A committee formed to perform an independent assessment of the issues surrounding the installation of lights on the football, soccer, and lacrosse fields at both high schools has released its final report to the WW-P school board.
The report, released during the board’s December 15 meeting, focuses on key concerns of neighbors, specifically those living near High School South in West Windsor, who are worried about academic impact, noise and light pollution, and security on the fields.
Still, the Independent Field Lights Committee, which was commissioned to help the board analyze whether to support a private proposal to raise funds to install the lights, did not make a recommendation about whether or not to do the actual installation of the field lights.
The report “has been prepared to raise specific issues that the board should consider if the decision is to recommend and proceed with the fundraising efforts for the installation of lights.”
According to board president Hemant Marathe, the report will be discussed by the administration and finance committees next month, and they will make a recommendation. No formal action is expected until sometime in January. “The whole focus of the committee was not to make a recommendation to begin with,” Marathe said. “The purpose was to just find the facts.”
The committee was formed after two residents, Pat Boyle and Manny Efstathios, approached the board over the summer to say would set up an athletic foundation under the auspices of the West Windsor-Plainsboro Education Foundation to help fund the lighting of the new turf fields at both high schools.
The two residents said they wanted to either set up a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization as a stand-alone entity, separate from the school district, or organize it under the WWPEF, already a separate nonprofit for fundraising. They said they had experience in fundraising for lights at other fields in both communities, including at Community Park in West Windsor. They also have worked with community sports organizations.
According to the report, members of the independent committee, including Skip Evans, Janet Greenman, Elliott Korsen, and Jeffrey Miller, interviewed various stakeholders and conducted their own research in preparing the report.
They talked to the concerned neighbors, Boyle and Efstathios, school officials, principals, athletic director Marty Flynn, local realtors, and law enforcement professionals. They used the information from these interviews to make six key points in their report.
The first was that no official group of people has been campaigning for the installation of the lights. The offer by the two residents was to raise money to provide funding for the lights. “This effort was made with the understanding that fundraising in these economic conditions would be challenging and take a large, coordinated effort.”
Boyle and Efstathios told them that the installation of the lights would cost between $240,000 and $260,000 using energy-efficient lighting with a 25-year guarantee and that auxiliary lighting would probably also be required. They “made it clear that they have no position either for or against the field lights,” the report stated.
The group of concerned neighbors — Deane Bornheimer, Paul Van Der Werf, Neale Campanella, Alexandra Lawrence, Donna Tillson, and Genevieve Stiefel — living adjacent to South “have indicated that they would not support the installation of lights under any conditions,” the report stated. “This group is a very vocal opposition who has indicated that legal action is a potential option.”
One alternative pointed out by the committee was to only install lights on the fields at High School North for use by both schools.
Even though the funds would be raised privately, the community would be required to bear additional costs, including auxiliary lighting, ongoing operations, and maintenance expenses such as electricity, the committee reported. However, the committee also pointed out that these costs would be offset by eliminating the costs of using other lighted county facilities.
The committee also urged the board to address safety and security concerns, specifically as they relate to the impact on the adjacent neighborhoods when an evening event on a lighted field brings large groups of people to the school facility. “In speaking with local law enforcement, there were no additional costs raised related to evening events versus daytime events,” the committee reported.
Establishing operating rules and hours is imperative to controlling the number of events and uses and to minimize the impact to the adjacent neighborhoods, the committee stated.
During the interviews, neighbors told the committee that they were most concerned about noise generated by the public address announcers and marching bands . The residents also told the committee that currently, even during daytime events, “there is a fair amount of smoking, drinking, and general mischief that goes on in the area behind the visitor’s side of the football field and behind the concessions stand at South,” and neighbors feel the problems will worsen if more nighttime games are added.
The neighbors also said they were concerned about overflow parking iin their streets and the financial impact of having the police department providing additional security for night games. Academic impact was also a concern for the neigbors, who said the students are currently stretched to the limit with a demanding academic workload and extracurricular activities.
However, “the concerned neighbors did not feel that other night activities that are currently taking place relating to music, drama, etc. had similar academic impact.”
The independent committee also spoke to realtors, who told them they did not believe that the installation of lights would have a significant effect on property values. “The opinions ranged from no impact at all to a 5 to 8 percent reduced property value,” the committee reported.
The committee also contacted five other Mercer County police chiefs, in municipalities whose high schools have lighted fields. Those chiefs as well as those in West Windsor and Plainsboro said they did not feel holding the events at night would impose an additional security concern.
South Principal Charles Rudnick told the committee he felt the negatives of installing the lights outweighed the positives and that the lights would create more wear on the turf fields, possibly increase misbehavior at the events, and impact academics.
North principal Michael Zapicchi, however, said the lights would create greater opportunities for parents to see their children in events and a greater opportunity for students to participate in other afternoon and evening activities. He also suggested graduation could be held on the fields if there were adequate lighting.
