Over the past fifteen years, there has been ongoing discussion in San Anselmo about one of its community's parklands. The park site in question is a hillside meadow located above the Red Hill Shopping Center Jack In The Box. It now consists of an open space used by senior citizens for daily walks, dog owners out socializing with their pups, Frisbee throwers, kite flyers, parents with tiny tots in strollers and neighborhood kids. The field has a pleasant ambiance. Its setting is casual, dress down, and down home friendly. It is easy to see why those who presently use it value it. During just a single visit, you'll likely find someone to talk to, and perhaps be invited to join the community.
Surely such an informal situation cannot last for long in modernized Marin. Yes, over the last three years, heightened discussions occurred in San Anselmo Council meetings, Ross Valley School District meetings, and Tam High Union School District meetings. Propelled by the notion that during the construction phase of Drake High School's athletic fields, students would need to use an alternate site, officials in the above mentioned agencies began debating the lease of this property and its conversion to a more formally developed recreation site. This creation has come to be known as The Red Hill Community Park. It comes with the vision of a $ 2,000,000 price tag, a recreational director, one Ron Little, and the oversight of a newly created Joint Powers Authority (JPA). This JPA will have elected officials from the three agencies (San Anselmo Council, Ross Valley School District (R.V.), and Tam Union High School District) to oversee and implement its future.
In his April 2004 address to the Ross Valley Rotary Club, Peter Breen, currently serving on the Council of San Anselmo and the JPA, offered an enthusiastic glimpse at the site's possibilities. His design includes parkland with soccer fields and a track, tennis courts, a dog park, a picnic area, and public toilets. He also mentioned the $ 2,000,000 price range.
Critics Have A "Field" Day
Of course, in any huge undertaking here in Marin, there will be opposition. Among critics of plans for the new park are those now using the open space meadow as their dog park. They have already been moved out of Memorial Park. They had adapted to the new park almost instantly. Many of them like it better. Their questions make some sense. They wonder if it is in the best interest of the $121 million school bond to construct a soccer field under the pretense that it will be a replacement field for Drake students while their fields are under construction. If this is the reason offered to create the Park, why haven't officials noticed that it might not be finished until after the original fields at Drake are done? However, the Tam Union High School District(TUHSD) was eager to set aside $ 300,000 in order to go about obtaining a lease of the land.
They approved a measure to do this on June 24, 2003. This measure let TUHSD execute an agreement with Town of San Anselmo and R.V. School District for the leasing/development of Red Hill Fields. It also authorized a commitment of $300,000 that was monies to come out of either funding from Bond Money and/or the General Fund, depending on what was available. Also plans were made to authorize John Wright to serve on the JPA, and for Ross Valley School District to develop an agreement for the leasing development of Red Hills Fields (i.e. Red Hill Community Park.)
When Is A Lawn Not A "Real" Lawn
The dog owners are also concerned about ecology. Apparently, the fields at this newly developed park will be less than organic. They will, in fact, be PLASTIC. I might have been stunned by this finding, but I remembered reading last year that Marin Catholic High School had received a County of Marin award for its "environmental" decision to convert its playing fields to plastic. Although activists in the organic soil movement were appalled, County Supervisors were impressed. The notion that a synthetic field would not require pesticides, nor irrigation, had allowed Marin Catholic to receive accolades.
Indeed, many playing fields here in Marin are plastic. At Marin Academy, and at College of Marin, the fields have undergone this conversion. Fewer hours of irrigation, no pesticides, less maintenance, etc. are among the selling points. But in Northern California, with extremely rainy winters, the increased amount of "playability" is also a major selling point. Synthetic turf now supports unlimited amounts of use all year, regardless of weather conditions and without degradation of field quality (in terms of play, not in terms of ecology.) A synthetic field supports five times the amount of play that a natural grass field can provide. The field needs only a scant hour after a storm to drain off moisture and allow young athletes to play. Again, maintenance is minimal with no mowing, fertilization or aeration required.
What ecology-minded soil lovers object to is that the artificial turf's components are petrochemical. No matter how green and grass-like the field may appear, the fact is that the field outgases toxic fumes. Reports coming in from other warm areas, such as Texas and Arizona, indicate that irrigation will be needed simply to keep odors down during hot spells. Besides this, the chemicals also leach into the lower strata of the ground. The toxic chemicals will end up impacting any underground creeks, ponds or other ground water sources.
I decided to tour the already-in-place field at Marin Academy. It was a bright sunny and pleasant Thursday afternoon in mid-May. The temperature was 75 degrees. I knew this field well in its bygone days, as I had once lived nearby. Back then, robins pulled worms from beneath its green cover of real grass. Deer enjoyed feeding in the evenings. And of course, swarms of lovely bats would browse through the sky, diving in wild abandon at the infinite numbers of bugs high above the robins, the deer and me.
My first impression of the synthetic lawn was that it looked fine. Clearly it was not able to fool wild life-I didn't see any birds. (It was too early for deer or bats.) As I cut across the field, the breeze tangled its way through trees above me. The air smelled rather good. Once I was no longer downwind of the trees, I was floored by an odor halfway between some weird combination of kerosene and roofing tar.
