Reader says Time to Pull the Plug of Turf Fields
It’s time to pull the plug on our turf fields. The locations are not conducive to turf material. With the over $100,000 in repairs we could take that money to go back to grass. The money we have spent in fixing each if these damaged episodes could have been used for another employee or two in our maintenance dept which is short employees (our town’s landscape is falling apart and w the taxes we pay, our town should be looking well attended and it’s not!! The best landscaped areas are the ones donated by kind vendors, not our village tax dollars.). What about the Schedler property for turf, or Habernickel Farm, or Citizens park or one of the elementary schools that don’t flood?
the sports fanatics will never let that happen
Agreed, it is frustrating and costly when the turf has to be cleaned and repaired after flooding. But, remember, when those fields were grass the “Stadium” was used a maximum of a dozen times a year. 5 or 6 home football games and a couple of lacrosse games. And of course graduation. The field was so bad that visiting teams threatened to file official complaints and refuse to play on the field. Stevens was a glorified parking lot and nothing took place on that field besides RHS football practice and adult softball. Both of those fields are now in constant use. RHS Varsity and sub varsity sports (Football, soccer, lacrosse,) are on them almost non-stop during the afternoons and youth sports utilize them in the evenings and weekends almost non-stop as well. The result has been much improved conditions on the grass fields in town as most of the pre-season and poor weather “days” events are conducted on the turf fields and the grass fields are closed. If you look at if from the angle of cost per use, it isn’t even close even with the repair costs. The fields are much more “productive” and we’re not spending money on seed, weed killer, fertilizer, and labor for cutting and maintaining those fields. I’m not saying it is a wash but the total cost difference probably isn’t as great as you think.
Schedler, Habernickel, and Citizens are all Village owned fields. Might be fun to try and get the Village Council to step up and spend some money on any of those fields. They haven’t spent squat on maintaining Maple Park and now that field is going to have to be replaced. They can’t even agree on the simplest things, how would they even consider spending money on new fields?
One question I would ask. What ever happened to the dredging program that was begun a couple of years ago? Was it completed? I don’t recall seeing any “work” done near Graydon or down by Stevens or RHS. Multiply 2 or 3 feet of dredging times the length of the river and that adds up to a lot more room for a lot of water.
If the sports clubs have gotten so much value out of the fields, I would think it only fair that they step up and contribute to maintenance and depreciation. It shouldn’t always be the VC or BOE (the rest of us). Given that maintenance seems to be running about $100K year and depreciation another $200K for $1.5M to replace the carpets after a flood-shortened 7 year life, the sports clubs should be contributing on the order of $100K.
Raise dues if you have to — it’s part of the true cost of doing business.
And did they ever contribute everything they had promised for the lights?
Remove the friggin’ lights. This is not Friday Night Lights. Horrendous.
Trouble is not with grass but too many people and teams expecting the grass to withstand continuous use. It needs time to recover.
Reduce the number of teams and forget the leagues. Just stop it and give us our parks back. They’re all ruined.
Soccer 11 months a year…crazy…
The whole turf project has mission creep.
Flash flood warning for tomorrow. Good thing they didn’t fix the turf too fast.
put sod down.
Leave Citizens Park alone.
#9. Why shouldn’t Citizens and Habernakle have the luxury of turf.
Actually, I think that Habernakle should be condos.
you’ll never see condo’s in Habernickel the upper Ridgewood snobs would scream at the affordable housing units that would be required.
Turf the CBD.