The Place Where Ludington Talks
LASD Board Meeting April 17, 2023: Juul of Denial
One would guess that the light and fairly inconsequential agenda for the April 17 meeting of the Ludington Area School District (LASD) Board held at the Middle School Library would be lightly attended-- and it was missing two board members, Scott Foster and Brett Autrey. But for some reason not easily deduced even after the meeting, almost three dozen people were in the audience, many appeared to be staff/teachers, and none other than myself had a comment to make. Much more substantive meetings this school year have had only a handful of folks attending.
The one presentation by Principal Mike Hart was to go over NWEA data and statistics, where it was learned that Ludington was doing better than the national average of math and reading scores, with significant results at the second grade level. An off-agenda presentation by Ludington Police Department's Chief Christopher Jones, had him weighing in on the middle/high school's SRO Austin Morris, his initial aversion to Orioles (from Baltimore, being a diehard Boston Red Sox fan on the east coast), and his intention on having a vinyl graphic from a student artist find its way onto a police cruiser. Hopefully, it will be one that isn't on one of their stealth vehicles.
Eileen Klein was recognized by winning the April Soaring Oriole Award for her making a difference. Superintendent Kyle Corlette updated the construction report and noted the high school's quiz bowl team finished fourth at state, which is impressive, but he noted even better success they had very recently.
The action items only totaled three and amounted to the purchase of three sets of bleachers from Sightlines Athletic Facilities LLC for $33,164, a bond payment of about $1,834,000 for the middle/high School construction, and passing a resolution acknowledging the 2023-24 General Fund Operation Budget for the West Shore Educational School District (WSESD) of which the LASD is part of.
Their discussion over these items were light, and they also discussed some Neola policies that may be made bylaws in the future and whether to get involved with a class action lawsuit going after social media and its effects on kids. They had joined a class action filed by the same attorneys against Juul Labs who appear to have marketed their vaping products and e-cigarettes towards kids and settled, netting the LASD some money, this time they decided to research and revisit the lawsuit at a future meeting.
They discussed this shortly after my public comment, which kept in the evening's theme of class action lawsuits. It's been the theme of mine over the last couple months as can be seen in my comments at this month's meeting of the Planning Commission and at prior school board meetings. At the last city council meeting, I gave notice that since neither the school nor the relevant city agencies/officials would do their duty to assure that the artificial turf and its recycled-tire infill being installed at Oriole Field would pose no harm as a hazard to our children or our environment.
The lack of action or interest by officials has me believing that they know it's a hazard and that it will be harmful, but they have a vested interest in installing it anyway. That lack of proactive response actually makes it difficult to keep them from doing this, but it will make a much better case should they carry through with the $1.4 million project. So even though I would have to wait until after the harm has been introduced for action, I threw that threat in their face in the slim hope that they might decide to do what's right and tried to make that understanding relevant to them by reintroducing the Juul Lab lawsuit.
XLFD: At the last meeting, I spoke of the hazards present in the artificial turf and its infill scheduled to be installed at Oriole Field at any time now and how the school has not followed their own bylaws in identifying the hazards present and how to protect our kids from exposure. Also at the last meeting, and the preceding committee meetings, this board chided Juul labs for marketing their product to kids and how they would use the $37,000 in their recent class action settlement money in programs to keep our children from being exposed to health hazards.
Interesting. A look at the five claims made in the Juul lawsuit are illustrative:
- Failure to warn of the dangers of its product
- Intentional misrepresentation
- Breach of implied warranty
- Strict liability if there were product defects
- Negligence
These claims all appear to be present to the public should the school go ahead and install Astroturf without any due diligence or transparency. The district failed to warn us of the dangers of the product, they intentionally misrepresented the turf as harmless, they warranty themselves as a hazard-free school, they fail to offer liability for the increased injuries and illnesses that turf will most certainly cause, and their negligence is readily apparent when they totally ignore all of the evidence that shows infill contains hazardous, carcinogenic materials and they knew fully about it.
Plaintiffs had three things to prove in their lawsuit against Juul:
- Juul Labs owed them a duty of care
- Juul Labs failed to live up to that duty
- The plaintiff suffered harm as a result
In any future class action lawsuit against the district as it now stands, the people affected or injured by this turf and its infill will be able to prove quite easily that the district owed them a duty of care and that they failed to live up to that duty by doing absolutely nothing in ushering this product into our community. When severe injuries and illnesses begin to happen, and they will, your inability to do this properly will lead to another class action lawsuit for the district. But guess what? You will not be the plaintiff, you will be the defendants being derided for your negligence that caused great harms to our children. [END comment]
Since I don't expect common sense to prevail with this school board, I see them installing this fake field without doing any due diligence, believing every single thing that Astroturf feeds them in their marketing push, much like they put their faith behind the fear-marketing the local health department fed them during the Covid era, and the deer-marketing the City of Ludington used for the cull in the elementary school's backyard. I look forward to the day when I see them come out of a closed session to approve the class action settlement against them that the people of this district will need to file due to the harm they cause by their negligence and ignorance (neglorance).
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