001Good evening everyone. We're going to begin our uh April 3rd business meeting of the Wanto board of education. We're going to start with a salute to the flag and then a moment of silence for um Anthony Sales, father-in-law of Diane Sales. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Four, communications to the board of education. Communications were received by the following people listed in the agend uh agenda. C, superintendent report. Mr. Mcmire. Good evening everyone. Welcome. Thank you for attending tonight. I'm John McMar, superintendent of schools. Uh we always like to start our meetings off with some good news and celebrate some of our uh student accomplishments. Uh so we're
002going to start tonight with our all county artists. I know a number of our allount artists are here with us this uh this evening. Uh and these are students that uh received all county recognition last month uh for some of their outstanding artwork. We have some of those displayed right behind us. Uh and we just want to thank them for joining us. Our art program really continues to thrive and do amazing things for our students. Um and you know, we just have such a dedicated uh art staff uh that really just comes up with creative program and and uh supports our our students in their development in the arts. So uh we'd like to recognize them. our um director of uh fine and performing arts and business education, Kelly Jones, is here with us tonight.
003So, I'm just going to invite her up to the microphone and we'll call each one of our uh all county artists up to receive their certificates. Uh and if they could stay gathered in the front here when they come up, uh we're going to do a photo with them as well. So, we just appreciate if they could stay right up here in the front once they come up. There it is. Good evening everyone. Try again. Um we're just so proud of the art department and especially um these honores. Um they were had their art displayed at Heric's High School um among hundreds, you know, thousands of of um incredible art from across the island uh from Nestto County. So there's um just some incredible talent and we're just so proud of our uh amazing art
004students and our staff and uh just everything that they can accomplish. Keep keep dreaming, keep designing and enjoy your art. So here we go. Aviana Amand I am A Mandalori. Sorry. Come here Aviana. Danielle [Applause] Menddees, Dylan Yanelli, Ellen Jablonsky, Francesca Caruso, Grace Pac, Haley Fee, Julia Schmidt, There she is. Juliana Msina. Lexi Mering. Penelopey Ambrosie. There she is. Awesome. Ryan Rice. Samantha Nilson. [Applause] Zoe [Applause] Cho, Xander Ael, there's Xander Victoria Chen Marissa Mastransky, Maximus [Applause] Neglieri, Mia Rpolei, Alexander Malites, Alyssa Kimble, there she is. Ava Pasqua, and Ava Zampini. [Applause] All right. And also joining us tonight are our Long Island Champion girls varsity basketball team. Uh huge congratulations to them. Uh what an unbelievable run they had. Historic uh first time in school history being Long Island champs going up to the
005uh states winning the semi-final game. Probably one of the most exciting girls basketball games I've ever seen. uh that that semiinal game down 15 points going into the fourth quarter. That 22 to nothing run to to come back and and and uh and and take the lead was absolutely unbelievable. Um such a great season, just so many exciting moments that they had. Uh the exciting finish against Lindbrook, you know, having lo losing to them in the regular season and then to defeat them in the county championship game. uh when Riley put that ball in when uh uh Kay saved it to her was unbelievable. Uh just such a great moment. Um really just uh what what what a just an amazing team. The way they jelled and and and uh and performed. Uh so just
006so proud of them and and and what they accomplished, you know. Hats off to to Coach P and to Ray for the work they've done with the the the team this year. Yeah. Please. Um it was just such an exciting final final two three weeks of the season. Um and just an unbelievable run for some of you on the team. I mean watching you know lacrosse last year, the county championship soccer this year. Um you know many of you part of multiple teams just uh really talented group of athletes uh and really kind of an unprecedented run in in school history. So a lot to be proud of tonight. Uh we want to recognize uh each of you. We have uh certificates for you. Uh, Miss Keane sends her regards and regrets that she can't
007be here tonight. She's being recognized by uh, CYO for uh, accomplishment that she had. Uh, so that that was tonight. Uh, so Dr. Sclary is going to come up to the microphone and just call each of you up. Uh, and if you could stay up here for a picture, we would love that as well. So congratulations to the girls. An outstanding season. Congratulations to all the girls. First, Sabrina Acidorian. [Applause] Juliana [Applause] Sarasi, Caitlyn [Applause] Clark, Isabelle [Music] Ferraro, Riley [Music] [Applause] Forthhoffer, Molina Gallo, Kayla Manx, Bridget [Applause] McGawan, Michaela McNeel, Cameron Mitchell, Giana [Applause] Pion, and Ella Profetti. [Applause] Oh, Kate McCovic, so sorry. Kate, come on up, please. Oh, our apologies. Right. And before the girls go too, we have one other recognition tonight too related to uh the basketball. Uh we wanted
