Public Comment: We Have the Funds To Fix the Track Now

The following public comment was offered at the joint meeting of the Amherst Regional School Committee and the Union 26 School Committee on December 12, 2023.

The high school track and field is an extremely important school and community resource. Residents of Pelham, Leverett, Shutesbury, and Amherst of all ages use the existing facility for casual, recreational, and competitive activities. Improvements to this Regional facility are long overdue and are now getting the attention of those who can make that happen. 

The Amherst DPW, which is responsible for maintaining all Regional and Town fields, secured hundreds of thousands of dollars for equipment to better care for these grass fields. They are also seeking Community Preservation Act funds this year which would go toward improving Community Field. Both of these actions have received the enthusiastic support of municipal decision-makers. The Amherst Town Council authorized nearly $1M in Free Cash toward the project, provided that it can be used for either a grass or turf infield. 

No one is trying to stop this project. To the contrary, the actions you are contemplating tonight to change the existing restrictive language of the debt authorization are critical to making this project happen.

You have the opportunity tonight to essentially restore the intent of the original debt authorization advised by then Finance Director Slaughter in March 2022. He had these things to say to the RSC at that time about the motion he proposed which did not limit our choices:

It “doesn’t presume what a given community might decide about this particular project” and “gives us the greatest flexibility …  to secure the funding necessary to do a larger project” and “the decision on specifically what that project ultimately looks like can be held to another night in a different motion … but it’s separate from this as an authorization”

If the previous Regional School Committee had passed the authorization as originally proposed, we could have already broken ground on a new facility by now. We could have secured CPA funding from all regional towns, bringing us to $3.7M in hand, which would have been sufficient for a grass field option to move to design and bidding this year. You can get us back on track by removing an unnecessary impediment and restoring all our options.  

As a former RSC member said at the March 2022 meeting, “We need to move forward and make sure that we do something without just endlessly hoping to raise funds”.

Please vote to rescind the existing language and replace it with an authorization that gives us the flexibility we need to move expeditiously toward building a new facility that all of us can enjoy.

Maria Kopicki is a resident of Amherst’s District 5.