A company initially chosen – but subsequently rejected—to do Westport’s “Field of Dreams” synthetic turf project with a promised large discount has not made good on a similar promise to a Pennsylvania school district, according to a published report.
The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review said today that Sprinturf Inc., of Wayne, Pa., promised the Seneca Valley School District that if it agreed to pay $642,000 to install synthetic turf at the high school football field in Jackson Township, Butler County, it would get half the money back later.
Sprinturf told the district the rebate would come from an anonymous benefactor interested in helping schools, colleges and communities pay for athletic fields, the report said.
“Ten months after taking up Sprinturf on its offer, Seneca Valley is still waiting for the payoff,” the newspaper said.
“At least one school board member and officials in other communities who have bitten on similar offers from Sprinturf say it could be a long wait.”
“We have absolutely no chance of getting it. They have our money, why would they want to give any back?” said Seneca Valley School Board member Paul Adametz, according to the newspaper.
The problem, Sprinturf President Elliot Levine said Monday, is that the pool of rebate money has been drained by other schools and towns that jumped at the company’s offer, the Tribune-Review said.
Sprinturf never promised the rebate, he said, according to the newspaper.
It said similar promises by Sprinturf did not materialize.
The company offered Granada Hills (Calif.) Charter High School a rebate on a $1.2 million stadium renovation project, the Tribune-Review said.
Levine said the school got some rebate money. But Chris Davis, the school’s assistant principal in charge of athletics, said the rebate never came through.
That “wasn’t a deal-breaker,” Davis said. “But it undermined our trust with them.”
The school is withholding $30,000 in payments to Sprinturf because of construction delays that forced the postponement of the football team’s home opener and other activities, the Tribune-Review said.
The newspaper said Westport had planned to sign a $2.6 million deal with Sprinturf to build four athletic fields in the community.
“Sprinturf pledged to kick in half the cost of the project if a community group came up with the other half. But when community officials pressed Sprinturf to put the deal in writing, the company balked, said Dan DeVito, chairman of a local group of athletic organizations,” the report said.
“After Sprinturf also refused to agree to a performance bond requiring the company to cover the full cost of the project if it failed to finish the work, Westport nixed the deal.”
The newspaper quoted DeVito as saying: “They’re salespeople.They gave us a deal we couldn’t refuse. But it was too good to be true.”
The Tribune-Review said Levine rattled off the names of schools—including Eastern University in St. David, Pa., outside of Philadelphia, and New Canaan (Conn.) High School—that he said received rebate money from Sprinturf.
Calls to officials at those schools were not returned, the report said.
Westport has signed a contract for two athletic fields with Sportexe, a synthetic turf firm with U.S. headquarters in Round Rock, Texas.
The Field of Dreams Committee has agreed to raise the $1.5 million needed for the fields—and the town agreed to front the funds. (See WestportNow March 23, 2006)
You know, sometimes when a deal is too good to be true, it is. Sounds like an interesting Ponzi scheme.