008to take a second to recognize Coach B. Um, coach uh is uh is after this historic run is also being inducted into the New York State Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame. Now, um he has just had uh just an outstanding legacy here in Wanau. Uh his commitment to the girls basketball program is just unparalleled. uh he's got guided Wah, you know, obviously to the the New York State Finals appearance this year. Uh but three county titles, five county championship appearances, 11 conference crowns over the 32 seasons that he's been the uh the coach. Um just a remarkable career and just so dedicated to this program and to our student athletes. uh just you know look demands a lot of his athletes and uh and and gets a lot out of them and it's just
009been great to to watch for me to watch him over the past 10 years and everything he has given to the program and to our our students uh and it's just been an honor to uh to watch that program continue to grow. So um you know if you would have told me that we would have been in the state final this year I don't know if I would have believed him. Uh but we were there and we just did an amazing job. It's, you know, kudos to him and to Ray and to to the work they've done uh and uh and certainly to the girls. So, I wanted to present uh Coach B with a certificate from us just recognizing his induction in the Hall of Fame. Congratulations, Coach. Congratulations. [Applause] Right. Just uh one
010other recognition to our our assistant principles. Uh next week is assistant principal week. Often the unheralded work of an assistant principal goes unrecognized. So we want to take an opportunity to recognize them. Uh Mrs. Quattrochi at the middle school um Miss Stender at the uh at Want L and then Mr. Papus and Dr. Whitman at the high school. So congratulations to them. Thank them for their dedication and congratulations on assistant principles week next week. All right, we're going to switch over to more of the business portion of our meeting. So, uh, those of you that, uh, are heading out of here, I now's the time to do so. Thank you. Thank you for attending tonight. We appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for coming. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Um mascot update. So, uh we
011we uh the board sent out a a letter to the community last week just giving an update on where we are with that. Um, as many of you know that there's been uh new regulation uh that was a couple years old now that that New York State uh passed requiring school districts with Native American mascots to move away from them and adopt new mascots. Uh the board of education has appealed that and and challenged that in the courts. Uh we got the unfortunate news that that uh that challenge was unsuccessful uh last week. uh and the judge dismissed uh many of the uh the aspects of the case. Certainly disappointed. Um and the board's, you know, going to weigh some options in terms of what next steps look like. Uh and in the coming days,
012we'll we'll, you know, continue to keep the community updated. Um but certainly disappointing news. Um we are also in uh budget season. So tonight, uh the board will actually adopt the budget uh for the upcoming school year. Uh that's uh on on the agenda for a little bit later. So, I just want to give a a brief overview of the budget. Tonight, we'll do our our full budget hearing. Uh that'll be uh coming up in a couple weeks at at our uh at our May main May meeting uh to to go through that. Um but I just wanted to walk through that a little bit tonight. Uh these were our goals for the budget. Uh you know, obviously continue all of our outstanding programs uh and and existing programs, K to2, expand our course offerings
013for our students. I'll highlight a few of those tonight. uh maintain our class sizes across the district. Uh that's something we've really been focused on the past couple of years to continue to bring down class sizes across the uh the elementary level in particular. Um and continue all of our capital improvement projects. Uh the positive financial news uh New York State comproller fiscal stress score all good uh and really a stable financial condition of the district that uh that that we currently have. Um this is the budget what it looks like for next year. Uh you can see uh we there our tax cap for this year is 2.89% and we're just under that this year uh is is what the proposed budget calls for. Uh and you can see the uh the year-over-year levy
014increase uh which is about $1.9 million. Um UPK is a program we continue to highlight. Uh we've that's a program that uh now we we're going to be offering in its uh fifth year for next year. Uh we are up to eight sections over the past several years. Uh excited about having our four-year-olds in the in our buildings. We have four sections over at Wel and then two each at at Mandandalay and Forest Lake, a program that's been really successful. We've had a nice partnership with Scope to provide that service to our students. Uh and we're excited to continue to do that. Uh we've received a grant uh through New York State uh for that over the past several years. You can see that will continue next year. Uh it was increased to about $760,000
015uh last year. Uh we anticipate that's going to be the same for next year as well to continue the eight sections that we currently have. Um these are the CL sizes that we're projecting for next year. The elementary uh once again you can see uh the relatively uh low numbers that we were going to be able to continue to maintain. you know, we've really made a conscious effort uh when the um when we had to put the budget up for revote several years ago, we saw an increase in class size. Uh and we've worked to really get back to where we were prior and even uh now at a a lower range. Um so, you know, happy to report uh that uh that those numbers continue to to look really good for next year. Uh
