Navasota ISD’s athletic facilities have been in need of upgrades for some time and at Tuesday’s meeting of Navasota school board, the future of the facilities was discussed.
The facilities have seen Athletic facilities were not included in the 2017 bond project, and no money from the bond has been used for athletic facility upgrades. Superintendent Dr. Musik explained the reasoning behind it.
“Our thinking at that time was that we just passed the bond, and we have to complete all these bond projects first, and then we will start worrying about football turf, a video board and so forth,” Dr. Musik said. “Because the image of it might be ‘we passed the bond and now they are replacing turf,’ or ‘we passed the bond and they went and got a video board out of it,’ and that we did not do what we said we were going to do. That is not the case. We just wanted to make sure that folks knew that bond money was going to those bond projects.”
As for the tennis courts, they had to be demolished with the new addition of the science wing at the high school. Board Member Paul Malek says he believes new tennis courts should be the one athletic upgrade shifted to be included in the bond.
“We have the money in the bond…that will cover those so it does not blow our budget. And we should shift it to there,” Malek said.
No action was taken on that, as the board will consider the issue. But as far as the rest of the improvements needed, Dr. Musik says that thanks to this new HB3 money, this is the optimal time frame.
“If there was ever a time to do this…because we all know, four years from now, or when the economy slows or whatever happens, the funding, like it was in 2009 or 2010, they can take that away,” said Dr. Musik.
The school board will revisit the athletic facilities on the August 26th school board meeting