By a vote of five to four, the Aiken County School Board defeated a motion that would have allowed North August High School to move forward with the installation of FieldTurf, an artificial surface, on its football field at a cost of $700,000.
The motion called for the revision of the athletic facility fund of the Five-Year Facility Improvement Plan. Board members Cecil Atchley, Keith Liner, Jeremy Mace and Richard Hazen voted to approve the revision. Members Rosemary English, Levi Green, Tad Barber, Wesley Hightower and Ronnie West opposed it.
After the vote, the board unanimously approved a motion from Hazen to create a subcommittee to look at funding possibilities and the long-term needs of athletic facilities at all seven county high schools.
The vote followed a lengthy discussion during which some board members voiced support for the new field at North Augusta High and others said the needs of the athletic facilities at other schools needed to be addressed now, too.
Liner said that the football field is the only outdoor athletics facility on the North Augusta High campus. "The field right now is in dire need of repair," he said.
He added that the cost to install the artificial playing surface would be recovered over a period of years because it would require less maintenance than a natural grass field.
Green said Silver Bluff High School, for example, needs an auxiliary gym because so many teams use the existing facility for practice.
"I don't see how we can put everything into North Augusta High School at one time and not address some of the issues that these other schools have," he said.
In other business:
- The Board approved naming the gymnasium at Midland Valley High School in honor of Jean Johnson, the school's first Girls' basketball coach.
- The Board also voted to extend the contracts by two years of architectural firms that were selected in 2010. Five firms were selected, but one since has gone out of business. Currently, the district is under contract with two of the firms, which are involved in major projects that will take several more years to complete. The next major project will be in 2017-18 when construction and renovations begin at Ridge Spring-Monetta High and Elementary schools.
An Aiken native, Larry Wood is a general assignment reporter. He started at the Aiken Standard in September 2014.