016and we'll continue to monitor kindergarten as that enrollment continues to come in. These are some of the new programs that we're excited about for next year. Here you can see uh we've had a really successful uh what we call win at the elementary school. It's our win program. It's what I need uh which is pushin support uh for uh for reading support for our uh our students in K to2 and we're going to look to expand that uh next year uh to third grade uh which we we're excited about. Uh we know that that push and support has been really successful. Uh so we have an FTE increase in the budget to to support that additional reading staff to provide that service. Um we also are going to continue to expand our um our special
017education program. Uh that's something that uh we you know we really about five years ago now, six years ago now, we um we made a decision uh to really um to to start a 611 program at our elementary schools um with a small number of students. that program has continued to grow. Uh we have now have a number of students that would have been in out of district placements and and that are able to stay right here in the district that we're going to be able to continue to support. Uh that is going to continue to expand. We'll actually have two sections of that at the the middle school and we'll have a full section of that at the high school. Uh so that once again started small number of students several years ago at
018the elementary and and has continued to grow. Uh and then these are some of the new electives. Uh we're our science research program continues to grow, our science research academy. Um we were really excited. Uh last month we were able to open up our our science research space. Uh we that's a a new space that we did uh through a grant that we received through New York State and that program continues to expand. We anticipate having over 60 students in that program next year uh which is really exciting. It'll be in year three. So, we'll now have students really uh in at three different levels. Uh and look forward to the the final expansion the following year to that fourth level. Um and kudos to uh to all involved. It's really been a a great
019great success for us. Um a new broadcasting offering at the uh high school as well. Uh new construction uh courses uh as well to expand our technology program. cyber security offering uh that leads to an industry standard certification in cyber security for our students uh and a couple of new theater electives as well as an EMT program uh that we're going to be offering in the evenings to uh to our our students in the community. Uh so exciting new offerings um number of capital projects. I won't go through all these in detail. These are some of the projects that uh we have completed throughout the year. uh as well as uh a couple of proposals for the summer uh that uh summer work that we we look to do. Um but you can see we
020you know the science research lab is in there as well as a number of other projects. Uh we worked on our um uh middle school gymnasium this past summer. Uh you can see some of the bathroom renovations that were done. Uh so a whole host of things. Parts of this are have been done through our capital reserve, parts through a transfer to capital that was in the budget last year. And then part of these are also done through bond work uh that was approved by the community in December of 22 that uh we're starting to see that work start to develop uh this summer. We just uh before this meeting uh you know met with the architect too to give the board an update on some of the projects and you can really see uh
021a number of the bond projects will start to come to fruition in the summer uh which will include the HVAC upgrades, window upgrades across the district. Uh we'll have some roof work done as well on the uh uh uh up for vote uh for for this upcoming ballot on the on the budget vote uh will be two propositions. One will be for the budget, the other one will be for a capital reserve. Uh the language up on the screen is is uh what will appear on the ballot. Uh but it's really for the approval of the the first group of projects on this list. You can see uh the $2.1 million is for a a roof uh significant section of roof repair that will be done at Wanto L. That's really over at the the
022original building in Wahel, the original slate roof. uh that will be repaired uh which is the largest portion of it as well as some ceiling work at the W High School. That's classroom ceiling work where we're going to be doing some HVAC work and and running some uh some piping through those ceilings and going to be replacing those as well as some security camera upgrades. We'll be replacing some older cameras and adding some additional ones and the corresponding switch gear to go along with that. And then you can see the uh the there's some district auditorium lighting. Um, you know, we um have been doing pieces of the auditorium uh where we we can uh so this will be some additional lighting. We did some sound upgrades last year and uh continue to work on
023on that. Um and then uh some smaller projects in our transfer to capital. A lot of these are are course related where we're doing some new coursework. We're adding um a new life skills space for our high school students in the life skills program. Uh we did a middle school life skills room several years ago and this is the next step as those students continue to progress through uh through our district. Uh and um and also in there uh gym flooring uh those types of things typical projects we do each and every year. Um New York State aid picture. Uh right now this is the number you can see that we're anticipating. We don't have an adopted budget by New York State. April 1st is the deadline for New York State to adopt the budget.
