MEMORANDUM
TO: Manchester Board of Selectmen
CC: Essex Board of Selectmen, School Building Committee, Regional School Committee
FROM: Manchester-Essex Playing Fields Committee
RE: Lights at Brook Street Field
DATE: January 11, 2007
As we discussed at your meeting on December 18th, the Manchester-Essex Playing Fields Committee requested that the School Building SubCommittee include lights in the improvements to be made at the Brook Street Field. This was because of the extreme shortage of fields for town and school sports that will occur during the three year construction of the new Middle School and High School. By lighting the Brook Street Field, it will almost double the number of hours that fields are available for sports during the high use spring and fall sports seasons.
The School Building Committee has already submitted an application to the Planning Board, which did not include lights for Brook Street. The School Building Committee will be following through on their original application (without lights) in order to maintain their schedule which is key to containing the project’s final costs. However, they were receptive to our request and are willing to include the lights in an addendum request after their application completes the Planning Board process.
The advantage of this approach is that it gives the Manchester-Essex Playing Fields Committee time to work with the neighbors informally, before the formal process of the Planning Board hearing for the addendum. This should make it easier to find mutually desirable operating schedules and procedures for the lights to minimize/eliminate any disturbance to the immediately surrounding homes.
This will also focus the public discussion of these issues at the Planning Board, which seems to be the logical home for such land use adjacency issues.
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