About 10 people showed up Monday night to criticize the school district’s proposed $26.76 million building proposal, saying it will contribute to higher taxes and calling a proposed artificial turf field an extravagance.

Residents will vote on the proposition on Dec. 16. Polling hours are from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. at Scotia-Glenville High School on Sacandaga Road.

Much of the discussion centered on part of the proposal to replace the current football field with artificial turf, install 500-seat bleachers and fix the running track at a cost of $4.5 million. School officials have said installing artificial turf would allow the district to schedule more practices and games on the field and reduce wear and tear on the other grass fields.

Glenville resident Roz Streeter said she did not need synthetic turf when she was younger.

“We used the town field. Nobody got injured; nobody wound up in the hospital. Nowadays, we have to have state-of-the-art everything at the cost of the taxpayer.”

She added that taxpayers cannot continue to put up with rising taxes, which she said have doubled since she moved back to the district 10 years ago. “Something has got to give because the taxpayers can’t keep giving. I’m tapped out.”

District officials said that the 1.9 percent that the project would add to the tax rate starting in 2010 equates to about $59 for a home with an assessment of $160,000, before any STAR tax reductions. The total cost of the project is $37.6 million when the interest on the debt payments is included.

Ed Capovani of Scotia also took issue with the proposed turf field and disputed district figures that it would cost $500,000 to install in a new grass field.

“There’s no money around. You want to saddle the rest of New York state to pay for this frivolous field,” he said.

John Jojo of Mosaic Architects said that state mandates requiring the district to bid out multiple contracts and comply with prevailing wage rates drive up the cost. He said the difficult economy could hold down prices because competition will be keen among contractors submitting bids. “If we did this project five years ago, the prices would be substantially higher than they would be today,” he said.

Marilyn DuBois of Glenville was concerned about the safety of the synthetic field and the material used to fill them and whether it can cause illness.

Board member John Yagielski said the artificial turf field would be able to hold 440 events per year. The district would need to add six more fields and an irrigation system at a total cost of $4.5 million to meet the same level of use.

“We’re currently operating far more events than our grass fi elds can support,” he said.
Another issue was the timing of the vote. Armand Canestraro of Glenville said some residents are not here.

“There’s a large aged community that has already started to commute south,” he said.
Board President Margaret Smith said it took the board this long to put all the pieces together for this project. She had wished they had been able to get it done this past spring, before all the bad economic news.

Absentee ballot applications are available in the district business office and by calling 382-1222. They must be returned by 5 p.m. on Dec. 16.

There was little discussion on other components of the project, including installing solar panels to the Sacandaga Elementary School roof, renovating the middle school science laboratories and enclosing the middle school library, expanding the high school library and replacing 10-year-old network servers.

Smith added that if the proposition were to fail, then the board would focus on using its $935,000 in EXCEL aid to address critical maintenance issues like roof replacements at three elementary schools.