I did notice that the "grass" had a delightful bounce to it. Although five years old, this field was modern enough that it was NOT AstroTurf. AstroTurf has been noted for a concrete rigidity held responsible for blowing out the knees of pro football players sometimes only a month or two after they encounter its hard surface. No, the engineering of this new "FieldTurf" has a surprising and welcome sponginess to it.
I left the field to go talk with students. When asked about their field, they beamed. "I like it! What can I say? It looks good. Although I'm not on any team, my friends who are think its great." The young man looked unconcerned when I expressed ideas on why the field might not be so wonderful. "What can I say? I like it!" The other six or seven students that I spoke with all echoed his sentiment. (Each student was in a different section of the campus and was not influenced by comments that other students made.) I also spoke to one of Marin Academy's coaches, Sherman Little. He was very enthused. "It's amazing! We can play on this field at least five times as much as we could play on the traditional surface. Before, in the winter, our teams went without any place to play. Now they only need to wait an hour after it rains and they are out there running around."
Are We Forgetting About Students' Health?
I brought up arguments against the field. "You have these young people using this field, students between the ages of thirteen and eighteen whose bodies are not fully developed. And they are going to be in close proximity to all the chemicals that the field is outgasing."
Little explained that in his years with kids using the field, he was unaware of a single health-related incident. Of course, activists would point out how often the risks suffered by a teenager being overexposed to petrochemicals become apparent only years later when they receive a diagnosis of cancer. "Look," Little was equally quick to retort, "if it does come out that FieldTurf poses any serious danger, then we will simply have to switch back to grass."
I ran out of steam. Once back at home, I searched the web. Someone named Fender, who worked as Executive Director of the "Turf Research Center" in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, had posted a report on the heat potential of the synthetic lawns. He cited a Texas A & M study dated 1985 that claimed that heat measured in Bermuda grass on a summer day was found to have a temperature of 85 degrees. Meanwhile, the synthetic grass held a temperature of 185 degrees. His posting urged parents and coaches to insist that their children drink plenty of fluids, and take adequate breaks when playing on such fields during heat waves. He also wrote that kids with asthma were even more at risk than others, and could have fatal reactions.
Of course, the synthetic field in question has not been bidded out yet. The original wording in the School Bond now used to explain partially funding some of the Red Hill Park's expense refers to replacing sod with sod. But this artificial grass was not really sod. It was laboratory lawn. Fielding Greaves stated that "the community had an understanding that the turf would be replaced with natural turf, not artificial turf, and that if that is a correct reading of the bond's wording, then there is a violation of the Public Trust. That Trust refers to the people who are actually footing the bill, that is, paying back the principle and interest on the bond."
Questions Remain While Money Goes Where?
Back to the funding of the turf: there were many questions that officials were not able to answer. For comparison, I checked over the figures of the complete project at Tam High School. For its athletic fields, track, bleachers, scoreboard, parking lots and lighting, there was an almost $3.5 million expense. I spoke with V Anne Chernok, who oversaw the project. I asked if she could supply a cost analysis of the athletic turf vs. traditional grass. She replied that no cost analysis had been done.
Returning to the Internet, I noted the price of other athletic fields that had been completed in other states. They ranged from $ 800,000 to $1.1 million. I noted that in Virginia a project similar to the Red Hill Community Park had been undertaken. The project involved something called "dark lights" which happens to be an innovation providing sport fields with night lighting. In this system, the lights are extremely bright but only in the vicinity of where the light is needed, i.e., on the field. But immediately away from the field, there is no disruption to nearby homes. This would definitely be something that residents in the Sunny Hills apartments would appreciate should there be night games.
The Sunny Hills Apartment residents are not only worried about lighting should the JPA reconsider night games. The residents know that the expanded road into the Red Hill Park will become extremely congested, especially in the rush hour afternoon times of after school games. The main impact includes not only traffic, but noise. The situation will apply on any weekends that the fields are used. Among other things, the JPA considers the athletic field to be a possible bonanza of money. When Drake students do not need the field for their games, it can be rented out to other teams. Some talk of grammar school and younger children using the field. The apartment dwellers are aware that the feature that Coach Little found so amazing, i.e., its ability to be used all year regardless of weather, means few moments of downtime for their frazzled nerves. Living there, they will experience the noise from games, and congestion from traffic, as a gruesome 24/7 part of life.
The park project critics contend that the local citizenry has a difficult time understanding what is happening and when. Although plans are not finalized, they could become so at any moment. My recent conversation with Peter Breen was not reassuring. I had hoped for information from Breen, as the minutes available from key meetings are thin and hastily summarized. They barely contain the subject heading of any Red Hill discussion. Reading the minutes, you know only the time of the meeting, the date, and thirty or so words. Important details are not given. (Breen says the Brown Act permits this, but critics object.)
Even in conversation, Breen was sketchy. He wasn't sure what firm the project would go to. Nor was he sure of a timetable. Apparently work would not start until perhaps the beginning of this winter, but maybe not till next year. Of course, by 2005, the athletic fields at Drake will be finished. So my big question remains, how was this justified under the terms of the Bond Issue? An alternate playing field cannot be an alternate playing field if it is not completed before the field that it is supposed to substitute forÉ
