Call to action. An opportunity to speak up: Tuesday 1/11/2022 6:30pm IN PERSON at Fisher MPR
Hello friends,
If you feel artificial turfing LGUSD's school grounds is not the best choice for our community to make, it's a good time to speak up.
Please come to Tuesday's LGUSD regular session board meeting (1/11/2022 6:30pm IN PERSON in the Fisher Multi-Purpose Room) and share a respectful up-to-3-minute public comment. Need an idea of what to share? There are many deficits to the proposal, so take your pick. Find one that hits home with you by scanning our blog posts, our Twitter posts, or our Facebook discussion group.
Your opportunity to comment is right near the start of the regular session meeting (open to the public), under agenda item C.4. (Follow meeting protocol by writing this item number on the provided index card when you sign-in.) While board meetings can run long, you are welcome to quietly leave after you say your piece. There is no additional agenda item about the landscaping at this meeting to stick around for. (A plug: On the other hand, it's worth sticking around sometime to better understand the public process and to hear first-hand reports about the excellent work being done in our district. It's disappointing these meetings are often so poorly attended.)
Because the topic of artificial turf is quite multi-faceted, it's understandably challenging for all our leadership to be familiar with the full breadth or depth of these facets. Their primary guidance comes from the landscape design consultant they've hired. While this designer has expertise in designing and managing the construction of artificial turf installations at schools throughout the bay area and can also design with natural grass, this designer is, by his own admission, not an expert in all the areas of concern (environmental, health, etc.) being raised by the community.
So, readers, this is YOUR opportunity to help condense the research some of our leadership may lack the bandwidth to do on their own. The demands of these Covid years are surely well-beyond taxing for them. We've got bright, thoughtful, reasonable leadership in our district, but the angles they're using to justify plastic grass are outweighed by the benefits of saying no to it. They need your clarity to help recognize this is the direction the scale tips.
If you think the small group of parent representatives that have been active on this have the situation covered, we do not.
If you thought the fields were safe from plastic grass, they are very much not...
When the district left you feeling free to disengage by announcing their plans at the 11-08-2021 Town Hall to recommend natural grass fields to the district board of trustees, they didn't mention to you that the trustees might not accept that recommendation. And, as it turns out, despite the district recommendation for natural grass fields, some of the trustees have clearly indicated favoring artificial turf fields for Van Meter and Daves Avenue. (Inequitably, Blossom Hill Elem, is not currently at risk.) Oddly, even the district's superintendent and the director of maintenance and operations have offered board meeting comments to undermine the staff recommendation of natural grass fields. The date of the board approval request for field designs has been postponed to spring 2022. It's anticipated landscaping will next be on the LGUSD regular session board meeting agenda 2-17-2022.
In case you missed the other alarming news, at December's district board meeting, the trustees honored the requests of the principals and greenlighted plans to put areas of plastic grass in the elementary school courtyards at Van Meter, Daves, and Blossom Hill, advancing that threat one step further in the process. That plan needs reversing.
Thanks for reading this through. And thanks in advance for taking the time to speak up Tuesday on the issues that concern you.