024Uh unfortunately they have not reached a a final budget yet. So we we're waiting on that final number. This number is based on the governor's proposal uh to the legislature. So that's uh represents a 2% uh year-over-year increase for us. Uh you can see that's that $22.8 million uh number. Um and we'll we'll have a final number hopefully in in the in the coming uh days. Uh we feel pretty uh solid with this number uh and anticipate if anything maybe a small increase to that. Um staffing is the biggest driver in our budget. Uh we did a a series of budget forms where we really went into detail with our staffing. All those are available online. So I'd encourage you if you have interest in this area to kind of take a look at what
025that looks like. Uh we have a couple of increases with our instructional staff uh related to some of our special education increases. Um, and you can kind of see that reflected here uh in the uh year-over-year increase of a total of about four positions. Uh, two of those positions were added after the budget last year. Uh, so you can see that's uh reflected in here as well. Um, summary, you can see where that uh we have those two propositions that I referenced earlier, the budget itself and then the capital reserve fund as well. and our district uh will uh continue to offer all of our outstanding programs and will come in below the tax cap. All of the presentations that we did throughout uh the budget season were located in the um are located on
026the website. Uh so you can see the uh the forums that we did as well as all the corresponding presentations. Uh there's video recordings of those as well as the presentations that go along with them uh on the district website. So we encourage you to take a look at those. uh if you have any questions about that. And then in addition, we did a series of budget focus groups uh where uh Mr. Sronone and I u did virtual meetings with uh residents that were interested uh and uh and then we thank all those that completed our budget survey, the budget survey um that everybody filled in. We then kind of share that data as we're developing the budget. So, we we appreciate everybody that participated in all of our forums, our focus groups and and
027completed the survey. Uh next steps, uh tonight is when the board will adopt the budget uh for the uh the the next school year. And then we'll um we'll have our budget hearing on May 8th. That'll take place at our business meeting. Uh we'll go over this uh this similar presentation with a little bit more detail. Uh and then we'll be doing our our community outreach. Uh we have a a series of meetings that we'll be attending uh between April 30th uh and May 19th uh to uh to lead up to our our budget. Uh and then our budget vote is on May 20th. Uh and that once again will take place at all three of our elementary schools. Uh and the polls will be open from 7:00 a.m. to 900 p.m. And with that,
028I'll wrap up the superintendent report uh and thank those who attended tonight. And I'll turn it back over to Mrs. Cassidy. Thank you, Mr. McNair. D1, approval of minutes. Is there a motion? Move. Second. Second. All in favor? I. E. Financials. E1, financial reports. Is there a motion? Second. Second. All in favor? I. F. Personnel. F1. Approval of personnel items. Is there a motion? Second. Second. All in favor? I G contractual and other authorizations. G1 affordable care act consultant extension. G2 health services agreement. G3 related services agreement. G4 Nassau Bosey's agreement. Is there a motion? Move. Second. All in favor? G5 budget increase. G6 donations. The board of education approves the donation of $1,300 from the Wanto Elementary School PTA for a park assembly Harlem Wiz Wizards Entertainment featuring swoop basketball entertain entertainer and write
029writer author. The board of education also approves a donation of $525.80 from the Mandalay Elementary School PTA for the fifth grade in-house field trip DNA lab bus. Thank you both to both of these PTAs for their generous donations. G7, disposal of obsolete books. Eight, disposal of obsolete equipment. Is there a motion? Second. Second. All in favor? I. Now we're going to move on to H. Unfinished business. There is none. I new business. I one approval of committee on special education and preschool education recommendations. I two proposed 202526 budget. Is there a motion? Second. Second. All in favor? And J. We're going to move over to our addendums. J1, capital improvement project. J2, capital improvement project, elementary Kitchen Cafeteria. J3, capital improvement project, elementary Kitchen and cafeteria renovations equipment. J4, capital improvement project, Wter High School
