District 8

Hello,

My name is Payton Moore and I work for the City of Santa Barbara Parks and Rec Department. I am reaching out to see if anyone here manages and operates synthetic turf fields. The City of Santa Barbara currently has two synthetic turf fields in the pipeline and our Department is beginning to think about how we will manage and operate these synthetic fields once they come on line.

My team and I are curious on how other communities…

• Allocate field space to community groups
• Collect fees
• Set hours of operations
• Monitor field access
• Maintain synthetic fields
• Manage violations of your policies
• Some tips and ideas you may have

Looking forward to hearing to any responses!

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Payton Moore
Recreation Coordinator
City of Santa Barbara Parks & Recreation Dept.
Santa Barbara CA
(805) 564-5422
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Good Morning, 

I used to work for the City of Manhattan Beach down in LA. We had 2 turf soccer fields that I used to assist in managing so I can give some input on the matter. One of the fields was strictly soccer, but it could also be split into 3 short sided fields (Marine Avenue Park Soccer Field). The other was also a full size soccer field that could be split into 3 short sided fields, a high school soccer field, and lacrosse (Village Soccer Field).

• Allocate field space to community groups
  • We were able to allocate field space to a variety of groups based off of size of the group. We could split the field.
  • Something that I would recommend, and I'm not sure how many youth and adult leagues you currently have so this might be a wild statement because I'm unaware of Santa Barbara's demand, but start by allowing youth to play until 8pm and adults to play from 8-10pm. It is hard to switch time frames once they have been initiated.
• Collect fees
  • Billing occurred prior to the field use and reservations were made monthly. This allowed for the cancellation of permits due to the neglect of payment.. This was mainly due to light fees and staff allocation to monitor. You will have to retroactively do refunds, but this would only be necessary due to extreme heat or lightning since rain wont affect the artificial turf.
  • Check, Cash, Credit Card at the appropriate facility. Manhattan Beach only collected payment at City Hall as an example.
• Set hours of operations
  • 8am-10pm
• Monitor field access
  • We would have Evening and Weekend Recreation Leaders at each site to facilitate access to the fields and manage the active reservations. This also allowed for constant attendance checks and reporting of maintenance issues.
  • The staff would open in the morning for "first come first served" users, but would enforce reservations as they appeared.
• Maintain synthetic fields
  • I don't know too much other than we contracted this part out. It's my recollection that when you install a turf field they give or sell you a machine that vacuums and recirculates the pellets to keep the field rejuvenated. 
• Manage violations of your policies
  • Documentation and discipline. Since we had on-site recreation staff we were able to lock the fields in the event of issue.
• Some tips and ideas you may have
  • It helps a lot to have both an on-site staff member for all hours of operation as well as fully fencing your fields with lockable gates. If you have a Park Ranger, make sure to include them in your staff meetings so that they are aware of the rules, regulations, and reservations so that they can assist when there is a trouble participant or group.
  • Regarding lights, get lights that you can either activate/deactivate online (hopefully with a scheduling software) or by phone. With an on-site staff member you wont necessarily need this, but it is very helpful and saves staff time. You can also put hard stops on the lights so that every night they pop off at 10:15pm and cannot be reactivated until the morning.

Hope this helps!

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Robert Hoag
Administrative Assistant
City of El Paso Robles Community Services Department
Paso Robles CA
(805) 237-3988
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Original Message:
Sent: 04-09-2025 06:46 AM
From: James Taylor
Subject: Synthetic Turf Operations and Management

Good Morning

 

Paso Robles Unified School District has (1) synthetic field for the varsity high school football team.  This may be a helpful resource for you. 

 

Good Luck,

 

James Taylor

Parks/Trails Supervisor

City of Paso Robles

2970 Union Road, Paso Robles, Ca. 93446

jtaylor@prcity.com

805.391.1052

www.prcity.com