Katonah-Lewisboro Athletic Fields: A Guide

Written by Matt Dalen
Sunday, 25 October 2009 23:00

On Tuesday, Dec. 8, Katonah-Lewisboro voters will adopt a plan for the use of the $3.15 million capital reserve fund created in March. If the referendum passes, work is expected to begin the following fall.

The capital reserve, as created by the March referendum, may be used for four things: construction and renovation of athletic fields; improvements to the school district's cultural arts facilites; upgrades to the district's heating and ventilation work; and renovations of classrooms in the district. The administration's favored plan includes work on athletic fields, and the installation of air conditioning and instrument lockers in the high school's music facilities.

There are three primary components to the district's plan for the capital reserve:

The AP Farm Athletic Fields

Donated by residents Adam Rose and Peter McQuillan after the creation of the capital reserve, this nine-acre property is deed restricted to be used only for athletic fields. The district is limited to the construction of a rectangular field, which must be some form of synthetic turf, and a natural grass softball field. The proposal would also construct a small parking lot — constrained to only handicapped spots — and a small restroom building.

The entryway to the property would be through a crosswalk near John Jay High School's driveway. Crossings elsewhere would be limited by a fence along the length of the fields, and the district has proposed to use a shuttle bus or something similar to transport students from the high school and middle school campus to the fields. Mr. Rose's restrictions on the property would prevent a tunnel or bridge for pedestrians to cross the street.

The fields would be open limited times: 7 a.m. to dusk on weekdays, 10 a.m. to dusk on Saturdays and federal holidays, and 12 p.m. to dusk on Sundays. The deed also bans the use of sound systems and lighting systems on the property, to prevent having an adverse impact on neighbors.

While the rectangular field must be built out of synthetic turf, there has been some debate over what type of synthetic turf to use. The administration has recommended the use of a theoretically environmentally-friendly turf infill, rather than the traditional crumb-rubber product made from recycled tires. While the leading product is one made of cork and coconut, the exact product to be used will not be decided until shortly before the project is put out to bid, so as to get the best product available. The premium turf is expected to add about $150,000 to the cost of the project.

There is still heated debate over whether the crumb rubber infill harms the environment, although recent studies, including a May study by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, appear to indicate that the rubber has the potential to release some chemicals, but that "crumb rubber may be used as an infill without significant impact on groundwater quality." The study is available for download here.

The school board's adopted plan would build both fields now, although under the terms of the donation the softball field could be constructed at a later date. The school board's field advisory network, which was composed of area residents with expertise in athletics, field construction, and public financing, also recommended constructing both fields.

The baseball and softball fields

Often the source of complaints from players and parents, the baseball and softball fields adjacent to the John Jay Middle School driveway have been in need of some sort of repair for years. A previous plan, when the economy was better, would have completely rebuilt both fields and installed a synthetic turf rectangular field in the softball field's outfield. That plan has been scaled back since then, and the board's plan would re-grade and irrigate only the baseball field fields, to remove bumps in the outfields and to make the field section-legal for league play — in addition to bumps on the field, the outfield is too small. There would also be room for a rectangular practice field in the baseball outfield, according to school officials.

While the fields advisory network and the initial administrative recommendation also included the re-grading and irrigation of the softball field on the John Jay campus, after several public forums and input from residents and the high school's Campus Congress, the board decided to eliminate the reconstruction of the softball field in their final proposal. This decision was made because of the cost of the project — the cost of rebuilding the softball field would drive the project to an estimated $3.4 million, $250,000 more than its budget of $3.15 million — as well as the opinion of the athletics department that it was better to build the new softball field on the AP Farm Athletic Fields property than to only rebuild the existing field.

