By Doug Miller
The project will cost $1.27 million for construction by Custom Clay of Old Bethpage, plus another $67,500 for engineering by Cameron Engineering of Westbury. Cameron had already completed the design work for the project, so its total compensation will come to $108,800.
An already contentious meeting - the city's rival historical societies displayed mutual loathing during the discussion of a resolution to "landmark" the bricks that pave much of West Penn Street - became superheated thanks to the barbs slung among the council's Democrats and Republicans, among environmentalists and contractors and, less expectedly, between Long Beach corporation counsel Corey Klein and former Jets defensive end Marty Lyons.
Lyons is the director of marketing for LandTek, an Amityville-based company specializing in turf field construction that finished second in the bidding behind Custom Clay. According to Lyons, Custom Clay failed to follow the bid guidelines and was promising to install what he described as a vastly inferior product, known as A-Turf, compared with the FieldTurf brand for which his company holds exclusive rights.
Lyons spent quite a bit more than his allotted three minutes at the podium ticking off each way Custom Clay had, in his view, cut corners on the bidding process, and further explained the many virtues of FieldTurf versus A-Turf, touting his product's durability and safety.
When Lyons finished, Klein thanked him, but said the city was permitted by law to consider bids that were obviously beneficial to the city, even if they don't rigidly conform to what was originally sought. "The law is designed to benefit the taxpayers, not the sole distributor of some product," Klein said. "The chance to save the taxpayers $400,000 is clearly a rational basis" to accept the bid, he added.
Lyons retorted, "If this council believes your kids' safety is only worth $400,000, God bless."
Custom Clay has faced opposition on two fronts. Besides the bid controversy - which will not end with the vote, since LandTek officials have promised to sue the city - Councilman Jim Hennessy, a cancer survivor, has led the call to keep grass fields in use because of speculation that turf fields contain carcinogens and contribute to global warming. In moving to kill the proposal, he cited reports from several American universities, several foreign governments and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who have attacked artificial turf as potentially hazardous to players and communities.
City Manager Ed Eaton admitted there was no definitive science acquitting artificial turf, but maintained that it was no worse than natural grass. "We use potable water to maintain [grass]," he said. "We use pesticides and artificial fertilizers. You'll forgive me for saying, but there's also all the goose shit that our kids are rolling around in."
In contrast to the Sept. 4 council meeting, at which Hennessy and his coalition Republican ally, Tom Sofield Jr., managed to have this proposal tabled, Custom Clay officials this time rose to defend themselves. John Roselle, an architect, said he had lost a son to cancer and was himself diagnosed in 2004. "I would not be a part of this if I did not believe the product was safe," Roselle said. He then vowed to remove the field for free if it were ever deemed to be an environmental hazard.
When the vote went against him, Hennessy, with his trademark hyperbole, called the vote among the most disappointing in his four years in office and questioned the ethics of the three Democrats who voted to approve the artificial turf. "I don't know how you'll put your heads on a pillow tonight," he said.
In response, council Vice President Robert Tepper, who will face Sofield in November's election, defended his fellow Democrats' action on the matter. Addressing Hennessy, he said, "I find your ideology that everyone who disagrees with you doesn't care to be insulting. That you know how to Google 'artificial turf' is not scientific research."
The squabble was preceded by the public airing of some ancient bad blood between the Long Beach Historical Society and the Long Beach Island Landmarks Association, which was formed in 2004 by several disgruntled former Historical Society officers. At issue was the landmarking of the red bricks that make up several blocks of West Penn Street, which Eaton said he proposed at the behest of the Landmarks Association. But several Historical Society members stood to complain that they felt slighted by the decision to move forward without their input.
Eaton, who earlier this year closed down the city's animal shelter because rival humane societies could not agree on how best to run it, told the two groups to start working together or risk being further excluded, and called the running feud "pathetic."
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