Audio: County Council Hearing on Artificial Turf

Remember when Councilmember Roger Berliner decided that the previously scheduled video feed of the Montgomery County Council's artificial turf hearing on September 26, 2011, should be turned off? 
The Parents' Coalition obtained the AUDIO of the Council's hearing and the Power Point Presentation.

It is a sad day when an elected official decides to restrict the access of the public to a discussion of the spending of millions of dollars of public funds. So much for transparency and open government in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Therefore, for your information, the Parents' Coalition has obtained and uploaded the audio of the September 26, 2011, Montgomery County Council artificial turf hearing to Dropbox and made it available to public. We have also uploaded the Power Point Presentation from the hearing to Scribd. 

Questions for today:  Did Councilmember Riemer ever obtain the results of the Lead Testing? Did the Council ever obtain results of any ground water samples? 

IMPORTANT NOTE:  Not listed on the Work Group Power Point is the FieldTurf Representative John McShane. However, we know that Mr. McShane was on the Artificial Turf Work Group e-mails. 

September 26, 2011

Montgomery County Council

Joint Hearing on Artificial Turf

Audio at this Dropbox link.

Berliner (intro):  we will do our due diligence - informal staff working group

3:00 will study it more

3:32 primarily education committee

5:40 Joe Lavorgna will "MC" the meeting

6:15 Joe Lavorgna introduces panel including staff from Soccer Plex

9:35  Park Departments says Laytonia Park will have an artificial turf field. They will have NikeGrind for infill. NikeGrind is in FieldTurf's new product.  And artificial turf for old Wheaton outdoor ice rink.

25:00 low risk to human health

39:00 Berliner met with Working Group

50:00 Berliner who but a parent cares more about their kids

50:44 Dr. Kathleen Michaels response

1:11:00  Levchenko - environmental costs to using natural fields

1:16:11 Rice - friends who played in NFL - players tend to favor natural grass

1:22:00 Berliner - we need to be doing the kind of testing we are going to do on ground water - our county is not EPA - we are not State of California

1:23:00 Riemer - who do I follow up about lead testing? James Song will provide results as they become available...

T&E 9 26 11 AT slides