The local turf war has moved on to a new phase. For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s some background. Our municipal government was poised to spend $375,000 on an all-weather playing field in front of the school. It was a joint venture in which the school provided the land, the municipality paid 75% of the construction costs and the federal government gave the school board $125,000 towards construction as well as paying for all of the engineering and project management costs. It was all being done to a very tight timeline to complete the heavy equipment work before school started in September.
Then all hell broke loose. A small group spoke out against the use of plastic for the field. Others lamented the loss of the trees that the children played in. And before you knew it a movement was born. Citizens were outraged that $375,000 of public funds could be spent on something so frivolous when our roads were in such bad shape. We were told about the potential health hazards of artificial turf and how many American states were demanding more information. You get the picture.
At the July 21 meeting of our municipal council, speakers for and against the project made presentations late into the night. Council deferred making a decision for a week. Then the contractors vying for the work submitted their tenders. The maximum amount that could be spent on the project was $500,000. The tenders were in the range of $900,000. At the July 29 meeting council deferred the project for this year.
Now it gets interesting. The project is far from dead. It turns out the $125,000 federal grant will still be available if the project is done next summer. A closer look at the bids reveals that $300,000 was for lighting, which could easily be dropped from the price. And no local contractors bid on the project, partly because they’re too busy this summer and partly because they didn’t want to get involved in anything this controversial. There’s also something in council’s motion to defer the project about how it would be OK to cut down hemlock trees but no cedars, but it’s hard to believe that this could be a deal breaker.
We are now enjoying an intermission between acts in our ongoing saga. It’s a good time to look at our characters and how their roles might unfold in the next act. I’ve always said that you couldn’t predict how any issue would play on Bowen because you never have two sides. You have always had at least five sides and you had to figure out which way the various groups would go to predict an outcome. The sides ranged from the retired businessmen to the young moms, but I never realized that the young moms actually fell into two camps. This issued has revealed a whole new subset. We now have to define the two groups of young moms.
There are those who want their children to grow up as “naturally” as possible. The argument would go something like this-“Children don’t care whether they’re playing on grass or plastic. They just play. It’s the parents who want to maximize their children’s play experience. If the kids don’t have an “all-weather” playing surface they’ll play on the grass. If the grass is too wet today, they’ll play in the trees, or in the covered play area.” The other half of our subset says “What’s wrong with providing our kids with the best that we can provide? They don’t worry about these things because that’s what parents are for. It’s our job to provide the best that we can and our kids will be better for it.”
We will soon have to return to our seats and partake in the next scene in our drama. With luck it will delve a little further into the complexity of our characters.
One potential plot line focuses on a town divided. The old farts harp on about how the money could be better spent. The uninformed do endless google searches to find articles and studies that support their case. The politicians fall on their swords for not properly anticipating the whims of their electorate. The tree-huggers spend the winter sitting in front of their roaring fireplaces and vow that they will throw themselves in front of the chainsaws . And the cappuccino drinking, BMW driving commuter moms and dads can’t wait to flee the hick town they inadvertently moved to. It may be good theatre but its no way to build a community.
The other possible plot line would be a community working together to resolve their differences. Those against the cutting down of trees could meet with those doing site selection to work with them. Costs could be cut by utilizing local contractors during slower times of the year. The actual turf to be used could be vetted to see if it posed any health risks. The entire community could be involved in every decision made and, at the end of the day, the majority of citizens would be in favour of the final decision.
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