AD: Kinnelon at Disadvantage Without Turf

Athletic Director Scott Rosenberg said the prospect of the installation of a turf field at the high school will help even the playing field with athletic opponents.

"I think turf would be fantastic, certainly in a land-locked kind of town like Kinnelon," he said.

Rosenberg said the high school athletic teams have been at a disadvantage for several years by not already having a turf field to practice on in the borough. Currently, teams have to practice indoors or in parking lots when weather conditions prevent use of the traditional fields. Because turf is able to be plowed, Rosenberg said the school district would be able to get more use out of the field earlier in the spring.

"We are either renting turf from places or we're using gyms instad, while most of our opponents are using turf the whole month of March," Rosenberg said.

Oftentimes, the borough rents turf facilities in Montville and neighboring boroughs. While many municipalities have turf facilities, the installation of turf on high school fields can be a sometimes controversial topic debated between officials and voters.

While Montville already has a turf facility, school board officials had hoped to install another turf surface on the high school field for about $1 million before the . Parsippany has three town-controlled turf fields-at Smith, Jannarone and Veterans parks-but the township is as it attempts to complete a nearly $4.5 million turf project at the two high schools. The Kinnelon school board also had trouble garnering support for the installation of turf on the high school field in 2005, when a referendum question was voted on and rejected by 1,171 votes to 599 votes, according to the Suburban Trends. That project was estimated to cost $906,250.

Perhaps Kinnelon is not seeing as much opposition this time around because the project is being fully-funded through fundraising dollars. The Coordinating Committee, which combines members of the board of education and borough council, has formed a sub-committee of 40 volunteers who are tasked with raising $10,000 each for the project. Local contractor Larry Bascomb has promised to construct the turf field at the high school for $400,000.

Council President Jim Freda, who has been instrumental in the project, said the volunteer committee will be gathering for the first time this week and discussing how and where donors will be able to advertise once the field is constructed. One of Rosenberg's ideas, Freda said, is to allow donors and others to advertise through bricks leading to the field, but the committee is exploring all options.

"One (option) would be engraved blocks with people's names on it, or scoreboard sponsorship, or field sponsorship or even snack stand sponsorship," Freda said.

Freda said he will also be working in the next week to receive a final confirmation of Bascomb's offer, and to solidify the council's position that the borough should move forward with the project.

Freda said he was happy to hear that the Kinnelon Board of Education solidified their commitment to the project by passing a resolution that confirmed they accept and support the fundraising efforts for the project Thursday night. While Superintendent Jim Opiekun said the resolution confirming the commitment was not necessary, "it may help quell any concern that it's not a united front." The board unanimously approved the resolution.

Also Thursday, the board of education unanimously approved a motion to go out to bid on . Initially, it was discussed that the track repairs and turf field installation be conducted simultaneously, but Board Vice President Keith Dama said the timeline of the track repairs does not coincide with the turf project and that it does not affect the turf project if the track restoration is completed first.

"At this point in time, we're ready to receive bids on the track," Dama said. "Obviously the bid is not a commitment, we're just trying to get firm numbers."

Rosenberg said he and the Kinnelon Recreation Department have already begun working together on a proposal to divide usage of the field between the school district and recreation program. He said being able to divide the time each program can spend on the field will not be a problem and that, at this point, he believes turf is needed in Kinnelon.

"It's really becoming the norm and it's really becoming something necessary more than a luxury," he said.