001but where's your camera this guy over there okay but like can we even take this we can't no the lens is so big you can't even get through the you couldn't even push it up no unless they cut [Music] they're gonna do that well then you you've got to have like a you gotta have a rectangle it's got to be a pan and I don't think they're gonna give you that either it would be cool if it was like this big all you need is like this high right it's gonna be this way and get everything you need very good show what's up man what's up here thank you come on everybody everybody foreign thank you breakfast right over there all right thanks I don't know ladies and gentlemen we're gonna ask everybody to come
002out onto the field please come out onto the field closer to the pictures together like a family all right board members Board of Education members please could stay by uh By Me [Music] thank you we're gonna get started in just about a minute do you put this up on the school website then that's so great that is a substantial limit thank you please please okay ladies and gentlemen so close ladies and gentlemen good afternoon Board of Education commissioners distinguished guests members of the community students faculty staff administrators welcome to the ribbon cutting for the Woodrow Wilson Middle School Athletic Complex couldn't ask for a much better day than this to officially open this complex before we begin I would like to ask the Mad caps under the directions uh under the direction of Mr Weiss
003mantle to come up and sing the national anthem [Applause] all right [Music] sleeping [Music] we're so good let me screaming [Music] us [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] at this time we have a special uh song presentation by one of our students who just happens to be on our baseball team here is Ariel spear with his rendition of God Bless America [Applause] through the mountains to the Prairie from the oceans [Music] God bless America my own sweet home [Music] oh God Bless America land that I love stand beside her and guide her through the night with the light from above through the mountains through the Prairie from the oceans what we thought yeah this America oh sweet [Music] great job ladies and gentlemen another round of applause please I've got to come up here and do
004that great job [Applause] ladies and gentlemen there are many distinguished guests uh here today our Board of Education president Mr Jim Smith will be speaking after me and is going to acknowledge um some of our dignitaries here but before he does that I would like to acknowledge some of the people who made this field there's a dream a reality when we passed a 168 million dollar referendum in April of 2021 it was the largest ever in the history of the state of New Jersey and we only did that through the help and the support of a variety of stakeholders in this community that cared about our school district and that wanted to see us improve in order to get this done we had a committee of stakeholders known as the referendum committee and if you
005were on that committee you made a difference and you were responsible for why we're here today so please if you were on our referendum committee could you please raise your hands and let's give them a round of applause these people work tirelessly on their own time to get the word out to get the vote out and that referendum passed with a two to one uh majority so it was amazing and the the funny thing is this beautiful was actually the smallest part of the referendum compared to all the other work that's going on our district this is really a very very small amount of that 168 million dollars but perhaps it's the most visible because if you remember what this field looked like and what our varsity baseball players the field that they had to
006play on and The Spectators that had no seats and there were no restrooms and our phys Ed classes at Woodrow Wilson Middle School couldn't come out and play and use the field for phys ed class and to look at what we have here today truly truly a remarkable achievement and I think that deserves another round of applause by yesterday and I saw students out on the field for phys Ed playing kickball smiling happy the Sun was shining uh not worrying about tripping in potholes and Goose feces and all the other things that came along with what we used to deal with but we don't have to deal with that anymore and there's another important thing that we promised when we asked this community to vote for the referendum we promised that this field would not
007just be for our students that it would be for the community so as you can see we have not only this beautiful baseball field but uh regulation size soccer field which will have removable bleachers and seating for spectators and that's going to be for the community's use or our Recreation Department who's a partner with us um all of the leagues that are are in are in Clifton our young children are going to be able to use this and and because it's turf it's going to be able to be used probably 11 to 12 almost almost 12 months out of the year we're going to be able to use it all year with the exception of of when there's snow on the ground so that is truly something great for this entire Community it truly is
008something for everyone so thank you again at this time uh I want to introduce our Board of Education president before I do today we have a commemorative baseball for most of you I think we have about a hundred at the end of the ceremony our Board of Education members are going to be giving out these baseballs which are stamped with our one Clifton logo that was our logo that we utilized during the referendum and it is still something we believe in here in Clifton that we are one Clifton and it also has a stamp with the date uh today's date uh the ribbon cutting ceremony for Woodrow Wilson Middle School Athletic Complex uh Clifton Public School District May 17 2023 so um you all going to get one of these to take home today we
009also my my favorite part about today is we also have a hot dog truck compliments of pomptonian Our Food Service Company I think we have some popcorn and maybe some Italian ices and some other treats so after the ceremony please grab a hot dog grab a snack stay for the game we got a game today at 4 30. thank you very much our board president Mr Jim Smith thank you everyone for being here today um I'm overwhelmed and so thankful to see so many people from Clifton Community here today as Dr robitosi said we started this idea back a few years ago the field that our baseball team was playing on here deplorable didn't even describe it unplayable teams would come here and laugh at us we were thankful moving it from there to Nash
