On Monday, we had a meeting. Here are the highlights.
We started with meeting with a very informative presentation from a team of students from the Montclair State University PSEG Institute for Sustainable Studies. The presentation was on Centennial Field and the pros and cons of replacing the turf field with natural grass. Centennial Field, which is over 13 years old, is past the point of the average life span for a turf field and needs to be replaced. This presentation provided useful information on the drawbacks and benefits of turf. The students looked at environmental impact, chemical exposure, injury, surface heat, playable hours, and cost. You can see their presentation here.
The team concluded that it would be a better alternative to replace Centennial Field with natural grass, even after accounting for the costs to water the field, providing expert maintenance with an outside firm, and constructing it with adequate drainage to ensure maximized playing time. The only issue with their report was due to an error on Verona's part on the data that was provided to them. For some reason, the amount of time that the high school uses the field was not given to them in their analysis of playing time. We will need to add that into the conversation as we move forward.
As I stated in the meeting, this report is just the start of a long analytical process on how to proceed, and we will need a lot of feedback from athletes, parents in our community, sports organizations and school administration. If we convert this field to natural grass - how does that impact the high school field hockey program and other high school sports that use that field? How does this field fit into all of the fields that we have in our community? We will need to consider all angles before moving forward.
The second part of our meeting was a go/no go decision on moving forward on Everett Field, about 1 hr into the meeting. This project has been modified and scaled back a lot since its original design to appease environmental stakeholders. Verona Baseball and Softball League (VBSL) have made significant concessions. The field will remain natural grass, even though turf would have resulted in more playing time. The field was not expanded in size to protect trees, which means that that VBSL will not be able to join the official Little League organization as we don't have a field in town that is the appropriate size. A parking lot exit on Westview was abandoned to protect a large shade tree.
In addition VBSL has stepped up and offered to donate the entire construction of the ADA bathroom, snack bar, and announcing booth (a small 2 story building) and they are going to donate the scoreboard. This saves the project costs of $630,000. That donation is significant and I am so appreciative that they have agreed to do that. With the grants we received ($810K) and that donation, the project costs decreased from over $4 million to $2.8 million.
The Council discussion was very frustrating to me, and we did not walk away from the meeting with a firm decision. Additional questions were raised by the Council Majority, and once again, Deputy Mayor McEvoy, who lives near the field, raised a series of objections. He wants to move the location of the snack bar/bathrooms, have the Township consider not replacing the bleachers and keep instead what is currently there, and not fully pave the parking lot and keep some of it grass. He asked for a special meeting with the Administration and the engineers to discuss his concerns.
Let me state on the record - I am in favor of moving forward on this project and is it is long overdue. I am so thankful to the leadership of the entire VBSL organization for their willingness to donate significantly towards the project and for the numerous concessions they have made. As a parent who have watched my children play on Everett - we know how important it is to get this project done. It must be done though with a certain standard. Let's not whittle this project away even further and have it look sub-par as compared to fields in other towns where our children compete.
I encourage you to watch the meeting firsthand (link here) and we would love your feedback on this project. You can send the entire Council a note here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.
Our meeting then had one of the most significant public comment periods in a long time. A variety of issues were discussed including the size and scope of the new emergency services complex, planned development in West Orange on the boarder of Verona, affordable housing, and VBSL's response to the Everett Field discussion. I don't normally summarize public comment in these updates, but I thank all of residents who spoke up and the feedback that we received. It is so important to good governance to hear from residents.
After public comment we actually had Council discussion on the public safety complex, which was around 2 hrs 15 minutes into the meeting. While informal feedback, it is clear that several Council members, including myself, would like to have a public discussion on the size and scope of this initial design of the building.
The official business of the meeting was conduced very efficiently after that. We made minor changes to our ordinances governing our advisory committees, though one significant change was that we expanded the recreation advisory committee from 6 members to 9.
Under resolutions we accepted a significant grant of $150K from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities Clean Fleet Grant program. We formally recognized that the Balston/Windemere/Whitney project came in under budget at $63K, and approved contracts for firefighting equipment and tax appeals.
As with all meetings, please send any feedback on what we discussed to the entire Council here: https://www.veronanj.org/councilcontactform.
I announced at the meeting that I will not be in attendance at our next meeting on August 19th. I was selected to be part of the NJ delegation to the Democratic National Convention and will be there at that time. I will watch the meeting when I return and summarize what the Council discussed.
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