpg

This field in Hoboken is one of two closed by New Jersey because of high lead level readings.

April 18, 2008 - Toxic artificial turf? / A new concern? 
Frankly, we scoffed when we first heard of potential health issues with artificial-turf athletic fields. Just another bunch of nervous Nellies and overexcited, safety-obsessed parents latching on to yet another environmental scare of the moment, we figured. But nobody ever accused Dr. Eddy Bresnitz of being a nervous Nellie. Bresnitz is New Jersey's chief epidemiologist - the state's top "medical detective," so to speak. Usually when he shows up in the news, it's to calm people who are needlessly worried about some presumed health threat. In other words, he's not the excitable type. But this week, Bresnitz and Department of Health and Senior Services Commissioner Heather Howard called on the federal Consumer Products Safety Commission to investigate the safety of artificial-turf fields nationwide. Link to Article Here   

 

Texas Football Succumbs to Virulent Staph Infection From Turf

By Victor Epstein  Full Article Here

Dec. 21, 2007 (Bloomberg) -- Missy Baker recalls the moment when she realized that her football-playing son, Boone, didn't just have the flu. "He told me he was paralyzed,'' Baker said. ``I said, `What do you mean? I just saw you walk to the bathroom two hours ago.' And he said, `Mom, I can't move my arms or legs.''  Sixteen-year-old Boone, a wide receiver for Texas's Austin High School, was suffering from a recurrence of methicillin- resistant staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, which his doctor said he got through an abrasion from playing on artificial turf, Baker said.

Texas has artificial turf at 18 percent of its high school football stadiums, according to Web site Texasbob.com. It also has an MRSA infection rate among players that is 16 times higher than the estimated national average, according to three studies by the Texas Department of State Health Services.  "This is a disease that can kill you,'' said Carolina Espinoza, a graduate epidemiology student at the University of Texas in Houston, who helped conduct one of the studies. ``If I were a football player, I would be alarmed.''  Full Article Here

Click here:  Teen MRSA Survivor Loses Leg, Says NFL Dreams Still Alive


 

     Our class sizes are expanding.

Meanwhile, Eanes ISD athletics remains fully funded with the best of everything including new turf in the high school football stadium and two high school athletic practice fields. 

The district's priority remains clear.

 Eanes ISD is presently spending millions of dollars on new (not core) high school classes and expensive related equipment ... film lab, film teacher, video truck, garage for video trucks and more.  Many of us wonder ... will the Chap Club and athletic program benefit from this new film course?    Think  ... games, broadcasting, selling videos, Chap Club fundraising.  We know that the Jumbotron is a now a money-maker for the Chap Club.  Remember, according to district leadership, the Jumbotron was supposed to "pay for itself" and then fund teachers.  What's next?

Administrators are traveling to exciting places, staying in gorgeous hotels, and playing golf.

The district is creating more new Central Administration positions while claiming that it needs more donations just to keep teachers in the classroom.


August 10th edition of www.SynTurf.org

In the aftermath of CPSC’s lead-in-turf report, U.S. Rep. urges EPA to look into other concerns -

http://www.synturf.org/epa.html  (Item No. 2).

Public Radio reports on turf heat and heat island effect
http://www.synturf.org/heateffect.html  (Item No. 25)

EHHI on the CPSC’s Report: In the words of Nancy Alderman.
http://www.synturf.org/justwords.html  (Item No. 09)

Turf is the bane of old-school field hockey.
http://www.synturf.org/miscellanea.html  (Item No. 15)

Want to ensure prompt installation of turf? Penalize the contractor $1,500 per day of delay

http://www.synturf.org/industrynotes.html  (Item No. 14)

Midland City, Alabama: High school turf field is vandalized
http://www.synturf.org/vandalism.html (Item No. 09)

Connecticut legislator wants a year-long turf moratorium http://www.synturf.org/moratoriums.html  (Item No. 13)


July 2008

ARE NEW SPORTS FIELDS SAFE FOR KIDS?

