In my column last week, I, Katherine Cantin, spoke about my personal opinion on why I felt the school board’s referendum had failed. Mark Swanson from the school board, among others, was kind enough to reach out and let me know I had a couple of inaccuracies in my opinion piece. 

I made the claim that Eppard Field, the varsity football field where games are played, already had astroturf on it. This was not true. While there have been proposals in the past to add astroturf to this field, none of them have succeeded, and there are no astroturf surfaces on campus. The artificial turf that was proposed in the referendum was for the varsity field – Eppard Field – and not for the practice field situated behind it, as I had believed. 

I’d like to thank Mark Swanson from the school board and Superintendent Jeremy Schmidt for reaching out and explaining the facts that I got wrong. These are the factual inaccuracies, but these two gentlemen also wished to respond to my column with more information about the astroturf proposal. 

In an email to me, Mr. Swanson stated the following: “The request for artificial turf was for Eppard field (the field generally referred to as the football field--we currently do NOT have any artificial turf anywhere on the campus). This would have greatly expanded the availability of the field to other sports (only currently used about 17 times each year for other events due to the need to ensure the field can be used for football). There are other reasons too (section tournament play for soccer and lacrosse requires turf fields) not to mention the ability to use this later in the fall and earlier in the spring for phy-ed and open field play for younger students.

“As to the greenspace question...while we have not formally gotten to that level of planning, the discussion on artificial turf was that the current versions of this are porous in the same way that natural grass drains. It is not covering the ground with plastic.

“Parking lot – yes, the front lot is for staff and event parking. That project freed up parking as the staff no longer parks in the back of the building (area reserved for student parking). In addition, we improved the two smaller lots for student parking (where the tennis courts used to be). As part of this, we also addressed drainage issues by placing large culverts below that parking lot in front to act as a place to drain the water.

“Cost – the small amount outlined for the artificial turf ($1.4 million of the $37.5 million) is less than 3.8% of the money. The experience of other districts is that the additional use for all the activities justifies this minimal cost (<$50k per year) and is also offset by current costs (about $15k/year) being reduced.”

I also spoke with Supt. Schmidt over a phone call, and he wished to add that the voter turnout was low in comparison to other school elections, that certain Facebook posts did not necessarily represent the voter base, and that the high school plans to allow student parking in the lot in front of the PAC in the near future.