EDISON FIELDS: IT'S TIME TO TAKE ACTION

Over the past five years, I have taken a pragmatic approach to being your Mayor, focusing on solving problems, easing your tax burden, and moving our town forward. I am proud of my administration’s fiscal stewardship, delivering the lowest average tax rate in the Town’s history while maintaining our AAA bond rating and investing in our parks, police department, equipment, infrastructure, roads, and community spaces to provide the services our residents deserve. 

We are also committed to sustainability through the efforts of our best-in-class Green Team, enabling the Town to achieve and sustain Silver certification with Sustainable Jersey for the first time in Town history. And we are hard at work positioning Westfield to benefit from New Jersey’s favorable redevelopment laws, which assist us in meeting affordable housing requirements and welcoming significant partners to invest in our community.

My team and I ran for office and were elected (some of us twice!) to take on these challenges and make the difficult decisions that would advance our community resiliently into the future, recognizing that change can be difficult and not always popular. In a densely populated town with highly engaged and educated residents, we will not always agree, nor should we, even among members of the Town Council. That is the very essence of the civic process. However, effective leaders do not let perfect be the enemy of good. 

The Edison Fields Project is a premier example of how hard it can be to innovatively address problems that have plagued our community for decades.

Yet finally, after a comprehensive Strategic Parks Plan process and more than 16 months of discussion and input, the Town Council will vote on the Edison Fields Project at our next meeting on Wednesday, November 9 (not on Tuesday due to Election Day). 

Before we take this important step, I’d like to convey the compelling reasons why I ask that the Town Council and Board Of Education advance this plan.

We need reliable field capacity to support our incredible youth sports and recreation programs in Town, and one of the best high school sports programs in the state. We don't have adequate fields to meet the demand, nor do we have facilities that live up to the caliber of our championship student athletes. On this point, we all agree. Where solution-oriented minds differ is on the approach – mainly in terms of artificial turf or natural grass, and where and how fields should first be deployed. 

To ensure we make an informed decision, we have taken a multi-pronged approach that included professional input, research, and community feedback.


Professional Input
We obtained the input of three independent, professional experts: Brandstetter Carroll, who led the Strategic Parks Plan; Spiezle Architectural Group, who led the Edison project design; and CME Associates, who performed an independent assessment, at the request of the Town Council, verifying that lit turf fields are the most fiscally prudent option to achieve our field usage goal, grounded in the reality that it’s not practical to rely solely on grass fields where demand far exceeds capacity. 

While some residents dispute this conclusion in favor of an all natural grass approach, there is no compelling evidence that a town of Westfield’s size with our necessary hours of play, and the multipurpose sports fields most needed, can produce and sustain our desired outcome with natural grass over the long term. 

Research
We did our own due diligence to verify the findings of these firms through follow-up conversations with their experts. In addition, I personally spoke to turf and grass fields experts, as well as municipal and county Recreation Directors whose grass fields maintenance programs were those Westfield could emulate. Interestingly, each of them concluded that maintaining proper multipurpose grass fields was not sustainable and mentioned that their sports teams often sought artificial turf options over time due to the deterioration of their grass fields. 

Community Feedback
Most importantly, we have heard and listened to our residents through numerous public and neighborhood meetings, as well as through their letters to the editor, social media comments, and emails, representing a range of diverse opinions. The feedback has been far more balanced than some would suggest. 

We’ve heard neighbors’ valid concerns about traffic, parking, noise, lights, environmental safety, and flooding, all of which can be reasonably addressed with a properly designed and scheduled facility. We’ve also heard from our sports leagues, athletes, and families who no longer want to travel to and pay other towns for practices and “home” games when they pay property taxes to Westfield. 


Why Edison?

1. An initial investment in artificial turf and lights at Edison solves for the largest capacity increase in the shortest amount of time, and will begin our plans to improve fields Town-wide. 
2. Edison provides our student athletes, trainers, coaches, and marching band access to locker rooms, training facilities, and equipment storage at Kehler. 
3. Most importantly, Edison allows the Town to enter into a logical shared services arrangement with the school district that would benefit student athletes and the marching band, and create much-needed equity for girls sports programs.