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East Ridge High School football stadium condemned
If Hamilton County commissioners are determined to keep their discretionary funds, and will go to the mat year after year as they did this year to retain them, why not take a year and fund high school football stadium renovations?
The commissioners as a body have $900,000 available to them in any one year, and the condemnation of Raymond James Stadium at East Ridge High School and the upcoming structural examination of several others prove the need.
And if the commissioners come to the table with a "you help me, I help you" attitude, they may be able to leverage other money in the community with their discretionary funds so that schools don't have to consolidate stadiums and make one or more schools feel like an orphan with no place to call home.
Tim Boyd, the county commissioner who represents East Ridge, and Justin Witt, director of maintenance and operations for the Hamilton County Department of Education, both have said in the last few weeks that good, durable bleachers that seat 1,000 fans could be purchased for $200,000.
If the need is there, $900,000 in discretionary funds would fund bleachers at four schools or the demolition of stadiums and the construction of bleachers at several schools or the demolition/purchase at East Ridge and repairs at several other existing stadiums.
Another makes-sense option for East Ridge is Camp Jordan Park, where any number of soccer fields could be converted to a football home for the school. Parking is plentiful there, there are two ways in and out, and a planned new Ringgold Road entrance into the park and widened road will make access even easier.
It doesn't appear high school football stadium funding will get any easier in the near future, so it makes sense to seek new solutions before another stadium comes crumbling down.