Resident: Parsippany BOE Lacking Courage, Honesty By Moving Forward With Turf Project

Editor’s note: In January 2013, Parsippany voters defeated a referendum to put turf on the football fields at Parsippany and Parsippany Hills high schools, make upgrades to the Parsippany High School track, and erect light towers at both schools. Last week, the board of education moved forward with the plan despite the vote from two years ago. The initial plan had a price tag of $7.7 million.

Dear Editor,

On January 22, 2013 Parsippany voters, by the resounding count of 2,373 to 1,745, defeated a Board of Education sponsored Referendum to spend millions of tax dollars to upgrade the Parsippany High School (PHS) and Parsippany Hills High School (PHHS) outdoor athletic field facilities. On February 19, 2015, the Board of Education demonstrated its absolute disdain for the wishes expressed by the majority of the residents who participated in the 2013 Referendum as the BOE voted to proceed with spending millions of tax payer dollars to turf the football fields at PHS and PPHS, to refurbish the track at PHS and to erect light towers at PHS and PHHS.

While doing so the BOE delegated its responsibility for analyzing the health and safety issues related to turf fields (which are made of pulverized tires and which according to the Environmental Protection Agency contain mercury, lead, benzene, polycyclic, aromatic hydorcarbons and arsenic, among several other chemicals, heavy metals and carcinogens) to the engineering firm that the Board has hired and paid to move the field turfing project forward. Ignoring the EPA’s position that more testing has to done, the Board of Education simply ducked potential health issues and by so doing failed in its responsibility to see to it that the research required to ensure our children’s safety was conducted and discussed in an open and public manner.

While doing so the BOE also failed to explain what type of cost benefit analysis it had actually conducted to determine if their just approved expenditure of millions of dollars on outdoor athletic field facilities improvements was in the best interests of all of the thousands of the students in the District. With 14 school buildings, many more than 60 years of age, and with capital improvement projects that by the Board’s own estimate will average $3 million annually for the next five years, did the Board conduct the required due diligence to ensure that their decision to replace grass fields with turf fields was more important than the roofs, windows and generators that are or that will be in need of replacement? When Mr. Corso, Assistant Superintendent for Business/Chief Financial and Operations Officer, was asked at the Board meeting where the Board had found the millions of tax dollars it proposed to spend on the athletic facilities upgrades, (in what had always been a cash strapped District), Mr. Corso simply said that he didn’t know. If he doesn’t know, than the Board can’t know and that reality underscores the question as to whether or not any meaningful cost benefit analysis was conducted.

While doing so the BOE signaled to District employees, who will soon be entering contract negotiations, that the BOE has clearly determined its spending priorities and that the attraction and retention of top talent and the introduction of 21st century technology and educational programs will just have to take a back seat for the time being. No wonder the BOE didn’t want the voters of Parsippany to have the opportunity to participate in another Referendum to determine if the majority had changed their minds with regard to spending millions of tax dollars to turf the PHS and PPHS football fields, construct light towers and refurbish the PHS track. If the BOE had chosen that path then they would have been required to conduct the necessary due diligence to ensure that issues defining student safety, fiscal prudence and priority setting were fully considered. But that’s work and finding and telling the truth takes courage and on both those fronts the Board of Education gets a failing grade.

Bob Crawford
Hidden Glen Drive
Parsippany

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