Ever since the Vashon Island School District’s attempt last fall to pass a bond that would fund the replacement and updating of some of Vashon High School’s athletic facilities — including the track and field — islanders have been abuzz with questions about the high school’s field, specifically, “What if the turf were artificial,” and, “What would it mean for the safety of athletes, the water supply and potential pollution?”

Many island voters have also said they didn’t feel as if the last school board provided enough information about the field and its pros and cons as both a natural and artificial turf field. In an informal survey after the failure of the bond conducted by former Vashon school board president Laura Wishik, 74 of the 126 respondents who voted “no” on the bond agreed with the statement, “I did not trust the process used by the school district in deciding what was in the bond.”

With that information in hand, the current school board has sought out Dave Anderson, a turf expert who works as the principal engineer at Seattle’s D.A. Hogan & Associates, a recreational facility architecture firm. Anderson has headed large-scale turf projects with both natural and artificial materials and spoke to the board at a regularly scheduled board meeting earlier this year, where less than 10 islanders showed up to hear his presentation.

At that presentation, he thoroughly broke down the pros and cons of natural grass fields and artificial turf fields, addressing water use, maintenance and replacement costs, environmental impacts and overall durability.

Now, at 6:30 p.m. next Thursday, Anderson will be at the high school theater to give a similar presentation to island voters, and they need to show up. It is easy to disagree with the proposed updates to the facilities and easier yet to disagree with the methods used to come up with said updates, but gathering information, both on your own and from others, asking questions and hearing all you can about a subject before forming an opinion requires more work.

Anderson’s presentation should not be the sole basis of islanders’ decision to vote “yes” or “no” on a future bond, but it is a great chance to ask questions of Anderson and the school board and find out facts from an expert in the industry.