Community Voices is a series that features letters and brief opinion pieces submitted to The Amherst Current. If you have something that you’d like us to consider, please send it to opinion@theamherstcurrent.org.

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Public Comment Submitted to the Amherst Town Council

For years now, we’ve been hearing about why Amherst should NOT follow through on projects: build a new school, get our high school kids a new track, fund the police, renovate and expand our public library…the list is endless. Some of the reasons why we shouldn’t collaborate on progress, build for future generations have been based on misinformation and outright lies. While some people in our community can afford to pay for private music or dance lessons for their kids, or take advantage of expensive camps during school breaks, those with fewer means don’t have similar access to resources. So when certain factions in town feed the public misinformation about why we shouldn’t expand and renovate our library, or support building a well-designed space that meets the needs of everyone in Amherst–especially those who don’t have resources to access private programs for their families–please check the facts for yourself. Speak with the library director and staff. They are here to serve YOU, not their own interests. 

What I’m really asking you to think about is privilege; the privilege you show by refusing government funding for public services. If you vote against borrowing, you will also be refusing to access over $20M in state aid, grants, and private donations. And once again, Amherst will have burned valuable political capital with elected state officials. You’ll be voting against an expanded, fun new children’s room (think about families who can’t afford camps during school breaks); a free, safe place for teens who don’t have extra cash to spend at restaurants if they want to hang out with their friends; a cool space for families without air-conditioning during the hot summer months. Please don’t vote against services that will benefit our town for decades and will give us a building that is a step toward achieving our climate goals. Instead, vote to authorize borrowing so we can move forward with the Jones Library expansion and renovation project. Say YES to bridging a large gap in resources and to meeting the evolving needs of our diverse population. Jones library is our community hub—it belongs to all of us, especially to future generations. 

Farah Ameen (member of the Jones Library Board of Trustees)

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Public Comment Submitted to the Regional School Committee

Thank you for inviting the Amherst Hurricanes Athletic Boosters (“Boosters”)to the upcoming meeting of the Amherst Pelham Regional School Committee (“RSC”). Unfortunately, we do not have a representative able to make a presentation and fundraising update in December. We did want to address the recent discussion of the track and field project and motion to rescind the RSC’s endorsement of the project design voted on nearly two years ago. We would like this letter to help educate new committee members, as well as the community, of the many years of research that was done to determine the best orientation and surface for the track and field. We thank prior members of the RSC who voted for the design that is most inclusive and equitable for all ARPS students, athletes, and the greater Amherst community.

Many community members were surprised to hear the November 28th RSC meeting include the call for a reversal of the decision of prior elected committee members. It was alarming that temporary committee members would suggest the undoing of an approved budgetary capital project. It was also disheartening to hear comments calling the project rushed, and without student or community input. In fact, there has been many years of community and student input to Town Council, RSC, Amherst Recreation, letters to the editor, pleas to numerous Athletic Directors and ARPS administrative staff. There have been public forums, and community working groups who have spent countless hours learning what the community would like to see for the playing fields and track at ARHS, learning about surface options, and addressing environmental issues.

The Boosters have been raising funds based on the vote of the RSC to move forward with the design option that includes a re-oriented and widened track and field with artificial turf. Donors to the Boosters for the project are doing so based on the research presented by landscape architects and the many New England-based turf companies that have developed environmentally friendly artificial turf options. There are many ways to mitigate our shared concerns of PFAS in turf including finding the right vendors for the installation of the field and track. 

While we are discussing this project again in Amherst, we want to remind the RSC of the continued broadly held belief of our students, that Amherst does not care about our students or athletics. Another decision is caught up in years of discussion, instead of movement forward. Our students observe the recent construction of three Amherst College turf fields and at least ten turf fields at UMass, which they cannot access.  Please review the links about turf installations at UMass and Amherst College, including a national award for the new recreational turf fields at UMass in June 2023.

Numerous surrounding towns host regular and championship events on their turf fields, where ARPS students travel and compete as the visiting team. They have an expectation that the RSC is supporting this longstanding, needed project to address overdue safety, access and equity issues. A vote to rescind the RSC’s vote in March 2022, is sending a strong message that their needs and voices have not been heard. 

The Boosters achieved the first critical fundraising goal in January 2023, to meet the directive assigned by the RSC in 2022. Since January, we have continued to work with individual and organization donors, as well as find partners willing to host events to raise funds. We are short of the one-million-dollar benchmark for 2023, but immensely proud of the efforts made, and appreciate those passionately supportive of the project. 

Our organization is a handful of volunteers and embarked on the unique challenge to fundraise hundreds of thousands of dollars in a short amount of time for a capital improvement to land owned by a regional group of towns. While willing to take on the challenge, we have had limitations in that many groups, grants, and donors will support town/municipality capital projects, but will not allow application from a private, non-profit foundation such as the Boosters.

We will provide a fundraising update to the RSC in January. We will continue to fundraise with those partners who have confidence that the project directive from the RSC will in fact move forward.

Please take time to view our website and video including student and coach input. The fundraising video we have been using can be viewed here.

Mary G. Klaes, President, Amherst Hurricanes Athletics Boosters

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Artificial Turf Can Increase Pride in the District and Improve Equity for Students

I feel a modern artificial turf option would be an improvement, bring pride to the district, help improve access and equity for students. Our fields are overused and under funded for maintenance and another grass field would likely fall into disrepair after just 1 or 2 seasons.

I volunteer my time to coach a spring sport (Girls Lacrosse) and we spend the first two weeks in a gym because of the problem of standing water due to lack of drainage. We also have had to cancel games due to poor field conditions which usually happens whenever we get even light to moderate rainfall of 1/2 inch of rain or more in 24 hours. A majority of the other districts we play against to name a few….(Chicopee, Pope Francis, South Hadley, Springfield, Holyoke) all use artificial turf and many have modern track facilities.

As a parent of a former field hockey player and collegiate cross country / track and field runner we desperately need the new track and field project to move forward. I feel without it we will be limiting options for student athletes and hurting their potential for college recruitment.

Patrick Schilling

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A turf field would greatly benefit our student athletes and school’s athletic culture as a whole.

Caelan Woodard-McNiff (ARHS student)

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Artificial Turf would bring higher level of competition

Hello, my name is Jenna Schilling and I graduated from Amherst Regional High School in the spring of 2023. Throughout my education in the Amherst public schools system, I competed on many outdoor sports teams like varsity field hockey and lacrosse. In those 6 years where I competed on the outdoor fields at the middle and high school, I witnessed many sacrifices take place because of the condition of the fields. Again and again, my teammates would be injured on our own fields as the season went on, cutting athletes’ time short.

Teammates and their families would visit the fields during the summer, before our fall season began, and attempted to repair the damaged fields that are unplayable for field hockey. Field hockey is meant to be played on a fast surface, and the current field at ARHS, despite significant efforts by DPW, put the field hockey team at a serious disadvantage. Our competitors, like Holyoke High School, are able to improve and practice on a surface that is meant for the sport.

For players looking to compete at a higher level beyond high school, they are seriously unprepared because of the uneven surface we play on, not even mentioning the practices canceled due to wet fields, slowly taking seasons away from spring and fall athletes.

A turf field at Amherst Regional High School would be beneficial because it would allow student athletes a better chance for a longer season. Practices and games would not have to be canceled due to field conditions and coaches could begin seasons earlier, since previously for lacrosse the first two weeks are typically in the gym. A turf field also brings a higher level of competition for all field sports, improving our teams and records.

Jenna Schilling (ARHS graduate)