What a mess the Marsden Street proposal has become. It’s the result of a toxic stew: school district officials hellbent on a project, with only passing interest in actually addressing opponents’ concerns, and an aggrieved community that was more interested in talking than listening. Add in a Southampton Town Board that may pull the rug out from under Sag Harbor at the last minute, and it should be in a textbook for how not to manage a major community project.
To try to restore some clarity, here are a series of statements that should be considered facts, though there’s certainly energy to argue every facet of this debacle within the community. If nothing else, it could help reset the conversation and begin to seek a reasonable conclusion.
This project began as an artificial turf field. Rooted in the ongoing talks with Mashashimuet Park, and a failed effort to convince the park board to allow a synthetic surface there, the Sag Harbor School District instead jumped on real estate across from Pierson Middle-High School as a place to install one. There is a strong belief within the school sports community that a synthetic field would greatly benefit several of its competitive teams.
The community does not want an artificial turf field — period. This does not seem to be open to debate. While voters may have approved, narrowly, a referendum in 2013 for the construction of a turf field, the last time school district taxpayers were asked to weigh in on turf it was roundly rejected.
An opportunity to add adjacent land to the school district is rare and valuable. Most district residents seem on board with the purchase, broadly, according to the most recent balloting. Using that space for an athletic field would save some student-athletes a mile-plus trek to Mashashimuet Park for practices and games.
Involving the Community Preservation Fund changed everything. First, town officials were wary of using land preservation funds for an artificial turf field and related facilities. Then, it became essential to introduce a “community access” plan, since town money was being used to make the purchase possible. It’s also a new use for CPF funds that could create a gold rush among school districts, which certainly can find creative ways to justify an influx of a few million dollars for … something.
A grass field won’t really solve anything. Yes, it’s another field, closer to the school. But the original motivation — giving athletes the same kind of facility they typically compete on at other schools — is gone. And the community access, if it’s significant, will tear up the natural turf, leaving it both substandard and in need of constant maintenance.
School facilities should be near schools, and in residential areas. Some opponents seem to miss the point: Schools have athletic fields and, yes, lights and parking lots. Pierson’s footprint is not adequate, and it’s a miracle that it can address that. A healthy neighborhood allows a school to grow as its needs grow.
Like it or not, opposition is NIMBY-ism. The term gets lobbed around as an insult, and as an ad hominem attack on any argument. But this, clearly, is a case where the strongest opposition is from neighbors of the targeted properties. See above: Living near a school means living near fields and lights and squealing kids and parking lots. They’re in some people’s backyards, yes. That’s called a functioning village.
The school district has not handled this well. From the start, its officials have fed a narrative of a district that didn’t want to hear opponents, didn’t want to address their concerns, only wanted to steamroll them. There were key moments when a little bit of patience might have helped identify a compromise solution. Instead, it’s a full-scale standoff, one that will be difficult to break.
Opponents haven’t, either. There doesn’t need to be a single level of emotional engagement for all municipal disagreements — and one involving a school district, over a proposal that’s almost completely for the benefit of students, doesn’t require such enmity. The value of real estate is important, but it’s not the final measure of a debate’s stakes.
The Marsden purchase makes sense for the school district. But the twisting path has led to something of a dead-end. Though there isn’t unlimited time — the sellers could easily get antsy — it might be time to stop, take a breath and hit the reset button. The school district should sidestep the CPF involvement and begin the process of asking voters to approve a bond to buy the property outright, securing it and keeping control over its use.
It would be a tough sell. But district taxpayers might recognize the unique opportunity to add to the school campus. If an open and community-focused process will determine its ultimate use this time, it could convince them to support the investment. If it doesn’t? Disappointing as that would be, it means it’s time to walk away.
