The Darien Athletic Foundation is offering Darien Public Schools a gift of turf athletic fields, a scoreboard at the high school and a small building there for a concession stand and bathrooms.
On Tuesday, the Board of Education voted to give a preliminary acceptance of the gift, which must go back to the board as well as through town land-use boards and the Representative Town Meeting before the final nod is given.
Heather Shea, a member of the board and its secretary, said she was concerned that the gift of an entire building might violate state regulations.
She also said it would be better to hold off on a vote until residents who live near the fields had a better opportunity to consider whether they wanted to object to a new scoreboard. Some neighbors of the high school football field and the one behind Town Hall have objected to night lighting at the fields.
In the votes to accept the gifts, Shea abstained as the rest of the board voted to give them preliminary approval. Other board members said that neighbors will have more chances to object to the proposal in the future, as it goes before various town boards and commissions, and before the Board of Education grants its final approval.
Benefits to the town from the gift, according to the foundation, would include:
- Fewer rained-out days on school fields, because turf fields are expected to drain better after rain.
- Secure space for ticket sales at high school games, a place out of the rain where kids can wait to get picked up by their parents, and a place for spectators to buy food and go to the bathroom.
The foundation is even offering to build the small building with the concession stand and bathrooms, although some members of the board questioned whether or not the school district is allowed to accept a gift of construction. That question is expected to be resolved before the Board of Education votes on its final approval of the gift.
The foundation's proposal, as sent to the Board of Education, makes these points about how large the town's student athletics programs are—they often place Darien at the top in comparison with schools statewide:
Darien’s school enrollment has grown 80 percent since 1990. A total of 36 percent of the town’s population is under the age 18, and the town has the youngest overall population in the state.
The Darien Youth field hockey program [...] saw an increase of 400 percent in the past seven years [since it was established]," making it the largest program in Connecticut or New York state.
The foundation's proposal also states:
"Darien’s Youth lacrosse is the second largest in the United States; outpacing New Canaan’s program by 50 percent. Darien has seen a 50 percent increase in 3rd/4th grade lacrosse in just one year with up to 18 teams on one field amounting to over 205 kids. Our youth soccer is the second largest in CT, with 2,700 annual registrants.
"Darien’s little league is the largest in the country and recently created a new 50/70 league. Rugby is now a high school varsity sport.Yet, with this unprecedented growth our town has seen there has been no increase in field space and limited current available space to adequately allow our high school and youth teams to practice properly and safely."
Here's a memorandum about the proposal from Superintendent of Schools Stephen V. Falcone to the board. Falcone, in the memo (dated April 17), states that the gift cost the foundation about $200,000, although Peter Graham, president of the foundation, told the board Tuesday that the cost was expected to be $150,000, which may reflect either a revised estimate or a different scope for the offer. Falcone's memorandum only addressed the changes to the Darien High football field, not changes to artificial turf at any school.
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