Debate Continues Over New High School Field

Concerns surrounding the proposed athletics complex at Long Beach High School continued during a work session at the middle school Tuesday, when Superintendent David Weiss and the Board of Education read the first draft of a revised policy on the school district’s buildings and facilities.

The meeting follows contentious debates, mainly between the district and residents neighboring the high school, at a series of board meetings in 2010, and two forums held late last year at the Long Beach Library, where school officials and community members sat together to discuss the policy’s content.

Among the issues under review include eligibility and external fees, availability to community-based groups, and hours of use, with an emphasis on the existing athletic field at the middle school and a new turf field at the high school that is due to break ground in 2014. This field will feature five 70-foot lights, and their hours of use, along with the decibel levels of new sound systems and outside bells at both schools, were the most-discussed topics Tuesday.

Weiss said he didn’t think there would be universal agreement on every aspect of the policy, and most of its content was settled by consensus. “I think there will be pieces of this that people will find objectionable,” he said.

The Long Beach community in 2009 voted to approve the reconstructed fields as part of a $94 million bond to upgrade district-wide buildings and facilities. Weiss noted that the revised policy's fee structure pertaining to external groups, which includes a $60 per hour charge for using the lights, would cover additional costs for use of the facilities so that the district doesn’t incur them.

“We’re trying to strike a balance so that we can maximize the advantage for the community of the facilities that they have provided, and at the same time to accommodate residents in the area,” Weiss said.

Blackheath Road resident Greg Naham pointed out that the executive summary of the original site plan for the high school field that the community approved indicates no lights or sound system. Fellow resident Paul Fisher called the policy that allows the lights and sound systems up to 9:30 p.m. “an affront to the community.”

Michael DeVito, the district’s chief operating officer, said that at both forms at the library, there was no consensus on when to shut down the lights. “So in order to have a field illuminated, so it’s consistent with daylight use, 9:30 p.m. could be a reasonable time to cut them off,” DeVito said of the district’s decision.

But Blackheath resident Darlene Haut, who attended one forum, challenged DeVito. “In my judgment there was more than a majority of people that wanted to set a time earlier than 9:30, like 8 or 8:30, family time,” said Haut, who encouraged the board to re-visit this issue.

Following Tuesday’s meeting, Board Trustee Pat Gallagher said the high school complex plan includes moving the Black heath Pre-Kindergarten School to the Lido Complex, and taking with it parents who drive at least 250 students to and from the school down Blackhead Road each weekday.

Among the local external organizations that use the district's facilities are the Long Beach Recreation Center, and the PTA. Some residents expressed concern that more new groups may use the high school facilities.  

Weiss indicated that the district doesn't anticipate any such increase. “I’m not so sure that this is like the Field of Dreams, where if we build, they will come,” Weiss said. “We have not seen an increase with our middle school of new groups emerging for use of the facilities.”