City makes donation to Houston turf project

901-529-2372

Construction to install artificial turf on the Houston High School football field is underway, and the project has received a significant funding boost of public dollars from the city of Germantown.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen on Monday decided to donate $125,000 to the project, which costs about $700,000 of otherwise privately raised money. City Administrator Patrick Lawton said the donation would include a memorandum of understanding that the Houston High Athletics and Arts Foundation would need to raise a certain amount before the city would hand over the money. Representatives from the foundation came to a previous board meeting and asked the city to consider making a donation.

“They appear to be very organized with their efforts, and we don’t think they’re going to have any problems coming up with the matching money,” he said.

The money will come out of the general fund, listed under a new line item in the 2015-16 budget called civic support. It itemizes all of the community services the city provides, such as a donation to the Chamber of Commerce or school resource officers for the eight public schools within the city’s borders. Lawton said the $125,000, plus another $15,000 to the Houston High baseball boosters for new bleachers, are the only two expenses in the $1.4 million fund that will be new next year.

“Now that we have our school district, we want to be supportive of all areas in terms of education, and certainly athletics is a large part of what takes place,” Lawton said.

He said the city will not participate in the decision over what kind of field turf will be used. The discussion began after NBC News ran a report last year that suggested a link between turf made out of crumb rubber and certain kinds of cancer. Industry leaders have insisted the turf is safe, citing multiple scientific studies that show no link. But there is a more expensive, man-made rubber that is carcinogen-free and could be used if a community is concerned.

Many schools around the Mid-South use crumb rubber, including Memphis University School.

Lawton said it is the city’s “assumption ... that it will be safe for the student athletes or anybody else using the field.”

Project consultant Tim Cowan, owner of Athletic Surfaces Plus, said workers broke ground Monday and finished excavating the site by the end of the week. The timeline became more important when the city informed the school district that a drainage project would render the school’s practice football field unusable this fall.

“If everything goes well, we’ll be on the field no later than Aug. 15,” Cowan said, adding that the project intends to use crumb rubber and that it has “never been an issue.”

Cowan said fundraising also is going well, and he expects to announce major donors in the next week.

“They want to participate because it’s such a great project,” he said.