030kitchen and cafeteria renovations general construction. J5, capital improvement projects, Wter High School kitchen and cafeteria renovations equipment. J6 capital improvement projects want high school kitchen and cafeteria renovations furniture and casework. J7 capital improvement projects HVAC upgrades and modifications districtwide mechanical and construction. J8 capital improvement projects HVAC upgrades and modifications districtwide electrical. J9 capital improvement projects HVAC upgrades and modifications districtwide general construction. J10, capital improvement projects, toilet renovation project, general construction. J11, capital improvement projects, window replacement project, general construction. And J12, capital improvement projects, window replacement project windows. Is there a motion? Second. Second. All in favor? I I. Now, okay, we're going to move to an adjournment. Is there a motion to adjurnn? Madame President, I'd like to make a motion to adjurnn. Second. Second. All in favor? I I. Okay. And now we're going
031to move on to our organizations. We do not have student government is not here today. Correct. Okay. Uh Forest Lake PTA. Oh, every is is anybody here? Mandandalay PTA want to LPTA. Let's just go through just in case. 6 to12 Association, SEPTA, PTA Council, Sports Booster Club, Performing Arts Booster Club, the Wantor Foundation. Okay. And now we're going to open up to public comment. If anybody has anything they'd like to say, they can address the board at this time. Anybody? Yep. Right there. [Music] Hi. Can you hear me? Yes. Um, my name is Moren O'Donnell. I am one of the neighbors that live on Daffodil Lane right here, which I'm sure you're all aware of. Um, I know you won't answer any questions tonight, so I want to know when you will be willing to
032answer questions about the stadium lights that are going to be going up in our backyards. Can you answer that or you can't or nod or something? Yeah. So, so the way the public comment works is you can pose questions, you can make a statement and then at the end of the public comment period we'll respond to those questions or statements. So, so tonight you'll respond or Yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So, the only other thing that I really want to say right now is I'm sure you all have beautiful homes, backyards, you're comfortable, right? Everybody's comfortable in their homes. We've been here for over 30 years. We love it. We We've never had a problem. We've always been good neighbors to all of you. We've always done everything to try to keep the school field
033safe. Um when nobody's around, no security, cops, nothing, right? There's stuff going on all the time. Just imagine if somebody came into your backyard and decided to put up stadium lights and light up your whole backyard. um traffic. I don't know where you're going to have all these people parking if you're planning on renting it out, which is what we hear. And you could say whatever you want. Um but there's going to be an overload of parking, people, noise, music. We already deal with 7:30 a.m. either the band, which is fine, um practices, you know, it's just a lot. And I know you got a donation and that's great, but we want to be part of the discussions and not have it kept from us like it has been. Nobody said a word. We'd like
034to be involved. We'd like to talk to whoever the donor is. Like, let's all be adults here and try to make everybody happy and be en be friends, not enemies. And that's it for now. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you for this chance to speak. Um I'm a neighbor um of Moren and of the school. So I'm going to kind of just Sure. I'm just going to try to give you um basically from my perspective are our perspective our family and what we have dealt with. And the reason for this is just to try to put yourself in our places. Okay? We're not trying to um go against everybody and that's what women made feel like that we are just against everything and we're not. We're trying to establishly a quality of life that we
035have worked so hard for. We pay our taxes. Um, we keep a clean house. We watch out for the schools. Today, somebody left their car running in front of our house for an hour. I had a call. I thought they were coming back. I'm like, you might want to let them know. So, we do our best. So, just to start our journey here, when I moved here in 1999, there were bleaches or stadiums, whatever you call it. There was about like 70 foot north of our house. Um, they were the structure was steel and wood. Now, uh, budget passes. So, the schools size is increasing. Sports teams are doing well. Um, you want nice things. Okay. It turns out that it is I should have measured it, but I'm going to say it's about 20
036ft tall. So, now this is completely in my backyard. I did not move into this. As I've heard people say, well, why did you move into it? I did not move with that here. I would have never. It is all It's an aluminum structure and the sound that comes from that aluminum structure from even the sun hitting it and expanding pop pop. Okay, we have that. Um, we have, you know, kids playing whatever underneath. So, you know, school time, music, I've had meetings at my house 1:00 in the afternoon. and you think it's a safe time. You know, school's not till 2:30. Sports usually don't start after that. Music is on Defcon 5 where I'm embarrassed. I'm hosting a business meeting here. And I you can't even talk in my house. Cannot even literally hear
