Hearst Playground story in Current

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can not believe rational people want another plastic field in DC. I hate the self-interested soccer tot folks. All my kids play soccer, one of them at the most advanced high school level and they can't stand playing on those fields int he summer. Literally feel the heat coming off the field burning through their shoes. It will make the park unusable in the summer.

I would like to avoid a turf field as well at Hearst. It would definitely be hotter, and imagine how much hotter if there's less shade because some number of surrounding taller trees have to be removed for a pool.

New fields use cork instead of ground rubber for the infill and aren't as hot.

[Anonymous]

New fields use cork instead of ground rubber for the infill and aren't as hot.

What? They are still really hot. You need to get out more before you order up a four acre oven for the neighborhood.

[Anonymous]

Turf fields last about 8 years. They cost millions of dollars. What we have now has worked for 80 years. Stoddart Soccer needs to back off.

[Anonymous]

When is the next community meeting on this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Screw Stoddart and its surrogates who want to put plastic on he field. It works fine as is. Plastic fields create heat and are as permeable as concrete.

I wonder who you think "Stoddert and its surrogates" is.

Stoddert has a citywide reach, but its biggest concentration of players is in Ward 3. Each season about 3,000 kids from Ward 3 participate -- about a quarter of the under-18 population of the ward. About two thirds of Ward 3 kids play Stoddert at some point in their childhood. At any given time one in ten Ward 3 residents is either a Stoddert player or a Stoddert parent. I don't believe there is any organization of any kind that has as many members in Ward 3 as Stoddert.

Stoddert is Ward 3.

Just about all of the work of running the league is done by volunteers -- about 900 of them.

Stoddert gets no love from the DC government. Within DPR soccer is dimly viewed, and DPR still has a Jim-Crow-Era attitude toward use of its facilities, so soccer is confined to a handful of fields on the western part of the city. Stoddert is the only youth sports organization in the city that rents significant amounts of field time. While Stoddert puts on about 4,000 games a year, DPR provides field time for only about 2,000 of them. The rest are rented at market rates. Stoddert members pay over $300,000 a year to rent fields. Stoddert has no meaningful source of revenue other than member fees, that money comes directly from the fees that members pay. It also means that people are driving to places like Wheaton and Germantown for games.

Mary Cheh has no love for Stoddert. She likes to boast in her campaign materials that she is a former Stoddert parent, coach, referee and board member, but she refuses to do anything at all to help Stoddert with DPR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
New fields use cork instead of ground rubber for the infill and aren't as hot.

Anonymous wrote:What? They are still really hot. You need to get out more before you order up a four acre oven for the neighborhood.

Have you been on a cork field? The only one I can think of in DC is the new one at Key Elementary.

[Anonymous]

Why is this stupid thread on DCUM? Obviously there are less than twelve of you who even care. Go fight it out at your community meeting. Or better yet, on the Hearst playground. No-one else in the entire city gives half a damm.

[Anonymous]

I wonder who you think "Stoddert and its surrogates" is.

Stoddert has a citywide reach, but its biggest concentration of players is in Ward 3. Each season about 3,000 kids from Ward 3 participate -- about a quarter of the under-18 population of the ward. About two thirds of Ward 3 kids play Stoddert at some point in their childhood. At any given time one in ten Ward 3 residents is either a Stoddert player or a Stoddert parent. I don't believe there is any organization of any kind that has as many members in Ward 3 as Stoddert.

Stoddert is Ward 3.

Just about all of the work of running the league is done by volunteers -- about 900 of them.

Stoddert gets no love from the DC government. Within DPR soccer is dimly viewed, and DPR still has a Jim-Crow-Era attitude toward use of its facilities, so soccer is confined to a handful of fields on the western part of the city. Stoddert is the only youth sports organization in the city that rents significant amounts of field time. While Stoddert puts on about 4,000 games a year, DPR provides field time for only about 2,000 of them. The rest are rented at market rates. Stoddert members pay over $300,000 a year to rent fields. Stoddert has no meaningful source of revenue other than member fees, that money comes directly from the fees that members pay. It also means that people are driving to places like Wheaton and Germantown for games.

