Over the last couple of years myself and other citizens have noticed and voiced their concerns about various aspects of Forney going down hill. Some of those areas of concern include trash in various areas around the city, roads continuing to deteriorate, railroad crossings becoming increasingly rough, etc. Another area of concern that has become a talking point is our parks. There have been many concerns about increasing crime within our parks, field quality deteriorating, and a lack of maintenance as it pertains to proper watering and treatment for ants.
One example in particular is the practice field behind the Forney ISD Administration building. The City of Forney and Forney ISD have an interlocal agreement that allows for the city’s utilization of the field for the use of youth sports teams. When the youth football season started practices in July the city was contacted about the FISD Admin field having an abundance of ants all over the field and an infestation of mosquitos. I personally began communication with the city about the issue on July 7th. My communication then continued through July 13th about the issue. Again I contacted the city on August 1st to let them know the issue had not improved.
Over the next few weeks cracks began to form in the ground, a couple of players and cheerleaders were injured due to those cracks, and the ant and mosquito problem persisted, so the football teams utilizing the field were forced to find fields in Terrell to practice on. Yesterday evening one of the football teams returned only to find the field covered with ant piles. I decided to walk the field and take pictures of every ant pile and send it to the city since it’s obviously not being walked by city personnel. I ended up taking pictures of 84 well established ant piles (see below) and I probably missed a few. This also doesn’t account for the many very small piles all over the field.
The question I have for the City of Forney is, why are the citizens being asked to pay additional money out of our pockets for sports passes, which is to aid in the maintenance and upkeep of our parks and fields, when they are quite possibly in the worst shape they have been in years?
Ant Pile Pictures: https://app.box.com/s/5z9mh8pps4061p26n1eb47m421nm7ox5