Armchair Quarterback: Closing WCMS track a step in wrong direction

If you build it they will come. Well, they built it, they came and then they put a fence around it, making the field of dreams a field of frustration for local running enthusiasts.

I appreciate the concern shown by many in school administration here not wanting to open the Middle School track to the public since the million-dollar renovation to the facilities there. In keeping the once public track under lock and key, they say they worry vandals could tear up the place if it were again a public facility. They say there are other places like the Greenway and Civic Center area in which to run.

However, running enthusiasts maintain the track is just a better place to run and that closing it to the public is wrong, especially when the public paid the million dollar tab to update the facility. They add the price of the original track was waved in front of the public here when it was built, with a promise the public would be able to use it. They say school leaders have pulled the old bait and switch by getting their support and then closing the door in their face.

The compromise? A running club responsible for opening and shutting the gates. Bad idea, very bad idea. Runners point out a running club already exists, with its only requirement that the person be able to scale a six-foot-high fence, meaning some folks are circumventing the rules anyway.

While I’m not a big runner, I tend to take the side of the runners, and some walkers, as I see no sense in the present rule keeping the track locked. Come on, if I’m a kid with a can of spray paint, which one am I going to hit? Am I going spray paint a football field or maybe a bench or am I going to walk over to the school with those big old blank walls and do my graffiti? Besides, any vandal worth his weight can scale a little fence anyway, seeing the runners, who are otherwise law abiding citizens, are already doing it.

Actually, having people at the track makes it less likely vandals will hit seeing there was almost always somebody running over there. I say you leave it open after school and then have a deputy or police officer come by and lock it up around 11 at night. All it takes is one lock and you’re done. The pressbox and other facilities are already locked. There’s no reason to have some complicated running club set up where the key is passed around like a joint at an Ozzy concert and a blue billion copies get made.

In this time where physical fitness is being pushed in our schools, what kind of message are we sending when we won’t even open a track which was built partly for the public in the first place. Perhaps school administrators who are keeping it closed should consider the repercussions next time they need money for improvements. If I’m a runner I’m going to remember the lock out and I’m not going to be agreeable to funding much at all.

I can already see the hard feelings start to form over this recent push to open the track as some runners are getting very frustrated with the administration making them jump through hoops to get use of something which should be public in the first place.

I say open the place and if somebody spray paints a wall, get some paint and paint over it. Fixing that maybe cheaper than fixing the hard feelings caused by what is an escalating controversy.