Calls For Adding Artificial Turf To Park In Sag Harbor Are Growing Louder Once Again

When the Sag Harbor School District reached an agreement with the board of directors of Mashashimuet Park on the terms of a capital improvement project that, upon voter approval, would provide much needed upgrades to the athletic facilities at the privately owned park that the district’s athletic programs have called home for decades, it was the result of months of negotiation.

The district, park board and many residents and parents of children in the district seem happy with much of the proposed $13.5 million plan, with one notable exception: the absence of an artificial turf field.

A group of parents has been increasingly vocal in recent weeks, speaking up at Sag Harbor School Board meetings, expressing frustration that the plans, which include the rebuilding of several baseball and softball fields, improvements to bathroom facilities, and the addition of an outdoor track facility, call for a natural grass field.

The new field, set for the interior of the track, will be the right size and dimension to host soccer and field hockey games, but will make the district one of the few in Suffolk County that does not provide its student-athletes access to an artificial turf playing surface.

Twenty years ago, artificial turf fields were the exception, not the norm, but that has been flipped on its head over the last decade-plus. The vast majority of the varsity soccer, lacrosse, football and field hockey teams in the county — and, indeed, across the country — now practice and compete on artificial turf fields.

They have evolved drastically over the years from the days of when it was called Astroturf, a notoriously hard and unforgiving surface that led to many injuries at the collegiate and professional ranks. Modern versions of artificial surfaces still provide the smoothness and uniformity that have always been its main benefit, but are now softer and easier on an athlete’s body when they are required to dive or slide, or are taken out by a tackle, foul or sack.

Most athletes and coaches participating in field sports will agree that it is preferable to play on artificial turf as opposed to grass, and most districts favor them because, unlike natural grass, they are immune to damage from inclement weather and cost significantly less to maintain, meaning a larger number of teams can play and practice on them without any adverse effects.

Those factors are all part of the discussion and debate around attempts to bring artificial turf to the Sag Harbor School District, but one issue that several residents and parents have brought up lately is the particularly negative effect that the lack of an artificial turf field stands to have for one of the district’s longtime standout sports programs — field hockey.

It has been the marquee program at Pierson, with the most hardware in the school’s trophy case. The field hockey team has been to the New York State Final Four more than 10 times, far more than any other program, and is the only other team to win a state championship, which it did in 2013, aside from the boys basketball team, which won its only state crown in 1978.

The idea that the shining jewel of the school’s athletic programs — one that is a female sports team, no less — continues to be placed at a distinct competitive disadvantage because of an inability to provide it with a proper playing surface does not sit well with many parents.

The district is currently still looking for someone to fill the varsity coaching position, just weeks before the season is set to start. Last year, the team opted to play the majority of its games away, so it could compete on artificial turf at opponents’ fields.

While it is still not unheard of for sports like football, soccer and lacrosse to be played on grass, the game of field hockey has evolved in recent years in a way that essentially renders it a totally different game when played on grass than on turf. Because nearly every varsity field hockey program in Suffolk County plays and practices on artificial turf, Pierson’s team is unarguably at a continued and increasing disadvantage every year it continues to play on grass.

Sag Harbor Superintendent of Schools Jeff Nichols had this to offer when asked about the lack of inclusion of an artificial turf field in the capital improvement project, which will be funded entirely by the district:

“The park board negotiating committee has been wonderful to work with, and it’s been a productive and collaborative process,” he said. “With regard to turf, we stated to the park board early on that what was driving the school’s desire to put a bond out was to address the athletic facility needs for our students, and one of the components of facility needs was a turf field. So from the very beginning, we’ve requested a turf field in the middle of the track.

“And the park board has been consistent from the start that they did not support that, for aesthetic reasons.”

Nichols said that despite the fact that the park board has not wavered on that position from the start, he still reached out once more a few weeks ago, pointing out the increased calls from vocal parents to include a turf field in the plans.

“I’ve been contacted by others expressing their disappointment with the fact that there’s not a turf field in the plans, and specifically asking how you cannot include a turf field, which, if that comes to pass, will damage significantly one of our flagship athletic programs,” Nichols continued. “In response to those concerns, I did bring it up with the park board negotiating committee again and requested that they consider turf one more time, and their response was they were not interested in turf.”

Janine Rayano is the president of the Mashashimuet Park board, and has been intimately involved in the negotiations with the district. Earlier this week, she offered insight into the park board’s thinking about the issue, and why they are adamant about not including artificial turf in the plans.

“The park is a green space, and [the board] has always made decisions based on the environment,” Rayano said, adding that concerns surrounding artificial turf — including that installing it disrupts the natural environment and that the crumb rubber infill on the fields is potentially carcinogenic — have not been sufficiently addressed in a way that would make the board feel comfortable agreeing to it. “The park is a green space, not an athletic facility. We have athletic fields there, but it’s first place is as a park.”

Ed Hollander is an experienced landscape architect who has done work in the village on a number of high-profile projects. He has been working, pro bono, as a landscape architect for the Mashashimuet Park board on the plans for the capital improvement project, which is being done in an official capacity by H2M, the architectural and engineering firm for the district.

Regarding the debate around the turf field, Hollander said that he thinks a strong argument can be made on both sides of the debate, but that he sees no particularly compelling reason to advocate firmly against the inclusion of turf.

“I told the board that compromising and doing artificial turf in the middle of the track, in my mind, wasn’t the worst idea in the world,” he said. “I don’t want to get in the middle of a group of residents that feel strongly about it both ways. I think you can argue it intellectually both ways. I’ve always been one to think that compromise is a lost art.

“But from a landscape and ecological standpoint, I don’t have a problem with making the field inside the track out of artificial turf. I don’t have a problem with it visually, aesthetically or ecologically.”

Rayano acknowledged that the track is an artificial surface but said the board felt that the track represented the limit in terms of how far it was willing to go in regard to allowing artificial surfaces in the plan.

Rayano said she was aware of the particular problem that the lack of a turf field represents for the field hockey team, and said the board was sensitive to that issue, but that ultimately they feel that the park is not the appropriate place for the installation of an artificial turf field.

“We’re certainly not anti-field hockey,” she said. “We’re not anti-anything. We’re pro-green.”

This explanation likely will not be satisfying to the group of parents who have been outspoken over the past few months about the fact that, despite footing the bill for the project — and paying the park a large sum of money every year in a lease agreement to use the athletic facilities — the district does not have final say in what does or does not happen at the park.

The terms of a new 17-year lease that the district would enter into with the park upon the passage of the bond vote in September include a steep increase in the amount of money the district will be required to pay the park to use and account for maintenance of the facilities every year. Those parents say they are upset with the fact that the park, which is a community resource and funds the majority of its budget from its agreement with the school, which is of course itself funded by resident taxpayer dollars — is not operating in a transparent manner. Because it is a privately owned entity, it is not technically obligated to do so, from a legal standpoint

“The district is doing the best it can in working with the park to get as many of the facility needs addressed as we can,” Nichols said. “But, ultimately, the district doesn’t make calls, because we don’t own the property.

“I understand the frustration,” Nichols said. “It’s a legitimate concern on the part of parents. If the district was in charge of the plan that was adopted, there would be artificial turf in the middle of the track. But we’re not in charge. The decision at this point is to get as much as we can done so we can meet the facility needs of the athletic programs.”

The bond vote on the park project is tentatively set for September 29.