School Committee Offers Mixed Reactions to Athletic Fields Report

The Bedford School Committee received a presentation from members of the Outdoor Recreation Area Study Committee (ORASC) during their Tuesday night meeting concerning their proposal for a project that would turf and renovate Sabourin Field.

An article including the proposal for the $1.1 million project will be on the warrant for the Nov. 13 special town meeting.

David Sukoff, Chair of ORASC, introduced the presentation by summarizing the results of the report for the School Committee.

"Due to a significant shortage of fields, the town is unable to allow best practices for maintaining these fields," Sukoff said. "We simply can't because the demand is too great."

Elizabeth Cowles, an ORASC member, said the report found a shortfall of 1020 hours based on the supply provided by the current athletic fields in Bedford and the demand for use of these fields, none of which are synthetic turf.

"We are extremely overusing our fields," Cowles said. "We end up with a lot of cancellations because fields become unplayable."

The shortage of available playing fields also results in unsafe playing conditions for some teams, Cowles said. 

"Sometimes you see the lacrosse team in the parking lot and the football team in the gym," Cowles said. "We're basically shoving these teams into very small spaces which is not safe."

The shortfall of more than 1000 hours based on the current supply of fields in Bedford could be addressed by the addition of three full size rectangular fields. 

Sukoff said by turfing Sabourin field, the town would gain back a portion of this shortage.

"Right now, essentially it's used for 50 hours a year," Sukoff said. "By turfing the field, we're assuming you get 300 hours of school use and 300 hours for recreation teams, contributing 600 hours total toward the 1000 hour shortfall."

Based on a conservative estimate for the total hours of use suggested for most synthetic turf fields, this would leave 300 hours annually for which the town could rent out the field for private use, according to Sukoff. 

"It's currently not being used except for football games," Sukoff said. "The hour increase is enormous."

While the committee explored other options besides turfing Sabourin to address the shortfall of athletic fields, such as development of the Saint Michael's land purchased by the town into two full size rectangular fields, they are suggesting the Sabourin project be tackled first, Sukoff said.

More than half of the $1.1 million cost of the project, approximately $600,000, could be made available through Community Preservation Act funding, according to Sukoff. 

School Committee members had a mixed response to the ORASC presentation. While most praised the work done by the committee, most also offered suggestions on how to improve the report before it is presented at special town meeting on Nov. 13. 

Brad Hafer, the School Committee representative to ORASC, commended the committee members on the extensive work they put in on such a large scale project.

"They put a lot of data to something that us that have kids that play sports in town have known for years," Hafer said. "We have a field problem."

Edward Pierce questioned whether it would be possible to put two separate articles on the warrant, one for the turfing of the field and another for renovations to the Sabourin track and bleachers, which, as of now, is included in the article dealing with turfing the field. 

Noreen O'Gara said she was pleased with the comprehensive assessment of the current supply and demand for athletic fields in Bedford.

"You took a big picture view," O'Gara said. "You included the really basic, good, common sense stuff that we haven't had the time to put together."

O'Gara also praised ORASC members for addressing concerns that synthetic turf fields are not as safe as grass fields.

"One concern was that turf fields are unsafe," O'Gara said. "Our grass fields are unsafe in their current condition. Thank you for pointing that out."

Abbie Seibert said she felt the ORASC report was lacking certain details such as where money to go toward lighting the field during increased hours of usage would come from.

Seibert also said she was concerned that the ORASC report seemed to address the shortage for high school teams, but not necessarily for town recreation teams. 

"A lot of this seems geared toward the high school's needs," Seibert said. "I'm wondering where other recreation teams come in."

Anne Bickford said she questioned whether the  ORASC report and Sabourin turfing project was ready to be presented to Bedford residents during the Nov. 13 special town meeting or whether it would be better to wait until spring town meeting. 

Bickford also asked ORASC members whether asking town recreation leagues to add a surcharge onto their registration fees to go toward field usage, which the ORASC report currently puts forward as a suggestion, would create an expectation among parents that their children would be playing on Sabourin regularly.

Sukoff said while town recreation teams could expect to play on Sabourin sometimes, the surcharge would also go toward improved field quality on other town fields as a result of more available hours at Sabourin.

"The overall field quality will improve," Sukoff said. "That's what they will pay the surcharge for."