The Richard Montgomery High School Booster Club rejected MCPS' attempt to bill them for artificial turf field maintenance. But Blair High School and Walter Johnson High School will be paying up!
On April 27, 2010, the Blair High School student newspaper Silver Chips broke the story that costs associated with the new artificial turf field at the school are being charged to the students (read parents/guardians).
On April 27, 2010, the Blair High School student newspaper Silver Chips broke the story that costs associated with the new artificial turf field at the school are being charged to the students (read parents/guardians).
On March 10, 2009, outside MCPS consultant Joe Lavorgna (previously MCPS employee, retired and re-hired as consultant) represented to the MCPS Board of Education that the Richard Montgomery HS Booster Club would be paying for the maintenance of the new artificial turf field at that school. He made this representation in a discussion of the $9,000 a year that the WJ Booster Club will be paying to maintain the new artificial turf at that school.
But the Richard Montgomery High School Booster Club actually said no, see the RM Booster minutes at the bottom of this post. The RM Booster Club will not be footing the bill for maintenance of the artificial turf field. Watch the video of Mr. Lavorgna's presentation to the Board of Education and hear him say:
But the Richard Montgomery High School Booster Club actually said no, see the RM Booster minutes at the bottom of this post. The RM Booster Club will not be footing the bill for maintenance of the artificial turf field. Watch the video of Mr. Lavorgna's presentation to the Board of Education and hear him say:
- "The Booster Club at RM is paying the maintenance contract on the field at RM."
- "We met with athletic director and principal and said Let's Be Clear..."
- "We believe it is a reasonable expectation on the part of the school system to have the Booster Club participate in the use and payment of maintenance of the field."
- "Is there a contract for them to sign in blood? No."
• Turf Maintenance: As a follow-up from the June 2 Booster meeting, the turf maintenance issue was revisited. Former RM Booster President Mike Froelich gave the members background information on how the approval for the turf field came about. He reported that former Principal Moreno Carasco had approached the school board directly, and the RM Booster Club was never contacted regarding an expectation that we would be responsible for paying for any maintenance contract on the field. Currently, the RM athletic department provides regular maintenance on the field which does not void our warranty.
A motion was made by Ryan Fleming to deny the request from MCPS for the RM Athletic Booster Club to fund a maintenance contract on the turf field. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously by the members present. The Booster Club will not pursue the issue with the county and will only respond if approached directly.
Every time we turn around Blair is getting shafted because of its size. Whose idea was it to make such a large school to begin with? And then to not adequately per capita fund its sports, career center, graduation site etc. There seems to be no attention paid to the school's demographics for any of these important items that richer and smaller schools have less problem with.
ReplyDeleteSo - who is paying for the $9000 basic maintenance contract on the 1.2 million dollar plastic turf field that Joe Lavorgna, who has lead the push for Artificial turf for MCPS, has said is needed? Who has paid for the specialized equipment needed to maintain the field? Is the equipment at the field? The field will become unsafe very quickly if it is not maintained (groomed weekly to prevent plastic turf "potholes", supplemented with more crumb rubber since much leaves the fields with each athlete , and cleaned since it can't break down contaminants like grass can). In addition the warranty is voided if the field is not groomed and maintained as outlined in the maintenance schedule. And the Blair field is heavily used. It has been shown all over the country that the more heavily used a plastic Field Turf field is the more maintenance it needs and the earlier it fails as early as 5 years in some places at a cost to replace of half a million dollars or more even while still under warranty. See http://www.synturf.org/maintenancereplacement.html for more information.
Who says any schools have "less problems?"
ReplyDeleteThe difference is that Blair has a top notch student newspaper that reports on things that other school newspapers won't touch. Kudos to Silver Chips for the sunshine it provides to the attempts by Jerry Weast to directly tax parents without any legal authority to do so.
Why isn't Jerry Weast paying for the artificial turf maintenance? Why isn't he paying the $8,000 for security guards for drama performances? He has the $2.2 billion budget.
But instead Jerry Weast is in Denver, Colorado this week having a vacation on the taxpayers. Last week he was at a conference in D.C. and another day last week it was a press conference for a solar power company. What does any of this have to do with the students and the current budget crisis???????