High School football field plan revamped

At a work session Tuesday night, the Board of Education agreed on a scaled-back design for a multi-purpose football field at Long Beach High School, in the hope of appeasing both supporters and opponents of the project after months of debate and public input.

The proposed field, to be used for football, soccer and lacrosse games and practices, is part of a $92.7 million school preservation plan to be funded by a bond approved by voters last year. School officials said that the facility would cost roughly $4 million and be completed by 2013. Students and parents say that the high school fields are in desperate need of an overhaul, and that a new facility would boost school spirit, attract more spectators to games and allow those games to be played on campus rather than at Veterans Field.

Initially, the field was to include a 1,200-plus-seat bleacher system, lights, a scoreboard and a press box. But many residents, who said they voted in favor of the bond, maintain that the district did not inform them about the scope of the project, and many said they thought they were voting for improved practice fields and upgrades, not a facility with bleachers, stadium lighting and a sound system.

“The original plan which people voted on was completely different,” Blackheath Road resident Ira Stern said before Tuesday’s meeting, adding that school officials did not specify that the field would be used for games. Stern and other residents also cited traffic safety as a main concern, claiming that because Blackheath Road and Lagoon Drive are narrow, dead-end streets, traffic jams on game days would make it difficult for emergency vehicles to enter the area.

And while school officials and many supporters of the project insist that residents were kept informed at meetings and by way of literature, the less ambitious design was presented at a board meeting on Nov. 9 in the interest of reaching a compromise.

“I’ve been to every meeting from the beginning,” said Park Drive parent Gary Brown. “I don’t see any reason why we’re compromising.”