I would like to respond to the recent letter by Bill Rourke suggesting that athletic facilities were withheld from the Starr's Mill complex to pay for improvements to the McIntosh High School campus.

Mr. Rourke, your letter would be amusing were it not so flat-out false.

You accuse Debbie Condon of championing "the demolition of a perfectly good synthetic track at McIntosh" to replace it with a wider version.

First, the old track was not synthetic. It was blacktopped. If you don't want to take my word for it, one of our track parents still has a portion of the old surface saved as a souvenir.

But more importantly, it was never perfectly good. Not only was the surface in such bad shape that it was actually unsafe to run on, the track was so out of level that it sloped the wrong direction and it held miniature lakes when it rained.

The funds to replace the track were appropriated several years ago and one of the reasons for the long delay in the completion of the project was the discovery that conditions were so bad that it had to be dug completely out to redo the foundation.

Now, does that honestly sound like a perfectly good track?

And the purpose was not to hold large track meets. That is simply an extra benefit of adding two lanes at about 5 percent of the cost. And plans for the Starr's Mill complex include, you guessed it, an eight-lane track. And we don't have an indoor track.

You go on to state that Mrs. Condon supported the construction of new coaches' offices and concession stands. I don't know where you pulled this fantasy out.

I myself helped prepare and present a proposal to the board for an addition to the McIntosh campus that would include locker rooms, classrooms and office space. This addition would still leave us behind Starr's Mill in all three areas. Concession stands were never mentioned.

And yes, we do need a new gymnasium. Ours is not only woefully undersized, it is not air-conditioned. And we don't have an auditorium for meetings.

And, just for the record, we don't have tennis courts either.

The response from the board was that they recognized that the needs were legitimate, but that the problem was coming up with the money. This is much the same response that the Starr's Mill boosters have received regarding a new stadium.

Bill, I could go on for pages listing all the areas in which the Starr's Mill campus has been provided facilities far superior to those at McIntosh, but if you will look objectively at it, you will see for yourself.

You close by stating that the board should be ashamed of itself. I say that you should be ashamed of yourself for making derogatory statements about others without a knowledge of the facts.