Letter to the Editor: Artificial turf

Letter to the Editor

Concerning your article from the March 16 edition of Thunder Bay Source, (Grass fields to be turfed). Does it not seem odd that at a time when municipalities are cutting or reducing services everywhere, and having to scratch for dollars either through mill-rate increases or additional user fees, that the Thunder Bay Catholic District School Board can suddenly find $4.5 million to turf not one, but two of their high school playing fields.

I live in an area where the roads have not seen a maintenance vehicle since the last Royal visit, where home care is provided by volunteers, where senior’s facilities are inadequately funded and under staffed and streets are not safe to walk on. Yet to assure us, director of education, Pino Tassone states comfortably that all of the costs are provided by a school condition improvement grant funded by the province and board working funds. Somehow, I seem to feel a large hole in my pocket. He goes on to state that the addition of the new turf will save $60,000 dollars in maintenance cost annually. Wow, they must have been using some awfully expensive grass on those fields. Makes you wonder if they may have been smoking some of it?

Maybe it is time to challenge the portion of tax money allocated for education.

Edward Landry,
Thunder Bay