Cultural arts facilities

Of the $3.15 million in the capital reserve, the board's proposal would use about $150,000 on improvements to the high school's cultural arts facilities. Several possible upgrades had been proposed:

• Add air conditioning to the school's band room (G126), chorus room (G121), and workroom: $125,000. This project would improve the conditions for instrument storage in the rooms, keeping instruments from becoming damaged from wet or humid conditions.
• Add musical instrument storage racks to the corridor outside the band room: $25,000. This would greatly increase the amount of room available to store musical instruments.
• Renovate a storage room into two pre-fabricated, soundproof musical practice rooms: $70,000. Each of these rooms would be about 10 feet by 15 feet, and would fit four or five students, allowing groups of students to practice separately without interfering with each other.
• Replace all sinks and piping in art rooms H102, H106, H108, and H110, adding clay traps and a small hot water booster: $72,000. This would improve the sinks in the art rooms and would make it easier to keep clay and other art supplies from clogging the piping.
• Renovate two bathrooms (H103 and H104) into a single handicapped-accessible bathroom: $55,000. The bathroom would be single-user, as there is not enough room in the building to create a multi-person handicapped-accessible bathroom.

The administration had recommended that the first of these proposals be adopted, the installation of air conditioning in the music rooms. After board discussion, board member Mark Lipton recommended that the musical instrument storage racks also be added to the project, which, without the high school softball field, was about $50,000 short of its maximum budget. That suggestion was met with approval by his fellow board members, and was integrated into the board's final proposal.

A long history

The various proposals to improve the district's athletic fields have a long and complicated history.

As far back as 2002, the town and the schools had expressed interest in obtaining the land across the street, then owned by the Andes family, for athletic fields. A proposal for the schools to purchase the land in November 2002 for $1.25 million was rejected by voters, in part because it was felt that the district was overpaying for the property, and a $110,000 option paid by the district on the property was forfeited.

A proposal three years later by then-Town Supervisor Jim Nordgren to build athletic fields on the property using funding from the county fell through amidst opposition from Cross River residents and discontent with non-public negotiations that led up to the proposal. No vote was ever made on that proposal.

Then, in 2007, Mr. Rose purchased the property and proposed the donation to the schools. However, before the school board moved forward with the project, the district was approached by Town Supervisor Edward Brancati and Westchester County Legislator Peter Harckham with a proposal to use the county's Legacy fund — money dedicated to building athletic fields for towns around the county — to construct the fields at no cost to the district.

Because the Legacy fund could be used only to pay for town fields, Mr. Rose changed his proposal to make the town the recipient of the fields, rather than the school district.

After several months of negotiations with the county over the terms of the agreement to accept the Legacy money, Mr. Brancati and the rest of the Town Board last November unanimously voted to reject the money, citing issues with the county's requirements. In the proposed agreement, the county would have mandated that the town ensure that 40 units of affordable housing be built in town, a sticking point that roused a significant amount of opposition from residents.

While this was happening, the school district was focusing on its existing athletic fields. In early 2008, school officials presented a proposed $5.4 million renovation that would have upgraded nearly all of the John Jay fields, including two rectangular fields at "The Pit" behind the high school, the rectangular field and either a softball field or a tennis court behind the middle school, the repairs to the baseball field, and the upgrade of the softball field in synthetic turf, with a turf rectangular field placed in the softball field's outfield.

In the summer of 2007, while mentioning many of the problems with the district's athletic fields, the school board had set aside $2.75 million of the year's surplus, using it to fill its repair reserve fund to $3 million. Board members have said that, at the time, they had been informed by the district's counsel that the money in the repair reserve could be used to pay for repairs to the athletic fields.

However, board members later discovered that the extent of the projects they considered took them well outside of the state's definition of a "repair," and thus made the projects ineligible for funding from the repair reserve fund. Barred by state law from dissolving the fund, board members then decided to move the money to a capital reserve, earmarked for athletic fields and other projects. That proposal went before voters in March, and was passed overwhelmingly. The capital reserve has a cap of $3.15 million, the size of the repair reserve plus some interest.

Taking the economy into account, board members also scaled back their plans for the athletic fields. The administration proposed a plan, above, that would use only money from the capital reserve, which has already been collected and may only legally be used to reduce taxes if voters determine that the original purpose of the reserve has been met or no longer applies. Any use of the reserve requires a public vote.

The plan that will appear on the referendum, adopted by the school board at its meeting on Tuesday, Oct, 20, would authorize the expense of about $3.13 million out of the reserve, leaving about $21,000 remaining for future use.