037a word that's being said. 1:00 in the afternoon. Okay, whatever. We'll move on. Um I have garbage thrown into my backyard repeatedly. Uh, we had guests. I think it was like July 20some. It was a Sunday afternoon around 2:30 in the afternoon. Everybody's there. It was small gathering. A little kid takes an aluminum bat and walks up and down the bleaches. You know what that sounds like? I would love I would love for you guys to just be in my backyard. come on over for a drink, um, tea, coffee, whatever, and just see what that is like every time there's an event and you expect it. But there's a lot of extenduating circumstances that I feel that um are overlooked and we are just supposed to absorb it because this is where we live and
038I don't think that that is fair. I have um Monday night, I think it was track me game. I don't know what it was. I had grown kids taunting my dog, barking at him so he would bark back. I have garbage thrown in my backyard. Now, not only did they build the bleaches, but on top of the bleaches, they put a as you a container for a press box. Now, that's that's the uh I saw for sure. Again, its use versus a quality of life. I don't see how that is fair, but we'll just move on. Um, now with these new stadiums that were built, as far as the electric transformers that had gone in, um, they ended up somehow directly in right beyond my fence, backyard. So, we're going to say maybe 70 foot
039from my house. If you look up a lot of the codes, they should be a lot further away from the back of my house. So, you have a transformer that was on a pole going south. They moved it to my backyard. Then they built the transformers for the electricity right there behind the fence. So, now you're going to try to introduce new lighting, which is a whole other host of problems. Um, I know I had sent a email basically wanting to know when these things are put, is there going to be more electric and I can absorb um all this electric magnetic energy for the rest of the uh neighborhood or the rest of the town that is continuously on in there. And with that being said, um, now when these lights have been used,
040um, you guys have listened a little, it's a little bit better as far as when they were on and how much light it brought into our house where we had to move our bedroom. It was upstairs. It shined in our bedroom. So, we moved the bedroom downstairs. Um, my husband gets up at like 3:00 a.m. every morning to go to work. So, it Well, not every morning, but most mornings. He does work a lot of weekends because of the type of uh industry he's in. Now, new lights. I would like to know again as Moren, our neighbor, has asked if we could basically know what these lights were going to be and exactly know what kind of light are they going to cast and how we will be impacted once again. Um, and then the
041other things that I would like to bring out is as far as what organizations under these lights will continue, what will be added. I don't know if there's a list. I don't know if there's a contract. I don't know um how that is done and whether that's done at a planning meeting. So that could be made transparent to us. So we have to schedule our lives around the school and what they propose or what they have rented out. Um so and if and when these contracts may come across we would like to a full schedule of all of these events and times of the events. Um, and I think really in conclusion, um, you know, it's a small group of people for a whole town. And we're we're not trying to say we're not trying
042to put we're not trying to be like, oh, we don't want this, we don't want that. But we do want a quality of life. We do want a home to come home to. We want to be able to sit and relax and enjoy our house. Yeah. a minor inconveniences. I get it. But this is beyond minor inconvenience. This is a major life impedement. And I I know you don't want to hear it. You know, it's like loud noise and people complaining, but it's not. It's not. And I really would like you guys to really think about this in the future and what this planning is. And I would like to also know who donated the lights and um what exactly what type of contract that was and what we had to do for that contract
043because I know if somebody's going to give me six grand, they're going to want something back. All right. Well, thank you for your time and consideration of all of my um my thoughts, and I hope that we can work together to do something to help us live our lives a little more peacefully than we have been. I have a bliton of lists, but we could be here all night. I think I've made my message clear, and I hope I did. Thank you. any other Great. Thank you. So, uh, see no one else, we'll close our public comment period. Um, yeah, I'll answer as, you know, as much as I can. Um, so right now we've we've uh so far all that's been done with the lights. Uh, we've we've accepted a donation from uh East
044Coast Soccer Club. Uh, that's the organization that is looking to make that donation. Um, the board did that uh back in January. Uh, that's when they accepted that. There's no uh contract. Uh, we're not there yet. We're currently having conversation with East Coast Soccer Club about what that donation would look like uh in terms of uh field use, right? So that's they're they're looking to donate the the lights, which is a you know a significant benefit to us. It's a significant financial donation uh but and then return use of the field, right? Uh in the evenings, right? So that's that's what they're looking for. We'll receive the benefit of having uh the lights for uh for our um games in the fall. uh you know being able right now we for example for our um
