Turlock high school has been there for 100 years. It was there when you and I bought our houses. Though the neighborhood is not blighted, the stadium’s field and track are! I not only live near it (3 blocks away) but taught health and P.E. there for 20 years.
During the fall/winter football season, that field and track turn into a mudpit that makes the field unsafe and the track unusable. The many young football players have to use it anyway. Both Turlock and Pitman High School, plus all the youth football teams, are forced to play their games on it, mud or not, holes or not, safe or not. The stadium is also used on a daily basis by the high
school students for P.E. classes, but it regularly becomes unusable for them.
I actually had a girl step in a mudhole on the field and sink almost to her knee. The track has giant water pools and mud on it for weeks at a time during the rainy season. This not only impacts the conditioning done with the classes, but the many adults who use the track and I’m more than sure the marching band would rather not slog through the mud when they’re practicing formations.
How can those of you so opposed to putting in a new track and artificial field put the safety of all these young people at risk? The games are not going to stop whether there’s a new field (without mud and holes) or not. When you buy a house close to a high school and stadium, there are going to be traffic, noise, litter and parking issues. I was aware of it when I bought here over 35 years ago, weren’t you?
Since the court has ruled that the stadium project is a legal use of the funds, it would be a nice gesture to stop looking for a cause to stop the project and start being supportive of something that can be of benefit to the youth of Turlock.