Wed, 02/01/2023 - 9:15pm

The Five Town CSD School Board's Ad Hoc Turf Field/Facilities Committee has put together a brief survey to solicit input from the community living in the Five Town CSD school district about the prospect of building a synthetic turf athletic field on the Camden Hills Regional High School property.

In late 2021 the Five Town CSD School Board formed the ad hoc committee to explore constructing a turf field at CHRHS to replace the Don Palmer grass field.

The Ad Hoc Committee’s work over the past year focused on five areas as outlined in the Committee’s Charter as follows:

Explore cost of construction/mechanisms to finance the possible project
Explore community support/objections for the project
Explore safety issues/health risks of playing on turf
Explore possible outside users/fee generation
Explore benefits of foul weather use/reduction in ground care

CHRHS is one of the few remaining conference schools without a turf field facility.

“While it is great to see so many team sports available at CHRHS, the current sports fields face more pressure from student use than in any time in facility history,” the committee said, at its survey site. “Additionally, poor late fall and early spring weather have required cancelling or relocating numerous home games, including playoff contests, due to unplayable field conditions. Meeting the overall student sport schedules on the existing grass fields will be an ongoing challenge. The Committee has completed a survey for equitable use of a shared turf facility among teams, has been in contact with many of the conference schools that have already completed transitioning to a turf field, and has held lengthy conversations and informational sessions with leading turf field providers, including receiving preliminary cost estimates.”

Click here to take the survey, with an expected time for completion of 1 to 3 minutes.