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Mostly Cloudy PAL lacrosse gets one Central field
After prohibiting use of middle school fields by youth groups, board reverses course
At a public meeting that turned raucous at times, the Bellmore-Merrick Central District Board of Education voted on Wednesday to allow the Police Activity League’s lacrosse program to use one middle school football field each year.
Over the summer, the district decided to prohibit use of Central’s five main football fields by non-district teams at Calhoun, Kennedy and Mepham high schools, as well as Grand Avenue and Merrick Avenue middle schools. District officials said youth groups would continue to be allowed to use Bellmore-Merrick’s 37 other fields.
The decision to allow use of one middle school field by PAL lacrosse, which was unanimously approved, was reached after PAL leaders protested that loss of all five football fields to youth groups would likely mean the end of their lacrosse program locally.
District officials said it was necessary to limit use of the football fields to allow them “to rest” and “to rejuvenate.” The natural-grass fields, they said, have been torn up by overuse in recent years.
In an interview in July, Saul Lerner, Bellmore-Merrick’s athletics director, explained that the fields are used by Central District teams two to three hours per day and only a couple of hours on weekends. Youth groups, Lerner said, were using the fields almost all day on Saturdays and Sundays.
The ban on outside use of the fields was to take effect immediately over the summer, but then district officials decided to allow use of the middle school football fields through Oct. 31 to give youth groups time to find alternate fields.
At Wednesday’s meeting, Ross Turrini, the Bellmore-Merrick PAL lacrosse director, asked to meet with district officials to revisit use of the middle school fields. He said the district should allow use of one of the fields throughout the year.
Skip Haile, a PAL soccer director, who was recently elected to the North Merrick Board of Education, said that without at least one middle school field, the lacrosse program would likely be disbanded. The program, he said, had not identified alternate fields, though he noted that PAL’s soccer program was able to secure other fields.
