http://www.sharonherald.com/sports/local_story_349193554.htmlI'm surprised no one has commented on this so far: The renewed interest in a proposal to put artificial turf on the Hickory HS field.
The problem comes because -- for reasons never fully explained -- hickory has 2-3x more events on its football field than any other similar-sized schools in the area. So the grass gets pretty beat after a while.
Proponents claim it now costs $30-$40K a year to to maintain the existing grassy mud flats, which suffers from overuse and poor drainage (though no one seems to be talking about repairing the drainage). Fake turf would only cost $5,000 a year to maintain (what, to vacuum?).
Oh, sure, it would cost $865,000 to install, a professional installer says. But the committee is convinced they can get it installed for $650,000 (no doubt by someone's brother-in-law who does carpeting on the weekends).
Oh, and it wears out after 10 years and would need to be replaced. So that's $5,000 maintenance plus an annual depreciation of $65,000 to $86,500 -- a total cost $71,000 to $91,500 in today's dollars, vs. $30,000 to $40,000 for grass. And that's assuming it's costs the same price a decade from now. When this last came up about 5 yrs ago, it would have cost $500,000 and grass maintenance was listed at the same $40,000 a year. So turf went up more than 50% but grass maintenance cost no more.
But the fundraising committee thinks they can put their hands on $100,000 like that. ("Snap!"). Which would make the annual cost only about one and a half times as expensive as grass. Forever. And they hope the city will waive some permit fees and devote some of its manpower to engineering. Well, that'll cut the cost to nothing in no time.
Then there's the trauma of midget football sometimes having to be moved several hundred feet away to the Rodney White Olympic Park -- a "heavily used" field that itself will soon need extensive repairs. At whose expense?
My take on the fake turf as a city taxpayer: The need seems to be there, but the cost is unreasonable unless supporters can raise a large chunk of it privately AND guarantee to do the same in a decade when it wears out. The private money figure being tossed about barely makes a dent, and committing to the project is perpetually committing to 2 or more times the current cost.
Oddly, no other neighboring schools are beating the drum for fake turf, even the ones with championship teams. Then again, as soon as one gets it, the others will
have to have it, too. And thus, ever 5 miles we'll have a separate school district with a separate, newly renovated h.s. with fancy fake turf. And so it goes.