010Park where the city helped us out and Nash had some difficulties as well so here we are at the new not named yet complex at Woodrow Wilson Middle School for our baseball team and our girls soccer when we met with the Architects we asked them and our architect is here somewhere Rodney raise your hand so everyone can thank you for the work that you did [Applause] uh we asked our Architects is there any way we can put a soccer field on this field and initially we were told no and through ingenious Minds we now have a soccer field that's going to be utilized here as well but it was so important to this board and previous boards that are kids have a respectable baseball Soccer Complex and for the gym classes here at Woodrow our
011principal of Woodrow Mr Andy Yeager where's Andy say hi to everybody Andy is beyond thrilled to be able to have this field for his gym classes and they have been on it just about every day I pass by here and they're on it they love it and that's what it's all about so when we went out to the public and we needed the public support as Dr robitosi said it was important to get the public involved in this because this is a public facility it's a focal point for the city maybe the city council will take some lessons from us and they'll put Turf over at Nash that'd be a nice nice idea council members our kids deserve this our kids are important to us and it was very important to our construction crew that
012this field be ready for our current seniors to be able to utilize it and Kyle Rogers gave me numerous phone calls that said when is that field going to be ready can we get on it I want to play on it while I'm a senior here at Clifton High School and Kyle this board made your dreams come true so um that this is going to be a field that's going to be used obviously by our high school but obviously we'll be opening it up to some community events um and such so I cannot begin to thank all those that were involved in the referendum committee without your help without your support without you going and selling this to the public this would not have happened as Dr robitosi said at the time we were the
013largest referendum in the state of New Jersey some rich town just beat us by uh another 170 million but in any event it was a great commitment by the taxpayers of Clifton that they felt what we're doing here in town was important so I'm so grateful and thankful to the entire referendum committee for all their hard work someone who is very influential and helpful to us in in Clifton um and was influential in helping us um get this referendum project done and if you know uh her she uh her mouth alone can do wonders um in getting the message out and yeah that's Jen algeri Jen thank you for all your hard work [Applause] so this is probably the uh the most difficult part of my job here so I'm going to try and uh
014introduce uh the dignitaries that are here today and please if I mispronounce or somehow you're not on my list it does not mean that you're not important to this there's so many people here that were so influential so I thank you tremendously so I'd just like to start with our Board of Education Commissioners so now so everyone understands we had previous board members that were here that worked on getting this project put together they voted to approve it and they've come back today to be uh to be part of the ceremony so we thank them as well but I'll introduce our current board to you um my vice president Lucy Danny Mrs Judith basford Mr Alan Paris Mr Mark brunsiak Mr faheem abadrabo Mr Tony Santiago and arriving late is uh our baby commissioner Mr
015commissioner Richie Mejia former board members that are here and we thank them for being here we have Mr Joe Canova Mr Frank Casper and Mr Jim Daly [Applause] administrative wise I can't tell you the Catalyst hours that Administration was putting all this together so from Dr robitosi's office we have probably the the two great secretaries in not only in our district but throughout the state we have Teresa and Alice say hi to them over at the uh at the fence from the uh from the business office uh we have um our business administrator I think here Mike OC we have the assistant business administrator imagine sorry [Applause] um and I think I saw Mike Burns Mike Burns is the guy who's going to make the permits happen three years so uh you want to make
016friends with Mike Burns uh from our city council we have our our mayor mayor Greg Greg Grabowski thank you we have councilman Tony Latona [Applause] our health director and many other titles Mr John beagle [Applause] Recreation we have Debbie Oliver representing us from uh Little League Baseball we have our district administrator Mike Phillips president of Little League baseball in Clifton we have Lisa Valentine and part of Little League Baseball is Elizabeth Orlando um I'm gonna try and cut this short but not take any anyone away um our high school administration that is here I know we have our principal Mr humda [Applause] um I know Miss Rogers is here Mr Keegan Mr Dozier and um I can't remember her married name but I still call her um May Conti from the security end uh later
017on you're going to be getting a um a um we hope everyone's going to get that you may have to you may have to there's no scalping these balls afterwards uh for money here uh it's very limited edition you might want to hold on to them but um without the hard work dedication so many hours doing this by hand uh we have our PR director Miss Samantha durose thank you so much for the work that you put into this I can't not thank for their tremendous support throughout everything that happens in Clifton but we have uh Sergeant jordina here and my good friend Mr Colucci I saw him somewhere there he is thank you guys uh for being here from our maintenance department um somebody that has been put into this project to oversee all
