The Town is half a million dollars short of what it will cost to build two fields at the SMA property on Common Street, Town Administrator Bill Keegan told a joint meeting of the Board of Selectmen and the Parks and Recreation Commission last night.
The land was purchased and is held in the Selectmen’s name, but a memorandum of understanding between the two boards says the land “is to be used primarily for recreational purposes.”The two boards also agreed that the Commission was to have “responsibility for the care, maintenance, and day to day use of the property.”
The land was purchased following a narrow debt exclusion election in June 2006.In addition to the purchase price, $800,000 was approved to develop the property.Between $60,000 and $70,000 were spent just to open the building on the property up, and an additional $25,000 was spent on permitting for the fields, Keegan said.Pat Maguire of Stantec provided about $100,000 worth of design work pro bono as well.
The design work was done after the election. At that time it was discovered that only two baseball fields would fit on the property, one on the upper portion of the property and one closer to the Charles River.Marie Louise Kehoe, then a Selectman and a sponsor of the article, told the 2006 Annual Town Meeting that there was room enough for two little league fields, a soccer field, and a fourth field that had not yet been drawn on the plan but would "possibly be used for girls stick ball."
“Basically we are not giving the voters what we told them we were going to give them,” said Commissioner Don Reisner.
Resident Bob Fish said many residents were upset by the lack of progress.“I think this has gone a long way to discourage the voters of this town,” Fish said.“I think it has an effect on the SeniorCenter, and I think voters in this town have absolutely no faith in any overrides because of this project.”
The low bid to build two fields and a parking lotcame in at $1.2 million, or $500,000 more than is available.The Town had applied for a state grant to make up the difference and officials were optimistic, but Dedham was not selected to receive it.“I was literally shocked the day they called and said we didn’t get it,” Keegan said.
Both boards seemed to agree that an artificial turf field would be preferable as it will cut down on long term maintenance costs, but it would require a more expensive initial outlay.The Conservation Commission would also prefer it, at least at the lower field, as it will eliminate the need for fertilizer and thus cut down on the amount of phosphorous and other chemicals seeping into the river.
One reason the early predictions about space and cost proved to be wrong, Keegan told the two boards, was that the Town was under time constraints. Several other developers had also approached the SMA fathers about purchasing the land which left the Town “pressed for time to make a decision,” he said.
“This left us with a very limited space to do any kind of overall master plan before we bought the property,” Keegan said.“A lot of what we are discovering is that if we had that planning time before we bought the property,” there wouldn’t be so many issues.
There was a sense from both boards that work on the project needed to begin again.“I think we need to start soon, now,” said Selectman Chairman Jim MacDonald.
A subcommittee with two members of the Parks and Recreation Commission and two members of the Selectmen has been formed to investigate breaking the project down into stages.They will meet with members of the Planning Board and members of the Conservation Commission for informal scoping sessions to determine what can be accomplished with the money available, and whether it will be significantly more expensive to complete the project in phases.
