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Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Hot off the Presses - The Artificial Turf Report

The report that was due by December 2010, on artificial turf fields in Montgomery County was released today, April 13, 2011.  The report had been requested by a County Council committee.


The report seems to leave out three important pieces of information that are now known to the public. (If you find this information in the report, please let us know!)


1) Montgomery County and MCPS have a no-bid, exclusive deal with just one artificial turf supplier: FieldTurf Tarkett.


2) FieldTurf Tarkett is now suing their supplier for providing them with defective materials. 


3) MCPS must buy 3  fields within 3 years from FieldTurf in order secure the price paid for the first two fields. 


Wonder how this report would change if artificial turf field procurements in Montgomery County were put out for COMPETITIVE BIDS?

Artificial Benefits and Issues

P.S. Why no MCPS staff participation in this report?  We had to pay a CONSULTANT to sit on this committee for 10 months? Was that cost factored into this report? 

6 comments:

  1. song and beattie were a part, it says.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks. So why did a consultant need to be paid anything if MCPS had staff on the committee?

    ReplyDelete
  3. The economic analysis is a victim of the "garbage in - garbage out" phenomenon. If actual prices were used for the synthetic turf (versus the incredibly inflated prices MCPS has paid for their fields) the numbers would have look even more favorable for synthetic turf. The going rate nationally for a top-notch turnkey 1st quality synthetic turf field is in the $3.75 range per square foot +/- .25. This includes everything except the base preparation (which the MCPS is also over-paying dramatically for). An 80,000 sqft turf field costs 300k everywhere in the country except MCPS... The base prep is roughly the same. The real question is why does the MCPS pay $1,125,000 for something that costs everyone else 600k?? That is the real scandal here!

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  4. Since the Fieldturf Duraspine product is soon-to-be unavailable (see lawsuit) the MCPS can probably extricate itself from the purchasing arrangement on a technicality. The County can then conduct an open, fair and transparent competitive bid process and then they'll see just how badly they have been ripped-off on the previous fields.

    ps has anyone checked to see if the Fieldturf Duraspine fields installed in Montgomery County are defective??

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ok, chemicals needed to kill bacteria on the field...not a problem. Ground up tires into pellets, the kids are not going to eat them, so whats the problem? Cripes, if you people are so concerned with rubber used at recreational facilities, you need to take ALL the ground up tires used at playgrounds out too. I just see the people against artifial turf are just people against sports, which is common place in Montgomery County. Seems they just want to keep following the lead of the idiots out in California...

    ReplyDelete
  6. Actually the kids inhale the rubber pellets.

    Guess some people in Montgomery County are just as ridiculous as people in Fairfax who read the EXACT SAME REPORT and concluded that NATURAL GRASS was better for their playing fields.

    Wow. Who knew the people in Fairfax were so like people in California. Must be something in the water.

    And yes, we LOVE our NO BID, DEFECTIVE plastic grass here in Montgomery County. Keep it coming. Money is plentiful and we can replace plastic fields every few years. What's a few million here and there in this economy?

    ReplyDelete

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