Turf Field Proponents Urge Voters To Support High School Plan

By Andy Hutchison

When the proposed high school expansion project is voted on by the public this coming Tuesday (between 6 am and 8 pm at Newtown Middle School), many of those who support sports in town are hoping for a strong turnout. Clearly, one aspect of the $41 million renovation looms large: the proposed upgrade of the high school’s main playing field, which would convert the playing surface from natural grass to turf.

It is an improvement that is essential to some, perhaps even a deal breaker if a failed referendum forces the overall school expansion plan to be brought back for a second vote with the turf field bid alternate dropped.

The possibility that this part of the project could be dropped from the proposal is something that does not sit will with Jim Gaston, the vice chairman of the Board of Finance and also the chairman of the town’s girls’ premier soccer program, nor with Parks and Recreation Chairman Ed Marks — and, no doubt, many other sports-minded taxpayers .

For starters, the school renovation project will result in a practice field in the back of the school campus being taken away. The town’s recreation teams share fields with the high school teams, so this is a concern that goes beyond the school’s athletics program.

High school teams are already limited in space with freshman, junior varsity, and varsity teams all vying for field time each spring and fall, so lacrosse and soccer teams make the short trip to Treadwell Park to use the turf field there. As a result, that is one less field that the town’s programs can use much of the time, Gaston points out.

“It’s a ripple effect,” he said.

There are three multipurpose fields at the high school, only one of which Parks and Rec programs have access to, Marks said, and that is not enough to support all of the school programs. Town fields at Treadwell Park, as well as on Oakview Street field, on Walnut Tree Hill Road and at Fairfield Hills, are used by the school teams, Marks said.

“We’re trying to accommodate everyone,” Marks said. “It’s a very precarious balance that we’re trying to maintain.”

What is more, the high school’s track is in disrepair and needs to be replaced, Gaston said. But if the field is not replaced now and the track is … and then the field is replaced sometime down the line, the new track would be destroyed in the construction process, he added.

The importance of changing the high school’s main field surface to turf is that it would allow for substantially more use. Bad weather limits the use of grass fields, Marks said. Not only are natural surface fields unusable during rainstorms, but they also are not useable the days before and after — in some instances — for field preparation work.

“You might lose three days of action on a natural grass field, whereas you can play all the way through on a turf field,” Marks said.

Grass fields need time to recover and turf fields are known to handle more consistent and constant abuse.

A second field at Treadwell Park, the natural grass Tilson Field, could be converted to turf, Marks said. He added that this renovation is being explored by the Parks and Recreation Department and there may be a possibility of achieving cost savings to the project if this field and the high school field were both redone at the same time by the same company. This, of course, is not possible if the high school field is not redone, Marks said.

Recreation teams in town not only have to share field time and space with the school teams, but also have to share within the program.

“Practices are shorter than they should be and practices are also more condensed than they should be,” Marks said.

Marks explained that often times four soccer teams are sharing the field for a practice. He said lacrosse, which is currently only a spring sport, could develop into a spring and fall sport like soccer, due to a growing number of participants.

RoseAnn Reggiano, the assistant director of the Parks and Recreation Department, said there are some 17,000 participants in the town’s recreation programs. When it comes to outdoor sports that are impacted by the field crunch, Newtown has roughly 2,300 spring athletes, 300 summer athletes, and about 3,000 fall athletes. These numbers are on the rise and more and more athletes join the recreation programs.

Gaston believes the voters will give the thumbs up to this project, but urges residents to show support.

“I think it will be a close vote. I think it will pass, but I think every voter needs to get out and vote,” Gaston said. “I think every vote counts — and I am hopeful that it goes through.”