According to the press release issued by PIO Susan Morgans, Commission Vice President and Sports Advisory Board member John Bendel will be facilitating the $11,000 Infomercial at Mellon Auditorium on June 12.
The purpose of this meeting is to update Mt. Lebanon residents about the Middle/Wildcat "Field Improvements" a.k.a. Artificial Turf Project with an unbiased toxicologist and the unbiased Director of the Center for Sports Surface Research at Penn State, Andrew McNitt. It was revealed that Penn State and FieldTurf, an artificial turf company, formed a partnership in July 2009. The cost of this public outreach will be $11,000, according to Municipal Engineer Dan Deiseroth, from Gateway Engineering. You may recall that Gateway made the first contribution of $4,000 to the non-municipal portion of the the project. In the press release, there was no mention of a toxicologist or Penn State. Susan Morgans writes:
"Bend it with Bendel" told us that the non-municipal funds were due May 15. Now, they are due before the commission awards the contract. Bid opening is June 17. I would guess that the contract would be awarded at the June 23 Commission meeting. That bought the SAB more than a month's time to raise the $250,000.
Another statement the PA governor hopeful made is that there is no Phase 2 to the project. However, on page 64 and 65 of the 2014 Manager's Recommended Budget
The purpose of this meeting is to update Mt. Lebanon residents about the Middle/Wildcat "Field Improvements" a.k.a. Artificial Turf Project with an unbiased toxicologist and the unbiased Director of the Center for Sports Surface Research at Penn State, Andrew McNitt. It was revealed that Penn State and FieldTurf, an artificial turf company, formed a partnership in July 2009. The cost of this public outreach will be $11,000, according to Municipal Engineer Dan Deiseroth, from Gateway Engineering. You may recall that Gateway made the first contribution of $4,000 to the non-municipal portion of the the project. In the press release, there was no mention of a toxicologist or Penn State. Susan Morgans writes:
Commission Vice President John Bendel will facilitate the meeting, at which he and several consultants will speak and provide audio-visual presentations."Bend it with Bendel" has never seen any documentation that states that artificial turf is unsafe. That translates to "Artificial Turf - proven to be safe!" It must be true. At least that is what the pro-turf signs indicate.
In the same Almanac article
Commissioner Kelly Fraasch then proposed that all Turf Task Force meetings be open to the public. She said other municipal task forces, such as the one handling a possible pay-as-you-throw trash program, were open for any member of the public to attend. Yet, some residents said they had been turned away from task force meetings related to the turf project.We never did hear what John Bendel had to say. We didn't because I didn't ask him during Citizen Comments. The only way we got the SAB Financial Report at the last meeting is because I asked him point blank at the commission meeting. And if I don't ask, they don't tell. Brumfield didn't ask (of course!) and Kelly Fraasch never followed up.
In response, commissioner Dave Brumfield seemed to waver. He said he would like to hear from commissioner John Bendel, who was absent from the meeting, before offering a final opinion.
“I don’t have a problem with those meetings being public,” Brumfield said, “but they are not required to be public. I would want to hear what John has to say.”
"Bend it with Bendel" told us that the non-municipal funds were due May 15. Now, they are due before the commission awards the contract. Bid opening is June 17. I would guess that the contract would be awarded at the June 23 Commission meeting. That bought the SAB more than a month's time to raise the $250,000.
Another statement the PA governor hopeful made is that there is no Phase 2 to the project. However, on page 64 and 65 of the 2014 Manager's Recommended Budget
23 Athletic Field Improvements. Installation of artificial turf and lights at Wildcat and Middle Fields $1,050,000.Bendel, the one who has never heard anything bad about artificial turf, will end the June 12 Informercial, by addressing questions "suggested by the audience." That means there will be no Q & A. Future Gov. Bendel will be in control of the entire dog and pony show. My suggestion at the last commission meeting was to cancel this $11,000 Informercial and use the money toward fixing some roads.