018the projects and the special projects Mr Al marcion thank you for all the work that you've done on this uh Eddie Maldonado foreign Smith and I can never remember moves last name but come on um also this event is being um live streamed by the help of our tremendous teacher and a live stream coordinator and uh just recently won a very prestigious award as the I can't remember the title but basically it was the live streamer of the year um Mr Mark Mecca him it is counterpart uh Vinnie who's a graduate attending Montclair State he's out here all the time for us Vinnie I don't know where you are though but without these people invite in this I know I saw Rob algeri's here from our from our maintenance as well um we're so grateful
019and so thankful to all of you um I know our assistant superintendents um marching Garrow had to be uh held back for for an emergency but we do have um Miss Janita kusilevich here [Applause] um Andy's uh I know Andy's right hand um right hand um Vice principals in our are here Mr menkin is here [Applause] okay so everyone kept coming into my ear and saying you know you can't forget County Commissioner Bruce James you know he's from Clifton and thank you Bruce for being here and I kind of kept Bruce to the lot to to near last not because of Any importance but this board might be coming to the county to maybe helping us enhance this project a little bit and maybe we could put some lights up here maybe with the County's
020help we might be able to achieve that but anyhow uh Bruce we truly thank you for being here that was just a that was just a side note that's not has nothing to do with why you're here we thank Mr mccunney for all the work that he does in filming and the cast program and getting this and um I thank Mike from the uh from the cable TV channel Mike thank you for being here as well we have many of our faculty here supervisors um all those we're so grateful and thankful to you and of course I'll be introducing him next to our our athletic director who's done such a wonderful job um Mr Tom malehi yeah and our human resources um director Mr Luis Ross [Applause] and coach Rivera where's coach this was a
021dream of coaches um I don't think coach ever thought it would become a reality and a few years back I promised him that this board in the previous board would get behind this and get it done and here it is so folks just so you know and uh Danny where's Danny Rogers the uh the uh booster club president Danny thank you thank you this is such a collaborative effort and I thank everybody for your hard work and dedication in making this happen so I don't want to keep everyone uh too much longer I just want to feel everyone in a little bit so the project is not 100 complete uh we're waiting for a major component which is public service to get here and give us our electric so if any of you have any
022connection at PSENG please call them up and tell them we need the electric tomorrow because our bathrooms can't be opened up because you won't see where you're going our concession stand our scoreboard so they're holding us up on many aspects of this project and there are still some other things that have to be done um like our flagpole didn't get put in yet so there's a amazing other things that are going to happen at this complex so again I thank everybody that has been involved in this for your dedication your devotion and I I'm not gonna say this um I shouldn't say it out loud but I will hey unless it's a coincidence and we know the potential and we knew that they had the talent to put it together but our baseball team seemed
023to have taken a turn to the win column once this field was put in play so I think guys it's brought you some good luck as well and thank you uh Mr Stan Stan Lemberg the soccer coach uh could not be here there was a death and a good friend of his and he couldn't be here and uh looking out in the center there I see our longtime trainer trainer Tom is here okay so they're giving me the um the ax the Rope whatever it is um so we're going to end with oh no Mr Malay he is coming first and then we're gonna end with some great music and then we ask that you all stay around we have some great uh treats for you over at the clubhouse area so again thank you
024all so very much for this this is a great day Clifton thank you foreign [Applause] thank you thank you president Smith and I'll I'll be quick I see everybody eyeing down the hot dog cart and uh teams are both really ready to get it in today so we're excited uh for today's game this is always a fun game it's a big rivalry for us um I want to thank the team for for their patience uh the coaching staff for their professionalism um you know we're going week by week uh you know maybe we'll play this week maybe we won't um the job moves along really quickly we got about 98 of the way done and that last two percent just seemed to take forever so we appreciate everything that everyone's done we appreciate the administration
025uh Dr robitosi and his team and uh the board they've done a tremendous amount of projects uh for the athletic department and just a quick story when uh Dr robitosi first got here um three four years ago uh on one of his first days he asked me to take him for a tour of our facilities and when this was one of the first one that we came to and he said you have to be kidding me and he said you have nothing to worry about we got this and true to his word he did he did the board did uh the taxpayers and the referendum crew did a tremendous job so again thank you everyone um looking forward to a great game today and hopefully you come back for more thank you Mr melaye now
026the moment I know you've all been anxious for we're gonna cut this ribbon we're gonna sing a song and we're gonna play ball so at this time I would ask the members of the Board of Education uh present and former police to join us here Mr Smith if you would take the scissors and Dr Danny uh vice president in the middle we're gonna cut the ribbon questions all right here we go thank you Mr Smith and for our grand finale ladies and gentlemen once again let me introduce to you the CHS mad caps all right hello everybody this is going to be a little bit of a sing-along uh take me out of the ball game uh we wrote a new second verse for it but you know sing along here we go ready [Music]
027beautiful views [Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] Mr weissmantle and the CHS Metcalf ladies and gentlemen thank you so much thank you all for being here grab a hot dog grab some snacks and enjoy the game have a wonderful wonderful day they're giving out of here baseballs commemorative baseball oh yeah get your commemorative base [Music] [Applause] all right