Mary Cheh has no love for Stoddert. She likes to boast in her campaign materials that she is a former Stoddert parent, coach, referee and board member, but she refuses to do anything at all to help Stoddert with DPR. """

hhahahahahahahah, I guess we now know at least one of Stoddert's surrogates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Screw Stoddart and its surrogates who want to put plastic on he field. It works fine as is. Plastic fields create heat and are as permeable as concrete.

I wonder who you think "Stoddert and its surrogates" is.

Stoddert has a citywide reach, but its biggest concentration of players is in Ward 3. Each season about 3,000 kids from Ward 3 participate -- about a quarter of the under-18 population of the ward. About two thirds of Ward 3 kids play Stoddert at some point in their childhood. At any given time one in ten Ward 3 residents is either a Stoddert player or a Stoddert parent. I don't believe there is any organization of any kind that has as many members in Ward 3 as Stoddert.

Stoddert is Ward 3.

Just about all of the work of running the league is done by volunteers -- about 900 of them.

Stoddert gets no love from the DC government. Within DPR soccer is dimly viewed, and DPR still has a Jim-Crow-Era attitude toward use of its facilities, so soccer is confined to a handful of fields on the western part of the city. Stoddert is the only youth sports organization in the city that rents significant amounts of field time. While Stoddert puts on about 4,000 games a year, DPR provides field time for only about 2,000 of them. The rest are rented at market rates. Stoddert members pay over $300,000 a year to rent fields. Stoddert has no meaningful source of revenue other than member fees, that money comes directly from the fees that members pay. It also means that people are driving to places like Wheaton and Germantown for games.

Mary Cheh has no love for Stoddert. She likes to boast in her campaign materials that she is a former Stoddert parent, coach, referee and board member, but she refuses to do anything at all to help Stoddert with DPR.

How will the Stoddert community feel if the Hearst field is shrunk to make room for a pool?

[Anonymous]

Maybe we should raze Stoddert so we could have more soccer fields?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I wonder who you think "Stoddert and its surrogates" is.

Stoddert has a citywide reach, but its biggest concentration of players is in Ward 3. Each season about 3,000 kids from Ward 3 participate -- about a quarter of the under-18 population of the ward. About two thirds of Ward 3 kids play Stoddert at some point in their childhood. At any given time one in ten Ward 3 residents is either a Stoddert player or a Stoddert parent. I don't believe there is any organization of any kind that has as many members in Ward 3 as Stoddert.

Stoddert is Ward 3.

Just about all of the work of running the league is done by volunteers -- about 900 of them.

Stoddert gets no love from the DC government. Within DPR soccer is dimly viewed, and DPR still has a Jim-Crow-Era attitude toward use of its facilities, so soccer is confined to a handful of fields on the western part of the city. Stoddert is the only youth sports organization in the city that rents significant amounts of field time. While Stoddert puts on about 4,000 games a year, DPR provides field time for only about 2,000 of them. The rest are rented at market rates. Stoddert members pay over $300,000 a year to rent fields. Stoddert has no meaningful source of revenue other than member fees, that money comes directly from the fees that members pay. It also means that people are driving to places like Wheaton and Germantown for games.

Mary Cheh has no love for Stoddert. She likes to boast in her campaign materials that she is a former Stoddert parent, coach, referee and board member, but she refuses to do anything at all to help Stoddert with DPR. """

hhahahahahahahah, I guess we now know at least one of Stoddert's surrogates.

Facts are so much less convenient than emotions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this stupid thread on DCUM? Obviously there are less than twelve of you who even care. Go fight it out at your community meeting. Or better yet, on the Hearst playground. No-one else in the entire city gives half a damm.

It's a free country. You don't have to read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Turf fields last about 8 years. They cost millions of dollars. What we have now has worked for 80 years. Stoddart Soccer needs to back off.

Stoddert isn't really pushing for the turf field. The recent history is that when fields that Stoddert uses get improved, all of a sudden there are other people who want to use them, and Stoddert loses access. It happened at Jelleff, it happened at Palisades, it happened at Shepherd and Fort Stevens.

[Anonymous]

I think this entire thread is hearsay and misinformation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why is this stupid thread on DCUM? Obviously there are less than twelve of you who even care. Go fight it out at your community meeting. Or better yet, on the Hearst playground. No-one else in the entire city gives half a damm.

Fantastic. If no one cares lets not build a pool. Clearly no one else in the city wants one. We certainly don't. Done.