As a parent of future Encinal students, I am writing to discourage you
from providing support to the implementation of an artificial turf
surface at Encinal School. I will not bore you with the potential
health and environmental ramifications, as I know that many other inputs
are being provided. I simply ask you to think about the 6, 7, 8, 9,
and 10 year old children who will use that field everyday. The field
can potentially have a very negative impact on those children due to
health concerns, but more importantly it eliminates the experience of
playing in grass that they would otherwise have, since there is going to
be no other natural field on the campus. It is appalling to me that the
Board of the Menlo Park City School District has extended the offer to
the City to jointly develop an artificial surface. I ask you to do what
they apparently cannot - realize that this is a mistake for young children.

Thanks,
Steve Shaw
414 Bay Road
Menlo Park, CA (unincorporated Menlo Oaks)
Received on Tue Apr 3 12:45:51 2007