045our our football team our soccer teams we rent lights there's a week that we do that we bring in lights and we have those evening games we'll now be able to to yeah I know uh they're allowed um so we'll be able to bring you know host those games so we'll get the benefit of that um same thing in the spring you know for for lacrosse as well um but there's no uh the the terms of that agreement with the SAR code have not been nothing's been signed, nothing's been determined. It's really just discussion at this point to see if it makes sense uh for uh for for both sides uh for us to to to enter into that agreement. Um and that's kind of where it is right now. Um it's be premature for
046me to answer any other questions about what the field use would look like because we're just not there yet. Um, in terms of, you know, being good neighbors, you know, that, you know, we always appreciate the, you know, the back and forth, I know, you know, uh, just in conversations over the year with with Moren and Ed about about those things. We've, we've, we've had those. We will continue to do our best to be good neighbors. Uh, you know, we will continue to to, you know, uh, do our best to to limit, you know, some of the nuisance items that go on. You know, uh, we know it's not easy. living next to us as a uh you know as a as a resident. Um as far as the electric question goes uh there's no
047there we have a the current electric capacity that we have is is sufficient for the lights. Um the lights the security lights that are on the field now that are you know very old uh and problematic. You know we when the wind blows they spin around and we have all sorts of issues with them. uh this replaces that. So it's uh it's four lighting poles uh that would be in each corner of the the field on the on the outside of the track, but in kind of if you think of the corner end zones, that's where they would be. Um the the height of the poles are 80 feet. Uh they're 80 foot poles. Uh they're LED lights. Um and the spillage of the lights, you know, be behind them is really minimal. uh when
048we were first when we did the the bond in 2022 uh we brought the lighting company in Musco uh and I know a number of you were part of that. I don't know I don't remember if if either one of you were at that meeting but they actually brought in a model of the the lights and of the field. They actually turn the lights off in the cafeteria and they showed you know that the there's no spillage behind them. Right. So, in terms of light into your backyard, that's there's minim minimal. They actually um the same lights were uh installed over in Plane Edge and the setup there. I know I think Marine, you even referenced that you had visited that. Um the homes are much closer to where those lighting poles are. Uh, and
049they they flew the the drone over, the architect did flew the drone over, turn the lights on at night, and you can see the the backyards were were in the dark, you know, when and the field was fully lit up. So, in terms of that, so in terms of the light structure themselves and impacting, you know, your backyards, I don't see that as being an issue. However, it's going to increase the field usage and into the evening, which is is your concern, right? Um, so so that's that's just, you know, what I could probably share right now. Uh but um I don't have a definitive timeline until we have an agreement in place. Uh uh and that agreement is accepted and the board agrees to that right now. We're just in the discussion stages. Uh
050and then I I'd be able to tell you more uh if that moves forward. Yeah. I'm happy to I'm always happy not with this is it right. This I'm happy to have conversations with you. Um yeah, all so all our plan PL right so that there's they're open meetings right typically we don't have um public participation at our planning sessions but they're open to hear the discussion of the board um I don't know if that'll be a topic of discussion because I we're not that far along you know in terms of of uh that agreement. Yeah. Yep. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, man. But you you happy to reach out to me via email. Happy to call you, fill you in what's going on. I'm not going to, you know, happy to keep you included in
051the dialogue. Sure. Yeah. Yeah, understood. Yeah. I just I just think I don't want people I don't want Yeah. I just don't want people to be frustrated with limited There's limited information I can share with you right now. Right. Yeah, it's all going to be permit driven, right? So that's that's that's what'll you know that's will determine if a team's using the field, it's it's going to be permit driven. We we'll be issuing the permits. Got it. All right. Well, we thank you for coming. We thank you for coming down tonight. I'm happy to talk to you further afterwards if you want.