Turf Vote Set for December

Voters in the Sag Harbor School District will return to the polls on Dec. 14 to decide the fate of the district’s plan to build an artificial turf athletic field behind Pierson Middle and High School in 2017.

Residents will vote yes or no on giving the school district permission to tap its capital reserve fund for $365,000 to supplement the money that was initially approved by bond referendum in November 2013. That amount, $1.62 million, fell short of what was actually needed to finance the turf field, prompting the board to attempt to tap its reserve. The field has since become a controversial issue, with parents and some school board members asserting that the proposed artificial turf would carry serious health risks because of its crumb rubber composition, among other things. 

During a three-hour meeting on Tuesday, the school board voted to increase the amount it planned to withdraw from the capital reserve fund from $300,000 to $365,000 to be able to choose a turf field option called CoolFill, a material said to keep the temperature of such fields lower on very hot days. The school board then passed the resolution formally setting the Dec. 14 vote.

“I understand that the community, as well as the board, is split on this, so I would just encourage everybody to come out and vote,” Diana Kolhoff, the school board president, said after the resolution had passed 5 to 2.

Tommy John Schiavoni, the board’s vice president, and Susan Lamontagne, another board member, voted no on both upping the capital reserve amount and setting the Dec. 14 vote. “I do not support this on behalf of the parents who do not want to put their children on a turf field,” Mr. Schiavoni said.

Sandi Kruel, a board member who voted in favor of setting the Dec. 14 vote, said she did so because she was “in favor of putting up what the public has already approved. I want to make that really clear — this proposition was put up years ago. . . . It is not necessarily my opinion. I feel it is my due diligence to put back on the table what the voters have already approved.”

The vote drew mixed responses. 

“I’m a little shook up and horrified that we are going forward with this vote,” said Catherine Smith, a parent who earlier in the meeting had compared allowing children to play on a turf field to attitudes toward smoking cigarettes decades ago.

“Thank you for remembering the people who voted for the turf field and allowing us to vote again to extend it,” Chris Arbita, another parent, told the board.

Bethany Semlear, Pierson’s varsity field hockey coach, lauded the board’s plan to move ahead with the vote. “It’s detrimental to us to play on grass,” she said. “Having the turf would be a great thing for field hockey, starting from our youth all the way up to our seniors.”

Peter Solow, a Pierson teacher who also coaches soccer, called the artificial turf field “an imperfect solution” to what he said was a lack of adequate facilities at Pierson. “This problem is not going to go away,” he said.