Haddonfield United is responding to the recent announcement by the Borough commissioners that they will borrow at least $356,000 towards the costs of installing artificial turf on the green acres property known as “Anniversary Field,” which is located next to the stadium field at Haddonfield Memorial High School.
Haddonfield United believes that our elected officials must fully investigate and disclose all costs and all material impacts of the turf before committing taxpayer funds.
This past fall, the Haddonfield Environmental Commission presented a list of questions to borough and school district officials in which they inquired about the environmental and financial impacts of the proposal turf. Unfortunately the Environmental Commission’s questions have to been met to date with deafening silence from officialdom.
But clearly more analysis and answers are needed. Anniversary Field, for example, is a challenging location for turf.
During Hurricane Sandy, Anniversary Field experienced significant flooding and damage from falling trees and tree limbs. Only a few months earlier, Underwood Engineering had determined that fill and water beneath the surface of Anniversary Field required additional analysis to determine a “budget for removal and replacement of fill to establish necessary volume of structural fill required by the [turf] design.”
Unfortunately the $355,121.14 estimate secured by the Haddonfield Turf Committee for the installation of turf at Anniversary Field, which now forms the basis for the commissioners’ pledge to borrow $356,000, omitted potential costs such as “Rock excavation or removal,” “removal and remediation of unsuitable subgrade soils,” and certain “storm sewer improvements.”
What will those additional costs be and how do the commissioners plan on covering them if incurred?
More importantly, what will the total costs be for turf at both Anniversary Field and stadium field in the coming years, inclusive of all installation, construction, maintenance and replacement?
The $356,000 cost which the commissioners have put out there in recent weeks is just a snapshot of initial costs, and it does not allow local residents to get a clear picture of the longer-term expense of an undertaking that would be nice to have but is certainly not an urgent necessity.
Certainly our elected officials should have addressed the questions above many months ago. Fortunately, however, the stopwatch has not run out entirely on the deadline for them to provide clear and comprehensive answers.
Let’s demand that we have those answers soon.
Brian Kelly
Founder, Haddonfield United
