Glens Falls School vote Dec. 14: Capital projects including field lights

By Zander Frost & Mark Frost, Chronicle Staff Writer & Editor

Voters in the Glens Falls City School District go to the polls on Tuesday, Dec. 14, to decide on two Capital Projects costing up to $32.1 million.

Tuesday’s vote is from noon to 9 p.m. at Sanford Street School. Abraham Wing district residents are not eligible to vote.

The ballot has two propositions.

#1 is most of the spending: $31,383,413 to renovate and repair district properties, mainly focusing on the Middle School.

#2 seeks $736,072 to light the football field.

Voters have twice rejected efforts to install lights at the football field.

The district says the projects would not raise taxes due to a combination of 75.3% state aid and up to $5.5 million from the district’s “unassigned fund balance.”

Mr. Jenkins told The Chronicle, “We have debt from previous projects that’s coming off the books. So…what we’ve done the last two projects, is that debt doesn’t reduce. We just keep that and put that towards the project.”

On the first proposition, Mr. Jenkins told The Chronicle in September, “The bulk of the project is really focused on the Middle School…because that’s the only building that we haven’t done any real renovation work on since it was built.

“There are ceiling tiles that need to be replaced. We have a large group-instruction room that has to be renovated, we have windows, doors. We have the air handler units in classrooms that need to be replaced, we have science rooms in the middle school that haven’t been renovated since the building was built back in the 80’s.”

Work will also go into the High School, Big Cross, Jackson Heights, the Administration building, and athletic fields. At “Jackson Heights, we have to replace the roof,” and the cupola “has to be repaired and then painted and fixed up.”

He said the football field is one of the first priorities. “We have to replace the turf because it’s at this point 14 years old. And the general life of those turf fields is usually 10 to 12. So we’ve been lucky because we haven’t overused it, that we got a few more years out of it.”

Mr. Jenkins said the field is seeing increased demand. “What really sparked that was last year…the sports seasons changed. And in the fall, we didn’t have soccer, field hockey or football,” due to the pandemic.

“We had that in, we called ‘Fall Two,’ starting in March. We couldn’t use Morse Field because the snow was still on the field. So a lot of our fall teams were able to use the turf, and kids liked it.”

Mr. Jenkins said that’s where the lighting of the field comes in.

“Right now,” he said, “we just use the turf for football and lacrosse. And track and field uses it as well…But we had a lot more teams utilizing it last year, and the kids really enjoyed it. So the only way to expand it is to light it up.”

The last time field lights were proposed, there was neighborhood resistance.

Does it remain? “We have neighbors who live around the turf who are for it,” Mr. Jenkins said. “And some that said the last time they didn’t want it.”

Mr. Jenkins told The Chronicle that neighbor concerns with light “spill” should be alleviated by new technology. He said, “The turf is all lit up. But two feet off the turf, it’s almost pitch black, depending on where they have the light showing.”

He said the lighting now is much cheaper to operate, and in the newsletter mailed to residents last week he said they’re working with their sound system company to “angle speakers” to reduce noise.

Copyright © 2021 Lone Oak Publishing Co., Inc. All Rights Reserved