Holmdel Mayor Eric Hinds Stands Up for Turf Fields at Cross Farm Park

Holmdel, NJ - The battle over turf fields at Cross Farm Park only intensified this week, with news that a group of Holmdel residents has now sued the Township, in an attempt to try and force Holmdel to hold a public vote on whether or not turf should be installed there.

On Tuesday night, Holmdel Mayor Eric Hinds defended the turf fields, which the Township Committee voted to pay for via a $3.3 million bond. The committee approved the bond at their Sept. 6 meeting.

"Parents have been asking for these turf fields for years," said Mayor Hinds. "I've gotten literally hundreds of emails over the years asking for turf and lights. We've got 700 kids playing rec soccer, 300 kids playing lacrosse and the one turf field in our town was installed in the 1970s."

He's referring to the lone turf field in Holmdel, at the high school.

"We have great youth sports in Holmdel, but they don't have places to practice at night," he said. "Parents work and they don't get home until 5:30 or 6 or later, and we need lights to provide for evening practices and games."

The $3.3 million bond would be paid back by fees paid by the town's rec teams and tax dollars from Holmdel's open space fund. But opponents question whether open space tax dollars should be used to pay for synthetic sports fields.

"There are questions as to how the money can legally be used for open space and does this project meet those requirements? Artificial fields, more black top for more parking, large lights," said Barbara Singer, who is running to unseat Hinds in the Township Committee election Nov. 8. Singer, and her running mate, Karen Strickland, are against the turf fields. (Read more on that election here.)

"Secondly, why not reinvest into what we already have to upkeep and improve our 'natural' sport fields and surrounding areas?" Singer asked.

But Hinds says Holmdel's open space fund was designed, in part, exactly for reasons like this: To preserve and improve recreational open space.

"Part of the open space tax goes to the improvement and maintenance of Holmdel's parks," he said. "Cross Farm Park is hundreds of acres and this is one acre that was originally designed for recreational activities. It was designed for this very reason."

The lawsuit, filed by a group calling itself Preserve Holmdel, seeks to force Holmdel to hold a public vote sometime after Nov. 8 on whether or not that $3.3 million bond should be approved. Some 700 Holmdel residents signed a petition against the turf fields, asking for a referendum. The Holmdel Township Clerk reviewed the petition and found about 170 of those signatures were not valid — they were either forgeries, people from out of town or unregistered voters, he said. Hinds also said he never spoke out against holding a public vote on the bond.

"I never said I was against a public vote, never," he said. "We are following the process here: Our clerk would verify the petition and then it would go to vote. We're following the process and for whatever reason they feel it was necessary to sue the town. It's perplexing to me."

Hinds is a volunteer soccer coach for one of the town's soccer clubs. But he said he consulted with the township's lawyers and they said he did not have to recuse himself from voting on the fields, because he is an unpaid volunteer.