We received our agenda for Thursday’s school board meeting, and the issue of artificial turf installation at Eagle Stadium is set for a vote. The administration is recommending spending $1.5 million from the general fund to pay for improvements at the stadium, including the installation of artificial turf.

You’ll hear people argue both ways on this one. Many look at our current economic situation and wonder how the district has the money to spend on such an item (the district actually has about $11 million in its general fund, according to my notes from last month’s school board meeting) or that the money should be spent on other educational priorities. Others will argue that the stadium is lagging behind in the quality of the district’s other facilities, and the football stadium should be a kind of “billboard” for the school district. Artificial turf would allow the stadium to be used by other school groups (such as the soccer team). By voting for the artificial turf, the school board would signal its commitment to staying at Eagle Stadium for the next 20-25 years instead of building a new stadium.

Interesting note: the board packet includes a cost estimate from the Hellas Construction firm. You might not be familiar with the construction company, but you have heard of its latest project: the turf at the new Cowboys Stadium in Arlington. The company is understandably quite proud, by the looks of this Web site.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Brian Knox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.