Misconceptions Regarding the Turf Proposal

A record number of people viewed this site yesterday, and I’m sure most of them don’t agree with my position on the turf proposal.  Nevertheless, I’m glad you’re reading because it gives me the opportunity to clear up some misconceptions about the proposal.

First, it’s not mine.  I support it, but it’s not mine.  

Instead, the proposal had its genesis following a variety of meetings involving a diverse group of residents, and many of these meetings took place long before I got involved.  Following some of the more recent meetings, it was determined that if we were ever going to address our field shortage, we would need to do so proactively.  Moreover, many people felt that the YSA was best suited to do the legwork to put this proposal together.  In fact, we were encouraged to do so by members of the Commission.  I remember quite clearly a December Saturday morning meeting with a Commissioner at Uptown Coffee, followed by an email from this Commissioner in which he summarized some of our discussion points.  The email summarized our meeting as follows (the words are his, the emphasis is mine):

**The need for field upkeep, improvements and additional fields are essential to youth programs.

**The youth sports group needs to get organized with representatives from each sport to represent their views to the commission and the school board.  I will enable them to present to the commission their views.  This is where a plan can be established and positive plans can be implemented.

**The municipality has the technologies and the expertise to establish a sustainable plan to make the fields usable throughout the year.

** The maintenance of the fields should be in the operating budget and should include improvements such as drainage, turfgrass improvements, and additional fields.  I mentioned that this idea was beneficial to the municipality as a whole and for the future sustainability, viability and desirability of Mt. Lebanon.

** Artificial turf was discussed as a solution to the wear and tear of turfgrass fields.  Full turfing was more desirable than partial turfing.

** I will do what is necessary and responsible to help to resolve the problem that exists.

** We discussed the consolidation of the many youth sport groups, their buying power and economies of scale.

The Commissioner was Matt Kluck.

After this meeting, and in light of the points made by Commissioner Kluck and other Commissioners, we felt it was in our collective best interest to put our heads together to prepare a proposal for the improvement of our field spaces.  Like the Commission itself proclaimed at the Town hall meeting, it was the overwhelming opinion of the folks involved that our fields are old, deteriorating, not dedicated to single sports, over used and increasingly expensive to maintain.  This was reiterated by the many new folks who joined the discussion at the Town Hall meeting on Rec options.  


As many of you know, previous efforts to develop grass fields at McNeilly were rejected last Fall, so ultimately we concluded that a turf proposal was the way to go.  Interestingly, if you refer to some of the materials cited by Mr. Cannon in his recent proposal you will see similar conclusions.  Specifically, many experts say that if you have fields that are used by multiple sports/events all year long and if you are unable to allow periods of rest without cutting practice and game time it is responsible to consider turf.

Over the next several months, the members of the YSA (which acts by and through the representatives appointed by its member associations), met with turf companies who traveled to Mt. Lebanon to examine and evaluate our field spaces – all of them.  At this point in the process, many believed that Mellon was the best candidate for turf.  It is centrally located and is contained in an existing campus environment.  It is large enough to accommodate multi-sport use and frankly it was and remains in awful condition.  Unfortunately, the notion of marrying the municipality together with the school district to improve a field on school property was met with such resounding opposition we decided to examine other alternatives.  Enter Wildcat and Middle. 

After several weeks of reviewing aerial maps, surveys, and returning to Mt. Lebanon for additional meetings and analysis, the turf companies submitted their materials and their individual bids.  Most of these bids are accompanied by detailed costs estimates, material safety data sheets, research articles, information regarding recycling programs, environmental issues, warranties and much more information that recent objectors have suggested that we don’t have or have not considered.  (Trust me, we have it and we are prepared to address every issue.)  At the same time, Jordan Halter conducted a detailed analysis of the field space and the existing field permitting process and the end result was the proposal that was submitted to the Commissioners.

A second misconception is that this is simply a "want" and there is really no "need" for a multi-use turf field.  I think it warrants repeating that the sports associations are made up of close to 3,000 children and their families.  The interscholastic athletic programs at the middle and high schools add significantly to that number.  As many of these families will tell you (and did at the Town Hall meeting) our fields are failing fast.  More importantly, they are failing from overuse.  Overuse caused by an increase in sports and participants that did not exist when our current field inventory was planned and built.  The municipal and school fields cannot accommodate all of the athletes that are trying use them.  Baseball fields are used for other sports, and this ultimately adds to the problem.  Our limited multisport fields are used so frequently that they simply have no time to recover.  The problem reached a new low in the last year when several sports associations spent thousands of dollars to rent field space in other communities.  And even this week, the reality of our situation is becoming even more dire as the process of field allocation for Fall sports commences.  Some sports are now considering the unfortunate decision of cutting historically popular programs because there simply are not enough field slots to go around.  By any standard, that demonstrates a need for additional multisport field space and time slots year round.

A final misconception is that we are all about turf.  Nearly everyone that I have spoken to on this topic (including me) would undoubtedly prefer to host every game or practice on a well-maintained, safe grass field.  Contrary to what you may read, I am NOT a turf junkie.  Like the NFL players referenced in the survey supplied by Mr. Cannon, I too would prefer to play on a “dedicated” field of professionally manicured natural grass.  Unfortunately, we don’t have that luxury.  I can only assume that those same NFL players would much prefer a state-of-the art turf facility over the mud craters of Mellon in the Fall or the rock hard dirt of Bird in the Summer.  So would our residents.

The other night Mr. Cannon responded to a question from Mr. Brumfield stating that he (Mr. Cannon) would  similarly not support spending a $1 million on new grass fields. I chuckled because that would have been a much shorter presentation with only one PowerPoint slide.  If that's your perspective, then the debate really isn't even about turf.  However, it certainly makes for much better theater to attack the turf plan (and its supporters) as being bad for the environment, dangerous for kids, etc than it is to publicly admit that you just don't want to spend the money.  


I agree with Commissioner Brumfield when he stated that if you don’t start from the premise that we have a “need” for field space, then you are coming at the turf debate from an entirely different angle.    The need is there and the need is real.  We are prepared to demonstrate this as the discussion continues.  I have already offered to do so for the anonymous folks who have called me a liar, but as expected they all fell silent.  This is not my battle, believe me. There are many, many people in our community who support this effort and we are prepared to move forward.