Local Group Continues Push To Upgrade Playing Fields In Fairfield

FAIRFIELD, CT — Adamant on behalf of its mission to get more turf fields in town, the Fairfield Athletic Foundation held a press conference Thursday evening at Sullivan Field stating, in essence, that it doesn’t intend to go away.

“We’re basically just calling on the town to invest in our fields,” said Dylan O’Connor, who co-chairs the FAF group.

A native of the town, and a member of its Parks and Recreation Commission, O’Connor has strong feelings that more attention needs to be given to the overused playing fields.

“Fairfield is a great town, but our fields are not,” he said. “This is just an opportunity for the elected bodies in town to know that people are not going to stand for it.”

At this point the group would like to see three new turf fields created — two at Sullivan Field, for use for football, soccer and field hockey, and then another over at Roger Ludlowe Middle School.

The town currently has a turf field at each high school, as well as Tomlinson Middle School, but the FAF want to ultimately see more there as well.

“There are 19 high schools in the FCIAC,” said Brendan Sullivan, who co-chairs the FAF group, “16 have multiple turf surfaces at their high schools.”

He said there are 14,000 athletes in Fairfield ages five to 18 competing in a range of sports and activities throughout the year, but most never have the chance to work on turf.

In many cases, the group maintains, even time on the grass is limited because the grass fields require a lot of maintenance and don’t have adequate time to heal from use.

“The purpose is to really get some focus on this issue,” Sullivan said.

The first phase of creating these three turf fields, O’Brien estimates, will cost the town around $5.5 million, but the FAF intends to pitch in.

“Our plan right now calls for roughly $1.5 to $1.7 million that we can bring comfortably to the table,” he said, but first the town as a whole has to sanction a public-private partnership with the FAF.

He said 2,000 signatures have been gathered in support of the initiative, but governing bodies — in particular the Board of Finance — need to give their approval.

“Money should not be an issue,” Sullivan said, arguing that the town has the money as compared to other municipalities that have built the fields.

He said that dollar for dollar, this investment would benefit many more people than, for instance, providing air conditioning in schools or dealing with drainage issues in particular neighborhoods.

“I am not saying they’re not important, but nothing would benefit a bigger slice of this town than investing in our recreational facilities,” he said.

In an email Wednesday to Patch, Sullivan and O'Connor clarified they were not suggesting funding for fields should be a higher priority than school air conditioning or addressing drainage issues, but rather that they felt improving the fields in town was equally important.

"We don't view these issues as an 'either or' situation; we believe strongly that the town should be able to address all of these issues, air conditioning for schools, drainage and field improvements, at the same time," the email said.