Sulphur High School’s new Matt Walker Memorial Stadium just got an upgrade before it is even ready for its first game this fall. The Calcasieu Parish School Board voted 11-4 on Tuesday to loan Sulphur High School $500,000 to close the funding gap to install an artificial turf playing surface.

“We are excited about this opportunity,” CPSB District 12 representative Chuck Hansen said. “If you would have told me two months ago I would not have believed it.”

There was much discussion amongst the board members about whether the CPSB should loan the money. Mack Dellafosse, president of the school board, expressed concern about the CPSB loaning out money and specifically cited a previous case of a school borrowing money and not paying it back.

“I thought it was going to be a yes or no vote but it turned out to be a big thing,” Hansen said. “The more people talked about it the better it got.

“(Eric) Tarver said we can have money in the bank earning 0.08 percent interest or we can give it to Sulphur High to use the money to do something for the community and pay us back. It is not going to be money that is being given to us. We are going to pay it back. We are going to try to pay it back before then (5 years). We don’t’ expect anything for free.”

Roughly $470,000 for the turf and a new scoreboard has already been raised through donations. The $500,000 will be paid back in five years through additional fundraising according to Hansen.

“We have some business leaders that are going to meet in the next couple weeks to come up with a plan,” Hansen said. “Our goal is to raise 100,000 the first time so that we will be a year ahead on the note.”

The original cost estimate was around $800,000 but the new estimate is just over $900,000 because more studies were needed to determine what is going to be needed to create a quality foundation to place the turf on.

“The reason being is that they have to work on the drainage and the foundation,” Hansen said. “They want it to be solid.

“We talked to Norman Farr (Sulphur Parks and Recreation) and he gave us some advise. Who knows more about turf fields than Mr. Farr.”

The bidding process is expected to start soon. Hansen said there is at least three companies already looking to bid on the project. Ellender & Associates is the architect for the project.

 

Source : http://www.sulphurdailynews.com/

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