School Board Approves $3 Million Athletic Field Recommendation

Granby Memorial High’s athletic fields may finally be getting their much-needed makeovers, as they were included in the Board of Education’s $3.4 million recommendation to the town’s Capital Program Priority Advisory Committee.

The school board made the unanimous recommendation, the first step in the process of having the project put to voters in a capital improvements bonding question in a January 2012 referendum, at its regular meeting on Wednesday.

In a presentation by school board member Matthew Wutka, the school district, if it fails in its attempt to acquire land adjacent to the high school, has the option of installing for $3 to 3.3 million the following by a well-known firm: a six-lane track; two synthetic-surface fields on top of the current footprints at the high school; lights at one of the fields for small-ball sports like lacrosse; handicapped-accessible bleachers; and fencing.

The fields would service some 15 teams at the high school, Wutka said.

An additional $165,000 would go to a lab at the high school, according to Wutka.

School board Chairman Cal Heminway said that the school district should not give up on trying to acquire land for playing fields near the high school, at a price tag of about $500,000.

“We should avail ourselves as the Board of Education to see if we can acquire that land,” Heminway said.

In the end, the recommendation to CPPAC, which will meet on Nov. 21, was for $3.4 million with a variable on whether the school board could make progress on the land acquisition.

Resident Eileen Swan questioned whether the school board should be trying to spend $3 million on athletic fields after having just engaged in a lengthy debate over whether the district could implement all-day kindergarten at an additional $300,000 per year.

Heminway noted that the funding would come from a separate fund - capital improvements - rather than the operating budget.

“Capital funds are spent just once, while the operating budget you have to come up with every year,” Heminway noted. “There will be questions [from the community about the spending].”

Furthermore, the athletic fields project is one of the last pieces of the 25-year school improvement plan devised back in the 1980s, Heminway.

The fields also have to be brought up to code by making them handicapped accessible, Wutka said.

School board member John O’Connor said that the track at the high school is made of cinder and cannot accommodate meets because it’s not based on the metric system.

“Let’s face it: our athletic fields are an embarrassment,” Superintendent of Schools Alan Addley said.

The athletic fields project would be just one of several things that the town will likely seeks to bond, including the replacement of the Silver Street Bridge, a mulit-million dollar, high-priority item that CPPAC will also consider at its meeting this Monday.