Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Destruction of $432,500 sod field begins!

On June 19, 2009, the Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland broke the news that Walter Johnson High School was getting not one, but two football fields in one year. 

In the summer of 2009, WJHS got a brand new $432,500* sod field with underground sprinkler system.  Then, after the 2009 football season, the sod field and sprinkler system were to be ripped up and replaced with a $1.2 million artificial turf field.

The Parents' Coalition obtained pictures of the new sod being delivered.  New sod, that would only be used for 3 months.

On October 5, 2009, as the football season was winding down, ABC 7 news reported the story.

Now, as promised, we bring you pictures of the WJHS football field as it is being torn up.  The white dots on the picture show where digging has begun on the field.


It appears that these back hoes are digging up areas on the field.  The areas being dug up might be where the underground sprinkler system heads are being removed. 

Superintendent Jerry Weast now has staff telling the media that the $432,500 cost for a sod football field is too high. (See the ABC7 News report.) But $432,500 is what Superintendent Weast has told the County Council a new sod football field costs when comparing the cost of a new sod field to a new artificial turf field. 

Was the cost data* that Superintendent Weast presented to the County Council for comparing a new artificial turf football field to a new sod football field grossly overstated to make sod look just as expensive as artificial turf

Seems as if the County Council needs to put on their agenda a review of the real cost data for sod football fields.  The Council might want to re-evaluate their decision to invest $1.2 million in an artificial turf football field project that, by the way, was never put out for competitive bid.

Total expenditure for the WJHS football field in one year will be $1,632,500, excluding the cost of removing the sod field and underground sprinkler system. We don't know how much the removal of the sod field and underground sprinkler system is going to cost.

Check back for more pictures as the brand new sod field that was used for only 5 WJHS home football games is removed.

*Source of cost data: February 15, 2008 County Council Education Committee packet, page 12 of PDF or page circle 9.

Update: Part 2 with 1/11/10 pictures of sod field "recycling".

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for this update. to those of you in the 'red' zone and constituents of Valerie Ervin and Nancy Navarro, you might want to ask your "representatives" why your kids go without toilet paper and textbooks while our children in Bethesda get millions for a playing field. And, when you go to the Council to cry that MCPS doesn't have enough money, don't come crying to us taxpayers. Clearly they have plenty. This is just where the Board of Education chooses to spend it. and its not on your kids.

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