“There is a bigger and bigger fury growing about this. We’re not just going away,” warned Janis Donnaud, a Sag Harbor resident, during Monday night’s Sag Harbor School Board meeting. She was referring to mounting tensions within the community over the district’s plan to buy five residential lots along Marsden Street and turn them into athletic fields.
Despite the pushback, Jeff Nichols, the district superintendent, insisted that a vote to authorize the use of the school’s facilities fund for the purchase will be held on Nov. 3, as scheduled. If approved, plans will then be drawn to build athletic fields on the combined four-plus acres, which sit adjacent to Pierson High School.
Funding for the project would come from a combination of Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund money and a portion of the school district’s “facilities improvement” capital reserve fund. According to Mr. Nichols, the town would use about $6 million in preservation fund money to pay 70 percent of the cost, and the district would kick in $3.325 million to pay the remaining 30 percent.
The C.P.F. money would be conditioned on the district’s committing to use the land for athletic fields, which would be open to the public when not in use by students.
Southampton Town Councilman Tommy John Schiavoni said by phone this week that the C.P.F. purchase is far from a done deal. “The Southampton Town Board still needs to hold public hearings on whether they would commit to this purchase,” he said. As of yet, a resolution to schedule a public hearing is not on any agenda. “This is new territory for the C.P.F. fund,” Mr. Schiavoni said. “Do we want to release funds for a school to build out infrastructure? That’s a townwide policy decision.”
Another potential headwind for the district is an appeal filed last week by Peter Gethers, who lives near the high school, with the state commissioner of education, Betty Rosa. The appeal argues that the district failed to follow state educational law, which requires the district to inform voters as to the purpose of the money as well as the timeframe for when the funds would be spent. If successful, the appeal would invalidate the results of the Nov. 3 vote.
It’s the lack of answers to “elementary questions,” that has left Ms. Donnaud and others incensed, she said, calling the dearth of information “obscene.” Clearly angered by tight-lipped district officials, she lashed out at Monday’s school board meeting. “You have a plan and you won’t share it with us,” she accused the board.
There was irony, too — not lost on some of the onlookers. Preceding the public comment section, there were lengthy presentations about academic topics and school repair projects. There were elaborate science department reports from each of the three schools, an in-depth look at the completion of the school’s masonry work this summer, and a presentation giving the particulars of a middle school roof repair project.
A similar informational address about the Marsden Street project was what the community seemed to demand. Mr. Nichols had announced last week, however, that details about the fields’ development would be worked out after the land was bought.
That left Ms. Donnaud asking questions in rapid-fire succession on Monday night.
“Are you building buildings? How many? How high? How large? On what parts of the property? Will they be visible from the street? What other elements are there? Will there be a concession stand — that has been reported. Will there be bathrooms? Will there be an artificial turf track? Will there be lights? Stadium lighting, which we’ve heard contemplated as well? How is this vote being contemplated when we don’t think it has been reported to the public in a public way, in a way that it is supposed to?”
Another speaker, a man who said he had had four children at the school over many years, asked other questions. “Do we really need another athletic field? And probably the bigger question — how was this decision made? Was the decision the result of a district-wide master plan? The answer is clearly no. It was a top-down decision without a needs assessment. Ours is a public school requiring public input and an open process.”
Lauren Friedman, the mother of a 2-year-old, said that at the board’s last meeting she had watched the members cheer their own decision about the Marsden properties, “like it was a done deal, which for members of the community is really upsetting. This is supposed to be a community decision.”
Noting that the vote is two weeks away, another community member called in and said, “We don’t have the information we need to make an informed decision. I urge the board to delay that vote. Let us get more information and go from there.”
With Reporting by Christopher Gangemi