Stadium: It's time for a new stadium

When is it time for a change? I am a senior at Oak Harbor High School. I am a two sport athlete and I am very disappointed at the fact that our athletic facilities are not up to code. I am very upset that I can not even have a playoff football game at my home stadium.

Our bleachers are not up to code, our field has hardly been worked on, and we can barely fit our team into our own locker rooms. Other teams dread coming to play us on our field and our facilities because theirs are so much nicer.

It is also very disappointing to the people who support our athletics; they do not even have “real” bleachers to sit on. Our field turf is very soft and when it rains, the turf comes up and it is very hard to keep your footing. I have noticed that when you have nicer facilities it makes people in your community come out and support school athletics. It can also let people enjoy a Friday night game under the lights. Our sound system is very poor also. We have had the same sound system for many years, but last year we did receive new speakers, which was very nice.

As you can see, our stadium is in desperate need of many changes. I have thought of a few ways in which to do this, one way would be to have annual city fund raisers. For example, we could have an annual car wash. Another way in which we could raise money is our community could vote on raising the taxes a little and tell them that the extra money would be put into building a new stadium. We could also announce that there are going to be games on certain nights and post them up around the town so that we can get people out and support our teams. I propose that we spend the money on something that is long term and that the whole community could benefit from. With a new stadium, it will last a long time and people would leave Oak Harbor wanting to come back for another game. Thank you for your time and patience.

Jason Bravo

Oak Harbor

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