 
Eanes ISD has spent millions of dollars this bond issue installing artificial turf made of crumb rubber on the high-school practice fields and Chap Stadium, despite concerns of pediatric health scientists and physicians across the country about harmful heavy metals, lead, extraordinary heat, and potential for spread of life-threatening disease like staph infections. These concerns are so high that some communities have placed a moratorium on the installation of this product made of ground-up tires and other petrochemicals, and the Centers for Disease Control has issued an official health advisory on the issue.  www2a.cdc.gov/HAN/ArchiveSys/ViewMsgV.asp?AlertNum=00275  
 
The turf industry says their product is harmless, but then, so did the asbestos industry.  Make sure your children are safe.  Learn more:
 
Mount Sinai School of Medicine's Department of Community and Preventive Medicine is renowned for its work in children’s environmental health, occupational medicine, epidemiologic research, and disease prevention.  Synthetic Turf, presented by Joel Forman, M.D., Associate Professor, Department Community and Preventive Medicine, Associate Professor and Vice-Chair for Education Department of Pediatrics, Mount Sinai School of Medicine
 
New Jersey Educational Association advisory to school districts
 
"Hidden Expenses" of artificial turf
 
Important Safety Tips for Parents
 
Consumer Reports
 
More news about the dangers of synthetic turf:  www.synturf.org/breakingnews.html

May 29, 2008 Update:

While elementary-school teacher ratios decline through attrition cuts, Nola Wellman just spent $500,000 on a "vision" of "initiatives that support rigorous, engaging instruction and professional development of the highest quality for staff" to make Eanes a "world class school district." This is educationese for central office administrators, including a "Coordinator of Performance Improvement" and a "Coordinator of Math and Science."    

Program Enhancements for 2008-2009 Link:  Board Action Sheet #063/08

$500,000 would fund 12-and-a-half teacher salaries.

Learn more here


 

HAVE YOU BEEN CONVERTED?

January 2008 - It's that time of year again.  Signs on school property, the constant flow of newsletters and glossy mail-outs. 

In addition to your already high property taxes, Eanes ISD leadership expects you to open your wallets and hand over

ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

   Eanes ISD is actively seeking to CONVERT YOU.  It's true. 

In an email to a district parent, Eanes ISD Board Member Paul Stone states:

<<< "In addition EEF (Eanes Educational Foundation) is doing a commendable job of converting the mindset of our parents from a "free" public school education to more of a private school mentality whereby parents expect to supplement the tax dollars with donations ... " >>>

At the same time ...

Eanes ISD refuses to post its check register or financial information online.   Eanes ISD continues to retain private attorneys with our tax dollars in an effort to withhold our public information. 

The Eanes "message" is that EEF donations fund teachers.  However, EEF donations actually allow Eanes ISD leadership to continue to fund their "wish list" instead of prioritizing our teachers. 

Before Eanes ISD attempts to "convert the mindset" of district parents, before Eanes ISD "passes the hat" claiming financial need, the district should tighten its belt, fund teachers instead of wish lists, post the check register, comply with state and federal laws, and stop using our tax dollars to retain aggressive private attorneys to battle our children's rights and withhold our public information.  We know our students and our teachers are held accountable, but where is the accountability for the district administrators?

A continuing stream of money, provided through EEF, simply facilitates the district's priority on wish-lists and its intentional refusal to be transparent and accountable to taxpayers, teachers, parents and children.


In April 2008, KeepEanesInformed asked:   

  While teachers are cut and class sizes increase,

why are we hiring so many new central administrative positions?

How many administrative positions have been added by Nola Wellman since 2004?

Many community members are discussing the apparent rise of central administration positions and pay in Eanes ISD.   Are the total expenditures (and positions) for central administration on the rise in Eanes ISD?

This issue will be discussed in closed session during the upcoming May 12, 2008 board meeting.  KEI recommends that the Eanes ISD board ask the Eanes ISD central administration to create a spreadsheet showing the central administration positions and expenditures by year for the last five years and share that report with the public.

In May 2008, the Eanes ISD board posts the following closed session agenda item:    

Tex. Gov. Code 551.074 Personnel Matters

Deliberate and Discuss Central Office Administrative Positions

 

Check back for updates on this question ...

 


The Eanes ISD Superintendent and Board are planning a new bond proposal.

Will they try again?

In 2006, our community voted down the bond proposal by the Eanes ISD leadership to construct a $5.5. million dollar indoor football practice field (also referred to as a MAC and a natatorium.)  When the bond failed, the board continued to discuss the project.  While many aspects of our schools are suffering (both facilities and programs) is this costly dream still alive and well among those who lead our district? 

 

 

 

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